Clarens

I seriously don't know if all the schlep of packing up half my house, unpacking it and doing 3 loads of laundry is worth taking a holiday.

D says we need to go away for a longer time for me to feel like it's worth it and my boss agrees with him!

Of course it's lovely to get away and see new places, eat new food, buy cute things and take pictures but I was honestly more tired when I got back than if I'd stayed home.

And I'm not one of those people who believes only the smiles in photos - I am very much a realist.

My friend, Kirsten, said to me, "same circus, different tent" - I LOVE IT!

I really should have taken pics of my entrance hall when the car and trailer were unpacked.

Nevertheless, it's over and I've moved on. We're caught up on laundry and my house is in order again.

The babies were exceptional travellers (I was so surprised) except for the last 30 minutes coming back home. They've now also become sympathetic criers which gets old really quick. After the first couple of times, I just laughed at them. D says I'm cruel but it is FUNNY!

So, Clarens.

Beautiful, quaint little town.



We could have stayed two weeks and still not got through all the lovely cafes and restaurants. If anyone is interested in going, I thoroughly recommend eating at The Artist's Cafe - we had 4 of the 6 meals we ate out there. The kids even knew all the waiters - it was crazy!

this is "roosterbrood" -
I had one with cream cheese and biltong (YUMMY!) and the other with savoury mince

A friend told us that she's been to Clarens a couple of times and not had one bad meal at any of the restaurants. I can totally agree.

I bought TONS of home-made jams, marmalades, and other kitchen yummies. Saffy, I also bought a lovely big jar of curry paste to try out a Thai curry :)


I also bought a bag and some gorgeous creative copper (I love their About page) sugar spoons.

The babies got baby ponchos (do you know what those are?) - I will take pics when they wear them - a mobile and some leather shoes for when they're bigger.

So, good things

• Food
• Scenery
• Lovely, warm townhouse (this was one of the highlights after our cold house)
• Well-behaved babies
• Connor's bath times (deserves a separate blog post and pics)
• Kendra exploring
• Babies got to try lots of different food
• TONS of art galleries and curio shops
  

Not-so-good things

• No Nanny Viola
• Time too short
• Didn't get to do the zip line (I really must plan better - I wanted to do this last year in Hazyview too but I was pregnant and D said it is CRAZY to risk it - true)
• Not enough down time for me which is why I brought all those books back with me, unread.
  

Lessons I learned

If I ever do a holiday again while the babies are small, it has GOT to be in warmer weather so I can take less bags with blankets and warm clothes (South African houses are not made for the cold like the ones in Europe so we dress in plenty of layers).

Also, they need to be done with the bottles. Two bags full of bottles, formula, steriliser = CRAZY. Deanna, I wish we were also done with bottles.

I packed the perfect amount of food for us and the babies - am getting better - usually I bring far too much.

Must lower my expectations of myself about what I can do - I think one book will be PLENTY! This from someone who could easily go through a book a day pre-kids.

What kind of lessons have you learned from travelling with babies/ kids?


P.S. This was going to be a lovely long post and then again, internet connectivity problems.

Am TENSE because while all my prep for my teleseminar is done, my newsletter for tomorrow is not even written. So will have to do that in my lunch break tomorrow because I can't deal with more internet problems now (I think it may be due to the weather?).

I was going to jump straight into bed but I thought I needed the stress relief of blogging, so here I am.

Good night!