South Africa - Part 2 - For the kids

Did you know that they have penguins in Africa? I didn't!They're so cute!

Check out the video. You're really going to like it.


There were adult and baby penguins all over the beach that day. The babies were furry and didn't have a white belly (just like the one in the poster below).I also got to see zebras on my way to the cheetah sanctuary. This is a cheetah. In this place cheetahs are rescued from hunters and cared for until they are ready to go back into the wild. The ones who cannot go back (because they've become too nice) become part of an educational program to teach people about cheetahs and the fact that they are endangered animals. In this place you actually get to pet one.Next door to the cheetah sanctuary was a birds of prey sanctuary. There I got to pet this pretty eagle. He might look mean, but he's not really.

This one is called a secretary bird. I joked that she takes the notes from the rest of the birds in the compound. You can see her beautiful eyelashes if you enlarge the picture.

This cute baby owl was taking flight lessons for the daily bird show. The trainer wanted him to fly from the perch to his arm to eat a little piece of meat, but he wasn't that interested. The trainer said that the baby owl knew he would get a snack whether he flew or not, so it was hard to convince him to do any flying. He might be lazy, but he's still cute. Ostriches are everywhere in South Africa. This one decided to cross the road ahead of us just as we were driving by. People here like to carve empty ostrich eggs or put light bulbs inside them to make lamps. Very cool.

South Africa - Part 1 - The Adult stuff

Raquel just came back from 2 weeks in South Africa on a business trip. Here are a few of the cool pictures and videos that she brought back.

This is Cape Town, an old Dutch colony at the foot of Table Mountain. This is a shot of the marina looking at Table Mountain in the background. Raquel's hotel is the tallest white structure behind the light blue building on the left side of the picture. On the weekend Raquel got to go to the top of the mountain.

This is Raquel's co-worker, Steve. Joining Raquel and Steve in this picture is Mervin, their driver for the 2 weeks, who Raquel learned this day was a Christian. It was pretty neat, Mervin came to Raquel and asked, "are you a believer?" Raquel said yes, and then he said, "washed by the blood?" Raquel said yes, and then he said "I knew it, I felt it in my spirit." So we got a warm invitation to stay in his house next time we are in South Africa.

After Table Mountain, Raquel got to go to the Cape of Good Hope. As you can see, not the most Southern tip of Africa, but the "most south-western point" of Africa. A little bit of local learning: Raquel learned that there is another location which is actually the most southern point of the continent where the locals get pretty upset because they constantly get upstaged by Cape of Good Hope.

Raquel also got to see a few of the famous South African wineries. She went just to taste the grape juice and eat cheese, but the stuff was so good that she got drunk...... no not really .... but she did bring back some really good wine. Her favorite winery was this one (Fairfield) with a beautiful main house, gorgeous gardens and where you could walk among the vines. (Yes - my honey is a sucker for a pretty garden, as you can tell by all the pictures of our own garden on the blog.)

The goat is a part of the label for the bottles. (Neil says they use him to stomp the grapes.)There was a historical winery that had the old giant wood wine vats first constructed by the Portuguese. This place also had some beautiful carvings at the ends of the barrels telling the story of wine making in South Africa. There were over a dozen carved barrels in a room called "The Chapel" where they do parties and have classical music playing all the time.

Here is Raquel experiencing a little bit of local culture. This restaurant called "Mama Africa" served dishes from all over the continent. This is a shot of the menu. You don't actually choose the dish, they bring you one of each kind just for you to try.

Old Bathroom Pics

OK, we found a couple of pictures of what the bathroom used to look like. You have to check out this post and the one with the bathroom project from before.

Here is the old outdoor jacuzzi that started this adventure by leaking into the breakfast nook downstairs and caused us to rip the sub-floor.This picture looks to the right of the one above. It is the end of Raquel's old sink and vanity area.

Today the plumbers are here again and we hope to get well on our way to ready for inspection. They're busy putting all of the pipes in the walls and floors (and the attic too if you can believe that.)

Bathroom Project

OK, we've talked about how we've needed to work on the bathroom, and how we are going to work on the bathroom, and how we have worked on the bathroom a little bit already. Here are the first set of pictures. I can't seem to find any "before" pictures for some reason (honestly I'm not sure we took any, I'm don't know why we didn't think of that.) So this series is after the destruction and "before" we really started fixing anything (except the electrical - which we did most of before these shots and after Neil learned what 120 volts feels like). These are taken from the center of the room, circling around to show the whole room.

Along that wall was where the old outdoor jacuzzi bathtub was (the one that started this mess by leaking into the floor and down to the dining room below). You can see the drain line from it coming out of the floor on the right. On the left would have been Neil's sink, and on the right would have been Raquel's sink which was in a long cabinet. The lumber leaning along the wall is from our beginning to disassemble the shower enclosure.

This is turning to the left. Neil is in the doorway to the master bedroom and the other studs (to the left of him) used to be part of the shower enclosure (you can see the pipes for the shower head). The door to the left of that is the master closet.

Circling more to the left, you can see the master closet door again, the little toilet room, and then to the left would have been Raquel's sink and the beginning of the cabinets.

We'll try to keep the blog posted with periodic updates on our progress. It might be a couple of weeks though. Raquel just left for just over a week in South Africa. I am at home today while the plumbers are doing the rough in work. The next steps will be to get the rough in plumbing inspection and rebuild the subfloor (they are busy cutting it up right now).

08 Vacation - Day 4 - A little more vacationing

On Friday before coming come, we got to see a glass blowing operation.

We also got to see a cool rock feature with a pool outside of Austin, that we surprising never heard of while we lived there. Its a huge rock overhang that has water trickling off of it into a pool below. Unfortunately we couldn't swim because of the bacteria levels. Check out the pictures.

08 Vacation - Day 3 Guadalupe River

Day 3 - Cooling down at the Guadalupe river.

We decided to hit the water again and spend a relaxing day by the river. Check out how the photographer is excited about his photo-shoot technique.

08 Vacation - Day 2 Part II - Caving Cont....

Day 2 Part II - After a very satisfying lunch at Rudy's we went to Natural Bridge caverns in New Braunfels.

The caves were called Natural Bridge because of this rock formation at the entrance. The area where Raquel is standing used to be a cave room that got eroded because of rains and the roof collapsed leaving only the "bridge" as a reminder of what it once was.

These caves were found by 3 college students who asked permission from the owner of the land to explore the sink hole (entrance of the cave). As they were looking around, they felt cool air coming up from between some of the rocks. They moved some of the rocks aside and found a larger room and a network of caves not seen before.
The land owner didn't believe the students and when they asked to go back a second time she sent her son with the group. But, when her son came back she didn't believe him either. So, when the students went back a third time, she sent a few town folks with them to check out the story. Only then did the owner believe she had something truly amazing and she toured the USA for ideas on how to explore, develop and protect the caves. The cave tour went down 18 stories and we walked 3/4 miles of approximately 3 miles of caves. We saw 5 beautiful rooms of "live" caves where formations are still growing. The humidity inside is always between 95-99% and there is water dripping from the ceiling. If you look closely at some of the pictures, you can see water drops caught by the camera's flash.