Holiday memories

2012 has finally come to an end, and has ended with a BANG for us! Our surprise-visit from our family in Dubai turned our quiet, plain December into a spectacular bonus we won’t ever forget. About a week before Christmas my brother Leon and his girlfriend, Kerry, arrived unannounced to celebrate Christmas with us. It was the cherry on top! I was missing my Mom very much and many times wished she was with us to enjoy it all, but she is in wintery England, working this Christmas.

I had to laugh many times when we landed up at ‘spots’ we as a family would have avoided this holiday season because of the influx of tourists – crowds, ques, lack of parking and all the busy-ness that goes with tourists just really isn’t our scene. But, we had fun accompanying our ‘tourist-family’ as they explored this beautiful Garden Route we are currently living on. Time and time again conversations came about this being THE best part of South Africa to be in, and I couldn’t agree more! A real bonus was the sunshine that suddenly appeared on the 12^th of December, just days before the locals predicted it would arrive!

Chantelle, in co-hoots with Oupa and Ouma, had organised a holiday-home for us to all stay at together in Great Break, a small coastal village just outside George. There was space for 10 of us to sleep very comfortably, and Dieter, Ethan, Aimee and I even had our own little flatlet under the house. We had a lovely open plan kitchen-cum-dining room where most of the action took place and the beach was only a 5 minute walk away. We definitely had the BEST beach in the area almost all to ourselves! We spent a lot of time at the beach, visiting markets, shopping, eating, laughing, playing and just generally having fun together.

We must have a good few hundred photos of our time together, I’ve chosen just a little of those and created a few collages to share with you of our time together. 

Us Giffords love our food, and every day was a culinary delight! Mike and Chants make a great chef-team and whipped up some wonderful meals for us. Aimee had fun helping make toast one morning and making the meatballs for Christmas Eve dinner! Dieter did his snoek-braai speciality and he and Mike did a few braais for us. No shortage of meat here in SA - and big meat too! Mike and Chants made us some amazing toasted samies on the fire on 2 different mornings, once when we had a 17-hour power failure .... ingenius!

The cousins had great fun together, from playing snooker, to building sand-castles and body-boarding .... to playing Monopoly and having fun in the park! They're a photogenic SIX!

We went fishing at the train bridge in Great Brak one morning .... the kids each had a turn to catch a small 'rock fish' or two, which made the whole trip worth it!

We had Grampa to ourselves for a couple of days and had so much fun exploring Mossel Bay and Great Brak together.

There never was a dull moment! Aimee had both her uncle Mikes building puzzles with her, one of her favourite past times! We played cards, chess, 30 Seconds, Monopoly and lots of pool too!

Leon and Mike Innes played a couple of games of golf together (ag, shame!, ha, ha!) and we played a couple of great games of family cricket! We braaied alot, visited some great markets together, travelled extensively across the Garden Route and just LOVED being together!

Ethan and Aimee had GREAT fun picking strawberries with Chants and Mike and also riding horses at the local Strawberry Farm. Ethan got to ride in the train with one of his homeschooling buddies too, which was very exciting!

Being able to walk down to the beach, sometimes twice a day, was a huge blessing! A jog, braving the wild waves, picnicing and building sandcastles were just some of the fun things we did on the beach together. There was a day we couldn't swim because a shark had been spotted in the shallows, so we had played an amazing game of cricket together - no pics of the cricket because everyone was playing!

We visited Timberlake's Wildwood Tree Adventures the one day and had an AMAZING time doing all sorts of exciting obstacles up in the trees. There was even a 45 minute course for Ethan and Aimee to do - they did almost all the things we older people did, just at a lower height than us. This was so much fun!

Everyone from youngest to oldest took part and we had a ball! It was an exciting challenge to be so high up in the trees and doing some monkey style tricks! The 2 courses we did kept us busy for about 2 and a half hours, and demanded every bit of strength, courage and determination we had! What a lot of fun!!

On Christmas Eve we gathered at Oupa and Ouma's house for some finger snacks and a evening of devotions and singing as we remembered the birth of Jesus. It was our first Christmas in SA in 11 years, so it was good to be with Dieter's family at Christmas. Opening the gifts was a huge highlight, but I think the hugest highlight was the lighting of 2 sky lanterns we'd bought at the Carols by Candlelight held at Fancourt a couple of nights earlier. It really took a team effort to get them into the air! Grampa timed them both and neither stayed lit for longer than 3 minutes, so we're sure they never started any veldfires!!

Leon and Kerry treated us to a gourmet buffet lunch in the Wilderness on Christmas Day. It was a wonderful occasion to get take some special family pics. After about 3 hours overlooking the sea while we ate our delicious meal, we all moved en-mass to Leon and Kerry's house where we relaxed together till late in the night enjoying each other's company!

 

Already, we are missing our family who has all moved on again. Chantelle and family, and Grampa, have all returned to Dubai and are back at work.  (Michael is back in Iraq already!) Leon and Kerry are holidaying in Cape Town over New Years and Mike Aldendorff is visiting family in Pretoria.

This visit became a wonderful, exciting holiday for us marked by fun times together in an area we haven’t yet explored together as a family. We are so blessed, blessed out of our socks! We’re back home again, resting and regaining our strength after many late nights and busy days ….. preparing for the exciting things 2013 has in store for us.