The Modern Family just returned from fabulous weekend at the Wave Hotel and Apartments at Butlins Bognor Regis, as guest of the resort. The £25 million hotel opened in July and is a high tech haven aimed at tweens. My girls are 7, 9 and 10 – perfect ages to …
As part of our big California trip this summer, we stayed in a luxury yurt at Treebones Resort in Big Sur. The resort is a perfect stop if you are doing the Highway 1 tour from LA to San Francisco.
I've wanted to stay there since I read about the polished wood-floored yurts in Sunset Magazine. The resort is popular and space books up quickly, so quickly I didn't get my act together soon enough to book for the summer. Luckily the Current Availability page is kept religiously up-to-date and I checked daily until I found a cancellation that suited us.
A big thanks to the lovely folks over at Toyota for lending us a Prius+ for a week as part of their #toyotaschoolrun campaign.
We had a great time using the car to cart a gazillion girls around to football practice and various other school-related activities.
I've wanted to drive a Prius since the Hybrid car was all the rage in California for getting drivers a coveted "yellow pass" for carpool lanes!* I'm also interested in green issues, and electric/hybrid cars are the future.
So how did we get on?
The things we liked:
-The seven seats! With five of us in the modern family, we really need a 7-seater as we always have a grandparent, friend, or extra kids to cart around.
-The 3rd row of seats was very easy to use (Easier than our current car!). You basically just push them down and pull up.
You know I am all for girls and sports. Especially football for girls. Team sports offer girls so much: It helps build self esteem, gives them exposure to teamwork (which boys get so often.) And did I mention the pink footballs!
In my quest to raise the profile of girls sports, I'm helping the The FA WSL (Women’s Super League) and ESPN to get the word out about their "Search for a Star" competition to find the next generation’s sports TV
presenter.
Headed-up by an elite panel of expert judges including ESPN football TV presenter Rebecca Lowe (pictured), Team GB Olympian Ellen White and ESPN Senior Executive Producer Andrew Hornett, the competition welcomes all aspiring sports presenters aged between 12-16. The winner will be given the chance to write and present their own report for ESPN.
The San Jose Flea Market, made famous by Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, is not far from where we are staying in California. One of the reasons the book resonated with me was because of the author’s connections with Silicon Valley, where I grew up. I visited the flea market …
My dad turns 84 tomorrow. He moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Los Angels in the 50s to be a tennis star (really). His claim to fame is winning a set off the Number 1 seed of the time. Like many first generation Americans, he was the first in his family …