Walk and Roll

Summertime and the living is easy.  Cape Town summers are truly perfect, it's eighty degrees everyday, sunny, blue skies, with a hint of a cool breeze from the ocean, what's not to love?

Dana and I celebrated our sixth (!!) Valentine's Day at a lovely restaurant in town called the Five Flies.  Doesn't sound like the most appealing name for fine dining, but it most certainly was delicious food!  We were spoiled with grilled prawns and rocket salad, linefish with roasted vegetables and creme brulee (my favorite!).  It was special to have a night out just the two of us to reflect on our time together throughout the years, meeting in Montana, our adventure to Cape Town in 2006, not knowing we would still be here today, married and chasing after a little Sophiya!

 We spent our Valentine's Day weekend at our new favorite camping spot, Beaverlac, in the Cedarberg Mountains just north of Cape Town.  This is the perfect place to go during the summer, because just a five minute walk away from your campsite you have a natural swimming pool to cool off from that hot African sun.  Sophiya really enjoyed the swimming and hiking as usual, but not the "happiest camper"  due to 4 teeth all coming in at the same time on top.  Beaverlac is brilliant because even though you are in the middle of nowhere, they have a little tuckshop with all the essentials in case you forget something, such as the SALT which would have been a disaster for me and little luxuries like milk for morning coffee/tea, ice cream and cold beer. 

Sophiya has taken her first steps!  She is still quite unsure on her feet and not certain about the whole walking on her own thing, but this new milestone is certainly an exciting one for Mom and Dad.  Along with her physical development, she is really starting to understand things that we tell her, even though she can't speak yet.  She will point to her feet, toes, hand or head when we ask her.   She will point to our nose, eyes and mouth, sometimes so excitedly that we get an eye gauge or finger up our nostril!  She is also very actively showing us what she wants by pointing her finger at something or shaking her head "no" if she refuses something, which is happening very often these days!

 (Seven Months)

Along with her new teeth, all of a sudden her trademark finger sucking stopped!  I was shocked and a bit sad that this baby trait was fading away.  I think that is what mothers feel all the time though, a sense of pride for your child to be growing and maturing, but sad that a piece of your little baby is disappearing.

Last weekend was another camping trip with friends to Onrus, near Hermanus, one of the best land based whale watching destinations in the world.  Although it's not whale season at the moment, we had lovely weather, amazing campsite and a great group of couples and kids together.  We spent the weekend at the beach, relaxed under our shaded camp spots, visited the local Saturday market, enjoyed the fire under the stars and indulged in amazing South African POTJIEKOS.

The Afrikaans word "potjiekos" directly translates as "small pot food" and is normally a type of stew prepared outdoors in a three legged pot over an open fire.  Dana and I were educated on the art of making the perfect Potjie and are now well prepared to make one of our own in the future.  We had both a lamb curry and chicken & mushroom with cream, both delicious and fed a huge group of adults with leftovers!  In addition, we cooked "pot bread" and a Malva pudding for dessert over the fire.  I found the beauty in this style of cooking was that it took a lot of time to cook, but the process was so worth the wait and the food tasted incredible!  I don't know why anyone still chooses to eat fast food, when "slow food" is so much more delicious and nutritious.

Our favorite thing to do after a long weekend playing in the dirt, minimal showers and lots of fresh air is giving Sophiya a good scrub down in the bath, she seems to really enjoy getting squeaky clean too!  She is fascinated with bubbles recently so her baths have become quite entertaining for us all, Mom went a little overboard on the bubbles this particular bath time...