How I recovered from Post-awesome-holiday-depression in 10 easy steps:

(Or: The last 56 South African photos I'll share with you, probably.)

1.  I realized I needed to give it some time. This severe PAHD condition isn’t something that you just wish away overnight. Trust me; it takes a good 4-6 weeks.

2.  I looked through my thousands of photos, and then for a while I didn’t, and now I can even have them as my screen saver and appreciate their awesomeness. 

3.  In my cleverness I timed my return to be the start of spring.  This list would not work had I come back to the start of a long and dark winter. 

4.  Ate the South African chocolates that I brought for friends, happened to have in my suitcase.

5.  Drank South African wine.

6.  Shared here about the amazing trips we got to do. Yeah, why do I blog? Free therapy!  Remember me telling you about our Kruger National Park trip or our cultural day trip experience?

7.  Made daily ‘thankful for’ lists in my head and heart.

8.  Started planning summer adventures. Oh yes! This one helps a lot!

9.  Started looking for a house to buy, like grownups or something.

10. MUSHY ALERT! Loved on my handsome husband who’s the reason why I’m here in the first place, remembering that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

99% of these photos were taken with my iphone and edited with the VSCO app. 

and now, more from the Kruger National Park

It's impossible for me to choose only a few photos to share our few days in the Kruger National Park with you. So I'll just share these for now, and then probably some more and then probably some more. I hope you will forgive me. I've already shared some here, in case you don't mind.

My family has always loved the bush, in fact, Ben would talk about the many trips he took as a kid to Disney World and surrounding parks and I would think "hmmm, I guess while you were doing that I was going here". (Ben's family lives in Florida so that helps). Being a multinational couple will never cease to amuse me!

You don't have to work very hard to fall in love with the bush here, it doesn't really give you much of an option anyway. The thick warm air that smells like no place you'll ever go, the sunsets, the sunrises, thorn trees, African sounds and of course the wildlife. It's touristy yes, but for all the right reasons.

With our recent trip to South Africa I had high hopes of exploring parts of the country that I've not been to, or at the very least that Ben's never seen. Like Kwazulu-Natal and surrounds, but with only a few short weeks it's basically impossible to pass up on a trip to the Kruger, especially with a crocodile river front view like the one I knew we'd have. 

That's just the trouble with the love of travel isn't it? Go back to the most amazing places we've seen or explore new most amazing places that we'll want to travel back to. Usually I'm up for the new, but lately I've found myself thinking about the places I've been and wanting to take Ben there, or wanting to share it with my friends. This summer is going to be hard not to basically repeat everything we've done last summer.  Just look at our trip to the North Cascades people, it will be wild and difficult to keep me from going there again.

Anyway, back to the Kruger. We didn't actually stay in the park itself, we stayed here, at Ngwenya Lodge. It's right on the border of the park so we could blissfully sip on gin and tonics and watch the happy hippos frolic about in the river and be on the look out for game on the Kruger side river banks. Things spotted from our porch: Happiest hippos, impala, crocodiles, buffalos, a sleepy rhino, and about 100 different types of birds.

Fine, I'll share some more pictures on this post just because I know you're used to scrolling down if you've made it this far. xoxo

Quick Free State Roadtrip: a Photo review

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sharing a few photos for you to see how lovely this part of my country is and for me to recognize just how amazingly fortunate I was to go there.

It's no secret how much we love road-trips, mountains, meat, wine, South Africa and being together.

Dual emotions, that's a thing right?

So, as I'm typing this I'm supposed to be a few hours away from landing in Spokane, where I was supposed to get of my third plane after +35 hours off traveling to be swept up in my super hot husband's arms...

but, I'm still here, on a mild Jo'burg early Fall evening in my parents guest bed room, thinking way too much and feeling all over the place. 

I'm so thankful that I get to be here, that I get to spend lazy late afternoons drinking wine on the stoep with my parents, dressing up barbies with my childhood friend's daughter, eating more braaivleis than I have in the past 17 months combined. 

I'm missing Ben like crazy, it's being apart like this that helps me see more clearly that "home" really is where we are together. It was a cheesy thing I'd say before we got married, but now it's more true than ever. What a gift it is to feel like that about someone. 

I'm furious and stressed out by travel arrangements gone wild with a certain German airline strike. 

Mostly trying to find some kind of golden and perfect way to fully appreciate being here, because I know once I go home I'll miss these times and I'll have to find another golden and perfect way to not get too down about not being here and fully be appreciative of other things. Does that even make sense? 

Isn't it strange, to be so happy and so sad at the same time. Please forgive the melancholy tone here, but it's something I face a lot. I'm not looking forward to having to say good bye to amazing family and friends here, but I can't wait to get off that plane to be home with Ben and the new life I'm building for myself in the US. 

It's because of this reality as an 'expat/ immigrant/ foreign bride...' that I try my human best to drink in every moment of those truly spectacular times. You know those? They're not hard to miss. My birthday a few weeks ago was such a day. A weekend away with my family, all the favorites, Ben, parents, little sister there. A game farm, a ridiculously slow and spontaneous 10km road race, wild animals and wild kittens. Coming back to spend a short time with friends I've not seen in long months, but make me feel like it was just the other day that we had our last glass of wine/cup cake/walk in the botanical gardens together. 

Here are a few (still) unedited photos of that weekend.

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”

― Kurt Vonnegut

I'm still here, hanging out in South Africa

Thunderstorm (love)

My hot wedding date

I know you've been thinking "Lanette were you eaten by a lion or something, why haven't you blogged your little African longing heart out since getting back to the homeland?!?"

I have no good excuses, besides, I always think it's a little strange when bloggers apologize for not blogging for a while, but that's just me being a weirdo.

So I've been here in happy South Africa for about three weeks now, and I can't get over how fast these three weeks have flown by, although we adults should really know by now that time flies when you're an immigrant visiting your roots. When will I learn?

It's been so good to spend this time with my family and friends. They're simply irreplaceable and I like them all more than ever. A strange heaviness has started creeping into heart, the one that knows I'll have to do the whole farewell thing again in less than a week, but dwelling on that right now will only take away from these precious few days I have left here. 

Just wanted to share a few photos from the first days back in Jo'burg (only about 6% of the meat consumed shown here), I'll be back with more stories of our travel adventures. A heads up, if you don't like wild animals don't come back here for a while, because there's a lot of animals coming up...