Month: December 2012

Learned something more about the oranges in our garden this week. Oranges don’t turn from green to orange is they are not exposed to temperatures below 60° F (15° C). However the fact that they are green doesn’t mean that they aren’t ripe or taste like the orange ‘oranges’. In many countries oranges, including The Netherlands, are treated with ethyleen gas to produce the orange color as many consumers think the fruit isn’t ripe. Being brought up in the Albert Heijn stores in the Netherlands, we didn’t know any better either. Our oranges turned orange quite suddenly this week after our trip to Deer Valley and it turns out it had been quite cold in Orange County during the night (10° C) while we were gone.

Tomorrow morning there will be fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast…

Snow has really started to come down yesterday. We had already planned that we wouldn’t drive back in one trip but that we would spend the night in St. George, UT. With the snow however it wouldn’t have been possible any other way. St. George is about 500km from Deer Valley and we had snow for almost 400 km. Luckily most of it was down hill because Deer Valley is at 11,000 ft and St. George at 3,000 ft and the worst snow was therefore at the start of the trip.

We are planning to visit the Zion National Park today. The park is about 590 km2 and is known for its animal and plant diversity. There are about 300 species of bird and 85 species of mammal. What Mascha and the kids don’t like is that there are also 32 different reptile species in the park. However it is quite cold at the moment as it is winter and we probably won’t run into the reptiles.

Update 27/12: we are going to Snow Mountain Park instead…

Last night we had Christmas dinner in the Apex Restaurant in the hotel. Everybody was looking their very best … 🙂

Arriving here in 2008, it felt that the housing market here in Southern-California has never really gone down; especially not in the area we have been living. The last couple of months the opposite is actually true and the market is going up again rather quickly. Below are some key statistics for the area we live in: almost 50% more homes sold than last year and sold at an average increased price of almost 15%.

Homes Sold	Nov ’12	vs. Prev. Month	vs. Prev. Year
# Homes Sold	86	 +2.3%	 +48.3%
Median Sold Price	$880K	 +1.3%	 +14.5%
Median Sold $/SqFt.	$480	 +6.9%	 +16.2%
% Sale to List	99.2%	 +0.2%	+1.6%

This one is still below what it sold for in December 2007: anybody tired of the Dutch winter and interested ?