Nikki and I were invited to join the Kenyon family in Chicago for Tracy’s graduation (commencement) and her engagement party to Jason. Now, Chicago is somewhere I’ve also wanted to visit, god knows I’ve been to O’Hare enough.

Full photos here
It was a jam packed trip:

• Fly in on the Thursday afternoon, eat an Italian beef sandwich, get caught in a huge storm
• On Friday Visit the Field Museum, off to graduation, then out for a meal and then out drinking on the town
• On Saturday, Go around the city including a trip up the Sears tower before heading off to the engagement party
• Sunday, fly back to California.

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After Laguna Seca Nikki and I decided to have dinner in Monterey. I’ve only been there once before and wasn’t that impressed. However, this time was different. We went to the Monterey Plaza hotel overlooking ocean.

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It was a busy weekend in the south bay. Out Friday and Saturday nights, followed by Laguna Seca on Sunday.

Dinner at Le Petit Bistro on El Camino in Mountain view, followed by a few drinks in Uglys

Someone at the bar, who must have been drunk, decided to buy everyone else sat at the bar a shot.
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Well, Simon finally asked my sister to marry him last year. August 11th 2007 was the date, the venue, Seaford College in West Sussex. This is the most amazing location for a wedding, with a chapel onsite and a large old house with ballrooms.

I got a little nervous during the reading of 1 Corinthians 13 as it’s a bit of a tongue-twister but everyone seemed to think I did a good job.
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This was the first of two weddings on our trip to England. Matt and Sally had a long standing date for their wedding, turned out my sister ended up getting married the very next day.

We set out from London towards Oxford along the M4 arriving a few hours later in the little town of Wantage. Walking into the hotel I started to notice some familiar faces. These were my really good friends that I’ve not seen in nearly a year. Matt, Rich, Matts brothers, Duncan were all staying at the same hotel. After a quick bite to eat it was in a cab down to the Barn where the wedding was to take place. The setting couldn’t have been better with lush green lawns filled with guests offset against the tudor barn.
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After a nice quite breakfast while driving through Los Gatos we smelt burning plastic. It turned out to be an Indian Restaurant on fire.

It’s amazing how close people will get to a burning building. Only after the gas main exploded did they actually back away.

I decided to take the day off work today to have a bit of Jon time. The main activity was to get out on my new bike for a much longer ride. With no real route in mind, I started by doing the same route as the other night around the Shoreline park. After avoiding a group of Russian tourists I headed up the road parallel to 101 to Palo Alto and then through to Menlo Park. By this point I didn’t exactly know where I was heading and my chain came off! After a few roadside repairs I found myself heading up Alpine Road. It wasn’t long before the Alpine Inn was in sight. There’s a small road which rolls down through the Palo Alto park and then on to Los Alto before heading home. A total of 30.6 miles. Not bad for a morning exercise.

Out at King of Krung Siam Thai restaurant. For some reason Mountain View has taken to closing Castro Street on Thursday nights.