Last night, using various excuses and the fact that several of our former European colleagues were in town for the annual NAB in Las Vegas, we had a little gathering in our new home, also known as housewarming…
After much debating and a late invite sent to most of the people (sorry, it seems I still managed to forget one or 2 persons on the list… I apologize profusely) most of our old and new friends made it to our new home and mainly to our patio.
Many made it and it was great to see some of the old friends on this side of the pond. 3 of the guests (Keith, John and J) were even at both our leaving do in London and our housewarming here in California. Amazing! It was good as well to meet with some new people (some parents from Sarah’s “Mummy and Me†group and some new Disney colleagues and their partners) and to finally have a drink out of the office with some not so new people.
Kudos to both Keith and Simon, who both have the commuting record to join us, coming respectively from London and Hong Kong.
Kudos as well to Arnaud who quickly replaced me at the BBQ position as Sarah and I were running like nutters, trying to see as many people as we could and delivering food, drinks, etc to our guests.
I must admit one thing: I never ever saw so many kids playing together in a garden at a given time. I think we might have reached 20 kids in our backyard, without having one explosion of tears or a crying youngster!
The party was great and did last, as you can expect, well into the night…
One slight issue though: I totally forgot to take any picture of the evening! So all you get is a shot of one of the table on the following morning, around 7:00AM…
Hell froze over! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, 20 years after I first started to learn how to drive, aged 17, in France, I now am officially allowed to drive as I got my driver’s license today!
Next steps: buying my car and then trying to survive for a couple of weeks on the streets of California!
Our container has arrived last week in LA, bang on time and has managed to clear customs a couple of days ago (pretty efficient).
From there, time to arrange the delivery and the logistics surrounding it and here we are, Sarah is in our new place, running around, trying to give directions to the movers while running after Thia who seems (from phone conversations) to enjoy being where she should’t be while making extremely loud noises!
We will probably move in by the weekend, well, as soon as our bed and TVs are in place! 
I can’t wait to sit on our new sofas, watching a movie while some food is grilling on the BBQ in the garden!
Home sweet home, here we come!
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We have our new home address
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We have our new land line (officially since Tuesday)
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I got my mobile almost as soon as I arrived at the office
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My office number is printed on my office phone…
But now Sarah has her US mobile, also know as a cell on this side of the pond.
Watch you inbox for updated details as soon as we have 5 minutes.
I can’t seem to remember if I already mentioned this, but a couple of weeks ago, we ordered a set of sofas for our Eilinita home. Not that we don’t like our old sofa from London any longer, but the main issue is that it would have looked like a kid’s toy in the middle of our new living room, simply due to habitat size differences between London and California…
The whole ordering process was an experience in itself. We first had to drive to the the middle of nowhere (if there is a nowhere in LA), far beyond any place we visited so far. We then met with the sofa company owner, Mr “one eye” Pablo Carpio. Great character telling us that he can create almost anything… We then gave him the pictures of the Selfridges catalog (or was it Peter Jones) and after a short pause, he announced us a price that we simply couldn’t believe (beating Ikea pricing to death).
The next step was for Sarah to try to give Pablo the size of the sofa, while I was trying to catch Thia running between a fish tank and several sofas.
We European tend to use centimeters (vs. inches) and the poor guy had a brief moment of panic when we gave him the size… Once we realised that we had to divide everything by 2.54 to make it match his standard unit system, things changed rapidly and agreement was reached!!! Down-payment was made and delivery date discussed.
So there they are, less than 2 weeks later, with our tailored made, hand made, home delivered by Mr Pablo himself fantastic sofas.
The man took great pride in his work but we must admit that he really can. The work is impeccable, the quality of the finish is stunning and the comfort of the sofas beats anything I put my delicate bum on…Â All we need now is the rest of the furniture and our new TV to be moved into our new palace (HD cable TV was installed at the same time that sofas were delivered).
Thanks to Mr Pablo for the quality of the service and thanks to Yvonne for the tip…
