My Top 10 Moments of 2013!

Hello Journeyers!
WOW have I missed you! To be honest with you, I have been a tad off my blogging game lately. For some reason I am completely demotivated. So if you have ANY tips on how to get me motivated again please leave 'em down below! :)
I was reading Jenna's Top Moments over at A Home Away From Home and she persuaded me to do my own Top Moments Post.

I will be sharing my Top 10 Moments of 2013 below in no alphabetical order!

1) 3 Year Anniversary - Yes, most of you must be thinking "why that as a highlight". Well it's easy. I love Cedric so much and for me to reach 3 Years in a relationship is quite a big deal. hehe. Because he has officially been my longest relationship. I will take that as a sign and keep him around for a while longer...or forever!

2) #JHBbloggermeetup - I came up with this bright idea to organise a Johannesburg Blogger Meet up. After lots of planning and hard work trying to get everything together while having a 8-5 work we did it! I loved organising it, and was extremely blessed to have so many amazing sponsors jump on board who spoiled each blogger and contributed to the very generous goody bags. I met so many lovely people this day and I know that some of them will be in my life forever. I love how blogging and social media have introduced me to so many wonderful people. We all came together at Vovo Telo Parkhurst where we spent most of the day getting to know each other better and just laughing the day away. These ladies are truly special!

3) New Camera - Yes another strange highlight, but I have been subtly throwing hints in Cedric's direction for us to get a decent camera. You know, to be taken serious as a blogger you need a fancy schmancy camera....haha. Well that may or may not have been one of my hints. And then after driving through the Rhino and Lion Park one Saturday and after Cedric took a few photos with our "mik en druk" he finally caved and off we went to Dion Wired to buy this little baby.....

4) Playing with Lion Cubs - I love animals, and I love them even more when they are still small! What's not to love about anything baby size? So you can all imagine my excitement when Cedric suggested we go play with the Lion Cubs at the Rhino and Lion Park. (this was actually the same day he decided we need a new camera, so thank you baby lions and boo boo of course) It costs only R30 for 5min / 10min (I honestly cannot remember now) and you get to choose between either cubs who are 2-3 months old or a bit older. This day we went to play with the bigger boys, they were 7 months and superrrrr cute! We actually enjoyed it so much that we took Landan back the next day so that he can experience it.

5) Sunsets next to the Crocodile River - As all of you know, in 2012 we started doing mid year holiday breaks. It's much needed, because as much as I love Johannesburg, the rush and insanity of this city can hit you harder than you think. This is the perfect way than to cut your year in half and enjoy a little break away from the crazy traffic and rushed lifestyle. We decided to go to the bush this time around and opted for a nice break in Marloth Park, Mpumalanga. We would spend most of our evenings watching the sunset overlooking the Crocodile river while sipping on a sundowner. If it wasn't for me not being alive I would have guessed that that was pretty close to how heaven felt. We truly have a mesmerizing beauty to our country and I am very happy to call this place my home.

6) Close encounters with some Ellies - On the same mid year break we ended our amazing holiday in Thornybush Game Reserve. For the people who are first timers to my blog, I have a slight obsession with Elephants. Only a small one. And on our one game drive I begged the ranger to please just find the elephants for us. And with a little tip from the others and 2 hours of driving in circles he decided to not wait for the Elephants to come to us but for us to go to them. I started getting a bit nervous when we started driving more off road and cutting down branches just to find out way. And then all of a sudden, we were in the middle of herd of say 30 elephants! Mindbogglingly amazing I tell you. These creatures are such beautiful majestic giants. The one walked past us close enough for me to just reach out without any effort and touch it. It took all of me not to do it. To show how close we were, the picture below was taken without me even touching the zoom button.

7) We bought Mo-Landy - Everyone must have noticed by now that Cedric and I have a big slight obsession with the bush and everything related to it. So it's only common sense for us to invest in a car that would take us to these places with ease. And that is exactly what we did. We bought the best/coolest/hippest you catch my drift car in the world. And it's orange! And it is very obvious that Cedric's love for Mo-Landy has grown much bigger than his love for me. No jokes. I think he loves this car more than me. We named it Mo-Landy. Why? Well when you look at it from the front, it almost seems like the car has a mustache (Mo). And it's a Landrover (Landy). And Mo also means "mine" in Kreole. So when I told Cedric this he loved the name. Mo-Landy. May we have safe travels all over Africa with you!

8) Elephant Sanctuary - Haha wow so I have 2 highlights that involve Ellies! This one was something else. I loved it! For my birthday Cedric took me to get real up close and personal with these magnificent animals. Early morning we were off to Harties to go "play" with Elephants. I was in such a daze the whole morning. It was all so perfect and I just fell in love with these animals all over again. Intelligent (I can bet they they are more intelligent than some of the people in this country), gentle (well as gentle as a wild animal can be), beautiful, interesting and the list goes on. I have such respect for them and I can just imagine how perfect my life will be if I can one day work with them.

9) Inspired by Oprah - This is probably one of the days that I won't easily forget. I received an email the Thursday from a PR agency telling me that they would like to give me a ticket to go watch the one and only Oprah Winfrey Inspire the c#*p out of people that Monday. I literally almost fell off my chair! Phoned my boss to ask for the day off and off Siyaam and I went the Monday to go get our lives changed. And man was I inspired. I choked back a few tears when she walked in from being overwhelmed and then choked back a few more while she spoke.

10) Island ending - We ended our year off by going to Cedric's family in Mauritius for Christmas and New Year. And I entered the New Year with my best friend and her husband. This holiday she experienced my horrible side (so so so sorry). And even though I had my moods we still had a wonderful holiday. Even with ups and downs comes good times. Memories that will last forever. What a way to end 2013 and welcome 2014!

I just want to say thank you so much to all the people that made 2013 a big success. We had our ups and downs but we definitely came out stronger and better. Boo boo, without you 2013 would have been a tough one, so thank you for sticking it out and still being there! My family and friends, I know I'm not always the easiest person to get along with but thank you for not giving up on me! I love you guys and will treasure each and every one of you forever!

Here's to 2014! We can only go up from here!

Jackalberry Ridge

Hello Journeyers!
Halfway through the week, I know, it makes me so angry to think I'm wishing my week away like that. But it's only because I miss Mr. F = FRIDAY!!!! :)
As promised here is the first Part of my 2 Part July Holiday Blog Posts. Why 2 Parts you may ask? Well duh, we went to 2 places for holiday so each deserves their own post!

We took on the long road the Friday night and decided to sleep over in Witbank at the Protea Hotel Witbank. I must say we were very impressed with how charming it was. The decor was modern and the staff was friendly. We were rather tired and decided to have the buffet dinner at the Hotel. WOW - the food was so good. From beef strips and boiled eggs with mayo filling for starters, roast and veggies to chicken curry for mains and malva pudding with custard (ok here I was sold) and mini tarts for desert.
We hit the road rather early again the Saturday morning. We arrived at Jackalberry Ridge around late lunch time. It was so nice going from freezing cold Gauteng to warm and sunny Mpumalanga! We did not pack the right clothing at all! haha. We came prepared for proper winter weather. Well Surprise! haha
Anyway, we got our Tent keys and went to unpack. We were really impressed with how neat and put together everything was. Someone came to clean the braai area, kitchen and tent every single day. Bonus! No dishes for meeee!

The one Tent with the Bathroom and Kitchen underneath it.

The Second Tent with a En-Suite Bathroom.

My Boo in front of our home for the next 6 days.

Each Tent Area has it's own splash pool, lapa and boma area.

This is the inside of the Bigger Tent. (One on top of the Kitchen and bathroom)

We spent most of our days driving around. We went to Komatipoort for a round of Golf and admired the wonderful views over the crocodile river from the Clubhouse. It truly is peaceful the bush.

We also watched the sunset 95% of the time. The other 5% we were either too late or was sleeping. haha. Nap time!!!

I ate myself to death, goodbye 4kg's that I lost before the holiday! Oops! But hey it was holiday and I enjoyed it! We went to some of the restaurants / lodges around the area for lunches/dinners. There are some really great places in Marloth Park and surrounding. We ate at Jabula Lodge where we had great service and was entertained by Dawn who is the owner (this day I also chowed down 2 Magnums and 3 Ice Creams and Chocolate Sauce - GASP), we also had dinner at Phumula Lodge, and again great food and service, people in this area really do not have a care in the world, no wonder you always see them with smiles on their faces.

Because Marloth Park borders the Crocodile River and Kruger Park, we could use that to our advantage and go sit next to the river and admire the beauty of nature and the wildlife. We saw loads of Elephants (One of my FAVORITE Top 5 animals), Buffalo, Crocodiles (Crocodile River so makes sense) and Hippos. And inside of Marloth lots of Zebra, Giraffes, Monkeys, Birdlife and Warthogs and don't forget Impala. Seeing as there is a fence between Marloth and Kruger (I would hope so, wild animals roaming freely in the Kruger = not safe when roaming between houses) I had to use Mo-Landy as my stepping ladder. haha.

Cedric really wanted to make a Potjie one night so we literally drove Komatipoort to shreds to find one. And we did!

Just look at how cute these cold drink bottles are!!! They are mini ones!

But most important of all. We loved spending some great time together without the hustle and bustle of the City. Then before we knew it we were hit with a 10 ton hammer and we were already packing our bags (sob) and ready for the last part of our holiday! You could say we were rather emotional. But we sucked it up and Friday morning at exactly 06:15 we were packed and ready to go. We decided to drive through the Kruger Park as not one of us have been there before. Shocker I know, especially for me! So we entered at the Crocodile Bridge gate and had to exit from the Orpen gate. That = 175km's. It took us 5 hours to drive that! Why you may ask? Well the speed limit is 50 in the Park, and the people pile up if they see a animal. My honest opinion. I can now say "I've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt"! Never again. Unless we stay in a secluded camp. All those people around the animals just drives me insane!

But anyway, I think that was also just the irritation levels talking because our holiday was nearing an end.

So yes, that is a round up of our first 7 nights holiday.

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!

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Disclaimer: All expenses were paid for by us for our trip to Jackalberry Ridge. As always all comments and opinions are my own. All of the content and images posted are my own unless otherwise specified / linked to the original source. Please feel free to share photographs and material from this site but please link back to the original image or post.