Green Family Reunion - The Whole Gang's Together

After a long day and a few extra delays, Emily and Clint finally made it to South Africa to join in on all the fun of our family reunion! Having my family all together in our new home was absolutely amazing! I could not have been happier!

After letting them get some much needed sleep, the whole gang headed out bright and early to Muizenberg Beach for a little surfing for the guys and a nice warm cup of coffee or tea from a great little place called Slow Life. We then went to visit the penguins at Boulders Beach before spending the afternoon in Kalk Bay and a delicious seafood dinner at the Brass Bell.

The next morning we drove a couple of hours north to Inverdoorn Game Reserve for a safari. We saw cheetahs, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, zebras, lions, springboks and many others. 

On the way home, we decided to stop by Ceres Adventures for a little zip-lining through the mountains and over the rivers and valleys below.  

We woke up to a rainy day on Saturday so we started at the Stellenbosch Slow Food Market for lunch and then spent the day visiting a few wine farms (House of JC LeRoux, Kanonkop, and Waterford), always a fun thing to do in Stellenbosch!

That night we celebrated Emily’s 24^th birthday with dinner at Guardian Peak and birthday cake – yellow cake, chocolate icing (a family favorite!) – back at home.  

On Sunday, we met up with our host family, Gavin and Issy, for lunch at Middelvlei Boerebraai and then went for a chocolate and wine pairing at Bilton for dessert.  We relaxed that afternoon and soaked up as much family time as we could before having to send the Greens back to Arkansas the next morning. 

There is still more to come! Check back for our last week with the Musgroves here in South Africa.

Kirkseys Come to Cape Town

A few weeks ago, David and I welcomed our good friends, Ben and Rachel, to our home away from home here in South Africa. We spent the week trying to squeeze in as much of the Western Cape as possible.

We started off on Sunday with a visit to St. Paul’s Church and then on to a couple of wineries that afternoon. 

Bright and early Monday morning, the guys hiked up Table Mountain while Rachel and I joined via the cable car a little later on. We had a picnic on top of the windy mountain and then headed down to warmer temperatures out on Signal Hill and then Camps Bay beach. 

Tuesday we spent the day visiting a few of our favorite wineries in and around Stellenbosch. We enjoyed a relaxing day catching up over wine tastings and then a fun evening at a dinner party with our host family, Gavin and Issy. Fantastic food, great company and lots of laughs.

The next morning we stopped in at Muizenberg beach for Ben and David to surf before heading to do the one thing Rachel requested for the trip, to see the Simons Town penguins. That afternoon we hiked out to Cape Point and searched for baboons, hartebeasts, ostriches and the illusive Cape Point zebras (that we never found). 

 The highlight of our Cape Point adventure was spotting our first baboon as it bee-lined for a poor tourist and stole his ice cream cone. He ate the entire cone, napkin and licked the melted ice cream off the ground.  

Thursday morning we visited Learn to Earn in Khayelitsha, an organization providing skills and service training for the people in the township looking to get a job or start their own business. That afternoon we stopped in for lunch and shopping at the Old Biscuit Mill and then headed to the District Six Museum.  

On Friday, we drove over to Franschhoek for a day of pancakes, chocolates and wine tastings.

We finished Saturday with a visit to the Stellenbosch Slow Food Market and one of our favorite wineries, Middelvlei, before having to take Ben and Rachel back to the airport. It was sad to see them go but we enjoyed our week of being tour guides and sharing this experience with great friends.