South Africa is made for newlyweds!

Man oh man, 2011 is really our year! After an amazing wedding celebration in WA Joep & I had 2 days of ‘recovery’ time before packing our bags for … wait for it .. our 2 month honeymoon!

It gives us great pleasure to tell people that our honeymoon is 2 months long. It gives us even greater pleasure to be on this 2 month dream vacation!

So, happily newly wed and all packed up we set of for Perth Airport in the middle of a pretty awesome electrical storm. I was starting to think that our flight would be cancelled as so many others were but we were super lucky and, despite a short delay in Perth, made our connections and landed on time in Cape Town, South Africa a mere 20 hours later!

Cape Town – I know that we have a tendancy to be overly enthusiastic about places we visit but I am not over exaggerating when I tell you that Cape Town may well be our favourite city to date (excluding Australian cities naturally!). The first impression you get of the city is amazing. Table Mountain in the background, the ocean on the forefront and this really beautiful city wedged in the middle. Incredible!

We spent the first afternoon talking about how we really should go exploring before accidentally falling asleep in our luxury apartment and sleeping right through till the following morning. We obviously needed the rest!

We made up for our laziness the following day. Our apartment was in Blouwbergstrand which has amazing views of Table Mountain but is a little bit of a drive into the city. Thank goodness we had a great little rental car! We headed into the city and made our first stop at the tourism bureau which is incredibly well organized and easy to get around. After booking a few awesome adventures for the coming days we decided to spend a little time enjoying the city streets before spending the afternoon driving to some of the little bays near by.

After wandering the streets for a little while and enjoying an INCREDIBLY declisious lunch at Hemelhuis (point of note here: We were so surprised by the amount of Africaanse in the city … its stupid that we were surprised by this because naturally this is the case but it was kind of fun to be able to read all the signposts, especially for Joepster the Dutchman!).

Feeling contentedly full and rested we hit the road for a bit of a road trip! First stop was Fish Hoek which is sooooo picturesque! We passed through Muizenberg on the way which was my favourite town on the drive because of the amazing coloured beach huts. It was here that we were stopped on the street by a local couple who asked if we were tourists. After finding out that we were, they proceeded to give us as many travel tips as they could – Amazing! And a wonderful first impression of South Africans!

After reaching Fish Hoek we realized that it was also closer to Cape Town than we anticipated so we decided we may as well drive a bit further south. After passing through a number of beautiful villages we reached Cape Point in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. The drive to and through the reserve itself is breathtakingly beautiful and we stopped a few times to take photos and had a good chuckle at the signs warning us of baboons being dangerous animals because it didn’t appear that there were baboons anywhere in sight!

We reached the point without much trouble and made our way up to the summit to admire the incredible views. Apparently this is often confused as being the most southern tip of South Africa, its not. More on that later.

The views were incredible, the weather was amazing and we soaked it all up as much as possible. Alas, we couldn’t loiter for too long because we had dinner plans!

The drive out of the park was more eventful than the drive in … as we drove along we were approached by a family of baboons! And I mean a real family – Grandparents, aunts and uncles, children, grandchildren, there were heaps of them! And even more hilarious, they were climbing all over our car. Thankfully we headed the warning signs and kept our windows up and doors locked because apparently they are totally vicious and will climb into your car and do some serious damage to you and your belongings. Still they looked pretty awesome from the safe confines of our car!

We had grand plans of heading home to freshen up before dinner but alas time had gotten away from us so, looking like ragamuffins we met up with Karen & Kevin dinner at La Boheme in the Sea Front. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her, Karen is a friend of our from Ottawa who recently relocated to Cape Town – We are very jealous that she gets to live in this amazing city!! Kevin is her new squeeze and is positively delightful! We had an awesome evening enjoying seriously amazing food and great wine not to mention lots of laughs and good conversation. It doesn’t get better than this! We then agreed more catch ups would be in order before calling it an evening and heading our separate ways.

The following day Joep & I had a packed schedule. We had agreed to do a township tour followed by visiting Robbin Island. We weren’t originally sure whether we would do a township tour having heard various views on them some very positive and others saying that it was taking advantage of the disadvantaged South Africans. After speaking with the tourism bureau we decided to do a tour with a company that is run by people from the townships and therefore, profits go back to the local communities and the tours create jobs for people from the townships.

We were so glad we did. The lady running our tour still lives in the Langa township today. It is relatively close to downtown (which was the whole point right? When apartheid began the moved all the coloured people from their homes to shantytowns outside the city but close enough that they could come a work in the city) but before heading out we stopped at District 6 where we were educated on how citizens were removed from the area in 1948 and ‘relocated’ to areas on the Cape Flats. The stories were pretty horrifying and more than a little depressing.

Within a short drive we arrived at the Langa township where we were walked through the streets by a local guide. The sense of community within the townships is pretty incredible. We felt completely safe (despite all the horror stories you hear) and found the tour both interesting and insightful. We left with mixed emotions. As I mentioned, the sense of community in the township was pretty great however, there is no denying that the people living there live in extreme poverty. And what we both found really strange was that there are NO white people living in these huge townships. Where do the poor white people live? It appears that there are no poor white people here …

All this to say, we are super glad we did the tour and found it enormously educational.

After the tour we headed straight to the waterfront where we had enough time to grab a bite to eat before boarding our boat to Robbin Island. We weren’t sure what to expect with Robbin Island. The boat over was uneventful and upon arrival on the island you are poured into tour buses with hundreds of other people and driven on a tour of the island where you are given some geographical information. You are then taken off the bus and walked through the prison on the island. The tour guides that take you through the prison are all ex-political prisoners.

Our guide was a lovely man who had been imprisoned there for 5 years because he refused to learn Africaans at school because it was not his native language. Can you imagine? We couldn’t. There is not much to tell about the prison. Its sad and its small and it looks like a prison. What I will note however is how mortified we were by other tourists in our group. Keep in mind that we were being taken through the prison by someone who had been forcibly imprisoned there for years. There was an American couple in our tour group who had many many questions for our guide.

The opening question? Wait for it … the guide leads us into a cell that housed up to 40 prisoners back in the day. After showing us around (not much to show … a room with bars on the tiny windows) he asked if there were any questions. The American guy puts up his hand to ask his question which is ‘So, it must have been way worse here when you were here right?’ The guide was confused and said ‘No, it was like this.’ The American responds ‘Really? Like this? I mean, its pretty nice here! The walls are nicely painted, its pretty clean in here right?’ The tour guide was confused and responded again ‘It was just like this when I was imprisoned here.’ The American responds with ‘Hmmm. Well I don’t think its so bad here. So uh, what did you do then?’ The tour guide answered ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’ The American says ‘Well, you must have done SOMETHING to be put in here. What did you do?’ Oh my lord. Joep & I wanted to muzzle this guy. The tour guide responded ‘I didn’t do anything.’ The American, not getting the hint, responds with ‘Well you must have done something.’ Lordy lord. Disastrous. People are idiots. Firstly, yes the cell was clean but ummmm … it’s a CELL! It is PRISON! What is wrong with this dude?! Secondly, he appeared to miss the entire point being that political prisoners here were often unjustifiably imprisoned. Yikes. It was brutal.

The final thing that we found really distressing was when one of the more considerate members of our group asked our guide how he feels coming back to the place he was imprisoned to work. Our guide responded that if it was up to him, he wouldn’t be there. It made me really sad. He is there because he needs a job. His family can’t stay with him so he only sees his kids on school holidays. Blech. I cannot imagine how that would be. Its really sad.

At the end of the tour we were given a few minutes to have a look around and read some of the testimonials that are on the walls of the cells. We also saw Nelson Mandela’s cell which is, shock horror, exactly like all the other cells. The tour itself is not the best. It is a real factory and you don’t get nearly enough time to read all the testimonials from political prisoners which were super interesting. We were glad we made the trip over though …. Despite some of the morons in our group.

A short boat ride later and we were back on the mainland and ready for dinner and an early night to recover from the previous nights festivities.

The early night was also necessary because we had a 5:30am start the following morning. We had plans to hike Table Mountain!! Once again, on vacation I always feel like I am fitter than I am.

Our hike began at 6am and saw us walking about 2.6kms climbing 1,000m in altitude. A similar hike to the Inca Trail last year but without the high beginning altitudes so a bit easier. The hike was amazing! We went with a guide Rian and he was awesome. As we set off he said to us ‘So you guys have done some rock climbing before right?’ Uhhhh wrong!! I wasn’t aware we needed those qualifications! We did but he said he would get us through it. He was awesome. Uber patient and kind and gave great instruction. We hiked the Indian Trail (there are a heap of trails to do some way easier and some way harder) and stopped often for photo opps and breath catching breaks. The views were incredible and the weather was perfect for the hike. I was so proud of myself when we reached the summit because some parts of the hike were proper rock climbing. In fact, when we reached the summit Rian told us that in 2009 6 people died doing the hike we had just done. All tourists and all had tried to do the hike without a guide. I couldn’t have done the hike without Rian and I was glad that I didn’t contribute to that statistic!

The top of Table Mountain is like arriving on the set of Jurasic Park. Its totally cool! We had a blast checking out the views and making happy snaps before Rian had to head back down on the cable car. We decided to stay a bit longer and have a coffee. We sat at the coffee shop on the summit to enjoy a quick snack. I was eating some crackers and admiring the local birds when, as I lifted a cracker to my mouth I was treated to a mouth full of feathers. One of the birds literally flew between my hand and my mouth to steal a cracker right from my lips!! It was time to leave before 1 of us lost an eye!!

We caught the cable car back down feeling very smug that we had hiked up and not gotten the cable car up like so many others. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing with our beach views and recovering from the mornings exercise.

Late in the afternoon we got a bit glammed up for a night on the town and to have dinner at a highly recommended restaurant called the Bonbay Bicycle Company. We enjoyed a few pre dinner cocktails (and snacks … we are on an eating spree atm) at the Neighbourhood Bar on Long Street before dinner. The meal was, once again, amazing!! Atmosphere, food, wine, company (naturally … doesn’t get better than the Joepster!) and the night was deemed a success despite Joep suffering from a bad case of heart burn.

Sunday rolled around with big plans for us!! We were to meet Karen & Kevin at Msoli’s … OK so we had never heard of this amazing phenomena however the big Kahuna had and was kind enough to send me an article written by Jamie Oliver about his time as Msoli’s. Imagine the excitement levels!! The restaurant is situated in one of the townships. All the tour books tell you not to go to a town ship alone because it is highly unsafe for foreigners. We trusted Karen more than the tour books and it was only as we reached the heart of the township which was bustling and full of crowds that we began to wonder what on earth we were doing!! There was no need for concern though. After parking our car (with the assistance of many locals who were haggling for our business) we headed into the restaurant. The restaurant is basically an outdoor area covered with a verandah. There are a heap of tables and a dj in the corner. We met up with Karen & Kev and both sets of parents. Thankfully they were more organized than we were and had brought condiments, drinks, breads and salads with them. I’m not sure what Joep & I were expecting but whatever our expectations were, they were exceeded!

The atmosphere in the restaurant is electric! Locals from the township mixing with the locals from Cape Town mixing with tourists from abroad. Just incredible! Thank goodness we had a Cape Tonian with us though because figuring out how this place works is a challenege. Thankfully, Kev knows the infamous Msoli and before too long we were in the queue to what looked like a butcher but was actually where you order your food! Yup. You go into a room filled, and I mean FILLED (as in, a full dead lamb was wheeled into the room past us while we waited!) with fresh raw meat. You then pick out what you would like … lets all take a second to appreciate just how much the Joepster was loving this process! You pay for said meat (we bought a STACK of meat … cost? Approx AUD 5 … can you believe that?!) before carrying it out the back to where all the braai’s are. A braai is South African for a bbq but these are not your fan dangle modern day gas barbies. They are hard core, wood fire, smoking machines and the folks working back there seriously earn their keep!

You then return to your table and after 15 minutes you go back to the braai to collect your meat. It. Was. Incredible. The food was soooooo delicious!! I’ve never tasted meat like it! Joep was in heaven and I wasn’t far behind him!

After pigging out, big time, for an extended period of time we all decided, with heavy hearts (and stomachs) that it was time to move on. Back at the car we faced the challenge of who we should pay for helping us park (we ended up paying 3 different guys …) before maneauvering our way back through the township onto the main highway. What an experience!! One we would NEVER have had without Kahuna and Kev!

Once back on the highway we decided to hit up the Sunday markets at Hout Bay. Jeez louise, these markets were not the dodgy flea bags we were expecting. Talk about up market! Amazing art, food and knick knacks. We wandered around happily for some time before realizing we were still too full to enjoy the cuisine and decided to hit the road for Camps Bay.

Camps Bay – Heaven. Pure heaven. It was upon arrival in Camps Bay that we decided we were no longer too full to enjoy the local foods. It was a good thing. We set up camp at Grand Café with our ocean view and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying cakes, calamari and cocktails. Sounds like a strange combination? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!

As the evening drew to a close we dragged ourselves away from Camps Bay and headed back up to Blauwbergstrand to take in the sunset and … you guessed … find a restaurant for dinner! Don’t judge us. We’re on honeymoon.

A delicious meal at Ons Huisie followed (notice the Dutch influence there!) and before we knew it, it was late in the evening and we had eaten more food in 1 day than most people eat in a lifetime! We loved it!

Monday rolled around and we were up somewhat early to head to the wine region! Stellenbosch and Franshoek are the local wine regions and both are raved about. We did a quick drive through the Franshoek region before hitting up the Stellenbosch region. Our decision making process was easy --- I googled the top 10 wineries in South Africa. 6 of the 10 were in Stellenbosch. Winner.

I had spent the last hour of Sunday evening drafting our own little wine tour and we were excited to try it out! If I do say so myself, I am awesome at planning wine tours. We managed to fit in all 6 wineries but did tastings at only 4 of them to save on time. The wines were incredible and the wineries were just beautiful! Joep was kind enough to be designated driver so I got to do all the tastings … splendid!

Our favourite wineries of the day would have to be Rust & Vrede (Peace & Quiet) and Kanonkop although every one that we visited we loved … at Rust & Vrede we bought a beeeeeeautiful bottle of wine which supposedly ages very well. We wrote letters to each other, stored them in the box with the wine and made an agreement to open the bottle on our 15 year wedding anniversary and read the letters. Being married is awesome!!

We finished the wine tour with enough time to head to Camps Bay for an evening meal. We had seen a sushi restaurant the day before that we were antsy to try … it was everything we hoped it would be. And more. Delicious! Although, with views of Camps Bay on a sunny day, I think anything would taste amazing!

After dinner we stopped in to say goodbye to the big Kahuna (**sob sob**) and to thank her for showing us around before heading home for 1 last dessert at Ons Huisie and a night of R&R. Oh Cape Town! We LOVED you!!

Alas we had to move on because Tuesday night we were booked into a beautiful B&B in Hermanus! Hermanus is about 130km from Cape Town on the Garden Route. We had decided that we would hit the road early on Tuesday morning and drive all the way to Mossel Bay where we would break for lunch before heading back to Hermanus for a night of rest. The drive was amazing! The changing landscapes as you go from Cape Town through Cape Flats then through the Overberg is hard to imagine! You go from coastal scenery that is just like Perth to lush greenery reminiscent of British Columbia! We were amazed and more than a little impressed! Mossel Bay, however, was a bit of a let down. Its kind of a depressing town so we didn’t stay long and headed back to Hermanus.

It was a good choice. Our B&B at Hermanus was incredible!! We were expecting the standard B&B affair. Our expectations were more than a little exceeded!! The B&B is a guesthouse. We had a huge room with giant spa and the main house has an amazing living area with views right onto the water. In addition, you don’t just get breakfast, if you so choose you can also have a gourmet dinner and pick out your own wine from their fully stocked wine cellar! Oh. My. Lord. We were in heaven. We sat down at our romantic table for two and were treated to the best meal we had had so far on honeymoon. Joep still talks about the clam chowder entrée (you need to taste it to believe how good it was). The lamb and fish mains we had were unfathomably good and don’t even get me started on dessert. Even better, the chef comes out to explain your dishes to you and to make sure you’re happy with everything. Happy? We were ecstatic! We were more relaxed than ever and happily hit the hay at a reasonable hour. Pure heaven.

The following day we were booked in to go cage diving with the great white sharks. Joep was psyched about this. I was less enthused … I am petrified of sharks. Alas, the weather was miserable and all dives were cancelled. We tried to reschedule for the following day but the storm that had rolled in was not making the diver possible on Thursday either and given that we flew out on Friday it appeared that the dive was a no go. Shame though because everyone says it is a must do and that it is totally incredible … next time. And believe me, there WILL BE a next time!

The beauty of the storm was that it gave Joep & I the perfect excuse to laze around for the day. We headed into the town to browse through the shops (I spent a full hour in my 2^nd all time favourite book store … 1^st being of course the little store in Laguna Beach) and spent the afternoon on the couch in the living room with our bottle of Kanonkop rose and our books. Hello honeymoon!! That evening, rather than brave the elements we decided to once again enjoy the amazing culinary expertise of Zonnika our chef. We were not disappointed. Pork belly cooked to perfection? YES PLEASE!! I feel like I am only writing about food … I cannot help it.

Given that our dive on Thursday was a no go as well Joep and I made plans to head to Cape Agulhas … it is the southern most tip of South Africa (not the Cape of Good Hope!) and it is also incredibly beautiful! The drive was lovely and there were some super cute little towns along the way and the cape itself was gorgeous and windy. Seriously windy. It was also a longer drive than we anticipated so after a late lunch we headed straight back to Hermanus because we had awesome dinner plans!

The previous night, Zonnika had informed us that it was her last night as chef for Schulphoek. Shame! We were devastated because, as you may have noticed, we loved her cooking! Never fear, she had taken up a new position at Birkenhead. We’d never heard of it … we have now. It is a similar guest house to Schulphoek but higher on the price scale and therefore higher on the ‘Oh my god this is incredible!’ scale. Similar to Schulphoek, the restaurant is generally only for guests however Zonnika booked a table for us to dine there on Thursday evening! We were ecstatic!

We got home, got glammed up and called Birkenhead to collect us. Yes, they were collecting us to eat at their restaurant. Can you say “excellent service”? Upon arrival at the restaurant we were greeted like old friends and told numerous times that they were ‘so glad you could join us!’ I’ve never felt so welcome in all my life! We were then shown around the guesthouse (wow!) and sat out on the deck literally OVER the ocean where we enjoyed a welcome cocktail. I have goosebumps as I write this!

After a delicious cocktail where our awed silence was broken only by exclamations of ‘I cannot believe we are here’ and ‘This is the most beautiful place ever!’ we headed inside to choose our table. Having seated ourselves comfortably we were approached by Zonnika (who we have a massive crush on … the way to a honeymooner’s heart is through the stomach indeed!) and our head chef for the evening to have the menu explained to us. There was one awkward moment when Joep asked what polenta was … the chef was surprised that Joep didn’t know what polenta was. I was also surprised. Joep noticed our surprise and pretended he DID know what polenta was … he didn’t know and when the chef left I explained it to him. Teamwork.

We then settled in to enjoy our second pre dinner cocktail when the chef approached us to hand up binoculars and tell us that a school of dolphins and pod of whales were swimming by! We were excited! Our we headed onto the deck to watch the amazing migration and while oohing and aahing at the sights we both noticed a slight burning smell. The smell got stronger and I turned to investigate. Our table was on fire!! The waitors and chefs were desperately patting it down trying to get the flames under control. They managed to do so (thank goodness) as I looked at Joep with big eyes wondering if we were about to be asked to leave the restaurant. You see, the fire had clearly been caused by a candle which had blown over in the breeze through the door that we had left open when viewing the dolphins. Yikes. We were moderately stressed but not for long because when we came inside the chef was feeling even worse! He also hadn’t closed the door having had a recent bad experience with an older guest walking straight into the glass door so he took on all the blame himself!

We all had a good hearty laugh about it and it made for a very relaxed evening afterwards.

The food that night was hands down best food of the honeymoon so far. Fig and gorgonzola gnocchi, prauwns, lamb, polenta with brie and Portobello mushrooms … oh my lord we were in heaven! We drank far too much, ate far too much and laughed far too much. All in all, it was the PERFECT end to the southern portion of our honeymoon.

We were dropped back to Schulphoek late in the evening where we passed out completely content. Hermanus, best eating of our lives. We must return.

Alas the following morning we had to move on once again! A 5am start saw us at Cape Town airport on time for our flight to Jo’berg where we hired our rental car and hit the road for our safari! Nambiti Hills game reserve is a small reserve in the Kwazulu-Natal region of South Africa. It is not in Kruger National Park but rather, is between Lesotho and Swaziland near Ladysmith. The drive there was super uneventful apart from a harrowing stop at a fast food joint where the waitress spat all over our food and we were unable to eat it, and we arrived at Nambiti just after 4pm. We were immediately given an insight into how good the service would be over the coming days. You see, the afternoon game drive starts at 4pm and we had just missed the departure. We figured, oh well we’ll go in the morning instead. But the staff offered to collect us at the car park, bring our stuff to our room and take us to meet up with the game drive! Splendid! We were so glad they did … I don’t think you ever forget your first game drive. I know I certainly won’t.

Within minutes of getting into the truck we had introduced ourselves to our fellow guests (all residents of South Africa … a promising sign that we had chosen a great reserve!) and spotted the hippo’s! Weeeee!! The hours that followed brought us zebra, giraffes and more antelope than you could shake a stick at. Not to mention a herd of elephants (so huge!) and a white rhino! Oh lord. Life was good. Oh and did I mention that half way through the drive you stop and are treated to a sundowner? Yes. White table cloth table, wine, beer, snacks all in the middle of a game reserve! It was incredible. I’ve never felt so spoiled.

But this was just the tip of the iceberg. Upon arrival at the lodge we were walked to our room … Luxury my old friend! Where have you been all my life?! We were blown away! It was pure heaven. Luxury like we couldn’t have dreamt of! Right down to the hot bath that was already filled for us to jump into after such a long day of driving and animal spotting.

After recovering from the shock of the slice of heaven we were allowed to sleep in, we called for our guide to walk us back up to the room. You’re not allowed to walk alone because the lodge is right in the middle of the game reserve and the animals roam freely throughout it. True story. We woke up to warthogs outside our window one day!

The evening meal was delicious and the company was wonderful and after a very long, very glorious day we went to bed content and very excited about the days to follow.

The days to follow were everything we hoped they would be and more! I won’t go through every game drive but I will tell you that we saw 4 of the big 5 in the wild. We also went to the ‘Cheetah Experience’ where 3 rescued cheetah live and you are allowed to get into the enclosure with them and pet them! It was pretty surreal. We loved it! We didn’t love the serval as much though.

A serval is like a mini cheetah and there was one at the reserve called ‘Diablo’. When we got into the enclosure with him he totally freaked out. The animal handler told the woman in our group (who was uber annoying and wearing a dress a few sizes too small for her) that she had to get out of the enclosure because her dress was upsetting Diablo. I thought it was a pretty funny joke but … he wasn’t joking. Turns out Diablo had been bought by some rich dude as a gift for his wife and when the little kitty turned out to be not so nice, they weren’t so nice back to him. Poor old Diablo. The animal handler said that the dress must have brought back some memories of that time and caused him to freak. Either way, being in a cage with a wild cat going nuts was not our idea of fun so we were happy to step out with the badly dressed lady … I did feel uber sad for Diablo though.

The other really cool thing we saw was a face off between 2 female lions. Here is the summarized story. There is 1 pride of 6 lions at Nambiti. A while ago the managers tried to introduce a new pride of 3 lions. The old pride was not happy about this and hunted the new pride killing 2 of the 3 lions. The last remaining female is now on the run from the ladies of the other pride. Alas, the male from the old pride took a shining to the lone female and knocked her up. She was pregnant at the same time as a lady lion from the old pride so 2 litters of cubs were born. The old ladies were not happy about this and (*sob sob*) killed the cubs of the new lady!! On our second evening at Nambiti word went around that the new lady had been cornered by one of the lady lions from the old pride. Uh oh! We drove out to see. It was nuts!! The new lady was backed into a corner on a hill lying very still. The lady from the old pride was totally showing her who is boss and not letting her out. They were eyeing each other of and grumbling at each other and all in all the atmosphere was somewhat hostile … kind of like the Delany house back in the day when one of us had stolen the other ones favourite top and ruined it …

Over the following days we had a few more lion sightings including the old lady lion on her own calling to her pride with giant roars (incredible!!) and the 3 ‘cubs’ of the old pride, although they are quite big now. This was amazing because the 2 males and 1 female were wandering around. They wandered into an area filled with zebra and antelope and all the zebra started barking when they saw the lions to warn all the animals that there were lions around. It was pretty cool!! It was also cute because at this time we got caught in the only rain storm of the week (a bit deal considering it is rainy season!) and these huge cats hate the water just like household cats do. Awwww poor lions!!

Man oh man, between the lions, the buffalo, the giraffes (how elegant are these dudes! We even saw 2 having a fight and swinging their necks at each other just like on ‘Walk on the Wild Side’!), the elephants, the hippos and the zebras (we saw a couple having a rip roaring disagreement and kicking each other in the face! It was hilarious!) we had more than our fill of wild animals. Might I also add that the kudu is delicious! I realize I am a total hypocrite because when the lions looked like they were going to attack something I was devastated yet I was happy to chow down on the animals myself … I don’t care. It was delicious!

Speaking of meals, my favourite meal of the honeymoon was at Nambiti. It’s a huge call because Birkenhead was out of this world and Joep & I have debated back and forth on this but picture this … you get back from your evening game drive and are told that tonight you will have a romantic dinner in the ‘Boom’. You wonder if boom in Africaanse means the same as in Dutch (“tree”) as you freshen up and are then lead to your table. You arrive at the top of a wooden staircase to a platform literally suspended above the valley. Only 1 table, an open fire and more stars in the sky than you could ever dream of … pure heaven. I will never forget that meal as long as I live.

The food was good (not as good as Birkenhead) but you could’ve served me a cheeseburger and I’d still say it was best meal ever because the location can never be topped. Joep and I spent the first part of the meal in stunned silence gazing around us in awe. It was like eating inside a planetarium except cooler … because its real! We were then treated to an awesome astrology lesson by our host Ross who also told us about his recent romance which made me swoooooooooon!! We polished off a bottle of champagne and a bottle of wine and despite the slight intoxication, I still remember every detail of this night and hope to do so for the rest of my life.

All in all our days at Nambiti Hills were unbeatable! The game drives both morning and night were glorious. The days spent lounging by the pool and enjoying too much wine (and more food) were pure heaven. The people were so lovely and the setting was breathtakingly beautiful. We highly recommend it to everyone!!

**Content sigh**

The South Africa portion of our honeymoon ended just as it began … on a massive high! Amazing country, amazing people, amazing FOOD!! We cannot wait to return!!

The Best Day of Our Lives!

Everyone tells you that your wedding day will be the best ever. You’ll think your wedding was better than any wedding you’ve ever attended. You’ll look back on it for eternity with extreme fondness and the only thing you would change was that it didn’t go by so quickly.

They are correct. Every bit of it is true.

Our wedding day. It really was the BEST day of our lives! And it may well be one of the best weddings in history because even the organization people at the chosen venue told us that it was the best wedding they have hosted there!

As most of you know by now, the setting was the Laurance Winery in the Margaret River wine region. The date, December 3^rd which is, of course, a big weekend celebration for us every year but this year would be even bigger.

After a full month back in Australia where I attended weddings, caught up with old favourites and eagerly anticipated the arrival of Joep (he arrived 2 weeks before the wedding) the big week arrived. Wedding week. Now, I thought that we were pretty organized on the wedding planning front. I mean, I haven’t been obsessive about it but there is a pretty huge excel file that was tracking everything plus the parental unit had been a huge help so I just assumed the last week would be pretty chilled.

I was semi right. Whilst it was not super stressful, there was still a large amount of last minute stuff to be done! There was also the issue of the Margaret River bush fires which threatened to burn down our venue and, more devastatingly resulted in the loss of almost 40 homes and significant damage to the area surrounding Margs. We tracked the fires religiously and were very lucky that they didn’t hinder our day at all. And so, after getting the last minute stuff done, boy were we excited as we packed up the cars to head to Margs on Thursday! On the way down Joep & I stopped at the winery to drop off the last few bits and pieces and the all important wedding cake. We then enjoyed a delicious lunch over-looking the place that we would be wed in 48 hours. Words cannot do the excitement levels justice. We were bouncing off the walls!

That evening there was an impromptu get together at the Margaret River hotel where the groomsmen were introduced to my extended family and a battle of the big personalities ensued. It was gearing up to be quite the event!

Friday rolled around bright and sunny and promising great things! Joep & I had vowed that we would use this day to treat ourselves. Delicious massages, mani’s & pedi’s awaited us in the oh so peaceful day spa retreats surrounding Margs. It was heaven. We felt very spoiled, and we also felt VERY relaxed as we departed the day spa to head to Laurance for our rehearsal!

After a 4pm rehearsal, which went off without a hitch and involved loads of laughs largely at the mother ship as the guided the flower girls (Niamhy & Beanie of course!) down the aisle showing them how to throw pretend rose petals. Priceless. After ensuring that everyone knew where they needed to be the following afternoon, we all headed back to our apartments for the planned pre-wedding get together. Splendid!!

Here is where 150% of the credit must go to the Delany family and, by extension, the Dunne family. I had grand plans of being the hostess with the mostest at this bbq. These plans did not come to fruition. The bbq was held at the Leeuwin Apartments where pretty much all the crazy Dunne family were staying in a row of connected houses. A number of close family friends were also staying here as well as a few pals of Joep & mine. Needless to say, having everyone in such close proximity made for quite a fun night! As the Delany girls and Dunne aunts ran around like (in the famous words of David Delany) ‘blue arsed flies’, I reclined in a leisurely fashion with my husband-to-be and some great old friends. It was wonderful! The evening was deemed a big success as everyone got to know each other and pigged out and had a few drinks. Uncle Sean suffered a minor humiliation when the bench he was sitting on collapsed unexpectedly providing many laughs for the larger group … especially given that he is one of the world’s greatest sports and laughed harder than anyone while sitting somewhat trapped in the broken bench awaiting help. Awesome! The evening was ended with a wonderful speech from Joep thanking everyone for coming and then telling them to leave … good man.

After the bbq fun times Joep & I took a few minutes alone to exchange our wedding day gifts (spoiled!!) before we headed off in opposite directions only to be reunited at the top of the aisle the following afternoon … weeeeeeeeeee!!

Wedding day morning. I cannot tell you much about what the men did. I know there was a golf tournament on. I know this because Dad & Joep had been planning this for months. Devastation struck when dad became violently ill and had to skip the golf. It was a total bummer because he’d been looking forward to it for ages but he prioritized his energy levels and put walking me down the aisle first. Good dad.

I know that Joepster had a great day with golf in the morning, delivering flowers in the midday and enjoying a delicious bbq with his groomsmen before getting dressed and heading to the winery. The gals had a similar day! I was anticipating lots of crying and freaking out. There was none of this. I attribute this almost entirely to my bridesmaids and parents … and nieces and nephew. The morning began with a wonderful drive to Gnarabup to have a look at the fire damage caused the previous week (nothing like seeing someone else’s devastation to give you perspective that no matter what ‘goes wrong’ on your wedding day, it is not that bad). Having witnessed the devastation … and believe me, it IS devastation, we then headed for a morning coffee on the beach where we were treated to an impromptu meet up with Julz & Rog!! Our fav NZ’ers!! I was stoked to see them and I believe the feeling was mutual. That being said, there was some bewilderment regarding why on earth I was out wandering around on the morning of my wedding and not getting ready. I have a good answer … I didn’t need a whole day to get ready.

Coffee done, we headed back to the apartments to have a bit of QT by the pool with the mother ship before the arrival of the hairdresser. Once the hairdresser arrived things got a bit more organized. Jane was a godsend as she patiently sat painting all the girls nails, consoling Kynan when we was told that he couldn’t have his nails painted … not even if he wanted them painted grey … And doing all the girls hair in amazing ‘princess styles’ so that they all felt positively gorgeous by the time she was done.

In the meantime, each of us did make-up and had hair done and before we knew it, it was time to have a drink, put on our dresses and head off … Weeeeeeeee!!!

Everything ran like clockwork. The bus collecting guests was right on time, the limo was right on time, we were all organized! So we piled into the limo after I had made the executive decision that I would put my uncomfortable wedding shoes on when I got to the venue rather than wear them in the car. Upon arrival at Laurance (15 minutes early for my own wedding … don’t act surprised, I’m early for everything! Why should my wedding be any different??) I asked around to see who of my bridesmaids had my shoes. Hilariously, noone had them. In the minutes that followed the 4 gals spent so long apologizing loudly that they didn’t register my reaction … I was quietly ecstatic. I had been DREADING wearing those shoes. They were so uncomfortable! Going down the aisle in my grey flips flops suited me just fine. As luck would have it, I went 1 better. Aoife has a spare pair of flat silver shoes in her car …. And so I have my something borrowed (dress was new, earrings had blue crystals and were old …)! Sparkly silver flip flops that were super comfortable and didn’t look half bad! It doesn’t get better than this.

The hours that followed were, hands down, the best of my life. Joep and I have consistently tried to compile a ‘top 5 moments’ list but it keeps changing. What I will say though it that walking down the aisle behind my 3 sisters, favourite cousin, 3 nieces and adorable nephew with my arm in daddyo Dave’s arm looking into the face of the Joepster who was grinning from ear to ear and looking hot to trot in his Canalie suit is a something I will never forget. It was a huge highlight.

My cathedral length veil proved quite the challenge to maneuver in the wind and almost floored me on the way back up the aisle after the ceremony when it got caught on a tree and I didn’t notice until I was ripped backwards provided quite a few laughs … I was pretty happy to take it off though!!

The ceremony was lovely … but it was HOT!! As I recited my vows to Joep in Dutch I could feel sweat rolling down my body and I remember thinking ‘This is not as romantic as I thought it would be …’ before looking up and seeing Joep’s sweaty face and realizing ‘This is even better than I thought it would be …’

Besides thoroughly loving vowing to love Joep forever and ever amen (because that was naturally the biggest highlight of my life to date) and having him do the same to me, I have to point out one part of the ceremony that I will look back on with happiness forever … Aoife’s reading! She read an exerpt from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and teared up half way through. Which caused me to tear up, and all the sisters to tear up. It was so moving! And we’re all cry babies. Content sigh.

Temperatures dropped after the ceremony which was great and allowed us to enjoy the photo shoot with James (worlds greatest wedding photographer, hands down, no competition) before returning to enjoy our reception!! Oh man, what a reception! The Irish contingent were in AMAZING form and the Dutch came out to party! We started the evening with our first dance and got everyone up within minutes of the reception starting. Quick segway - Our first dance sucked!! We had practiced it for some time alas the band played the wrong tune so we were slightly devoed but did our best to perform anyway and saw the funny side of it … you’ve got to right?! We then quickly cut the cake before I made my speech. Let me pause for a second here to note that Anna was our MC for the evening and she was FRICKIN’ AWESOME! We couldn’t have asked for a better MC. She was cool, calm, collected, funny, hot to trot, organized and … I could go for days here. Suffice to say, she was awesome. Seriously awesome.

After ending my speech I was free to relax for the rest of the evening. The speeches that followed were amazing – Sheenz was fantastic, Sjors (who flew for 60 hours only to be in Australia for 48 hours for the wedding) had the whole room in tears with his moving speech, Davo once again stole the show mixing hilarity with a few very touching moments and Joepster made sure his closing speech got everyone on the dancefloor.

The last few hours of the evening a blur to me. Everyone says that as the bride you don’t get to drink … incorrect. I had plenty to drink and thoroughly enjoyed myself! Dancefloor highlights include:

• Aunty Anne leading everyone in an Irish ceili and shouting at them when they did it wrong
• Dad & Dave Brennan getting a limbo stick out for the masses to enjoy … and boy did they enjoy it!
• Joepster doing a knee slide under the limbo stick to where I was waiting to boogy with him
• The Russian dance-offs between Dave Brennan, Stewart (one of our fav Canadians!) and Joep. Keep in mind that the Russian dance involved getting down in a squat and kicking your legs out. Dave has only 1 arm. That means he wins instantly because it must be hard to balance like that!! Oh and for the record, the mother ship would absolutely lose it laughing every time they did this dance!
• The impromptu 4-hand performed by me, Sheenz, Jane & Siobhan … it was inevitable … and who know that Maroon 5’s ‘Moves Like Jagger’ would be so perfect for Irish dancing?
• The conga line!! Lead by Uncle Jeff and looping around the winery … it is a life highlight for me. I loved it!!
• The Joepster & Paul doing a circus act that involved some serious vaulting over each other … it was impressive and highly entertaining.
• The kids shaking their groove thangs and then trying to set up their beds on the dancefloor so that they wouldn’t miss any of the action … Thankfully Aoife saw this happening and realized they would be trampled and prevented said trampling. Good mother.

OK I could write for days about all of this. Suffice to say, it was the best day of our lives! And we were a bit sad to leave our own party but we were POOPED and exhausted … plus the limo had a big bottle of champagne for us to enjoy. To this day I have no idea what song we left to … I think it was to Men at Work – Down Under but I may be mistaken. What I do remember though it running out through the archway of our guests with my HUSBAND and feeling elated. Positively elated.

So there you have it. It was the best day of our lives. We loved every second of it. We’ll remember it forever and ever and it will always make me smile!!

And so ends my first blog as Mrs Vaessen!

The end of a shorter era …

Its official, my time as a housewife of Orange County has come to an end! It has been a great few months and Laguna Beach is most definitely a beautiful part of the world however I am very excited to be back in Australia.

Its not hard to see why when you consider how many great things we have coming up! Getting married, a month in Africa, a trip to Amsterdam, a month in Argentina and then relocating to the worlds 2^nd best nation to live in (this is a true story, it comes from Forbes research … Norway is #1. Oh and Holland is #3!! Looks like Joep & I are pretty spoiled with our countries!).

Still it was important that we made the most of our last few weeks together in Laguna Beach. We’ve loved every second of our time together and whilst the last few weeks in the USA were busy (relocating countries takes a lot of time … I always forget how much work it is!) we made time for lots of fun as well.

After enjoying the wonders of Disneyland, I spent the week soaking up the rays at our pool and on the beach in between bouts of cleaning and packing. We also made sure to hit up som of our favourite Laguna restaurants in the evenings.

However the biggest highlight would have to be the last weekend in Laguna! On the Saturday we had grand plans to head across to Catalina Island. In my mind it is a more developed version of Rottnest Island. Alas, I didn’t book the ferry because I thought we could just get tickets on the day. Turns out you should book in advance. The ferry was booked out so we were put on the wait list and as we enjoyed a coffee we planned other things to do that day. It was good that we had come up with some great options for things to do that day because the stand by list proved unsuccessful so it was onto plan B.

We made our way into the town where we proceeded to enjoy an amazing breakfast including champagne cocktails! Glorious!! Feeling sufficiently refueled we made the executive decision to head out kayaking in the ocean.

We wandered down to Fishermans Wharf where we were able to hire a 2 person kayak and head out for a paddle. I was a bit apprehensive but Joep, as per usual, was super confident. As I pondered how best to get into the kayak in the crashing waves Joep confidently dragged the kayak out into the surf. He then called out to me to bring the oars. This confused me because the oars had been sitting inside the kayak. I told Joep this and we looked around to see our oars floating away in the ocean. Yikes. We both then ran into the ocean to collect the oars luckily seeing the funny side of the predicament.

As we recollected ourselves and stopped laughing we began the arduous task of getting into the kayak. Joep’s confidence was not shaken by the oar incident and he instructed me to stand in one spot while he maneauvered the kayak. As he was doing this, a large wave came in and picked up the kayak slamming it directly into my shin bone. Ouch. In the process it also bashed into my fingers causing a slight cut which as you will know, when immersed in salt water has a tendency to look much worse than it is =/ Yikes. It took a few minutes for me to see the funny side of it. It took less time for the massive bruise to form and grow continuously for the following days. Yowsers!

Still, we eventually made it into the kayak and out onto the water. And it was heavenly. Words don't do it justice. Even though I spent a lot of time worrying about being eaten by a great white shark (don't judge me, I'm from Perth ... there have been a lot of shark attacks this year ...) I was still able to enjoy the incredible calm and crystal clear waters. Oh Laguna Beach! You are glorious!!

After a wonderful time out on the kayak we spent the rest of the day basking in the glory of the sunshine and sand on the beach before treating ourselves to a few more beach front cocktails before calling it a night.

The following day, my last Sunday in Laguna, I was treated to a wonderful brunch with the gang of friends who have so openly accepted us into their circle here. We are so spoiled!

Alas all good things must come to an end. In our case it is so that we can enjoy even MORE good things! I headed off to the airport on Tuesday evening for a loooooong flight to Perth where Joepy will join me in a few weeks for some pretty awesome adventures!!

Thanks Laguna Beach! Its been a blasty!!

The Happiest Place on Earth!!

Oh my goodness the excitement continues! Seriously, every time I think we’ve got the best life possible something even better comes along and this time it was in the form of …

DISNEYLAND!

Yes! Our California bucket list is almost complete but one thing that we had not yet completed was a trip to Disneyland. Thankfully, I am marrying one of the worlds greatest men and he arranged for us to go!

Words cannot explain the level of excitement I felt as we arrived at Disneyland at 8:30am on Sunday morning. Yes. 8:30am. I was excited!

Upon arrival at Disneyland we bought our tickets and hit the first of the two parks. We didn’t realize that there are two parks but it turns out there are. The first park is ‘small’ (in comparison to the second) and we had to wait a little while for the rides to all open but when they did we hit them with a vengeance. Now, you may not know this but Joepy is not a huge fan of roller coasters. In fact, they make him pretty sick. So he must love me very much to come on all the rollercoasters with me! The first ride we hit was the Grizzly River Run where we both got wet (Joep more than me) and could spend the rest of the day drying off in the glorious California sunshine.

After this we headed to the roller coaster ‘California Screamin’ … It. Was Awesome. Stomach turning awesomeness. I loved every second of it and when we got off I was bouncing around in excitement. Until I turned and saw that Joepy was not feeling as good as I was and, in fact, looked significantly worse for wear =/ Yikes!

It was at this point in time that we agreed that Joepy would come on the rides with me but we needed to have a few hours between each big roller coaster. Deal.

As proof of how sick Joep feels on rides, take a look at the picture below. It was taken on the Space Mountain rollercoaster and if you look closely you can see that Joepy is nowhere near as happy as I am. Hahaha this photo makes me laugh every time I look at it!

We spent the rest of the morning in the Disney California Adventure side of the park enjoying the ferris wheel, a GREAT 4D experience of A Bugs Life and walking through the Hollywood Pictures Backlot. And then. The big one. We headed across to Disneyland Park.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Disneyland Park is the most amazing place on earth! Upon arrival we were both blown away by Main Street. It is really like walking around inside a Disney cartoon. We were in heaven! And we didn’t even know where to begin with the attractions!

So we started by walking up main street towards Fantasyland castle checking out the spinning teacups and the Dumbo ride on the way. We then jumped on board for the ride around the world on ‘It’s a small world’ … you’ll never get that song out of your head.

We were blown away by Toontown which is incredibly built to make you feel like you live in a cartoon. Every ride we went on was a heap of fun and we stuck to our deal of giving Joep a break between big rides. So after enjoying the Space Mountain roller coaster (it’s an awesome rollercoaster in the dark!) we spent some QT sitting in the sun on Main Street. Unbeknownst to us, we had nabbed ourselves primo positions for the Disney Parade! It was so much fun to see the parade but even more fun to watch the kids faces as they saw the floats and characters arrive. So cute! The excitement was contagious!

We also had no idea that the park stayed open so late! It is open until midnight so we stayed well into the evening. After taking in a few more rides we ducked back over to California Park to watch the World of Colour show. Holy guacamole that show is incredible. They project pictures onto walls of water spouting out of the fountains. We were pretty chilly by this stage of the evening (having dressed for summer but forgetting that the evenings get cold now) and had been considering leaving but BOY were we glad we didn’t!

The show was incredible and gave us a second wind so afterwards we skipped back over to Disneyland Park for the fireworks show. We both agreed that we’ve seen fireworks plenty of times before so it wouldn’t be that awesome … ummmm wrong! It was amazing because the music and stories that go with it make it totally magical.

And just when you thought it was over, we had 1 more show to see! Fantasmic was the final live show based on Disney’s Fantasia and it was just as incredible at the other shows. Man oh man, they know how to entertain!

We finished the evening in seasonal spirit by heading to the Haunted Mansion for a creepy tour where Halloween & Christmas collide … the attraction is based on Tim Burton’s ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ and like every other attraction, it was wonderfully well done!

And so, just before 11pm we headed home completely exhausted and on a total high after an awesome day. I would happily go again every day!

Disneyland really is the happiest place on earth.

Everything is bigger in Texas

One of the enormous perks of being a housewife is that I have no commitments. Which means that when Joep has a work trip to go on, I am in the luxurious position of being able to join him!

And as luck would have it, just last week Joep was needed in Dallas, Texas for work! He very kindly purchased a flight for me and on Saturday morning, after a wonderfully entertaining chili cook off competition on Friday night, we headed to LAX to fly together!

Let me side bar for a second here – Sam & Cara kindly invited us to their place for a chili cook off. I didn’t know what this entailed and have never made chili in my life. Joep made the executive decision that I should make a meat pie & an apple pie and cleared it with Cara in advance. She is one of the nicest people on earth and said that would be perfect. Turned out that a chili cook off is a serious event. People arrived by the dozen carrying large pots of chili. The pots were then lined up and a number assigned to each one. We all then tasted each chili and voted on our favourite. Excitement ensued when there was a TIE between 2 chili’s and a taste off was required! Jen’s chili was voted #1 and we were all very excited. We were also very full. I got a bit carried away with the tasting and really over ate. It was worth it. It also makes me want to make some chili now!

OK back to the point of this blog – Texas.

We arrived in Dallas on Saturday afternoon and, after checking into the hotel, spent the afternoon lounging by the pool in the glorious weather. I must admit, I am not sad to be missing the beginning of Canadian winter. I like sunshine. We then decided that the only possible food option for dinner was … a steak house! Naturally! So off we headed to Hoffbrau Steaks for a feast. On that note, did everyone else already know about the enormous German influence in Texas? I didn’t but it is not hard to spot when you get there and come across towns called Gruene and Fredericksburg. Plus the fact that we were eating at the Hoffbrau said a lot! The dinner was nothing if not plentiful … everything really is bigger in Texas and Joep & I barely made a dent on our meals. Nothing like portion control! Joep’s rack of ribs looked like a few animals died for it and my steak was as big as my head. Both were DELICIOUS! After dinner we headed to a roof top bar for some live country music and cocktails before staggering home in the early hours of the morning.

We marginally regretted the big night the following morning when we were up at the crack of dawn to achieve the days goal – Drive to Austin! Austin is apparently the best part of Texas so we were committed to seeing it. It was well worth it! The drive there was uneventful and we arrived in Austin in time to enjoy a delicious HEALTHY breakfast. Much needed after the previous nights eat-a-thon. We then spent a few hours wandering through the city and soaking up the atmosphere. It’s a really pretty city and has a good bit more to offer than Dallas for sure. Plus it is the State capital and the State Capitol building is a sight to behold! It is bigger than the USA Capitol building. See? Everything really IS bigger in Texas!

Alas we didn’t have too much time to spend in Austin because Joep had work to do so we were on the road back to Dallas in no time. Joep’s lead foot got us into a little trouble with the law on the way home but thankfully the Texas police are not the worst in the world and, whilst it always sucks to get pulled over, it is made marginally nicer when the policeman is polite and friendly. Despite that minor hiccup we made it back to hotel with plenty of time to spare for a pre dinner nap.

Let me take a second here to point out that every evening in Dallas we were mesmerized by the amazing sunsets – I have never seen sunsets like them. The colours were out of this world! So good that we even took a few pics from our hotel room window. Judge all you want. It was incredible.

The rest of the week Joep was super busy with work so I was left up to my own devices. This meant I had the joys of sleeping in every day and enjoying the pool but I’m not just a boring lady of leisure! There were things in the city I wanted to enjoy as well!

Not the least of which was the 6^th Floor Museum. For those of you who don’t know this (although I’m pretty sure everyone does), Dallas is famous for being the place that JFK was shot. Kind of a sucky thing to be famous for. The 6^th Floor Museum is a museum dedicated to the assassination of JFK and it is situated on the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Yes, this is the building that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot the president from. In fact, the corner of the museum is blocked off and shows the exact spot Oswald allegedly sat with the boxes as they were on that day. Eerie doesn’t even come close to describing it.

Now Joep & I are not huge museum folks and generally we don’t stay too long in museums so it says a huge amount about this museum that I was in there for 3 hours! This is a true story. I had thought the museum would be all gore and focused entirely on the gun shot wounds inflicted to the president. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that there is so much more to it than that!

The museum discusses in detail the policies that JFK was trying to bring in during his 1,000 days as president. It was incredible to me to see the similarities between his policies and those of Obama’s. It was also interesting to see that they both face similar issues with policies being blocked in the Senate. There was also a lot of discussion around the conspiracy theories regarding JFK’s death and whether Lee Harvey Oswald really was to blame or had in fact carried out the assassination alone. I was riveted. I read every piece of information and watched every single video. Seriously, if you are ever in Dallas you MUST go to this museum.

After soaking up every ounce of information I could in the museum I took a stroll around the neighbourhood, through the grassy knoll and then up to the JFK Memorial which is pretty sterile and doesn’t have much life about it. But it is huge! So everything really is bigger in Texas.

This was definitely the biggest highlight of Dallas for me!! The rest of the city is kind of mmmwa. Its not built for tourism. I spent some quality time at the art gallery and in the art district which was pretty nice but nothing to write home about.

One very fun thing Joep & I did was to go to the Texas State Fair which just happened to be on while we were in town! We had high hopes having heard of such wondrous things as deep fried butter, bubblegum and beer (??)!! So after Joep finished work on Thursday we headed to the fair to see what all the fuss was about.

I’m sad to say that we were pretty disappointed. We were expecting something akin to the Calgary Stampede which we loved! Instead, we walked into the fair grounds and were bombarded by … well it wasn’t pretty. Lots of seriously overweight people eating deep fried everything. Still, when in Rome right?! So we set about trying a few of the deep fried delicacies (??). After tasting deep fried pork skin, a funnel cake (which is also a deep fried delicacy) and a deep fried snickers we both felt sick. And wanted to leave.

We pushed through the pain and went to enjoy a live music show which I must say was pretty cool! Three sisters playing violins and singing. We were enjoying it so much that Joep proceeded to show me his ‘Texas Two Step’ dance moves and when he was finished and we turned to leave he was loudly applauded by the old folks behind us. A proud moment for the Joepster!

The State Fair marked the end of our week in Texas. On Friday we headed back to Laguna vowing to avoid deep fried foods for … well forever really. There is no way I will ever eat a deep fried snickers again. Disgusting!

However, the state is pretty impressive and the people are super friendly! They are also super country and state proud which is nice to see. Still, we are happy to live in California J

Nighttime kayaking in the Back Bay

As I mentioned previously, we were pretty devastated to say goodbye to Mike & AM after so many adventures and laughs. Thankfully, our heartache was short lived as our good pals Jen & Mike had invited us to go nighttime kayaking with them around the Back Bay area of Newport Beach.

It’s a tour run by the Newport Aquatic Centre and it is so worthwhile! I stupidly forgot my camera which I am very upset about because the views along the way were unbelievable.

We hit the water at about 7pm on a Saturday night in the huge Hawaiian canoes. We then spent the entire evening paddling up to Balboa Island where we got out to enjoy a frozen banana (delicious) and a drink at the Village Inn (favourite bar in OC for sure!) before paddling back.

The views along the way are largely of amazing Orange County houses. Seriously you have never seen homes like these. And lets not forget that it is almost Halloween so the decorations were also a sight to behold! Yowsers. Talk about fancy.

The paddle was also filled with lots of laughs as our paddle leader (captain? I have no idea what she should be called …) re-used the same joke consistently which involved pointed at a large yacht outside a big house and asking Mike if that was his brothers boat. Don’t get it? Good. We didn’t either. Yet she thought it was hilarious. Which we found entertaining.

There was only 1 minor mishaps when we paddled clean into a concrete bridge but that aside, the evening was glorious!

Oh and I must also mention that Joep and I had our first ever vegan meal! I’m not gonna lie to you. We were feeling pretty apprehensive about it given that we love eating animals and all the things that come from them however we were pleasantly surprised!! Turns out you can still enjoy eating when it doesn’t involve animals! I know! I’m as shocked as anyone about this.

So, whilst goodbyes do seriously suck, we are lucky to have made some pretty wonderful pals here to hang with making our OC life pretty sweet as well … oh how we dread saying goodbye again …

We love visitors!

After arriving back from our respective adventures and debriefing each other on all our news (we both had wonderful times and Joep was SUPER happy with his bachelor party!) Joep & I settled back into our housewife / man of the house routine. We’re getting pretty good at it J

This was especially evident when less than 24 hours after arriving back from our trips Joep called me to let me know that a friend of his from Holland was coming to stay with her husband. The house looked like a clothes bomb had gone off as I was mid laundry load but, being the wonderful housewife that I am, it was no problem!

I spent the afternoon tidying and cooking in preparation of the arrival of Joep’s friend Chantal and her new husband Roel. They’ve been travelling around California on their honeymoon and we missed each other by hours (literally) in Napa and then we’d be away in NL and NZ while they were in Laguna so alas there was only 1 night to share. We made it a good one by eating and drinking to our hearts content. It was wonderful to have our first house guests as a couple in our new (if only temporary) home!

This visit was also a lovely prelude to our next visitors and these ones were very exciting!! Our favourite Canadians Mike & Anne-Marie had arranged to fly down to SoCal for a few days to have some QT before we relocate to Australia. EEEEEEEEE!!

Friday night after work Joep & I were spoiled by an invitation to watch an NHL (ice hockey) match in a corporate box at the Honda Centre in Anaheim. Exciting!! I know the Ducks were playing. I don’t remember who their opponents were. This is largely because I spent the evening chatting with another Jen who I am VERY fond of … the joys of making new friends!

After enjoying the match Joep & I hit the road to LAX to collect our Canadians! The pick up was uneventful and before we knew it we were on the road to our home to enjoy a drink and a brief catch up. It wasn’t long before I went to bed but Joep stayed up to chat with Mike and bbq up some 2am sausages … his most recent addiction.

The rest of the Mc el Mothe visit was so jam packed and full of hilarity and fun and adventure … I grow tired just thinking about it! To keep myself from going too crazy with this blog I am going to give my highlights of their visit rather than focusing on the details.

First highlight – Beach time!! From frolicking in the ocean (watching Mike & AM in the water was like watching 2 little kids frolic through the waves … right down to the competition to get attention from mum & dad – ‘I’m swimming in no water! Look! Look at me!! I’m swimming in now water!) to posing for photo’s. Night time picnics to lunchtime ocean front feasts. Joep & I realized how quickly we have started to take the beach for granted. We’re so spoiled! Laguna Beach is seriously beautiful and it was a lot of fun to see it through the eyes of visitors and remember how blown away we were by it a year ago!

Next highlight – San Diego!! Mike had the wonderful idea of going to an NFL game (American football … I am an expert now due to our recent addiction to Friday Night Lights. Man I love that show.). So Joep researched and arranged amazing tickets for us! We headed down to San Diego to see the Chargers take on the Miami Dolphins (not the sharks … I won’t make that mistake again). It was quite the spectacle! We had nose bleed seats (something I learned living in the USA … the term ‘nose bleed’ seats does not refer to the rough crowd in the seating area which I originally thought was the case but rather refers to the fact that you are sitting up so high that it can cause nose bleeds … lesson learned!). The seats turned out to be AWESOME which made us very happy because we had missed the tail gating opportunity which we were very disappointed about.

The game was not super exciting because San Diego romped the Dolphins however the entertainment at the game was out of this world! I’m not talking about the cheerleaders or the sporting action. Instead, we were HIGHLY entertained by the folks sitting around us. It was America at its finest. Directly in front of us were some Miami supporters who were of Hispanic descent. To the left of the Miami supporters were some true Chargers fans. Morbidly obese, whisky tango at their absolute best. The racial slurs that came from the Chargers fans were pretty awful however the Miami fans took the orders to ‘go back to North Cuba’ in their stride and just laughed it off. The Chargers fans (2 couples, both equally over weight and equally disturbing to watch) proceeded to get obscenely drunk throughout the game. Towards the end of the game the 2 ladies attempted to lead the crowd in some chants only to then abuse us all for being ‘boring’ when we refused to join in and instead pointed and laughed at them.

A game highlight occurred when some people towards the front of our seating area held up a sign to the crowd that read ‘Show us your tits’ … lovely. We chuckled at the sign and the crowd cheered when to our dismay, one of the afore mentioned morbidly obese ladies stood up to take on the challenge! Seeing what was about to occur, the entire crowd started shouting ‘NOOOOOOOO!’ in unison. The sign was taken down and, appearing not NEARLY offended enough, our fat lady friend took her seat to resume drinking, crying, laughing, cheering all at the same time. To top off the day, she then proceeded to throw up on the ground beneath her seat before cleaning our her mouth with … more beer. Ugh. It was so disgusting.

The game ended on a significant high note. When the Chargers supporters stood up to leave, all of us around them were happy to see them go. Having put up with racial slurs and what not for the majority of the game, the Miami fans took this opportunity to get their own back. One of the Miami supporters threw a scrunched up piece of paper at the guy who had been telling them to go back to North Cuba. It bounced cleanly off his head causing him to turn to see who threw it. Unfortunately for me I was seated directly behind the guy who threw the paper.

The Chargers fan then proceeded to glare directly into my eyes and give me the finger shouting (in slow motion … I’m not lying) “F*#! YOU!’ Well. I was quite put out by this because I had done nothing wrong! I quietly noted this while remaining seated in my summer dress pointing down to the actual culprit. The Chargers fan was not to be put off and proceeded to tell me … and I quote … ‘Your mother should have had an abortion’. How rude! I would have been scared except at this point the guys in front of us proceeded to stand up and shout Spanish obscenities at him whilst grabbing their crotches. I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t note that Mac Daddy joined in with this. This is why we love her.

Phew! The emotional roller coaster that is American football!

After the game, feeling sufficiently entertained, we headed to down town San Diego to soak up a bit of the city atmosphere and grab a DELICIOUS Mexican dinner. We were not disappointed!!

Final highlight (even though there were many in between fun things but if I write everything this will be a huge blog …) – YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK!

Joep & I have had this on our California wish list for a while. We decided it would be a GREAT opportunity to check it out with Mike & AM! We were not wrong. The park is a 6 hour drive from our place and we wanted to road trip it there. The road trip was uneventful and Joepinator did a STELLAR job of getting us there and back safely. He also regaled us with some pretty awesome singing performances my favourite of which was the Katie Perry classic ‘There’s a spider in my bed’. We do love a good road trip!

Now, Yosemite National Park is HUGE and it is super famous for having amazing waterfalls, granite rocks and great hiking. It also supports an incredible ecosystem of wildlife and flora all of which we were lucky enough to experience! We had decided to camp in the park rather than stay in the fancy hotels and luckily for us there are some awesome campsites that don’t even require you to set up a tent! Our little camp site had a tent already set up with sleeping for 4 as well as a lovely little outdoor eating area and fire pit. Oh and lets not forget the all important anti bear food storage box!!

We only slept in the park for 1 night but boy was it action packed! Upon arrival at the park in the morning we were literally blown away by the beauty. In fact, before we even reached our camp grounds we stopped to marvel at the views of Yosemite Falls from a distance. We also used this time to take numerous photo’s … of us jumping off walls. We’ll never grow up. Never I tell you! Plus we provided great entertainment for the other tourists there J We like to give.

We were all on such a high by the time we reached the camping spot that the cold weather and rain couldn’t dampen our spirits … the weather clearly took this as a challenge. You’ll understand in a minute.

After checking into our camping spot, watching in AWE the video footage of bears climbing into cars at nighttime to steal food (seriously, these bears are wily creatures!) and enjoying a bite to eat , we headed off for our first hiking adventure (naturally, we stored all our food away safely first!).

The first hike we did was to Vernall Falls – Hilariously, and as happens on so many vacations I go on, when we were first researching which hikes we would do in the park we were seriously considering doing the Half Dome. You need to see this hike to understand why this is so hilarious. It is a full on rock climbing hike that you need serious equipment to do hahaha clearly not for us! I’m glad we figured that out early!

So the Vernall Falls high is considered by hiking guides to be moderately strenuous. The guides were correct. It was hard yakka getting up to the falls but I am not lying when I say that it was worth every puff to get up there. Every corner we turned we would all exclaim in awe about the views. It was breathtakingly beautiful and even gave the Inca Trail a run for its money (which is a HUGE call if you remember how amazed we were on the Inca Trail!). The falls were a sight to behold and we all agreed that perhaps it was a good thing that it was raining because it meant that they were really flowing. Yes, we were still challenging the weather. How silly we are!

Upon arrival at the top of the falls I was feeling less than excited about the descent. Here’s the thing, and we discussed this at length, I am pretty good at hiking up hill. For some reason, despite the fact that I never work out, I have an uncanny ability to become uber fit when hiking and make it to the summit of trails without a problem. On the flip side, I SUCK at going down. I am not sure footed. I fall over a lot and it takes me probably double the time to go down than it does to go up. AM is my polar opposite. She hates the uphill but is as nimble and sure footed as a mountain goat on the way down. We’ve decided that together we would be the ultimate hiking team and will climb Mount Everest as soon as they invent a Baby Bjorn for adults so that I can carry AM up the mountain (she will sit in the baby Bjorn on my chest using the time to conserve energy and nap) and she will then carry me down (I will nap in the adult Baby Bjorn because I will be exhausted from the climb up). I cannot wait to write that blog. I could even write the blog whilst lulling in the Baby Bjorn on the way down!

I’ve become side tracked … back to Vernall Falls. The summit was awesome. Even more exciting was that Mike figured out a looping track that meant we didn’t have to go down the way we had come. Splendid!

You want to know what was less splendid? It was starting to hail! Joep & I were having flash backs to hiking the Plain of Six Glaciers LAST summer and were just starting to regale Mike & AM with ‘hilarious’ stories of how the hail had turned to snow and we ended up doing our summer hike in a snow storm when … yup, you guessed it … the hale turned to snow!! So there we were. Four stupid tourists in summer apparel (I was at least wearing long pants!) hiking in the mountains in a snow storm.

And yet we were STILL loving it! This says a great deal about how awesome Yosemite is.

The hike back was longer than anticipated but worth it because we also got up high enough to get a great view of Nevada falls along the way. Incredible. Seriously.

We were happy to finish the hike though. We were all frozen and very excited to get into a car with heating to head back to our camp site. The evening that followed may well be one of the funniest of my life. It was freezing. It snowed throughout the night in the park (but not at our campsite … a small blessing) and it rained pretty much non stop at our camping ground.

A wonderful fire was lit and we managed to make hotdogs and enjoy a quinoa salad (which is, according to Mike, the most pretentious of all salads today … fair point) before digging into smores!! YES!! My first ever smore! For the non North Americans, a smore is a typical camping dessert. You take granola crackers, a chunk of chocolate, then you roast marshmallows on the camp fire and squish them between the crackers and chocolate. It. Is. Delicious. Seriously.

Feeling sufficiently refueled we set up camp in our tent to play some card games before deciding on an early night of sleep because we were both freezing and exhausted.

The night of sleep was not the best we’ve ever had. This is not really doing it justice. For starters, I was convinced that a bear was going to climb into our tent and eat us. Its amazing how quickly your imagination can get the better of you when it is really dark. In addition to the fear of being eaten alive, it was freezing. Now, I was lucky enough to be pretty warm because Joep is the hottest man on earth (both in looks and in temperature … hands off ladies, he’s taken) so I was able to leach all of his body heat for myself leaving him freezing but me cozy. In the middle of the night I heard a rustling at the door of our tent and was petrified thinking it was a bear climbing in. It wasn’t. It was Mike going to the bathroom. When he got back into bed and everyone settled down again Joep asked ‘Everyone having a good night?!’ The responses were ‘Yeah this is awesome’ (**sarcastic voice**), ‘I’m freezing!’ and ‘I’m scared’ from Mike, AM and me respectively.

The final reason that the night sucked was for the same reason every night on the Inca Trail sucked. I ALWAYS need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Always. Without fail. I tried to combat this in Yosemite by going to the bathroom immediately before bedtime. Let me take a second to point out here that there are great toilet facilities at Yosemite however they were a long way from our tent and I didn’t want to risk being eaten by a bear on my way to the bathroom. Having voiced these fears consistently throughout dinner and card playing, AM was kind enough to give me permission to use our home as a bathroom. I’m only semi joking. You can judge all you want but here is the thing – Men can go to the bathroom wherever they like and noone judges them. So why should I have to walk all the way to the restrooms risking death by bear attack on the way? I shouldn’t. So a corner of our outdoor eating area became the designated urinal. I held on for as long as I could during the night before waking Joep to come outside with me and look out for bears while I used the ‘restroom’. I then spent the rest of the evening convinced that a bear would be attracted to our home as a result of the urinal in such close quarters. Aww jeez. I need to think less.

After a less than wonderful night ‘sleep’ we were up very early to laugh about the previous evenings events. While the others made a fire I took the opportunity to head up to the laundry room (thank GOD there was a laundry room!) to put all of our clothes and shoes into a dryer.

As a result of having dry clothes and shoes we all felt up to doing 1 more hike. We first enjoyed a breakfast of hotdogs, quinoa salad and smores (talk about leftovers!), packed up our belongings and headed off. There was 1 quick pitstop at the gift store so that postcards and trinkets could be purchased.

Oh and I had to return some pants. That I may or may not have slept in for an entire evening. Listen, they were the worlds ugliest trakkie daks and I was freezing so I HAD to wear them but I tried really hard to keep them clean (and not go to the bathroom on them … ) so that I could return them in the morning. I was partially successful with the first part but 100% successful with returning them … yippee!! Don’t buy the tracksuit pants at Yosemite. You might get the ones I returned. You probably don’t want them.

The final hike of our visit to Yosemite was planned to be to Columbia Rock on the Upper Yosemtie Falls trail. It was a pretty strenuous hike because it is all uphill and there was an abundance of switch backs. Again however, we were really impressed by the views however we all agreed that they weren’t as impressive as the day before.

When we got to Columbia Rock we bumped into some other hikers who told us that if we climbed just a little further we’d get a great view of the falls! We debated within the group the merits of this opportunity and in the end decided we’d go a little further and see how we felt. We kept doing this until we reached the view of the falls and we were all happy to have done it! Yosemite Falls (both upper and lower) were visible from the lookout and it was incredible. The water is so clear that even from an extreme distance you can see the rocks at the bottom of the pools of water. Just amazing. And POWERFUL! Yikes. The noise of the water falling was pretty impressive.

The hike down was not as difficult as the day before and we were back in the car and on the road for home before tooooo long. On the way out of the park we had a couple of stops for photo opportunities. We then drove through a relatively decent snow storm (naturally) before tackling the looooong drive home.

Joep, once again, did a stellar job of getting us home to Laguna beating all google maps estimates meaning that we had time for a bit of relaxation in the hot tub which our aching muscles were very grateful for!

The Mac El Mothes visit was jammed full of amazing memories and Joep & I often break out into a fit of giggles thinking of some of the highlights. We were more than a little sad to see them go. Siiiigh. Its always so hard to say goodbye to favourite people!!

Still we are looking forward to the next time we are reunited!! And at least we always have an excuse to travel! Like we really need one …