Week 1 & 2 - South Africa with the family week

Well we arrived after a loooong 14 hrs flight very early from Melbourne to Johannesburg via Sydney. We've come to visit Shelley's brother Lee, his wife, their girls Keto (aged 6 yrs), Ruby (aged 4 yrs) and Piper (aged 2 years).

We stayed a total of 2 weeks with them with a 4 day Safari to a game reserve in the middle.

The household wakes early as Jaci heads off to the gym at 6.00 am and the Keto and Ruby go to Bumble bees pre-kinder and Keto is off to grade 0 or prep which starts at 7.45am! Ben and Laura can't complain about the early start again.

In the first week we were all up either because Piper was up (she had a cold and wasn't well) or because of jet lag. Our days were filled with picking up the girls from school; going shopping to which was fun to see all the variety of foods; having a haircut; visting Jaci's shop or hanging out at their house in the pool.

Mem lives out the back of Lee and Jaci's house and visits every day to help with the house work and look after Piper when Jaci is working. Jaci heads off to work for half a day to her shop Tinsel which specialises in designed jewellery which Laura thought was heaven. She was busy preparing for a farmers market she and a friend were organising at the shop complex to attract business.

We enjoyed dinner at Jane's place (Jaci's Mum) just around the corner from Jaci and Lee with a lovely roast! She has a terrific place with two small accommodation buildings in the backyard. This is not uncommon in Joburg as the buildings were designed for staff to live who work for the household. Jane has two dogs Ruffy & Chicken who reminded Ben & Laura of home as one of our dogs is called ruffy.

All of Lee's IT skills came into play as he gave us heaps of movies and music; jail broke shelley's Iphone and let Ben play his only just arrived Wii including Guitar hero. Ben was in Nintendo heaven. Chris braved the Joburg traffic and manged successully to get to Ruby's childcare and Keto's school as well as the local shopping centre!!!

We ate heaps of food; drank heaps of good beer and champagne; went out to lovely restaurants and enjoyed very good hospitality. Thanks heaps for having us and we'll see you in Vietnam in 2 years????

See Safarii for more installments.