All about the Woollams: A birthday, an exhibition and a GREAT weekend away

What an amazing week and to top it all off ... my birthday week!

The week started on high with seeing our precious little Baby Woollam again. And ended with a hot shower after a beautifully cold weekend.

It was my 29th birthday on Thursday and I would just like to say thanks to all my amazing friends who called, mailed and sms'ed me the bestest wishes! You guys absolutely rock my world! I spent the day with Kelly, shopping and sipping hot chocolate at Vida! And ended my day with my photography exhibition. We were only 6 students and had our little exhibition on Thursday night to end off our course, unfortunately I left before everyone else and couldn't take my photos with me, but as soon as I collect them, I will post them. My husband said that my photo was the best one there ... he might have been a little bias, but I still love him! What an amazing course and for anyone who wants to know a little more about their cameras and have some really fun practical lessons, visit: http://www.fforward.co.za/Fast_Forward/Welcome.html and to top it all off, the photo of the door and the broken window ... IS MINE!!!!

Friday night we went for a little birthday dinner with a few of our amazing friends. We went to Bihari in Fish Hoek, the most amazing little Indian Restaurant with the most amazing curry! Fish Hoek is a dry town, so no alcohol gets sold, but we took some wine, beer and champagne along to celebrate.

Matt & Kirsty

Frannie & Candz

Matt (Candz husband) & Paul (Fran's fiance)

Bianca and Garth

Martin & Kelly

The craziness of deliciously hot curry!

Candz, Frannie & I

The group!

What an amazing evening! Thank you so much for dinner and joining me on my birthday guys! Love you always!

Saturday John and I got invited to a weekend away in Hawston. A good friend Mike has a private nature reserve in Hawston, which is about 5 km's outside Hermanus. The whole farm is totally "green" running on solar power, wind power and water supplied by the rain. The guard dogs are good old faithful or should I say feared Ostriches. All in all, the most beautiful place! Totally peaceful and amazing to enjoy it with good and new friends.

Due to it being winter time, the solar power was obviously a little limited, the wind was so strong that the gas flame for the hot water kept on blowing out, so no hot water for the weekend. The rain water has to last the whole year, which leads to only flushing the toilets once or twice a day. They have a very clever plan on reusing all the water used, by standing in a bucket in the shower, to catch all the dirty water you wash off yourself, and then using that to flush the toilets with. A few people jumped into the icy cold showers one of the mornings, but I opted to stay save and not tempt early labour with 0'degree water washing over my little bump. Not the norm for us city slickers, but it was so refreshing to see how much better we could be to our mother earth. John and I are now totally aware of how we waste water, electricity and take the MANY luxuries we have grown up with and became dependent on for granted!

Saturday night we watched our South African Bulls totally eat the Chief for breakfast after their Super 14 win of 61-17 at a little pub in Onrus. Afterwards we went back to the Italian Villa in the middle of the beautiful nature reserve to make homemade pizzas. I'm not going to say much about the pizza, except ... what's homemade pizza without a flour fight? Pictures tell all ...

Starting off calm with Candz chopping ingredients and the boys chatting ....

When it all went pear-shaped ... flour fight!

Candz & Mike (our amazing host)

Candz in ALL her glory!

The gang: Mike, Candz, George, Sally, Darren & John

(please note ... no hot water for showering!!!)

Our fantastic pizza braai'er Mattie

The bestest dough roller and in good old Johnny fashion, loaded his pizza with soooo many toppings, that it was too heavy for the base and broke in the oven ... :(

Mike & Sally

John making a fire to heat the house

After dinner silliness with our own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Mattie

Mike

The night took an interesting turn when John took a photo of me in action, but captured a weird shining light in the picture. We were totally confused, but Candice quickly set us straight by explaining that it was the way angels gets captured in photos. I've never seen anything like it and I'm sure there's a scientific explanation for it, but I was told that it's a angel looking over me and the baby ... now how can you not want to think something so beautiful. I would love to believe that my guardian angel (who I've believed to have been there most of my life) is looking over me and my unborn baba! The photo below:

The next morning I slept in while John, Candz and Matt had a private yoga session with George. I woke up just in time to capture them finishing off. What a way to start the morning!

We had our tea and decided to go for a walk in the nature reserve, which stretches for 5 km's next to the beach and all the way up into the Hermanus mountains. Some photos of the beautiful setting:

John

The group!

After the walk, John and I took a drive to Hermanus to go visit my dad ... thinking that I was going to have a nice hot shower at my dad's, he told me that the Hermanus area's electricity has been off the entire day and night and I was out of luck of any hot water. Not even a kettle to boil some. So off John and I went to the petrol station to buy some take away coffee, we had a good afternoon just chilling with my pops!

And last but not least, the trusty guard dogs!