bill_w_p / albums and photos of family and more

Some Friends

We also enjoyed a day at the zoo with Robert's dad, Niki's mom and Ingrid, Benjamin's godmother and Niki's dear friend. Some sightseeing along the way and a stroll through the beautiful fresh food market. A cycling trip to the Prater, Vienna's amusement park ended our 4 week stay.

Sebastian participated in the local musical performance with many of his home school friends, some also played the Beatles songs in the live band. I myself, with some other moms, were taking care of the costumes. Two months of a lot of rehearsals and work, but all fun and totally worth it!

Skiing in the LA mountains with the Mojave desert in the background, Sebastian's geography report about our trip, Alan our caretaker and his dogs, Sebastian's 1st place at a soccer tournament, rope's class - the boys in their element!

A four week visit after 4 years! First with her sister, Barbie, in Temecula and then with us, touring a bit in LA - the Getty art villa, Yogananda meditation center, the beach or just hanging out in Topanga.

Nice day trips to Santa Barbara (mission and a boat trip), around LA (Beverly Hills and Hollywood) including ice-skating and a sailing afternoon with Frank on "The Frisco".

A nice and quiet X-mas at home and a wild and loud 4 days in Las Vegas celebrating into the New Year, escaping the noise for a few hours at the Hoover dam on the first day of 2009.

Cold and windy but a beautiful 3 day trip up to Carmel, Monterey Aquarium and back along Hwy 1, by the elephant seal colony coming to breed there every winter.

A great 2-day trip with the homeschooling crowd living and doing activities from the Indians, Hispanic, Pioneer into the Modern time inventions. It was fun to hang out with the group and get to know them a little better.

It was a blast being live in Vienna during this great soccer event! A "red-white-red" party with our soccer friends. Viennas Ringstrasse was blocked off for a whole month with huge viewing areas and lots of fun games. The boys with their soccer coaches, who taught them a lot and made the game fun!

Our friends Bonnie and Julie, from San Diego, with their boys Griffin and Phoenix came to visit for 10 days during Easter vacation. We explored Vienna and its many Easter markets and took a day trip by train to Salzburg where the boys enjoyed playing in the snow, being soaked at the end of the day... It was wonderful to have them around for so long and show them around!

A weeks trip with my mom to Egypt was the perfect place to celebrate her 75th birthday she had in November 2007. We had a wonderful time and even met (unplanned) an old friend of hers (Inge) and her daughter (Tina), which made this even more special! We had a few days in Luxor, then on to Assuan, visited the two temples in Abu Simbel, back in Luxor we saw the Hatschepsut Temple and Valley of Kings. A very fascinating culture!

A week of family vacation with sun, beach, wind and sea - perfect for the Schmids! Sebastian got to learn wind surfing, Robert didn't have enough wind but we all still had great fun! Meeting another Viennese family, played a lot of pool and enjoyed the friendly Egyptians. In the meanwhile the new family member "Jakob" was born - the boys are proud to have a baby cousin!

Our visit to Villach with Nina and Ritchie, a few winter activities with very little snow, Fasching "Mardi Gras" time in Vienna, the boys classes/teachers and the two proud owners of new bikes. Do you think Matey knows she is a cat?

A few shots from Bonnie's visit and some sightseeing pictures - like Vienna, well come and visit!

Our 5 weeks in the Va'vau group we spent in Neiafu, the main town, and exploring many of the beautiful anchorages, all close by. We enjoyed many of the cultural events, locals wearing their traditional clothes "Valas" in honor of the late King, who died a few weeks before our arrival. During our delicious Tongan feast some local kids performed traditional dances while we sat on the floor eating wonderful dishes. An unexpected stop at Kelefisia island in the Hapaii group was definitely one of our highlights.

A spectacular place, even though we got a bit bounced around in the beginning by bad weather we thoroughly enjoyed our one week stay in Niue. We hiked a few days and explored all kinds of different caves...

We took 5 days and stayed in two different anchorages. The first one right off the botanical garden together with some fellow cruising boats "New Dawn", "Cheers", "Kauila" and "Van Diemen". We enjoyed a couple of fun potluck nights as well as a trip to the Museum de Tahiti and Botianical Gardens. In Teahupoo we hoped to see some great surfers but the wind got in the way... too bad. We had fun on Benjamin's birthday playing his new boccia game, letting Laura's paper gliders fly and eating Sachertorte!

We spent 44 days in Toau. There is lots of time for socializing and as you know we enjoy hanging out with old and new friends. Here are a few impressions of our social gatherings.

Hiva Oa was were we officially checked in and met up with many of our friends from Mexico.

Just a few days after Bonnie left Robert's father and brother came to visit us for 2 weeks. Unfortunately their "better halves" Katharina and Elli were not able to come this time, we missed them a lot! We were so happy the two of them made the effort of seeing us and our life on board, we again explored some more of town and the bay or hung out at the hotel pool. It was a nice intermission for them from the freezing cold back home.

Our friend Bonnie from San Diego came to visit us in PV for a week, we were sad that Julie and the boys had to stay behind because of school but hope they will come and see us in New Zealand... We had a great time exploring town and staying on anchor at Punta de Mita and La Cruz for some snorkeling and surfing.

Our first anchorage with a beautiful white beach, tropical vegetation and some down time for a hike up to a crater and some snorkeling at the Island Jaltemba.

Exploring the fishing village La Cruz for a week and enjoying a poetry/writing class by Bruce Balan, a childrens book autor and cruiser.

Two exciting days at Matachen Bay 2 miles south of San Blas. An exciting jungle tour and boogie boarding were on the program.

We spent a day on this natural bird reserve admiring all the different birds and iguanas.

Many old and new friends came to celebrate with us, Robert took a few out on a sail in the San Diego Bay and the pig on the spit was the attraction of the day. We are so grateful for all these friendships who have guided us through this process.

The year always starts with a bang ... Sebastian's birthday, this year indoor climbing ... and lots of trips and museum visits as part of the home schooling.

The annual Maura and Bob family camping trip up North, good food, relaxing time, wonderful company - 16 of us.

We missed the mountains, so here comes a dose of serious mountains with less serious hiking and backpacking ... and bears ... SERIOUSLY!!!!

This was a busy weekend for us ... I need a holiday from the holiday ... and all those 'Cuba Libres' ... spelling!?

This picture series starts in Newport Beach before the race, some during the race though we were a bit busy sailing, the finish line, the trip back up the coast (cold) and arrival back in San Diego.

Quite a few impressions and pictures of our friends and family in the different parts of Europe. We started our trip in Vienna, then to Munich, to Dienten, Villach, Krems and back to Vienna.

Since we love zoos, we had to take advantage of the time down here in San Diego and visit all 3 parks. Sea World we liked the most, but the zoo is amazing and their Panda exhibit is world renown ... they just had a baby and we got to see that one too.

Every Xmas, there is a light parade around San Diego Bay where boats get decorated with more lights you can imagine ... check out how creative people get, though the pics are a bit fuzzy.

Here are pictures from our trip down south from Santa Cruz to San Diego ... we saw whales, dolphins, lots of sun but little wind.

After getting the boat ready (sort of), packing up stuff, finishing work, it was time to say good-bye to friends, colleagues and family.

I know, here are the pictures everybody wants to see, just Sebastian PURE.

After 3 weeks, we all happy to get him home, but also afraid ... Are we going to do everything right. Watch us taking our first steps.

Impressions from our 3 weeks in Stanford hospital, great.

After all, we don't even see the tubes and wires anymore. He is doing great and all the stuff looks more worrying than it really is.

American friends joined us going up to Tahoe, where we met Austrian and German friends, all with kids. Guess what, not only did we have great fun, but it was some "baby preparation", because if there are 3 children below 2 years, you can be guarantee that 1 is awake ...

For 4 days, Niki and I went to La Salinas together with Paul, my instructor, and a friend of his to do some flying and have fun. On Sunday, John and Liesl joined us. It was a great weekend, good flying, good food and lots of fun. Here are some impressions.

One Sunday, we had friends of us over. Niki prepared a great Tafelspitz, which you can even get in the US (German butcher).

While the Buxis were visiting, also my cousin, from Vienna, Alex with his wife Andrea and 3 kids came for a typical BBQ dinner - Full House! / Matey definitely has made Niki's bed her 'hang (stretch) out! / Benjamin and his team with their 1st place trophy at the Santa Barbara tournament. / Robert's trip to SD to see this incredible 90 ft/30m trimaran, specially built for the America's cup! The mast height is 185ft/56m!!! / Our new deck (and windows), like it was meant to be there all along - we love it!

Less than a week later our friends Michi, Richard, Johanna and Benedikt came. We have known each other since WE were kids and it was wonderful to have them here for a week and bring our lives closer together. The kids had a blast in the pool, giving us a great show on their last day! We again toured around LA but also had some low key days just hanging out at the 'ranch' - Michi even brought her cowboy hat!

Our friends Christine and Andreas, from Vienna, plus their 3 kids were our first set of visitors in August. Before going off on their RV trip, they came and spent 4 days with us. We explored something new every day - especially all the A&F shops in the area! It was wonderful to show them were we are at home now.

Our dear cruising friends "The Martins" - Lisa, Bruce, Tristan and Matthew had finished their 4 year circumnavigation in May in San Carlos, Mexico. To welcome and help them back, transitioning to land life, we picked them up in San Carlos and got to spend a wonderful week together here in Topanga, back to US soil!

The boys and Niki went for 4 weeks the weather wasn't great but we managed to do some fun things in sunshine (and rain): Natural History Museum, trip to the Danube Valley to spend summer solstice festival with Robert's mom, his brother and Jakob, our little cousin - the boys just love him! We also saw lots of friends, grandparents and Niki had some girl's nights out!

While in Austria, we spent a perfect day in Venice - with wonderful friends, sunshine, delicious food and gelati! Our friends Nina and Ritchie, who live in the Southern part of Austria joined us with their boys. We walked a lot, saw the San Marcos cathedral, took a gondola ride and shopped! Definitely worth the drive - we all loved it!

We enjoyed hanging out a few days in Boulder Creek before the wedding. Despite the torturous rain it was a wonderful day and the couple was as happy as can be!

A nice Thanksgiving feast at Barbie and Jimmy's with yummy food and good company! A day trip to the wonderful x-mas decorated Disneyland with homeschooling friends Rosey and Shane.

Our little 'cabana' in the middle of the Eucalyptus trees. Remodeled with all new floors, wall paint, kitchen, bathroom - it feels really cozy at home! Big grass area attached to the main house (nobody lives there), pool house and community pool that mostly we use - a perfect place to visit!

Bob and Maura's visit with the doggies, so much fun! Halloween pumpkin carving - an absolute tradition, the boys did a lemonade stand donating their earnings to charity, trick or treating in Barbie's and Jimmy's neighborhood - in case you look for them, they are under the pinguine costumes...;o)

Having fun with friends at Robert's mom's pond with their friends. Little cousin Jacob, so sweet, and visiting the big cousins in Munich with Niki's mom.

A little picture collection: Mardi Gras time in Vienna - Benjamin the vampire and Sebastian the cook, does that explain their characters...?! Our darling cat "Matey"- and nephew, Jakob's baptism although it looks like a wedding...?! Crazy weather in Vienna - this ain't gumballs that is hale! A nice trip to a gemstone carving place with my mom.

Robert's 40's b'day on which he came home from a short project in San Diego and got surprised by family and a few friends at the airport! Mid February we spent a week in Tyrol skiing with friends from soccer, Karin, Heinz and Tobias. It was a perfect week: very nice hotel right at the slopes, beautiful wellness area, great company and food, both boys super at snowboarding and not a cloud in the sky for 8 days!!!

Right after X-mas we took 10 days off skiing. First to Dienten where our friends Christoph and Hemma (from the US) gather their friends almost every year. A fun group of 14 adults and 13 kids! Then on to Fuegen, where Robert grew up as a child during his summer/winter holidays. Then we met up with our friends from Vienna, Christine and Andreas plus 3 kids, and enjoyed another few days on the slopes.

A weekend with just Sebastian in Tyrol and Munich - our friend Ralfi with son Alex, my sister Ines with her boys - delicious meals by kiddy chefs, Benjamin monkey, Matey the scarf and Benjamin's b'day bowling party.

A weekend hiking in Upper Austria, Melissa and Adam's stay in Vienna with us, at Elli and Werner's lake house in Carinthia with a visit of our friends Nina, Ritchie and their boys, Benjamin's 8th b'day and a visit at my mother-in-law's.

What a wonderful reuni0n with our Australian friends Fiona, Graham, Ella and Oscar after 4 years! First a get-together in London and then a week their visit to Vienna exploring, hiking and cherishing every moment.

A 5 day trip to LR a historic marina city at the Atlantic coast. Meeting with the single-handed Bruce Schwab (next to Robert), exploring museums, aquarium and the cute island Ile de Re watching the fantastic concept of spring tide. A visit to the Eiffel tower topped the weekend!

Easter bunnies, one with a bald head...Alexander (nephew) and Ruth's visit, some school projects - neighborhood cleanup and Benjamin's class with their self-made drums and kaftans for the school Earth project as well as Sebastian's Olympic B'day games with all new friends.

A welcome with Sachercake, family Christmas photos and pictures of our New Years visit with Hemma and Christoph in Salzburg - it snowed like crazy on our departure day!

We only had 3 weeks in Opua, a quaint, small village and spend much of our time packing up Lawur - what a job! We did manage to see the oldest county fair enjoying all kinds of contest (NZ has 60 mill. sheep and only 4 mill. people!). Our day with the circus artists Carol and Freddie Osler-Weppenaar was absolutely fantastic! Everybody had fun on the trapez, slides, as well as all the other attractions they have to offer at their Adventure Park. The boys got a taste of school for a week while we packed.

The last island group in the South Pacific and a great place to catch up with many of our friends enjoying snorkeling, diving, dinghy races, hikes and many beach potlucks with bonfires. Robert and Sebastian did a cart tour around Neiafu and the boys got their first taste of Kava, a local brew made of pepper root. Frank joined us for a few weeks enjoying cruising life. On our last night in Tonga we partied in time for Halloween with carved pumpkins, eye ball punch, candy - the grown ups had dart and dance.

We were only a few days in Palmerston, enough to get none or some insight to this unique island and family living... Upon our arrival the supply ship came in, which only happens every 3-5 months, luck?! With everyboyd busy unloading it took us a day to get on shore, but then we got to explore - the original house of William Marsters, the cemetery with all the "Marsters", Palmerston Lucky School, and more.

We spent 3 weeks exploring these 3 islands, unfortunately the weather was pretty lousy which kept us from taking a lot of pictures. We explored the botanical gardens in Rai'atea, the boys had fun skurfing and Ta'aha and in Bora Bora we waited for a good weather window to leave for the next passage.

Tahiti with 170.000 people and Papeete with 26.000 are the biggest among French Polynesia. Lots of cars, shops, big harbors (even the boat "Athena" owned by the Onassis family docked on) keep this city busy. "Le Truck" is the local transportation getting one around. Church and Sunday mass (note the ladies hats) are an important aspect to Tahitian life, so is the market that offers everything from fresh fruit to local art. We were there for the annual "Heiva Festival" showing off arts,crafts, sports - rockli

We enjoyed a week in Opunohu Bay taking along Judith, the former au-pair girl on "Verena 3". Together with "Nereid" and "Blue Sky" we snorkeled with the stingrays, which was an awesome experience - completely harmless they come all the way up to you specially if you had food for them! One day we hiked up to the Bellvedere passing an old marea ritual site from the 17th century, later on getting a spectacular view of both bays. With the dinghy we explored Cooks Bay deciding it was way too big for us if a cruise.

It did not take long to be accepted in this warm hearted family, we basically lived with Valo and Gaston, Liza and her family always kept the door open and at the end even the puppy was named after Niki.

Different impressions about what working is like in Toau.

Ua Pou is only a few hours south of Nuku Hiva but we spent a lot of time there since we liked it a lot and there was much to see and do.

Nuku Hiva is the administrative center of the Marquesas and where the Survivor show was filmed ... nobody got voted off from the Lawur.

Fatu Hiva is definitely the most impressive island while anchoring there was a bit challenging.

We had a very fast passage of 20 days but lots of wind and especially swell ... picture never do justice to that though.

We spent most of our time getting ready for our departure to the Marquesas but their is always time for some play.

We always talked about it and in PV it finally happened and we got a new non-human crew member. She has proven to be very seaworthy ... she gets less seasick then all of us.

We finally left PV after 8 weeks! We enjoyed our days in Chamela and Paraiso anchorage, we could jump off the boat again, go snorkeling, shelling, playing some bocce ball on the beach with the Martins - we love it! We also met another great family on their boat Rocket, the boys enjoyed hanging out with their 3 girls (7, 9 and 11) - unfortunately they are going back North.... We are so happy to be back in cruising life and out of the marina!

Well it's almost 6 weeks now that we have been here in PV, a few weeks were unexpected but we still had a good time filled with more visitors - The Holmes family from the Bay Area, which we spent a day at their hotel and a day on the boat, Luke and Stefanie who came all the way from Santa Cruz for a few days and Marc and Daniella for an evening to catch up on each others sailing stories. In between we had some smaller and bigger boat projects and the boys made new friends with two local boys Marco and Matheo.

A wonderful evening fiesta in honor of some religious festival, there are too many here to keep track, but we certainly enjoyed this one. Unfortunately we missed the spectacular fireworks at 10.30pm but that is passed cruisers bed time.

New Year's "bash", Sea of Cortez crossing and Sebastian's birthday swim in the middle of the sea.

A short break at Bahia Santa Maria, some time for windsurfing. An even shorter stop in Cabo San Lucas to say good bye to Frank, getting a rest in Punta Los Frailes and Ensenada de los Muertos before we finally arrive in La Paz just in time for Christmas.

Leaving San Diego after 2 years into our adventure, sailing down the coast of Baha California, spending a couple of wonderful days with our friends Glenda and Ralph in Asuncion. There, Shari tough us how to make homemade tortillas, Niki doing laundry in the backyard.

Hemma and Christoph invited some of their friends to celebrate their 40's birthday in Puerto Vallarta. It was a fun filled week with lots of swimming, boogie boarding, delicious meals, long beach evenings and parties.

We had a great time visiting family and friends, have a few days by ourselves in Tyrol with hiking and celebrate Robert's father's 60's birthday.

A week long family vacation in Northern California, starting with a parent weekend in Santa Cruz, a few days skiing in Tahoe and visiting a few friends in Boulder Creek and Bayarea.

We knew we had to do it at some point, just not how soon ... and how long it will take ... check out the BEFORE & AFTER with synthetic teak from Tek-Dek.

Another Xmas against all our predictions in Temecula with our aunt, uncle and cousins ... can you tell we live on a boat by the size of tree we have.

Thanksgiving with TheMobs Clan, Broesel's adoptive parents ... Xmas market in San Jose and back to Sebastian's old school for some tips.

A month back to our US roots visiting friends, having some family time and the annual Mobs camping trip up North.

Our friends from Boulder Creek came with our dog ... a few impressions from there ... lots of dog pictures since we missed Broesel quite a bit.

Here is a little sampling of family and friends shots during the months April thru June ... Enjoy!

In the spirit of the European championship (and Austrian's arch-rival Germany not making the quarterfinals ... yes we are proud of that too), we are showing off the future stars of World Soccer ... Sebastian and Benjamin ... :-)

OK, you really thought we dress that way all the time ... no the party had a Russian theme and at some point in time, we got a bit carried away with taking 'certain' pictures ... :-)

Take a look at the inside of our boat AFTER we did all the improvements to make it from a racer to a family cruiser. We like the layout even better now and NOW we have enough storage too.

In November and December, we took a nice family timeout after working really hard on the boat up till the trip south. We went to Lego-land, a big kids gym and just spent time with the family.

We spent from May until late October working on upgrading and improving our boat. Here are some pictures to give you a little bit of what was involved.

We took our friends, the Kohl family, out for a sailing trip. We first met them when we moved to the US and they lived in the same apartment complex we did. We had quite a few BBQs back then ... we had few more this time ... :-)

We took a bunch of our friends out sailing this summer. And check out there are pictures from the Boat re-christening and the pleasing of Neptune...you don't want to mess with the sea gods...:-)

Our Australian friend Paul turned 40 and we need to celebrate this accordingly. His wife organized a surprise party and from the pictures you wonder who had a better time Paul or the girls!?

We own a boat ... and now it is time to take her home from San Diego. Dave Robinson, our sailing instructor, is now also our captain and brought the boat back with me.

These pictures were taken when we did the survey on the boat done by Bunker Hill (great surveyor ... funniest name), before we even owned it and it was stilled called 'Legacy'

Here is a taste for the ones that didn't make it in person of our house that we sold in April of 2003. It was named 'TheSchmids Hittn' after my Dad who said when he heard we are building a log-home ... "You are building a hut?" (hut=hittn in German)

After building a little pond in 1999 when we built the house, we realized we wanted a full-scale swimming pond. From June until August of 2001, we completely redid the pond and here are details of how we did and how it turned out.

A collection of pictures from the 3 of us; mostly Robert sleeping (purely sympathy to my son!!)

We love our visitors ... keep coming to TheSchmids Bed and Breakfast. Keep coming !!!

Sebastian, more family still to come; this time Daddies side ... more Schmids.

Sebastian got to meet for the first time his Grandma. Nikis mom spent a couple weeks with us right over Easter.

We went away with Sebastian for the first time. With Deloitte Touche ICS colleagues, we were in Tahoe for an extended weekend.

By now, I have doubled the weight from what I had at birth, still not heavy, but my parents think my cheeks are really big, but cute.

They were our neighbors on River Oaks Circle, they left as friends to go back to Munich, after staying in San Jose for 9 months. Good luck, Christina, Werner and Valentin!!