Hannah turns one

Our wonderful little niece, and my peach of a goddaughter, turned one on the 14th. It has been so special to be around her for the last year and watch her grow from a baby into a running, laughing, smiling little girl.

Hannah's birthday cake was a collaborative family effort and turned out fantastic and mighty delicious.

Hannah definitely agrees with the "delicious" part!

the Northern Hemisphere trip

** Sorry for the technical difficulties- YouTube didn't approve of my original musical accompaniment. It should work now!**

We got back from our epic Northern Hemisphere whirlwind trip about a week and a half ago and we are still glowing from all the fun...and finally not jet-lagged. I had just over three weeks of family time, friend time, birthday time (hello 30!) and treat time with some favorite American delicacies (hush puppies! Carolina BBQ! Reese's peanut butter cups! bagels!). Big B was gone a bit longer what with his trip to Brown University (a total success by the way). Our return wasn't the smoothest- more in a later post- but it is great to back home in Cape Town, enjoying the beautiful weather, catching up with friends and family, and setting our sights on spring.

There was just too much goodness to share conventional blog style so instead here is the under four minute highlight reel! Enjoy!!

3 things

Tomorrow I begin the Great Northern Hemisphere Tour of 2011. There will be visits with friends & family, hot weather (at least once I get to the US), oodles of good food & wine, a special wedding, belated, future, and on-time birthdays to celebrate, a reunion with Big B who left nearly two weeks ago, and a birthday of note for yours truly. I'm beside myself with excitement. I'm even taking my famous guava swirl cheesecake on the road, where it will be making guest appearances in York and ol' Virginny with the two fams. Good times.

But before I say adieu for now, here are three quick stories of the recent goings-on around here.

Brendan has been an all star in the birthday department (which will be getting its own post next month). We went away to Franschhoek a few weekends back for a pre-bday celebration as I won't be seeing him until after the big day. Among the many wonderful gifties I received were two pizza baking trays, thus ensuring Brendan with an abundance of my absolute favorite savory treat food for years to come. I wanted to take the trays for a test drive before he left, so I dug out a pizza crust recipe and got to work. However, being winter here, it was a cold, drizzly day and I was nervous the dough wouldn't rise properly. Time for Plan B: I filled a hot water bottle, rested the dough bowl on top, tucked it into our bed, swaddled it with the duvet, and voila! Parker and I might have crawled under the covers to spoon the bowl, enjoy the warmth, and have a nap at some stage too. The end result was delish. I highly recommend the snuggle-your-dough-to-make-it-rise method.

On said weekend away we came to possess about 30 lemons. I'm not going to go into details about how these lemons came to join us, but let it suffice to say they became ours after a champagne tasting at the Graham Beck Estate*. After a few glasses of pre-lunch champagne, anything sounds like a great idea. So last weekend I made lemon curd with my friend Annabelle. It is tart and bright yellow and the next best thing to sunshine on a winter's day.

*As an aside, the Graham Beck Brut was the sparkly stuff we served at our wedding in Connecticut AND it was the bubbles of choice for Obama's inauguration. I can't believe he took our idea. I bet he gave our wire beaded animals as favors too.

Finally, a lesson in parenting. When asked what he wanted for his birthday, or nephew James asked for a dog. Kate, being the generous mom that she is, responded that James could have Digger. James was thrilled. Digger is her parents' dog, who lives in South Africa (while Ant, Kate, James & Matt live in England). James is now a proud "owner" of a dog that his parents never have to care for. Best parenting move ever! To continue this trend, Brendan and I decided to give him a "cat", so James got a large printout of Parker to call his very own. As James prefers chats with Parker to us on Skype, this seemed a great plan. So Parker now lives a double life, and James got two pets for his birthday. 

Enjoy the rest of June. Have a glass of champagne on the 23rd for the youngest looking 30 year old around!

birthday party

Our friends Trevor and Jahro have been in Cape Town for the last ten days. You might remember them from the post that went up after we visited them in Canada before our move. Jahro turned three on Tuesday, so we decided to make full use of the election day holiday and throw him a birthday bash. The birthday boy has a beloved hedgehog toy (aptly named Hedgie) so I decided to make him a Hedgie cake.

Hegdie was a delicious almond cake with chocolate frosting and almond sliver spines. Jahro rocked up in a clown suit ready to party with Hedgie.

"Happy birthday" was sung, a wish was made, candles were blown out.

Then it was chow time. Jahro wanted the head. Later he came back to eat Hedgie's bum.

I think he liked it. 

For his birthday, Brendan and I gave Jahro a real South African vuvuzela. People who don't have kids can do such things and vaguely get away with it. We'll see if Trevor and Dale are still on speaking terms with us in a month. 

Happy Birthday Jahro!

birthday wish list

In just over three months I will turn 30. I have absolutely no angst or sorrow about this fact, so don't go thinking this is going to be a blog post where I whine about my age. The way I see it, my 30s will be filled with even more exciting adventures so what is there to stress about? Plus, the fact that I look about 12 doesn't hurt.

Anyway, there's a possibility that Big B will be off being brilliant at Brown University (la tee da!) when June 23rd rolls around this year. Brendan was feeling some serious guilt about the potential of missing my 30th, especially since I surprised him with a week-long trip to St. Thomas for his 30th birthday a few years ago. The guy didn't have a clue where we were going until we were checking in at JFK. Oooooh boy did I set the bar high on that one! I'm so excited for his shot at being selected to go to Brown (and maybe a little bit jealous too...I really like Providence). It was such a cool opportunity that he simply couldn't pass up. Besides, his absence is nothing that cannot be remedied by a full spa day and dinner at the 12 Apostles Hotel and Spa (if we sell Parker's body for science), membership to the Pie of the Month Club (dang...they don't ship to South Africa), or maybe just these lovely shoes from Anthropologie.



My friend Megan introduced me to Anthropologie many moons ago, and my bank account hasn't been the same since. I think these shoes are the perfect combination of funky and feminine. Swoon.

I reckon, though, that my wonderful husband has a few birthday tricks already up his sleeve that are better than any spa or pair of shoes. He's thoughtful like that. And I have nothing against buying these shoes as a birthday present to myself!