Day 43 - Los Angeles to San Francisco to Sydney to Melbourne

We spent the morning at the hotel. Georgie was starting to feel better but not 100%, so she stayed in bed and rested. We headed back to the airport around 3pm and tried to catch an earlier flight to San Francisco as we were concerned that any issues with our booked flight might mean that we would miss the connection to Australia (and everyone was really keen to get home). We couldn't get on an earlier flight but everything went smoothly with getting up to San Francisco on time. Our flight left at about 10.30pm. None of us were looking forward to the 14 1/2 hr trip but the business class seats certainly made it comfortable. Georgie slept for about 9hrs and the rest of us had much more sleep that we would normally get on such a long flight.

Overnight: United Airlines Flight 863

Day 42 - San Francisco to Los Angeles

Today was our last day in San Francisco. We spent some time packing our bags ready for the trip home and we also had a walk around the city, collecting a few last minute souvenirs. We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory which is located on the top floor of Macy's at Union Square - we had been to one of these restaurants on the last trip so we knew that we were in for a really good feed. We headed to the airport in the early afternoon and caught a flight down to Los Angeles. The flight to Australia was over booked so we put our names on a list to give up our seats (we did this last year and came home business class the following day). Not long after arriving in Los Angeles, Georgie started to feel sick. Over the next couple of hours she got much worse with gastro. It didn't look like she was going to be able to fly that night so we were hoping that they would need our seats on the plane. Luckily we were called about 1hr before the flight was due to depart and they asked us to give up our seats and we were offered Business Class via San Francisco the next night. This was such as relief as the flights on the following nights were also overfull so getting 4 seats was going to be a problem and we may have been stuck there for a few days. We packed Georgie up and took her to the hotel for some rest.

Overnight: La Quinta LAX

Day 41 - San Francisco

This afternoon we went on a Segway tour around San Francisco (mainly in the Fisherman's Wharf area). We caught one of their historic trams from the city before starting the tour. There was a bit of training to start with and then they let us loose on the roads (with a guide). I expected that we would be on the foot paths so I was a bit nervous when he said that was illegal - the kids were also on the road. We had some practice on a long concrete pier to start and once you got going it all seemed to fall into place. Unfortunately Georgie had a crash and ended up with some grazing up her arms, but she was a real trooper and kept going. The tour was heaps of fun and then we wandered around Fisherman's Wharf.
Overnight: Handlery Union Square Hotel San Francisco

Day 40 - San Francisco

Today was an action packed day and we all finished rather exhausted. We started with a cable car ride to the top of Lombard St and then we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf, where we picked up mountain bikes for the day. We headed off around the water towards the Golden Gate bridge, then we rode over the bridge to Sausalito where we had lunch and a bit of a look around the shops. We headed back by Ferry and then made our way around to go on the Alcatraz night tour. Today was a record high temperature for San Francisco in January at over 22celcius, so the weather out at Alcatraz was very pleasant. The tour was great fun and afterwards we had dinner at Pier 39 before falling in to bed.
Overnight: Handlery Union Square Hotel

Day 39 - San Francisco

We spent some time this morning at the Apple shop checking our email and then we wandered around the city for the rest of the day.
Overnight: Handlery Union Square San Francisco

Day 38 - Lake Tahoe to San Francisco

This morning we headed off from the hotel at 6am as Ali and I were booked in to do a jewellery making class with a Catherine Witherell in San Francisco. We had a fantastic day with Catherine and the other ladies (including the lovely Diana Frey who makes really amazing jewellery)that were booked into her class. We both made some fantastic silver jewellery. Catherine was absolutely lovely and very generous with her knowledge. We learnt so much and will look forward to practicing when we get back home. Georgie and Shane headed into the city on the Bart train system and spent the day looking around and they also went to the movie Marley and Me. Ali and I didn't get back to the hotel until after 8.30pm so we picked up some food and ate it in the room.
Overnight: Handlery Union Square Hotel

Day 37 - Lake Tahoe

Today was our last day of skiing before we head to San Francisco, so Shane decided that he really wanted to get an early start. He was at the gondola by 8.30am only to find out that the lifts didn't start until 9am, but at least he was able to have one of the first runs for the day. The kids and I joined him about 10.30am. We all had a list of runs that we wanted to try, most of which were on the Nevada side of the mountain. We stayed until late in the afternoon and left completely exhausted. We headed back to the hotel and packed up as tomorrow morning it was time to head off to San Francisco and we needed to make an early start.

Overnight: Harrah's Lake Tahoe

Day 36 - Lake Tahoe

It was sleep in time - yippee!!!. There were so many things that we could do in the local area but everyone was pretty tired so we decided that rather than try to fit in too much today that we would just pick one thing and snowmobiling won out. We headed out to the local golf course where we hired a snowmobile - the kids were able to drive but they needed an adult on the back, so we put Shane in the death seat while the kids had a fantastic time navigating the track. They both had huge smiles on their faces and really enjoyed this activity. It was funny driving with Georgie sitting behind me saying 'Mum you have to haul some ass'
Overnight: Harrah's Lake Tahoe

Day 35 - Lake Tahoe

We were all feeling a bit tired this morning when we headed back to Heavenly for another day's skiing. Today we ventured from top to bottom on the mountain with the longest run being more than 5 miles long. There was one very tired family by the end of the day. The view from our hotel room was amazing (see last 3 photos)
Overnight: Harrah's Lake Tahoe