Canada

Another few last pictures from Canada.....

some more Vancouver pics

Some pictures of our Vancouver visit, famous sites and my first bear encounter!

J1

animal shelter

Some recent pictures: We stopped by the animal shelter this afternoon, lots of puppies...

J1

JJ's first friends

A nice reunion of JJ and her first friend from Namibia.

J1

Our condo in KC

J1

Tom Petty concert

on the 13th July in Kansas City, and it was awesome.

J1

JJ during family reunion

two bit town

We came accross this great place at the Lake of the Ozarks....

More USA pictures

Some more pictures from the USA trip to catch up


Shopping for our night at the cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks with our friends from JC


Enjoying a swim in the pool.....

And a cuddle with mommy afterwards....

Admiring the 4th July fireoworks with new friends.

Our vehicle during our holiday, kindly loaned to us by J2's brother. Thanks again for that!

J1

soccer

of course we still followed the soccer while in the USA

J1

Levon Helm concert

In Kansas City

J1

JJ and Kerry

In Jefferson City, early July 2010

J1

A new dress from great-grandma

As this is the first day, I will upload a second picture already....


J1

Picture every day

So here is the idea: we have obviously fallen way behind with this blog, and are both too busy to put on a full blog post catching up on all the stuff that has happened, so instead we post a picture from the last few months every day.

Here is the first one: Central Park New York, the first day of our USA trip, which started in the end of June.

J1

WorldCup fever (J1)

As you all know, the worldcup is in full swing in South Africa. The Netherlands have already qualified for the next round, and unfortunately we saw Bafana Bafana exit after an exiting last game against France.

Of course, with the championship being so close, we could not resist, and went to Johannesburg to support the men in Orange. Here are some pictures of the Denmark game....

Of course J3 was dressed for the occasion, all though she had a nice play date for the day with her little boyfriend, which was much more fun then a soccer game could have been.

All ready for the game, HUP HOLLAND HUP. The organization was amazing, with a park and ride to the stadium.

The famous soccer city stadium in Soweto, Johannesburg. I have seen many sports stadia, but this is certainly something special, and worth a visit regardless.

There was a lot of orange in the stadium, certainly much more then the Danish supporters. We did meet up before the game for a beer with some friends, who were supporting Denmark. This period before the game was their time to celebrate......

The national anthems, probably the only time there was no noise from vuvuzelas.

Wrong game???? Not sure who the Mexicans were supporting during this game.

The result was 2 - 0 for the Netherlands, which was great of course. The actual soccer played was still a little disappointing, but it was only the first game.

Another picture of the stadium, after the game. After this a long trip back to Gabs awaited, which was not so nice. But is was a great experience, we have our orange vuvuzela for the following games, and are confident Holland can go all the way this time.

HUP HOLLAND!!!!!

J1

Australia trip (J1)

Last year we spent Easter holidays getting broken down in the bush, we therefore came up with a different plan for Easter this year. Especially since we now have a passport for J3, all of a sudden we can cross borders again, take flights etc (all though an African passport does mean that you have to apply for visas....). So Australia it was, for a full 2 weeks around Easter. Our first time back since we left and moved to Ireland. All our very good friends there managed to come see us at some stage, besides we missed A and T's wedding last year October, so a long overdue trip.

The itinerary was as follows: 2 days in Sydney, 3 days in Newcastle, 4 days in Darwin, 5 days in Melbourne and 1 night in Perth (layover), quite some ground to cover, as our friends had all moved around, but a few internal flights (and luckily no volcano eruptions) so no big deal. Especially since J3 was a champion with air travelling, she is just a sleeping machine, which makes travelling very easy. She also developed a special interest in the safety card in every plane.

J3 checking the safety instructions?

So we arrived in Sydney at lunchtime, where we checked in to our awesome hotel with view over the Sydney Opera House. Very tired, but no time to relax, we caught up with our dear friend U that afternoon / evening, who left us in Botswana last year. Next day S. (who is originally from Sydney) met us for breakfast, and gave us a city tour, showed us all the famous landmarks. During the afternoon we made the trip back to their place in Newcastle. The amazing $9 lunch Thai restaurant on the way back is certainly worth mentioning.

Sydney Opera House, view from our hotel

In Newcastle we caught up with S. and M., their little 15month old, and of course their puppy. We relaxed at their house, did a nice BBQ, some running in the woods, walk on the beach (J3 liked the taste of sand) and did a trip to the Hunter Valley, a famous wine region, with some very nice Shiraz, which is always a hit for us.

Wine tasting in the Hunter Valley

J3 sneaking into mommy's purse during the wine tasting

Race against the puppy on the Newcastle beach

From Newcastle we went to Darwin to catch up with A. and T. Their place had a balcony overlooking the water, and we probably spend most of our time enjoying this view, while drinking good wine and eating some very nice food. We celebrated both Easter (with more chocolate then I have ever seen before) and J3's birthday there. We also took the fishing boat out for a trip on the water, visited a reserve, had a tour of the city, ate at the Thai restaurant where the wedding reception was, went to the local market (yummy food here as well), and did a lot of sweating. Darwin is very tropical and humid, and when we were there it was actually quite cool. We both loved the place, and loved catching up with our friends there, enjoying there place.

View from the balcony

Oysters and champagne for Easter

Darwin market

Pointing out the trail in the park

Some refreshments (and rocks) after

The ride on the boat

Their apartment from the water

J3 in the marina, after the boatride

Birthday cake?

Yummy......

And even a present!

From Darwin we took a flight to Melbourne, our old home. The flight was at 3 in the morning, which was not much fun, but on the other hand it meant more time for doing stuff (just a bit sleep deprived. Our friend F took us around to all the old spots, our old house and neighbourhood, our old apartment, the St. Kilda area where we lived for some time. We really got to refresh the memories, but it was disappointing that old our old pubs had been turned into fancy dining places, table cloths and all. It was great to stay at F's place, and also have a babysitter in F's daughter, which meant we had a chance to hit the pubs (or what was left of it), we managed to find some of the old places this left as we remembered. We also managed to eat on Victoria street, have loads of nice coffees, go back to Port Melbourne and have a coffee at the place we celebrated our engagement, eat souvlaki and drink a few nice chardonnays.

Having drinks with our friends (great to have a baby sitter)

Our old house in Melbourne

Coffee in the London pub, where we celebrated our engagement exactly 9 years ago

From here we went to our friends A and S and their kids. We got to see their beautifully renovated house, meet the kids again (last time was like 4 years ago), J3 loved playing with them. We played some tennis, had more delicious food, went for a trip into the Dandenongs (place outside Melbourne in the mountains we used to love) and did a lot of catching up.

J and J3

Very crowded in that bed....

Groupshot.....

Best friends!

Our friends (and kids)

And a family picture of us.

On the way back we unfortunately had to spend a night in Perth, because of an 11 hour layover, but a hotel at the airport was the perfect solution. This is of course a very very short version of our trip, but I am sure the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Thanks to everyone for having us, and making this such an awesome trip.

J1