After about 7 months of process and paperwork, today I was naturalized as a US Citizen in Los Angeles California! I celebrated with Kelly's family this evening back in Coto de Caza.
Its been about 3 months since my achilles surgery so I thought I would try a light hike in the mountains around Bend. I chose to head up to the Tam MacAuthor Rim trail which is about 20 minutes out of Sisters Oregon. Its still early season for this altitude. There was snow right down to the parking lot at 6500 ft. The snow was good and solid up to the top of the rim. at 7700 ft. Weather around was very unsettled, but made for pretty skies. The achilles held well with no pain!
I'm back in Bend for a week with work, and this weekend Bite of Bend was on! Lots of great food, local brews and music with friends from work!
Very nice fathers day with the family. Kelly and the kids got me an outdoor fire pan which will be put to good use this summer on the cool welsh evenings! After a nice sunny morning, it clouded over in the afternoon but we decided to head out and go for a walk by Marcoss beach. We hiked along the coast trail by Nash point, and then went down by Marcross beach. We couldn't walk too far at the beach due to high tide but a fun time nonetheless.
Between our house and Cardiff there is the Museum of Welsh history on the grounds of St Fagan's Castle - a 16th century manor house. Its an open air museum that covers about 500 years of welsh history. There are over 40 original structures transported and re-erected from different historic periods. What great about this attraction is that its FREE via support from the Welsh government. This weekend the weather was good on Saturday so we packed up a picnic and headed to St. Fagans for a few hours.
Here is a video of the boys riding a hand cranked amusment ride:
Here is another video of the smithy. The boys were enamored with the blacksmith and I had to pry them out of there. Hunter says he wants to be a blacksmith so he can make swords. He's about 500 years too late.
Before we left, we wandered over to the Castle and Gardens. A great spot for a picnic next time we visit!
Wednesday was my birthday and also my dads last day in before heading back to Canada, so I took the day off. We had a birthday lunch with the kids.
For dinner we got a babysitter for the kids and Kelly, Dad and I went out and tried another new pub for us. The Pelican in her Piety near Ogmore by the Sea. A little more expensive than the average pub but the food was excellent, well presented with a nice pub atmosphere.
Over the Jubilee holiday, there were lots of events going on at the local historic sites and one of them was a re-enactment of a castle siege at Caerphilly castle just north of Cardiff in the Village of Caerphilly. Caerphilly is a massive castle (biggest in Wales and second biggest in Britian next to Windsor castle) complete with round towers and a moat! A great example of military architecture of the times. Also, unlike many of the other large castles in Wales this one was not built by the English to repress those pesky welsh from uprising. It was built by a weathly Norman to defend his lands.
There was also some interesting demonstrations of the larger siege engines and some of the smaller weapons. These demonstrations were on because of the holiday and not normally there. The cross bow is the new favorite weapon for the boys.
They also learned how money was made back in the day - each coin hammered out by hand.
Jubilee celebrations are everywhere for the next 4 days. In the village of Wick where the kids go to school they had an event on the village green. One of the booths had animals to hold. The boys of course both went for the snakes.