CA and Summer in Europe

Long planned and long anticipated was a decidedly non-European travel adventure.  This one back home to California for a quick fun and food filled trip.  The planning started about a year ago with the main event being the 70th birthday of one Mr. Dennis Kliewer, a.k.a. the Prince of Paso Robles, a.k.a. Cleaver's dad.  Of course along the way in the past year the oldest daughter of the Prince of Paso has become "with child" and thus a second exciting event was planned for this trip home which would be of course a family baby shower for Cleaver.

With only 5 nights at home, time would be of the essence.  A direct flight from Paris to San Francisco put us on the ground in California at about 1:00 pm local time.  Get our bags, get our rental car and hit 101 toward the East Bay.  We then very quickly got a not so friendly reminder of one of the few down sides of the Bay Area - traffic.  So after about an hour and half we finally arrived in Walnut Creek for a quick hello at Grandma's house with my Mom and Dad as well before moving on to chez Aaron and Kristine who were nice enough to host a BBQ at their house with a group of our friends.  Having come home from the hospital only two days earlier was the newest member of their family little Trevor.   Fun BBQ evening and so great to see our friends for a normal level of debauchery for this crowd.

Next morning moving on because a. time is tight and b. Firestone.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

Then the family fun in San Miguel begins.  With most of the family starting to arrive we enjoyed the first of three nights of sitting, eating, drinking a few beers and enjoying the country side.

I can't really comment much on the actual baby shower on Friday as I along with all the other guys wisely departed for a beer pong game.  But from the looks of it the ladies had fun with lots of lovely generous gifts given to us in anticipation of our new arrival.  Only question was how to get everything home to Paris which actually ended up being not so bad.  A few things will have to wait until the Kliewer's come in December but fortunately most of it fit in our luggage this trip.

Next day was the big party for the birthday boy!  An all day marathon of BBQ, beer, cornhole, beer pong, cake, music, laughs, and even a giant water slide.  Everything you would expect from a Kliewer family function.  The weather could not have been better and just an all around enjoyable day.  Happy Birthday Dennis!

The Birthday Boy!

After that big day, the next morning was the unfortunate time to head home.  After saying our good bye's, we were back in the car and on our way to SFO.  One stop though - Taco Bell.  Miss that place.  Made our flight and back in Paris we land the following morning.

Ross family enjoying the party!

Normally landing on Monday, returning to work on Tuesday with the jet lag and all is a bit of a challenge.  However this is August in Europe which means summer holiday.  July is much the same.  I had heard about summer in Europe but I don't think you can fully understand it without actually being here.  Work for the most part comes to a slow moving pace, not shut down, but a very slow pace which is actually quite nice.  Most people will take 2 - 4, maybe 5 weeks vacation depending on the country.  Gone.  I have received out of office replies with a 4 week time span listed.  August is the big holiday month in France and in my office of maybe 20 people, there were I think 6 the day I returned from California.  So fighting the jet lag is not as hard when you can come in a bit late, leave a bit early and don't have the normal 5,000 things to do.

Closed until August 26

Paris also comes to a slow halt with many places, restaurants, stores and shops posting signs saying something to the effect of happy vacation, we're closed until the end of August.  The city feels empty with all the closures and only tourists running around.  The summer slow down is nice and something I'll miss whenever the time comes to return home.

To summarize the action items: 1. great trip home.  2. Always great to see friends and family.  3. Lots of great food and drink. 4. Summer in Europe is great.  With that said à bientôt!