Happy Holidays 2011

My major trip this year was to Africa.  It is something I have always wanted to do and I figured I better take advantage of good health and energy to do the more adventurous travel that I still want to do.  I flew to Johannesburg (a very long flight) stayed overnight and continued on to Livingstone, Zambia the next day where I met up with my friend Marie, from Spain, for our African adventure. 

Flying over Victoria Falls in a microlite was thrilling.   As you will see from the photo it is like a small two-seater contraption with wings and a motor.  As you fly above the falls you get a great view from every angle.  We also explored the falls from ground level and took a tour over to Livingstone Island in the middle of the headwaters of the falls.

The next day we joined our tour for a three week safari.  We traveled in this huge truck and camped in tents for most of the time.  Our tour was a wonderful mix of game drives, boat trips along the rivers, hikes, exploring towns and villages and a few days in the wine country.

In Botswana we cruised along the Chobe River only a stone’s throw away from elephants, kudu, hippos, crocodiles, baboons, and a myriad of other creatures along with tons of beautiful birds.

 

We spent three days camping in the Okavango Delta where we were met by local guides who loaded us into mocorros (a type of dugout canoe) that are moved along by polers through a blanket of lily pads.  After setting up camp on one of the islands we were off for some walks to see what game and wildlife we could find.

We spent 10 days in Namibia with absolutely unbelievable landscape that seems to change every 50 miles or so.  We were in the Etocha Game Park for two days.  All the campgrounds were first class with swimming pools, good kitchen facilities, showers and beautiful settings but the one in Etocha was particularly amazing.

We spent most of our time there on game drives to see the animals and birds.

Our next stop was a cheetah farm where the farmer introduced us to three cheetahs he has brought up since they were babies so they are pretty people friendly. They are certainly beautiful animals.

He said when his father began farming there in 1933 the wild cheetahs were eating all his livestock so instead of killing them he decided to feed them. They have made the farm into a tourist destination and in addition to the three we were able to pet there are 17 wild cheetahs.  We loaded up into the back of a pick up truck and went into the enclosed area to watch them feed the wild cheetahs and then camped at the farm overnight.

One morning we were up before sunrise so we could drive the 60 miles to the beautiful world famous sand dunes at the Naucliff National Park.  We learned that the orange color of the dunes is from the iron in the sand.  As it oxidizes it changes color and the older the dune the more orange it becomes. We climbed up to the top of one of the dunes before breakfast for a fabulous view.

Another night we camped at the foot of some amazing rock formations, it was a full moon and a beautiful place to spend the night of my birthday

In South Africa we visited the wine country and toured five of the wineries.  Our tour ended up in Capetown where we tacked on a few more days to see the sights.  We took a cable car up to the top of Table Mountain and rented a car that took us around Cape Horn so we were able to see the beautiful beaches and landscape that make up the Cape. 

We also took the tour to Robben Island to see the prison where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for 27 years.  A very sobering but important tour to understand the challenges the Black South Africans have had to overcome. The poster shows the prisoners arriving in chains.

 

We had a small group of five because it was off season but lucked out because Harry and Annette have a B and B in Germany and he loves to cook so they pretty much took care of the meal planning and cooked all the meals.  It was a great trip, I saw lots of animals on our game drives and we stayed in first class campgrounds when we weren’t camping in the bush.

 

Soon after I got home my friends Gladys and Len came for a few days for the opening of baseball season.  It is always amazing that there seems to be more Canadians than Americans at the game when the Toronto Blue Jays come to town to play the Mariners. I also went to Comox on Vancouver Island on a return visit in September.  They are such great guests and hosts and always load me up with their home made wine and jams and preserves.

My cousin Carman and her husband Yoshi came for a visit with their darling little Taiga when he was only 6 weeks old.  It has been fun to connect with her again and I always enjoy it when she and her husband come to Seattle for a visit. 

Her sister Jill really surprised us all later in the summer when I went to Vancouver for a BBQ at the home of Jill’s fiance Derek and after being there for an hour or so we found out we were really there for their garden wedding!  I’m glad I didn’t miss that.

In April my mom decided she wanted to go and live near my brother so on a trip to Winnipeg in April I stopped off in Invermere to check out the facility my brother had in mind for her.  Then started the process of changing everything over and planning her move for June.  Because the moving companies couldn’t guarantee delivery dates for furniture I went to Winnipeg the middle of June, rented a U-Haul, loaded up everything and my friend Barb from Saskatchewan came to Winnipeg to drive with me.  She drove as far as Yorkton and then my cousin Peter from Saskatoon, the rest of the way.  It wasn’t as difficult as I thought but since I had never driven a truck before it was great to have the company.   We drove the distance in two long days and had everything in place when my mom arrived on the fourth day.  It has been a difficult transition for her as she has severe memory loss now but it is great that she is now with Jeff and all his family in Invermere and it is close enough now that I can drive to see her. The photo shows Jeff and his son Levi and daughter Mariah plus his grandchildren from his daughter Krista, Caden who is 4 and the twins Brooke and Anna who are just two.  So my mom has grandchildren and great grandchildren there. 

In May Ozgur and his whole family came from Turkey for a visit.  His father Halil, mother Rahime and sister Leman.They started in Los Angeles where they explored all the amazing things they have always heard about, Disneyland, Universal Studios, Hollywood, etc. and then rented a car and drove up the coast to San Francisco before flying to Seattle for 10 days. It was so great to have them visit.  We had a big party for them to meet all of Ozgur’s friends and everyone was happy to see him again. The photo shows Rahime wearing the scarf I knit for her.

They hadn’t even left when my friend Janice and her sister Glenda arrived for a wedding so I actually had to send them across the street to my neighbors for one night as I had a full house.  I had lots of company this past summer but it was really fun.

My friend Colin who lives in Vancouver brought his cousins Roger and Vickie down to Seattle for a weekend in July.  I have stayed with them in England so it was great to see them again.

I also went to Winnipeg yet again, after moving my mom and thinking I wouldn’t be going back again for awhile.  I decided to go when my aunt (my mom’s eldest sister, Isabelle, passed on).  She was 96 and was a big part of my growing up years.  It was so special to be with all my cousins to celebrate her life, especially since her daughter Rhonda and I had worked on a dvd last year which chronicled their family. We had such a good time doing the dvd that it put me in touch with all the old memories and at the memorial we had a lot of laughs about all the crazy things that Isabelle did and the wonderful way she could tell a story. The old photo shows my mom at the back with sisters Verna (L) and Isabelle (R) with their mom, my grandmother in the middle.

In August my friends Andrea and George sold their condo and moved into my house for six months or so.  It gives them a chance to decide what’s next for them without pressure of having to decide on the spot and it allows me to be gone for most of the six months.  George is retiring at the end of the year and Andrea hopefully in March so it works out great for all of us.

1965 was my first big trip when I went to Europe for three months to hitch hike and take a two month tour of the continent. I am still in touch with two of the women I met on that trip and when I saw Kaaren (who now lives in Newfoundland) this summer when she came to Vancouver I decided to get serious about putting my old slides from 1965 Europe together for a slide show with music from the 60s and some titles to follow what we did. I sent her and Sheila copies of those old memories and they enjoyed the retrospective as much as I did putting it together. The old photo is when we went down into the Salt Mines in Austria.  Sheila is at the front, me third, my friend Chrystol that went with me fourth from last and Kaaren third from the last.  The other photo is Kaaren and I 40 plus years later.

 

This year my former roommates and I got together for a cruise to Alaska. We do something fun each fall around the anniversary time that we came to Vancouver and all lived together.  They had been to their high school reunion last year and cooked up a cruise with some of their former school friends so we made it a joint celebration and 12 of us went on the cruise.  The weather was poor, lots of rain and pretty chilly but Alaska is beautiful and the day we spent in Glacier Bay wasn’t raining so everyone was able to be out on deck and up close to the massive ice bergs. 

 

Last year when we were at a beach resort I took this photo of four ladies in old bathing suits and put our faces on the bathing beauties and gave it to Judy, Liz and Bernice this year on our cruise.  They got a real kick out of the photo.

It was fun to be included in the celebrations for Carly’s wedding.  I still see my ex husband’s daughters a couple of times a year and am always delighted to be included in family gatherings.  Carly and Alan were married in Greece in July but then had a big celebration in September complete with a video of their wedding in Greece and some delicious Greek food. The first photo is Carly and her mom, Mickie and the second, of course, from the wedding in Greece.

I continue to spend time with Lilia Elena’s family and enjoyed watching Robert first play basketball, then baseball and in the fall soccer.  Going to the games is really fun.  Even Ana Lilia played soccer this year.  She was only 3 years old at the time and it was a real laugh.  Between the tears because she didn’t want to play sometimes, the little boy who wouldn’t even put on his soccer shirt, and the little boy who had to have his mother on the field with him, it was hysterical.  She liked the idea of it because Robert plays soccer but in actuality she decided it wasn’t for her.  She likes her ballet lessons better.  They also got a puppy this year which was a major event.

My (ex) sister in law, Pat, had asked me awhile ago if I would consider driving to Arizona with her for a couple of months and I said sure as I am always looking for winter sunshine.  We had planned to leave in early October but she had to have some last minute surgery and then wasn’t feeling good following it so we didn’t get away until the middle of November.  We drove down in four days and arrived just before American Thanksgiving.  It is a beautiful resort with everything you can think of to do.  On Mondays I go hiking in the desert with the hiking club. The desert has a beauty of its own with all the different cactus and we are usually in sight of the Superstiton Mountains.  On Thursday and Saturday I go to Zumba Dance classes and have joined the Electronics Club so have unlimited access to their state of the art computers (both MACs and PCs) and all the printers, fax machines and copy machines that you need so it was easy to get my Christmas letter and website done. 

My friend Jan is living here, well at least close by in Tempe, so we were able to work on my photo collage that she usually does for me each year.  She is much better at Photoshop than I am but it was fun to be here right with her this year when we worked on it. I always do a photo collage to go along with my Christmas Letter for my friends who don’t have internet access.

I think Pat and I will probably be here at least until the end of January so that will be a nice chunk of the rainy winter gone by the time we return to Seattle.

So it is hard to believe it is Christmas as I sit here in Mesa, Arizona amid palm trees and sunny, warm weather.  However the calendar says I should be thinking about Christmas so I wanted to put together my Christmas website and be in touch with all my wonderful friends.  I am looking forward to your cards and letters and wish you all the very best for 2012.