Stella stands, sings

Just like cousin Teddy

Stella crawls while I eat chips

Stella reads a book in pilates class

Stella looks at Steve

4 Months

Stella on the move

We had a wonderful Christmas in Denver followed by an excellent trip to South Africa. In Denver, we saw family and friends and squeezed a few work outs in among all the eating.

In South Africa, we attended my family's 150 reunion of moving from England to South Africa. There were numerous events held including a walk along a 27km furough that was built by my great grandfather in 1908. It was impressive to see a non-qualified engineer orchestrate such a project that enabled water to be brought to the coast from the adjacent mountains and flow of a mountain to generate electricity. We drank lots of tea, drinks, and beach time at our house in Great Brak.

After staying with my family, we went to Maputo, Mozambique and then drove to South Africa for our Safari at Kapama buffalo camp. Maputo was a very poor run down city with what seemed like missionaries, diplomats, and other international NGO type people. Although we were there for only one day, we had a wonderful meal on the water and saw a few of the sites. Crossing the border to South Africa was quite an experience as many Mozambiquans offered to help us (get our passports stamped etc.), which seemed like in order to have us help them get across the border.

The safari was AMAZING!. The staff were absolutely incredible and we were able to see all of the big 5 (Leopard, Lion, Rhino (white), Elephant, and cape buffalo). We were also able to see lots of buck (kudu, impala, etc), zebras, giraffes, and most of the other wild animals. We had incredible meals whist on the safari. I was also reminded of the the incredibly lush countryside in the Northeast of the country. It is truly breathtaking. We can't wait to go back in June for the world cup.

Switzerland

We spent last weekend in Bern, Swizerland.

Pictures are here.

Provence

Finally, we are making a posting to the blog. It has been a long time coming, but we have just returned from a trip worthy of a posting. After our visit to the Portland, SF, LA, and Santa Barbara seeing family and friends and attending randall's wedding, we stopped by Provence for a week long break.

Provence was spectacular as usual. Sun, great food, kind people, and relaxing in the beautiful french countryside. We saw some old family friends, the Jordan's, at their country house and swam in random lakes along the way. Lake St. Croix's water was a turquoise that one often does not find. We wrapped up the week at a wedding in a chateaux. Here are few pictures from the week here.

We stayed at two great hotels: Bastide du Calalou and La Lauren.