MACINTOSH MONDAY

I clearly spoke too soon about Mr Macintosh. As of last week he has grown increasingly worse in terms of his naughtier behaviour. Its nowhere near as bad as it was when he was tiny but the fact he's started it up again was not very impressive. The highlight of his bad behaviour was yesterday which I would tell you all about but it involves weeing in the house - no less than 3 times! Yeah not a happy bunny. So instead I'll show you where we walk Macintosh. That's a much pleasanter subject and has better pictures! 

Once you have walked out of our little compound area you are on a small estate that is made up mostly of a skypark. For those of you as unfamiliar with what that is as I was, its basically a residential airstrip. There's a runway and people build houses on the edge of it with hangars for their planes in their backgardens. It's run and managed by the residents and you can pretty much take off there when you like. Living next to it is pretty impressive as it lends itself to interesting viewing as you wander around. 

Not sure if you can spot it but there's a yellow plane nestled in amongst the buildings. Its about to go onto the runway to take off. We were standing on the pavement (or sidewalk) watching it. Pretty neat. Here's Andrew demonstrating how close to the housing and skypark you get. The runway is behind the wall. 

So after you have wandered along parallel to the skypark you only have a few houses left to walk past before you get out into the wide open space, which here means desert.

The panoramic photo shows you literally all that we can walk around with Macintosh and it continues on off into the horizon. To him its basically a giant dusty playground which goes on for miles and miles with lots of hills and mini mountains to climb, rocks to play on and strange smells to sniff. Occasionally you do go down there to find someone somewhere is using the space as a shooting range. We tend not to go walking then, not because its unsafe as you can see for miles, but rather because Mac hates gunfire and tends to dig into the ground and refuse to move unless its going home! 

We love our walks out here. Its definitely different to what we have been used to but you can go for miles in the sunshine without bumping into too many people and its just bliss. We haven't seen any dangerous wildlife yet, only their tracks, so that's making it a much more pleasant walk too. But you do have to be on your guard just in case, although generally they are more scared of you than you are of them! 

As a last note I would encourage you to check back into the blog on Wednesday because they'll be a bonus post as a certain someone turns 2 on Wednesday and will be celebrating turning from a puppy into a fully fledged adult dog. Now if only his behaviour could match it...

Good job he looks cute, otherwise there would be issues! 

H

MACINTOSH MONDAY

As most of you will now be aware Macintosh is here in the States with us! The day he arrived I was really quite nervous about the whole proceedings as it involved dealing with paperwork at the airport cargo area and customs but in the end it went more smoothly than planned so that before we knew it we were at the nerve wracking moment of waiting for him to be brought out to us.

He was brought out still in his travel crate and once we opened the door an extremely nosey dog appeared making lots of squeaky noises. It was the first time he had been out of it since the Wednesday morning UK time, so he'd been in there about 12 hours. He had no collar on though so stopping him from running off was a little more tricky than usual. Plus we didn't really want to touch him too much because a dog who had been stuck in a confined space for 12 hours doesn't smell so great as they've been sitting in some...well... not so pleasant stuff! Yeah it wasn't great. But anyway he was happy to see us.

                 

We then had to load him and his extremely smelly travel crate into the back of Victor the Volvo and travel home. The only trouble was by that point the freeway had turned into a car park as everyone was travelling home from work. Our journey instantly became over 2 hours and meant that we became very accustomed with Mac's awful smell. Yuck! 

Since Wednesday Macintosh has had a steep learning curve of getting used to the heat overview and the crazy desert landscape. As a result he hasn't been the most active of dogs as he quickly becomes hot and sweaty. So what you tend to see is him lying around the house in various spots and positions. See...

                 

                 

                              

Occasionally you do find him laying outside in the sun. This doesn't happen too often or for too long as the concrete can get pretty hot and it tends to burn his tummy. But he's a nosey dog and loves to watch people out in the street plus he always enjoyed sunbathing in the UK, he just hasn't realised how different it is here yet! 

                                 

This weekend we have begun to see him moving around more and being a bit more cheeky as he's acclimatised. Knowing Macintosh as I do I would predict he'll be back to his liveliness pretty soon and that only means one thing...chaos!

H

WE'RE HERE!

Finally after months and months of planning and sorting we have arrived in California. It was a pretty long day as all in all we were up for over 24 hours. Getting onto the flight was fun and games in the beginning as our luggage was at its limit and Andrew's hand luggage was slightly too heavy. Apparently we have far too much technology! Once we had got through and said our emotional goodbyes we were able to settle down for a good meal before boarding.

This was our plane. 

We flew with Air New Zealand and to be honest it was the most comfortable and enjoyable flight experience we've ever had. The food was good; the two notable bits of food include chocolate and orange icecream and a scone with jam and clotted cream! The seats were comfortable and we didn't have to climb over anybody to get out. The air crew were great, all with wonderful Kiwi accents! They didn't do the Hakka but did have the craziest uniforms I've ever seen. The highlight being the men's waistcoats which said G'day on them!

Andrew and I both love flying so we really enjoyed the experience, especially looking out over the different countries. We flew with the sun so it gave us some spectacular views. The highlights for me include seeing Greenland, the Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam and the huge desert we are about to live in! 

Here are some of the photos we took from the air of these insane places.

We have struggled to sleep so far and have a busy day ahead of information gathering and sorting. Guess I better go fill up on American pancakes before we get started! Will update you all as and when we can with what's going. Check out our Instagram feeds for more pictures too. For those of you who don't do Instagram if you look to the right of this post there are some of our Instagram photos there, click on them and you'll be able to see more. 

See you later y'all!

H

MACINTOSH MONDAY

Currently Hannah and I are sitting in Heathrow airport enjoying some fine dining before we fly off to the sunny state of California. We found saying our goodbyes over the last few weeks has been pretty painful. The last two days of saying goodbye to family has probably been the hardest. But then this morning we had to say goodbye to someone who doesn't understand whats going on and has no idea whats in store for him. Yup Macintosh was totally oblivious to all things as he went about his morning routine of chaos, including a few stand offs with the cat! After some snuggles and a walk we were finally ready to say goodbye to a then very sleepy beagle. 

As we piled everything into the car we looked back at the house to see his little face up at the window, tail wagging looking at us. That image will be burned in our mind over the next month as we are separated. But don't worry this isn't the end of Macintosh mondays as Han's parents are looking after him and will provide us with plenty of stories and photos to fill the blog. If you wish to appear of Macintosh monday feel free to pop into the Kebles and get your photo taken with Mac. 

We'll leave you with yet another photo of his adorableness as we go back to living luxuriously in Heathrow (well Cali too!)

A

                                    

DEPARTURE MINUS 9 HOURS AND COUNTING!

Tomorrow at an unearthly hour I must leave home and head west again. Once again I have finally finished packing last minute with a load of help from Han, ok she did most of it. It shouldn't be that hard because after bringing so much chocolate home I didn't have much room for anything else!

Today we went for a great long walk with Mac down to the local village and Mac loved it! I'm really gona miss the lil fella. I am so impressed with how he has learnt to chill out and become slightly more obedient. That may be something to do with me being away. Hmmmm. There's no one here to feed him under the table.

It was great to see family and friends again over Christmas, even though it was a bit of a whistle stop tour but I have some funny photos to capture some of those memories. This last week was especially crazy as the some water entered the fuse box in the car. Its an odd moment having your neighbour tell you your car's going crazy. She wasn't wrong; the car looked like Herbie the beetle all the lights were flashing and the windscreen wipers were going (this only occurred when you turn the ignition off though!). Eventually after a lot of fuss it got fixed when driving to meet friends We had to have the heating on full blast!! It was hotter than Florida!!

So now I'm off to bed before we drive to the airport. I'll check in once I'm on the other side of the pond. Heres a few wintery snaps of the walk. Goodnight!

A

ARRIVED AT FORT WALTON BEACH

I have now arrived and am unpacking. I got in around 8pm local time and by the time I had found my room and sorted some food I was exhausted, as it was a 24 hour day. I saved the post for today, otherwise you would have read rubbish.

My transfer at Dallas went smoother than I expected and managed to get my luggage and myself onto the next plane. The second flight was very uneventful with just a few views of Texas before the cloud and night came in. So managed to finish my book Mr Spaceship. It was a very short book and as odd as the title suggests.

So accommodation wise I'm in a well equipped room with ensuite etc, with what looks like a pelican on top of my wardrobe. How very cool. Need a name for him i think. Any suggestions? Put them in the comments! 

Didn't get to see anything of the place as we drove around as it was dark and cloudy, which turned into rain today, think I must have brought it with me.

Will have to have a look around later. Here's some snaps of the journey.

A

Dallas, Texas. Lining up for takeoff.

FLYING

Ok so I'm stuck in the air for what seems like a lifetime, you can only watch so many movies! So here's my first post abroad, well, in mid air actually.

Today has been crazy so far, bit of a mental start with 0400 wake up and forgot that by the time I'd be near London it would be getting close to rush hour so took longer than I estimated, then heathrow airport signage is a little misleading, but found the car hire place in the end. I jogged through check in like I fly all the time snatching a croissant and toastie, which I might add where delicious. Then straight on the jet and ready for the long sit.

The lovely people next to me let me look out the window over Greenlan; that place looks amazing!!! The lady in front nearly clobbered me in the face putting her seat back but hey, as long as she's comfortable. lol. Might watch some more of Flight Map, the movie, very slow paced uneventful film about a giant plane flying over America. Old joke I know.

A