A bee-day party!!

Yesterday was little Eve's first birthday!! It was so much fun helping Lucy get things together for her special day, especially with the cake decorating! It was a bee theme an Eve loved it all! From her pretty dress and bumble bee wings to all the cake and cupcakes! Happy Bee-day Eve!!!

Family Fun

We have the cutest niece and nephew!! It has been so much fun spending time with them. Its hard to believe how much they grown up in the last few months.

A brief recap

It has been almost 4 months since we left all the sun, sand, and waves in South Africa. We have had a blast at home on the Chicago area spending lots of time with friends and family. We were able to do a lot in this time at home too. We celebrated our 2nd anniversary, took a couple road trips to Iowa, visited our friends in Maryland and saw some great friends get married and now we are in London!! We can't wait to see all the amazing adventures this trip has in store for us next! Once we get over this bit of jet lag we will share more pictures of our adventures and how cute Ollie and Eve are!!

Natures Valley

We took the kayak with us on our weekend adventure to Tsitsikamma.  It was fun to paddle around the river together.  We even were able to leave right from our hut and pull up on the beach to relax for a while in the sun before paddling back for Bruce to cook another amazing meal on the fire. 

We saw this cove while on our walk up to the top of the hill and immediately decided we would get the snorkeling stuff to come back and swim. 

Well we did come back and somehow had the place to ourselves.  We did a little snorkeling, a little swimming, and had fun jumping in off the rocks.  It was the perfect little spot because when we walked out we realized it was actually really windy and starting to cloud over, but protected by the rocks it was an amazing day at the beach!

  

to the top

As we were walking along the beach at Nature's Valley we saw some people at the top of this hill, on the ledge near the ocean and thought how can we get up there.  Well, this is actually the last part of the 5 day Otter Trail hike I mentioned before.  We saw a couple people walk into some brush and then a few minutes later saw them half way up so we thought why not, so up we went! The view was great and we were the only ones at the top!

This is the view from the top towards the campgrounds.  The ocean is on the bottom and then on top of the beach is the lagoon and river that goes along the campgrounds.  The river was actually right outside out forest hut.  Even though it was a little cloudy, the view is still amazing!

the waterfall

The first morning we went to Tsitsikamma we went on a hike.  This trail was part of the first day of the 5 day Otter Trail hike that Bruce's family did a couple times together.  It is about a 2 hour hike to this amazing waterfall that you can swim around in.  So we packed a lunch and spent the day sitting around the waterfall and swimming in the very very cold water.  I thought the ocean was cold, but it didn't compare to this!  Maybe one day we will try the full Otter Trail, but for now I think I will stick to my day hikes. 

  

Tsitsikamma

Last weekend we went cabin camping, well Forest Hut camping actually in an area called Tsitsikamma.  The weather was perfect and we had a great time.  Bruce's dad and Jenny came with us the first night to Storms River and then we went on the next day to Nature's Valley.  Both places were right on the water and we got to go on some amazing little hikes, found another quite swimming cove, and cooked some great food on the fire.  A great weekend all around!!