Christmas and Then Straight Through to the New Year!

We had a great Christmas in South Africa. I guess it took me a while to get used to the idea of Christmas without snow (I mean really, can that be so, Christmas without snow...), but we had a lovely lunch with Graham's family at our apartment. It didn't hurt that the weather was stunning and Graham's family humored me and my Christmas games. Here we are having a good lunch:

Graham carving the turkey.

Between Christmas and New Years we paid a visit to one of my favorite places...the Cape Vineyards:

Ah yes, the Cape Vineyards...

P.S. Rickety Bridge in Franschhoek has a tapas plate to die for...really fantastic. The Cape Malay. I could go back there right now...


On the way back to Graham's parents' house from Franschhoek, we saw 5 Eland by the side of the road. I've never even seen one Eland in the wild before, so 5 was amazing.

Cool. You know it.
Later we connected with Graham's old running friend, Juliet Prowse, for a tube down the Palmiet River. It was great and we got to dress really sexy...


Sadly, I was the first person to fall out of my tube and lose my water bottle. I did consider stealing some of those awesome booties as a consolation.

We arrived back at Graham's folks place just in time to watch the snail races...

and enjoy a blackout.

A few days later they forced me to hike the Platteklip Gorge to the top of Table Mountain with Juliet (a former international distance running star) and her friend John (who had already run 20k that morning and barely broke a sweat on the hike):

It wouldn't have been so bad with people at my own disgraceful fitness level, but I had a distinct feeling that I was slowing the whole group down...

This was a lovely view...so it was worth it.



Um...this was how slow I was...the girl you can see in this picture with the white t-shirt hiked up the entire gorge with ridiculously tight jeans, ballet flats and carrying an ENORMOUS Prada bag. If you look closely at this picture, you can see it. Seriously, I almost got beat on an hour & a half hike up a gorge by a chubby girl carrying a purse!!! I have started running 5 times a week again.



I managed to beat her up, but just barely. Nice view from the top, huh?




Then on New Year's eve day, Graham and Sarah and I hiked the opposite peak (a lot shorter and less steps) Lion's Head for the view:


And to end a perfect festive season, we enjoyed New Year's with our new Cape Town friends!
A lovely dinner followed by a champagne toast:



Happy 2009!

Sean's First Thanksgiving Weekend!

My nephew Sean was born last year right after Thanksgiving, so technically this was his first Thanksgiving weekend in Woodstock with the family. And...he put on quite the show.
Showing us his new tricks!
Loves to put things in his mouth to free up his hands.
I love this picture because it looks like he's eating his dinner with a giant spoon.

It was very nice to have my friend Heather and her husband Marcus stop by for a visit.
With my brother Kevin & Sean. It doesn't look like he was as thrilled as we were to have another picture taken!

Thanksgiving in Vermont

It's been a lovely break in Vermont for Thanksgiving. Graham teaches his UNC MBA course on the weekends that surround the T-day weekend, so I decided to come to the U.S. for 3 weeks while he was doing that and traveling for work.

Turkey Day was great, if not a little quiet. Graham and I were the only children home. Ryan and Rory had to stay for work and Kevin & Rachel did T-day with her family and then came up the Friday after. So here are some photos of our relaxing meal with the Matz Family and Peggy.

Can you tell we are father/daugher?? Graham said smile and we both immediately posed with whatever was in our hands (Dad has a potato and I have the knife). We were in charge of the fruit salad and peeling the potatoes for mashing.

Digging in at the Matz's house.
The T-day gang, minus Dave.

That's all of us. Sadly that was the best picture of me - the one with my eyes closed!

Guinea fowls in our parking lot

I love guinea fowls with their spots and little blue heads. Here's an entire clan complete with chicks that were hanging out in front of our apartment building:

Graham - these are for you...

Thought you'd find this nice since you missed them!

Running out of clothes to take off!

Yikes, racy title, I know, but it's HOT here today. And this apparently isn't even summer yet. I cannot believe how intense the sun can be and I've discovered why they sell so much linen clothing in SA. I'm going to have to go shopping, no really Graham, it's absolutely necessary this time - no need for me to overheat already.

I plan on living in the pool, at the air conditioned gym and with gin&tonic extra ice in hand. Oh, but I suppose I'll eventually have to get a job...details.

There's a bad moon on the rise!

Sing it with me!

Just kidding, but there was definitely a COOL moon on the rise on Saturday night over Cape Town. My new friend Cherie (somewhat of a relative-in-law as well, she's Graham's dad's cousin's granddaughter - yeah, I know) and I had adjourned from a lovely meal at the V&A Waterfront to my balcony for a nightcap, when we witnessed the most beautiful moon rising over the mountains. Luckily Cherie is a photography major in Stellenbosch and she was able to capture this photo with our camera:



Nice, huh? Wish you were there to enjoy it with us!

The invasion begins!

So I was going about my business on Friday afternoon. I had gone to yoga, done some work, had lunch with a new friend and generally was feeling pretty good about starting the weekend. So when, walking into my living room with the new John Le Carre book in hand headed for the sun drenched balcony, I discovered that my apartment was under attack one can reasonably understand my distress, yes?

To my horror, the left corner of my living room was a swarming black mass of ants. I'm not talking 20 or 30 ants; I'm talking hundreds, nay, thousands of ants covering the floor, the wall, the lamp, and even the suede footstool in the corner. Never in my life have I seen so many ants.

I immediately phoned my mother-in-law under the assumption that not only does she know how to handle all of these situations, but she no doubt has had her fair share of ant invasions as well. I was correct and instructed to purchase something called DOOM (sounded like it was just what I needed) and spray not only the live ants, but all the door frames, etc. where they were crawling in. However, I just couldn't bring myself to leave the house to go get this product. Beyond the fear of driving (which I'm slowly, at 60 kph, conquering) was the fear that if I left the little bastards for more than 5 minutes unsupervised, they would take over the whole apartment. Although I do doubt that in these economic times they could cover the rent without sending the queen to work, but that's neither here nor there.

So thinking about what I had on hand that was already poisonous, I selected Windex for its high ammonia content and went to work. Ammonia does it. As they started to feverishly drown in puddles of blue, I realized that for posterity's sake and to prove to Graham that I'm not just looking for excuses to panic, I needed to take some photographs. So behold! This is the picture of the invasion AFTER I wiped up 6 paper towels worth of ants and sprayed again...


Gross, believe me I know. But I sprayed them and cleaned it up and everything appeared back to normal. I looked under the couch and everywhere to see if I could find something that was attracting them or where they were coming from to no avail. I watched for signs of return while I read from the couch and placed the Windex bottle in front of the balcony doors as a warning, but not another stray ant appeared.

So triumphantly, I went to bed. And that, ladies & gentlemen, is where I made my mistake. I should have known better than to celebrate early with these little pests. I awoke the next morning to find them back with a vengeance. This time I wasted no energy with the Windex or the camera, and just threw on my running clothes and jogged up to the local supermarket with money tucked into my sports bra to purchase a can of the aforementioned DOOM.

Arriving back, I went to work and indeed DOOM it spelled for the ants. Unlike the Windex, this stuff drove more and more ants out from hiding to stagger around drunkenly high then collapse in small convulsions and ultimate death. Yes, the carnage was major. This went on for at least an hour before the flow of ants started to cease.

**SIDE NOTE: For those that think this sounds cruel and gruesome, I appeal to you to understand that I hate to kill things. In fact, I often step around ants on the pavement to avoid killing them. They have as much right to be on this planet as I do. HOWEVER, once they cross the threshold of my home as an uninvited guest, it's like any other invasion and I have to fight back. If you don't buy that, please refer to the picture above. Seriously, gross.

I am currently battling a much smaller volume and hoping the apartment maintenance team shows up soon with a better solution. Oh, and I'm off to the store to purchase more DOOM.

Fun!

Left with mushy bananas

This afternoon to stay busy in the crazy Cape weather, I accomplished the following:

1. 3 banana bread loaves
2. 24 banana muffins
3. Laughing myself to tears over the latest Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
4. Watched a dog blow across the street sideways (he was fine)
5. Watched a bird blow by upside down

Really, that's the crazy weather. I had a morning meeting downtown and almost got blown into the water. Seriously, had I not grabbed the railing at the last minute, I would have gone in suit and all. Now that would have been fun to explain to the people I was meeting!

Here's me this afternoon recovering from my morning in the storm: