Wyoming

Some pictures of our first day back in USA, in Laramie Wyoming.

 College campus

 more campus

 public park after dinner

swings...

J1

our new house

This one was promised for some time....So we moved house during the last week of February, after living at two different places OUTSIDE of Gaborone, we finally moved into the city. We love our new house, an old house with a very large plot and garden, and many large trees. Here are some pictures:

This is our entrance gate, taken from the road

With our car port

parking space for some motorbikes and camping equipment

The rest of our driveway

Front garden with pathway to the frontdoor

backgarden....

more backgarden

the swimmingpool, outside of the guest wing

back porch and the all important braai

side garden looking back at carport

Then inside: bar under construction (more details to follow)

excercise room

diningroom

living room

 and this last one is the guestroom, where we hope to welcome some visitors soon (start packing those bags....)

J1

3rd birthday

Some pictures of JJ's 3rd birthday:



This was the night before, baking the cake for school the next day, a yummy peanut butter and chocolate cake.

Then of course there were presents to unwrap, during dinner with her favourite: pizza.

The birthday present from us was a new trampoline, and she helped assembling it the next day!

With lots of jumping and bouncing (for all) when finished.

This blog is NOT a "look at my baby" blog, but....

Against all our intentions to not make this a totally child-centric blog, I couldn't help but show off this oh-so-grownup shot of our freshly-turned-3 year old on her birthday a couple weeks ago. 

It was certainly a nice day. And our first experience ever with someone wishing for something specific: when asked what she would like for her birthday, the answer was:  "Cake? And juice." Let's just hope we can keep up that non-materialistic sentiment that we've been trying to hardwire her with.

February pictures

A couple of pictures that sum up the month of February, which involved a knee operation:

There was also a nice meeting with our adoption support group in Pretoria, conviniently while J2 was still recovering down south

And JJ had a chance to play with all her new friends there.

One other big event during February: we moved house. This kept us busy for some time obviously, the whole packing and unpacking is always a nightmare. I just realize I have no pictures at all of the move, but will post some pictures of the new house soon.

J1

some random January pictures

Here are some randim pictures from my phone, all taken during January this year:



This is a sight you would not see in many places, but is a daily occurance in Gaborone: a baboon visiting the one of the most prestigious office parks.

We started taking long walks a few times a week, to get those little toddler legs used to some miles. One of her favourite stops was the guiney fowls.



We bought a new tent for the office for fieldwork, and before taking it out I put it up on our lawn quickly, to make sure it was all complete. Someone did not want me to take it back down.

J1

Another Blogging Hiatus - with good reason

Yes, it's been another one of those long breaks, but not without purpose. There were things like knee surgeries (mine) which included long weeks of immobility and crutches, house moves (into The Big City!), a 10 year wedding anniversary & birthday (also mine!) to celebrate, and an extended temporary haul of someone (me) to Lesotho for one of our many existing jobs in far-flung locations. Some photos of the events that have transpired are included below, in that order.

The first one - knee surgery (x2) in Johannesburg. Luckily our friend Alan lives there and I holed up at his place while bed-ridden. J1 & J3 came down to visit for the 2nd half of my "lodging experience" there. The hospital in Jozi was great, although very lonely :(  I had a 4-person room all to myself and no visitors. Drag. Luckily a very sweet husband brought me a banjo to occupy my time with, once he made his way down to help me recoup.

The anniversary/birthday week included a child-free weekend in Madikwe game reserve where we saw lots of animals and refused the 6am morning game drives so that we could sleep in. Very lucky to have friends the Foxes to look after the youngling while we enjoyed some time OFF of parental duties.

Lesotho is a beautiful mountain kingdom with diamonds. We're working on the environmental studies for one of the big mines. The fieldwork was actually semi-pleasant for a change, being in such stunning scenery and having a "special guest star" consultant join me for the aquatic biology component of the assessment. Hint: we used to share a last name, and have literally known each other since Day 1...

Franschhoek

The last holiday post for the Christmas break, and there are two parts to this post. We went to the Franschhoek wine area for 2 beautiful nights, and visited the Franschoek motor museum, which was amazing to me (but kind of boring to the other J's....). They have over 600 cars, with a changing display of about 80 of their collection. It included this old motorbike below, but there was not sign with this one, does anyone know what this is?

They had a really nice display of old Mercedes cars, something I have always been interested in

An then.....10 Ferarri's in one hall, quite a sight.

Ok, that is all for the cars, now more about the wine and the food. The area is known for many great chefs, and of course we sampled some of the places.

A view of the mountains, with the vineyards right in front of them, we really love this place!

The Vrede en Lust winery included a cheese tasting opportunity to go along with the wines, as well as babysitting for JJ.

A picture of the cheese display below.

Another picture of the beautiful scenery below.

There was also a local coffee roasting company, who even made a 'babychino' for JJ!

After this, with a stop on the way in Kimberly, we made it back home. And we managed to bring quite a selection of great wines home, in addition to a supply of limes (not available here)

Cape Town

Next stop on the trip, the "mothercity", always a treat. Of course the V&A waterfront is always nice, but this time we also went to a few less touristy places. The below picture is at a really nice Greek restaurant in the waterfront.

 Christmas tree at the waterfront, and some other decorations.....

 The Banana Jam Cafe, a really nice Jamaican restaurant and micro brewery, a really nice place, with a lollypop for Julia...

and beers for us.... 

 next day we went for a nice drive down to Kalkbay and walked around in the harbour, watching the seals

 From there we drove back through the famous Chapmans peak drive, with a beautiful view of the city.

 This last picture is taken from Bokaap, where we later enjoyed a great cape-malay meal

Cape town is always great, maybe we get to stay there some day in the future......

Next and last holiday post is about the Cape winelands, which will finish all the holoday stuff