8th yrs... has it really been that long?

Well, God certainly has been good to us. I can't emphasis this point enough, if God tells you to do something, no matter how impossible it seems (say, for example, he tells you to pick up your family and move to South Africa!), go for it and you won't regret it. On to our anniversary account. We had a wonderful anniversary, we ate at an Italian restaurant called Mamma Roma owned by a wonderful Italian lady named Christina originally from Bergamo. We went with a fish theme for the meal and Pinot Grigio, exquisite.
The restaurant is situated on the face of some mountains, and fog rolled in just towards the end of the meal which took us right back to the poetic fog of the Po valley, felt very much like the Verona fog. We then spent the night in a four star hotel named the Straightway overlooking the Helderberg Bay, absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, I thought that I would take some pictures just before leaving the Hotel, but more fog rolled in right after breakfast around 9 AM, but I'll see if I can find some other photos I have of the bay. AH... and most were taken with my cell phone, so excuse the quality.

New Album up...

2007_09_10-Various photos From August and September

TIA "This is Africa"

"This is Africa", or so they say. Anywho, here is a regular tow truck :) the photo below is in a PRIMARY SCHOOL! Only goes up to 6 years old. LOL. I am, however, recommending a book that I just read to everyone who has the smallest changes happening in their lives.
It's called, "Who Moved My Cheese" by Spencer Johnson. It takes roughly 15-20 minutes to read, and when you start out your thinking, "this is so stupid it's like a kids story about a mice in a maze trying to find cheese!", but by the end, you aren't thinking of the cheese and the mice, just your own life. It's great!! The only think i can compare it to is Jesus' parables for simplicity in getting across the deepest lessons. All i can say is check it out!

August Newsletter

Volunteer work

If anyone is interested in knowing exactly what it is we are doing down here in South Africa, or A(n)zania as it will soon be called (but not before the 2010 world cup), you can click on the picture link to the right which describes our latest Project updates. There is almost too much to do, with almost half of the country earning less then €120 a month. they also say they will have an 'army' of children orphans because of AIDS. In South Africa an estimated 5.5 million people are estimated to have the virus, including about 240,000 children set to rise to 700,000 within the next 10 years.

In the African continent's economic powerhouse, South Africa, 800 to 900 people every day are dying from Aids. The country holds the dubious record of having five million HIV/Aids sufferers: the highest number in the world, an infection rate of 21.5 per cent.
Click here for the link if you haven't done so on the picture yet: http://mikeandliz.googlepages.com/SeptemberNewsletter.pdf

Flashback - the revenge....

Blast from the Past

Another flashback going over some photos of the ancient past history. Man, I've done a lot over the last 10 years since the invention of the digital camera, thinking back over it, if I could go back and do it over again, I wouldn't change a thing. - No Pain, No Gain!

Click on the photo for the web album with the photos.

Speir Wine Farm

From 2007_08_15-Sp...

One thing that I find nice about the Western Cape of South Africa is that it has a Mediterranean culture, probably because it has a similar climate. But what impresses me the most is the emphasis they put on outdoor activities, wine farms and safaris, hikes and nature walks, down-hilling and motocross, its nice to be in a country that appreciates the big outdoors.

From 2007_08_15-Sp...

The other Sunday we went to a wine farm named Speir, the wine wasn't exceptional, even when tasting some of their reserves, but wasn't bad either. The girls had a great time tho', we even found imitation prosciutto crudo and mozzarella, it worked for a picnic. The same day we were at another wine farm not too far named 'Mooiberg' or something like that, same there.

From 2007_08_15-Sp...

I can't wait for full summer to roll around, we have a swimming pool begging to be used, but the temp varies from 15-20 degrees so not real swimming weather but doesn't feel like winter either.

A walk down memory lane - Hong Kong...

Hong Kong

I was going through some of our old digital photos and came across some that I hadn't seen in a while, our 1999-2000 6 month spell in Hong Kong... And the memories came flooding back... adapting from the single life to living with the partner I would then marry a few yrs down the road, and then of course the Y2K scare, there we were in the middle of a parade of millions of people, one of the most lit-up cities in the world, counting down from 10 and half expecting all the lights to go out and total panic, instead... nothing, I read the next day that one of the old computers regulating the sewage flow screwed up the dates and backlogged an entire part of the city. Anywho... those were the days :)