The Hartz Visit Part 1: The Farm Inn

For the month of February we were blessed to have our first visitors to South Africa, Chase's parents, Anne and Doug. They spent their first week here getting to know Pretoria and the area we live in. As the jet lag wore off for them we took it easy, went on lots of walks, and enjoyed some of my favorite coffee places.  One of the kids favorite places to visit is just down the street from our house it's a small animal park called The Farm Inn. They have a wonderful lodge and a restaurant surrounded by a small reserve which is home to Antelope, Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Hyena, African Hunting Dogs, and Cheetahs. All the predators are in cages so in some ways its like going to a glorified zoo. The Farm also has a small farm animal area where the kids can feed and hold bunnies.  We decided this would be a good start for Grandma and Grandpa and it was number one on Mitchell's list for places to take them. So, we took them over for a breakfast and game drive. On Wednesday morning the place is pretty quiet so we had a small jeep to ourselves for the drive vs riding in the large 30 passenger truck. The guide took us around the farm and talked to us about each of the animals. They have a young giraffe who was born in December. The guide tried to get her to come over to the jeep, but she wasn't interested in his tricks. The cutest thing about this giraffe is her best friend is a little black sheep. For some reason when the giraffe was born this sheep just decided to be by her side, and ever since the sheep has been in the fenced area with her. Apparently he even tries to eat leaves off the trees like her, and he is the only sheep she hasn't tried to kick. It's pretty adorable. The guide then took us around to the other cages to talk about the cats. Now,  I've been on this game drive 3 times, and even though most of it was the same, I always learn something new and it's always fun to experience things with others who are going for their first time.
After the game drive we reserved time with The Farm Inn's most famous animal, Anthony the Cheetah. Anthony was raised by the owner and at one time lived in the owners home with them until he started getting too big. I imagine him tearing up the sofa like a house cat, except on a much much larger scale! This cheetah is incredibly tame, when you are with him he purrs just like a house cat and rubs his head on you. He also loves to lick the salt off your hands and legs. They do ask that you don't touch his paws or lean over him just to be safe.  On the game drive you learn that the Cheetah is the easiest to tame of the large cats. They also have less strength then most, and rarely cause fatal wounds to humans. The guide said that most of the time you can push them off of you, though I am pretty sure I still wouldn't want to go head to head with one in the wild. Anthony has been trained to walk on a leash and has been used as a ring bearer in weddings. He is sweet and a nice treat if you want to get out and pet a large cat for the day.
Following our interaction with Anthony we headed over to the petting zoo for some quality time with the bunnies. The boys love feeding and holding them, but this time Spencer wasn't too keen on the bunnies crowding him for the food.

Over all it was a beautiful day and a great way to introduce Anne and Doug to just a small part of what Africa has to offer.

How many Grams in a stick of Butter?

One of  the biggest challenges many of us expats face when moving to South Africa is adjusting our baking and cooking. I have always loved baking and have grown to love cooking as well though I fail at dinner more than I do dessert. So, when I moved to Africa I thought I would have all this time to try out new recipes and get creative. Well... the getting creative part ended up being a necessity.
First, lets discuss the grocery shopping. Grocery shopping at first was very frustrating even though within 10 miles of my house there are at least 5 different grocery stores. The problem is that they often offer different things and have very little variety so you may have to go to several of those stores just to complete your grocery list. You may find Swiss cheese at one store but the next will only have one type of "everyday cheese" (not joking there is really cheese called this... and I have yet to try it). Or if you find something you need one day its best to stock up  because next week the store may no longer carry that item. You also find out that like home some stores have great meat selections, but poor produce. We have also found that one store may have better quality of items, but the prices may be higher. So for the most part we shop for quality and then stock up on cheaper non perishables at various other places. I have stopped choosing recipes that call for name brand seasonings like ranch packets or taco seasoning packets as these are hard to come by. Or if I do really want to make something I just change the recipe. I made a dip one day that called for Italian seasoning, but couldn't find it at the store I chose to go to so instead of running to another store I just made it with Greek seasoning, and it turned out great! For the most part we tend to stick to the basics: meat, potatoes, veggies. Typically, we mix it up with a casserole or Mexican one night. Though, the Mexican seasoning isn't the same as it is at home. Usually, they will have Old El Paso products, but they still taste different here. You can't find Rotel anywhere and re fried beans are hard to come by too. Pasta sauce is tricky as well, they tend to taste like they have more sugar and rarely come in large jars. Typically I buy a jar and then mix in tomatoes and seasonings to spruce it up a bit.  Fruits and vegetables don't keep as well as they do back home either so instead of one large weekly grocery trip we now make two. Usually one family trip to the store on Sundays and then I do a smaller trip mid week by myself. I have started to find some favorite SA products and have started shopping at pretty much one store consistently. There are a few grocery stores here that will stock popular American products. You can find Heinz Ketchup and Hellman's Mayo now, but typically they are more pricey. There is a grocery store down town that carries a large variety, but it is pretty expensive. I've heard people go there to get their Starbucks Coffee Beans for $20.00 a bag!  Living here has also inspired us to start making more things from complete scratch. I wish I had packed my Joy Of Cooking cookbook because it's so good for the basics, but the internet has been a lifesaver for that too. Over the weekends we make pancakes and no longer use a box (honestly, I don't know why I ever used the box mix before), and I am inspired now to make my own pasta sauce and taco seasoning too.  We will see how that turns out.

Now lets talk baking. So this is your typical block of butter:

yeah when I first got this home I thought okay... how do I work with this, and how many grams are in one stick or even one tablespoon?  Again thanks to the internet and a good knife I can get my grams close enough to the tablespoons.  It's taken some adjusting some days my pancakes are a little more buttery, though over all it works.  Typically, it is also hard to find brown sugar here. The typical brown sugar sold here is what we back home would consider "Raw Sugar" you may know the brand "Sugar in the Raw" great for my coffee, but I don't care for it much in my cookies, makes them a little grainy tasting. So, on a tip from a friend I packed two bags of baking brown sugar, and have been told you can hunt it down occasionally at various places. I think the last place I was told to go was the Chinese market... hmmm.

My oven also looks like this:

As you can see it's pretty small, fits about one dish at a time, and of course it's in Celsius. So, once I figure what 350 Fahrenheit was about 180 Celsius I could go from there, but I soon learned my oven is on the low side so I crank it up a bit to get things to cook better over all.

Oh, and my stove top looks like this:

As you can see the dials have no numbers on them ( I am sure they just wore off), but it took me a good week to figure out high heat and low heat.

So baking and cooking have been different here, and again like everything took some getting used to, but over all we have been pretty happy with the food and have had fun trying out some new things! Oh, but if you visit us be prepared for me to give you a shopping list of food items we want from home! We are missing a few things for sure! :)

So... This is 30?

So  I am straying from our African Adventures this week to talk about turning the BIG 3-0.

This weekend we celebrated my 30th Birthday! Another decade in the books and I have to tell you it feels pretty good! My birthday in general was pretty much like any other Friday. The boys stay home with me on Fridays so we were up as usual at 5:15; the boys ready to play, and like normal, I was ready to lay on the couch for an hour sipping tea and wishing I was still asleep. My fabulous friend Misty stayed up to the crazy hour of 10pm on her Thursday night so that she could FaceTime me on the morning of my Birthday!! She toasted me with wine as I said cheers with a cup of tea. It was a great conversation and filled my heart early on my day! True friends stay up late so they can drink wine with you across the world!! We went about the day as normal, the boys had swim lessons, and we needed to run some errands. We stopped at McDonald's for lunch and I started questioning who's birthday we were celebrating, the boys were extra excited for the lunch treat. We came home and the boys gave me the best present of the day... they actually took naps with no complaining or fighting! It was a Birthday miracle and it gave me some time to sit, relax, and think about being 30. That evening we headed to dinner at the local kid-friendly restaurant Papachinos. I almost took the kids to a new place, but realized my dinner would be filled with me keeping them entertained at the table and would result in less relaxation for me in the end. So, we went with Papachinos where the boys could run wild and I could enjoy a glass of wine and conversation with the hubs. Saturday night Chase organized a dinner with friends to celebrate my birthday and my friend Terra's birthday which was earlier this month. We had a fabulous evening stuffing ourselves with sushi and champagne! It's been a blessing to have found some fabulous people to enjoy Africa with. Having found such good friends here has made Birthdays and everyday much easier.

Just a taste of America on My Day! 

My Friend Terra and I - The Birthday Girls! 

The Gals! 

Over all this has been a great Birthday, I wasn't really sure how I would feel about turning thirty. I kept getting texts and messages this week asking me things like "Are you ready?" "Oh, the big 3-0!" "Aren't you excited for your 30th?""Don't you feel old?" Then I just started thinking... reaching the number thirty is not really a big deal, is it? Maybe if I were living in the 1700s and getting to thirty meant I hadn't contracted any deathly illness then yeah I'd say lets CELEBRATE and pat ourselves on the back for making it this far. In reality thirty is just another number. Over all, thirty hasn't made me feel old at all, instead it has made me feel is proud of how far I've come as a person these last ten years. Maybe with every decade instead of dwelling on the number you should reflect on the positives, think about your achievements so far, and how you can continue to progress yourself in the future.  I look back at the last ten years and feel happy, and at peace with the choices I've made. I have marriage, a career I love (even though it's on pause at the moment), and two fabulous rambunctious boys that keep me young each day. If you had asked me two years ago if I would ever live in Africa I probably would have said "Hell No!" But look at me now!! I am excited for the next decade and can't wait to see what is in store for our family and myself as a person. I see more fabulous adventures here in Africa, future in my career and who knows possibly growth of our family (don't hold me to that... I could be talking about getting a cat). Whatever it is I am ready to welcome it with open arms. So bring on the next 10 - Hell, Bring on 40! HA!

What else do you do when you are 30... walk like an Egyptian Horse! 

Australian Holiday

When we planned this relocation to South Africa one of the trips we wanted to add into our two years was a vacation in Australia. I haven't seen my sister Malinda in over 3 years, which in my book is way too long. We talked about when we should go and how we could make it work with the kids and vacation time, etc... and finally decided on Christmas. We figured if we have to be stuck in the Southern Hemisphere where Christmas is hot, sunny, and anything but white we might as well be with family.

So we set out again on another long overseas flight with the boys. The flight over was about 11 hours and then we had another 2 hour flight from Sydney to Brisbane and then a 1.5 hour car ride up the coast to Noosa. Thankfully, the boys were real troopers. We flew through the night and they both slept pretty well, ate their food, and enjoyed the non stop movies.

Our time in Australia was pretty fabulous, we didn't do any big tourist adventures but that was totally alright by us. This trip was really about enjoying time with family. We laid around the house, hit the beach, went on some fun hikes, went fishing, and just relaxed,  it was pretty perfect.
The town of Noosa is a small coastal town, it draws in crowds around the holidays because of it's beautiful beaches and parks. As my brother in law put it "Every weekend is like a vacation here". I can't really describe it any other way except to say to me it is paradise. Being able to hike in the morning and swim in the ocean in the afternoon is fabulous in my book. We spent time on the main beach, and a lot of time on the river where we could play on smaller beaches and fish. We hiked around the Noosa National Park, and through the Tewantin National Park just behind my sisters house! We drove up North one day and fed the Dolphins, and another day we went to the Aquarium where I got to feed the Sea Lion! We took the kids to a couple of movies (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and Frozen) We ate fresh sea food and got our load of Fish and Chips for sure! Chase had a list of all the things he needed to eat while we were there. In case you ever travel to Australia his top list of foods include: Lift Soda, Kebabs, Morten Bay Bugs (like lobster but better), and Chicken n Chips from the best little place in Coolum. We also threw Subway into the mix this time because you can't get it in Africa.

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To celebrate Christmas in the southern hemisphere is just weird. We did all the normal Christmas things like baked cookies, looked at lights, visited Santa at the Mall, and listened to music. But, there is just something odd about listening to "White Christmas" when you are swimming in a pool. I think Bing Crosby's "Mele Kalikimaka" was probably a little more fitting, but still off. Christmas morning the kids were up early, they blew through opening gifts and then were in the pool before 9am! Malinda and I did cook a traditional feast; Cinnamon rolls in the morning and Turkey for dinner. It tasted like home and made us all feel more in the spirit.  Even if we did eat out side and sweat our buns off through dinner! :)

 

Having the opportunity to see my sister for almost 3 full weeks and giving my children more amazing  memories has made this move across the world worth it for me. Who knows when we would of been able to do this had we not decided to move.  Taking 3 weeks off work is not an easy thing to do when you have young kids.  When I get down about being so far away from family I keep trying to remember the experience and opportunities we are able to have here.  For these things I feel truly thankful.  Getting away from Africa for a short bit and being with my sister helped me to think about keeping perspective on life and focus on positives of why we are actually doing this.  Since we moved I feel like everything has been non stop and adjustment followed by readjustment. We have set goals and resolutions for 2014 and I am ready for the fresh start of this year.  Happy New Year Everyone! We hope this year brings Joy for you all!

P.S - One of the goals is to keep this blog better updated - I am really going to try!!