So Vere and I are crazy and decided to take Cole to the other side of the planet on a 22 day long vacation to visit Vere's family in England and South Africa and to visit some of the youth development programs that Kits for Africa has been supporting. It was a great trip! The long haul flights however, not so great. We booked red eyes for all four of the 10-11 hour flights because we thought Cole would just sleep since it would be night time and he would be tired. We have never been so wrong!
The first part of our trip we visited Richard and Diana in the New Forest in the southern part of England. During our flight out, Cole took a few long naps which panned out to about 4 hours total. At the time, I didn't think it was very good, but that would turn out to be one of our best flights. Cole and I were also getting over a stomach bug the day we flew out, which we gave to Vere the day of our arrival :) Lucky for Vere, Cole slept a record 14 hours straight that first night and didn't wake up until 11 the next morning. And the stomach thing was pretty much a 24-36 hour bug. We really just relaxed on this part of the trip. We went into Portsmouth to visit the Historic Dockyard and toured the HMS Victory. We ate at lots of pubs, visited the horses and hung out in Richard and Diana's beautiful garden.
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| HMS Victory |
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| Cole with Daddy and Grandpa Richard |
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| Cole with daddy on the Victory |
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| Cole and Vere at The George on the River Avon |
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| Me, Cole and Richard in front of the chalet at Richard and Diana's that we stay in. |
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| Vere and Cole in the garden |
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| Cole with Grandma Diana |
Our next stop was South Africa to the Barker's house where Lucy, Anthony and the girls live in Gordon's Bay. I think Cole slept about 90 minutes on that flight. Vere and I, maybe 30 minutes. But once we got there, we had the best time! And Cole loved it! I seriously think Cole thought that that was his new home. We were there for 10 days and the Barkers could not have been better hosts! - THANK YOU!
We were so busy during this part of our trip, I think I will just post all the pics and write captions...
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| The amazing view of False Bay from The Barker's house. |
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| Day 2: We took a drive to Hermanus. |
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| Town of Hermanus |
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| Cole with his Auntie Lucy! |
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| Vere, Anthony and I at the Tavern. Lucy graciously volunteered to babysit. I guess you could say we had a good time. Anthony wanted to be the guy in motion and I thought it was very funny... |
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| Vere and Charlie (one of our board members) with the kids from the Western Province Rugby Clinic. This was our first stop to visit the kids we've been supporting and it was the best experience. There were probably about 200 kids there and they did this whole presentation where different leaders in the community got up to speak encouraging words to the children. They even had Vere go up and say a few words. |
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| I love this pic. Cole just thought he ruled the place. Cruising around not even caring that there were hundreds of big kids around. |
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| And he just LOVED the rugby balls. |
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| He spent forever just trying to pick one up. This was a proud moment. |
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| obsessed... |
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| At the end they presented Vere with some wines from their local winery as a thank you for our support. It was very cool. |
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| Out next stop was to meet with Western Province Cricket Union. Here we are on the pitch. |
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| This is us driving into one of the townships where the Kuyasa school was located...and we were all a bit nervous... |
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| But then there was this awesome school that this amazing couple, Cassie and Jenny built. |
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| Charlie with some of the Kuyasa kids. |
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| The school was not only for kids but also adults to learn different trades. This guy was showing us how he makes brooms out of old plastic soda bottles. |
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| I just thought this was so funny that Lucy called it "just a baby". Then proceeded to catch it in a jar and let it go. But I guess killing it would have been like killing a small rodent... |
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| Drive to Franschhoek |
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| View of Franschhoek from our drive. |
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| Huguenot Monument in Franschhoek |
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| Cole playing the drum with cousin Charlotte |
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| This was the start of our crazy day where we decided to take a drive along the peninsula. Here is St. James beach in Muizenberg. |
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| More Muizenberg |
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| Top of Cape Point. |
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| Cape Point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are supposed to meet. |
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| Vere and Charlie at the top of Cape Point |
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| Cole found his toes on the long drive... |
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| Us in front of the beach of Stangkop. Vere and I took a picture in this exact spot about 5 years earlier. |
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| Stop in Hout Bay for lunch. |
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| Up the gondola to Table Mountain... |
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| Cole on top of Table Mountain |
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| Us on top of Table Mountain |
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| View of Cape Town from Table Mountain |
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| Table Mountain from the V and A |
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| Us in front of Table Mountain at the V and A. Cole was such a trooper that day. We seriously took him on a crazy little road trip. |
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| The following day we went great white shark cage diving. And Auntie Lucy once again babysat for us. Here we are in our seal suits. |
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| One of the 8 sharks that were circling the boat that day. |
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| Another... |
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| Underwater camera pics... |
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| Vere and I in the cage. |
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| Another pic of the view from Lucy and Anthony's. Here is Charlie celebrating his 30th birthday with a cigar. |
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| This day we visited the Helderberg football academy in the Nomzano township. We donated 30 boots and 8 kits (shirts, shorts and sock for 8 teams) for this group. |
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| And once again Cole thought it was one big playground. |
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| Pic from our drive through the Nomzano township. |
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| Jack and Amber during their busy day. |
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| Yup, 10 days with these two... GOOD TIMES! Thanks Lucy and Anthony for an amazing trip! |
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| On our last day, we had breakfast with one of Vere's best friend, John and his family Justine, Leo and Joshua. |
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| Then lunch at Blues Restaurant to celebrate Jessi's birthday! |
Cole started dancing during the trip and hasn't stopped since! Here is a little taste...
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| Cole with his beautiful cousins Charlotte, Katie and Jessi |
The following morning we headed back to the UK. Cole was coming down with a cold that he eventually passed on to Vere and I so we were sick in England once again. Cole hardly slept on the plane and Vere and I didn't sleep at all. In fact, Vere was feeling so bad when we got there that I had to drive from Manchester airport to Stockton-on-Tees on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, driving stick... with zero sleep. Somehow we made it in one piece and managed to get a lot of sight seeing done in those four days.
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| Views from the top of tower at Durham Cathedral |
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| Cole with Gran in front of Durham Cathedral |
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| Crathorne Hall (where we stayed) has the most beautiful gardens and Cole was enjoying taking a walk and pulling up all the flowers. |
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| And eating the pine cones... |
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| And just running around! |
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| I thought this sign was funny...seriously? We passed this sign every time we drove from our hotel to Eva's house. |
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| York Minster pics... |
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| Town of York |
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| Clifford's Tower in York |
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| Dinner at Crathorne Hall (from top left clockwise: Me, David, Rosemary, Vere, Eva, Emma and Russell) |
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| Cole, Vere and Eva at what remains of Hadrian's Wall |
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| Hexham Abbey |
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| Hugs from Gran! |
Here are some nice pics Lucy took from our trip...
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| Oh ya... Cole fell and scraped his nose. And then 2 days later he fell and scraped the scab off. Poor guy! |
