Summer Breeze, Makes Me Feel Fine

Hi all,

I'm excited to report that we're going home to the States to visit family and friends on the east coast in late June through late July.  (Hope to see some of you!)  I'm sad we won't make it out west for my great cousin (aka my grandmother's first cousin) Max's 90th birthday & retirement party. (Here's to having a job you want to keep doing until you're 90!)  But next year I hope we'll make it to California to see Noah's birth family, Max and Ron, Roger and Marsha, etc. In the meantime, my goal is to get caught up to the present before we fly out. 

Back in January, it was hot here. Not Atlanta hot, but Africa hot - blazing blue skies, low humidity and torrential rain for brief periods in the evenings.

We spent a good amount of time in our backyard enjoying the rubber-raft-turned-kiddie-pool sent to us by my dad.

 Who needs a slide or a real pool when you can take a running leap into this one?  
(Noah looks on, taking in the moves.)

 Water Boy

 We house-sat a friend's dog, a beagle named Max, for a week.  He was incredibly quiet and calm. Let's just say he got a lot of attention while in our house.

To say that Noah loved him is to put it mildly. Noah loved him so much that he sometimes didn't know how to control his love.  At one point when adults were briefly out of sight, Noah pushed Max over the edge and he bit Noah on his forehead.  I came running down the stairs to the sight of a lot of blood (I guess the head bleeds a lot) and rushed him down to the local ER.  He was a trooper and didn't need stitches, but did get some antibiotics. Anyway, we tried to counsel Noah on how to convey your love more appropriately. Luckily Noah didn't seem the least bit traumatized.  Upon returning home, he immediately asked "Where doggie?" and went over to snuggle with him.  Apparently some bonds are greater than blood.  (Did I mention there was a lot of it?  And Adam was at work.)

A full-bodied dish

A friend sent this from her Blackberry - it was taken at a local Italian restaurant.  (They have those here, though sometimes they get the flavors a bit wrong.  Makes me miss home.)

I believe Lucy was giggling about something, but it has the look of (a future scene...) "You are so embarrassing me, Dad!"  

Our new tent!

After running the tent my folks gave me for my bar mitzvah (really) into the ground, Adam surprised me with a new larger (family friendly) tent for Hanukkah.  (Apparently Jews like to pair religion and camping.  "Kids, Moses camped for 40 days and 40 nights in a much smaller tent with no mosquito netting, so be thankful and go to bed!")  It took a month to arrive from REI in Seattle and with great fanfare, we set it up in the yard for a test run.

Lucy took the opportunity to grab every piece of camping or potential-camping equipment from the garage and haul it out to the new tent.  It is quite roomy, though South Africans love big tents, so it doesn't look all that large when we camp.  (We've seen people with full-on portable kitchens and separate tents for dining, plug-in fridges, you name it.)

 Adam's birthday!   We celebrated with cupcakes and our favorite "likely illegal in the States" firecracker candle.  (Our friend's daughter, Massie, was there for the festivities.)

Noah is still thinking about the pyrotechnics when the cupcakes are finally served.

Glamping

In mid Jan, we were invited by some gay friends from Joburg to go "glamping" with them. Of course this means "Gay Camping," which means...  well, we weren't really sure. (One can imagine, though. "Honey, bring the tent with the linen drapes!  You know how synthetics irritate my skin. Plus, it'll match the high veld grasses.")   It was at a beautiful campground called Mountain Sanctuary, about an hour away from Pretoria.

 We took a hike to explore some natural water slides we had been told about.

 Did somebody say water slides?!  Lucy didn't need any coaxing to hike.

  Noah followed Lucy's lead and walked right in.

No matter what I tried, I could not get Noah to stop drinking the water.  Luckily it was crystal clear. (That makes it OK, right?!)

 Changing back at our tent -- this time with its fancy fly up. (Luckily, no rain).

In the meantime, the Glamping commenced!  

(Sure, I'll have a little bubbly.  Reminds me of my days back in Boy Scouts...)

 Noah - "Lucy, get up!  If they're only having cocktails now, we won't get our hot dogs for hours!"

 Noah decided, "Why fight it?" and got into his PJs, while Adam enjoyed a glass of champagne

Lucy flirted with all the boys

I tried to read to Noah as night descended.  Note Noah's legs flipped up. He loved the tent almost as much as he loved Max and conveyed that "if I thought he was going to bed, I had another thing coming!"

Meanwhile the girls focused on the important things. (We brought a Hershey's "S'mores Kit"that Judy and Stan sent us and introduced the locals to the joys of graham crackers + marshmallows + chocolate.  We have yet to find graham crackers here and their marshmallows are distinctly different and feel even more like puffed plastic than their American counterparts.)

The next morning, over brunch (it is glamping, remember), Lucy convinced Colin to read to her from a favorite Richard Scarry book.  (Quite a civilized affair, eh?)

 As Hillary said, it takes a village.

 As usual, our campsite had acacia trees with their crazy thorns. 

 The thorns didn't stop Noah from running around with no shoes and his favorite monkey.

Before departing, we explored a larger natural pool and water slide, which was (pardon my Rhode Island) wicked slippery. 

But nothing stopped Lucy.

Noah considered the whole thing rather tiresome and sacked out.

A New Visitor

We were very excited to have Adam's Aunt Shelley come to visit from Cleveland. (I believe that's west of Namibia.)  She did an amazing-sounding two week tour of South Africa and Botswana (which included landing in a prop plane on a grass field!  See Overseas Adventure Travel and come visit) and came over early to see us.  Lucy was quick to get her in on her favorite game in her room.

 Noah was polite and kept his bib (and shirt) on while she joined him for breakfast. 

Before heading down to Joburg to start her tour, we hiked a bit around our local nature reserve, Groenkloof. Didn't spot any animals that morning, but she later reported seeing a group of 96 elephants walking by her hotel in Zimbabwe, so I didn't feel too bad.

The Safari aired out the tent (and washed the [plastic] wine glasses by hand) for future glampouts. xo,
Glenn