Triplet to Croatia

 After the InterVarsity team left and before the next team arrived, we had a 4 day break. On our team calendar, it was written "R.E.S.T" into those four days. Ljilja and I decided to have an actual getaway including her mom and sister as well. We went to a Split (and they came up on the bus from Trebinje) and had a lovely time at the beach, relaxing and enjoying time at the sea. We mostly just stayed in our area of Split: 

But on the last day when we took them in to the bus station, we had a short excursion to the city centre: 

We managed to find MY shop: 

And also the tower which goes back to Roman times... 

And was also a place Mom and I stopped on our trip in 2015 to listen to the local singers: 

It was fun spending time with me "other" family and enjoying the lovely city of Split together... but then it was time to go back to reality!

Holiday of a lifetime!

For the past 12 years, Ljilja, Sina (our friend from Finland) and I have been going on holiday together. We even managed to find ways to go on holiday during 2020 and covid rules changing every day. We have had a lot of fun adventures, but also just able to relax and enjoy movies and games and looooong discussions about our lives. We also usually celebrate all 3 of our birthdays on Ljilja's birthday in July as I am in June, and Sina in August... 

This year, with both Sina and I were turning 50, we wanted to go somewhere extra special. Sina has also travelled to over 90 countries, and originally she wanted to go somewhere new, but that is quite hard for her! She wanted to go to do an island holiday - and her first suggestion was Fiji! We looked at ticket prices and it was a hard NO from us. After that she thought about Seychelles, but again it looked expensive. She had already been to the Maldives for work, but as that actually looked like the best option price-wise, she was happy with the island holiday there as she had not done the "vacation" side of things there - just visiting projects for work. 

So, in the end we managed to get her "down" to go to the Maldives. We found some reasonable airline tickets ourselves via Doha (with a stopover on the way back) and Ljilja did a phenomenal job of contacting local travel agencies to see if we could get a deal on accommodation. We had decided on a resort near the capital called Kurumba. 

We would just get breakfast included and then go out for dinner, making it cheaper (and healthier!) than a full board/all inclusive option. We got a good deal through an agency in Bosnia, and were about to pay the deposit when Ljilja received another offer for the same exact booking from an agency in Serbia which was even cheaper!! Love it! (we found it it was cheaper in July as it is the "rainy season", but other than a 1 or 2 times of rain during the day, it really didn't bother us at all as it mostly fell at night). 

We stayed in two adjoining rooms upstairs in a condo with four rooms. We didn't have anyone downstairs for most of the time which was nice. It included a fun "outdoor/indoor" bathroom - so you could shower outside... or in the rain - which was a fun experience! 

Being on the top floor meant we had a lovely view from the windows/balcony:

And most of the creepy crawlies kept out of our rooms (which was helpful to those with a fear of creepy crawlies of which there were a few!) We did get to see lots of bats in the evenings and our friendly heron, which we nicknamed Harry the Heron, was always around: 

We had loungers (with our room numbers on!) on the beach which were sort of secluded as they were surrounded by trees, so we felt like we had our own private island getaway. Such a blessing! This is the view from the balcony towards "our" beach and our loungers are in between the trees! 

And this is the view along the beach! 

We mostly spent time at the beach, but did do a couple of snorkelling trips, which were amazing!! It was also lovely just to snorkle around our beach too! And we could also take out the kayaks for some good exercise: 

One of the reasons we chose this resort was that they had different themed restaurants, and one of them was THAI! Which happens to be the favourite food of all of us. We have usually managed to find a Thai restaurant in the places we go to on holiday - there is no real Thai food in Bosnia and it is expensive in Finland! We did go there 4 times during our stay and got to the know the staff, including the chef (from Thailand) and so when it was time to go, they even gave us a special send-off and insisted on taking pictures with us - so sweet! 

The whole time we were there we were all saying everyday, "Thank-you Lord that we get to experience this beautiful place!" There was one moment when I was in the sea at sunset and just looking at the bats flying around and seeing the sunset from the water and I was just praising the Lord for being able to experience this beauty. I am so glad that Sina wanted to go somewhere like that for her 50th, because it really was the crowning experience of my 50th jubilee celebrations! 

Tunisian Vacation

This is the 12th year that Sina, Ljilja and I have gone on our summer vacation together. After not being able to go far during Covid for 2 years, Ljilja and Sina really wanted to go to a "new" country. And as we were so busy with teams in the spring, we didn't really have the time to figure out all the details, so when we discovered a fantastic all-inclusive deal for Tunisia out of Sarajevo, we jumped at it. Tunisia is Sina's 86th new country (and Ljilja and my 46th!). We know we are still not out of the Covid woods yet, but other than wearing masks on the plane, it felt like we were.

We flew to Monastir and got taken to our hotel in Sousse. We mostly spent time there, but we did take a couple of tours - one to Sidi Bou Said, Carthage and Tunis and the other to Sousse. 

This is Sidi Bou Said - so beautiful: 

And Ljilja and Sina enjoying the view: 

They are known for their blue doors: 

It was very hot, so we mostly tried to find shade and something to drink! 

And unfortunately despite all our attempts to stay cool Sina managed to get sunstroke 😞 and so we missed the last stop of the tour (the Tunis old town/medina) keeping her cool, but it was still worth it for what we did get to see. (luckily she got over it pretty quickly, but it was definitely the lowlight of our holiday 😢 ) We got cleverer and went to the Sousse old town/medina in the latter part of the day so it was a bit cooler: 

We enjoyed that tour a little bit more: 

We were taken very good care of by the staff at the hotel. Here we are with "our" waiter, Monta. We couldn't get photos with all of the staff who treated us well, but you get the idea! 

But a good example was for Ljilja's birthday - they organised flowers and provided a cake! 

We got the chance to go to the "fancy" restaurant for a special dinner (we could go once during our stay so we chose her birthday) and they made our table even more special!! 

And all the waiters came in and sang to Ljilja with yet another cake! 

Here are Sina and I ready for watching one of their evening shows, and you can see the pool in the background: 

The shows were fun, dancing and also light and fire: 

And one night there was a "Fakir" show, and Sina was invited to take part... she was on stage the whole time with 5 other ladies and then each were used for different parts of the act as he showed his ability to withstand painful activities. Here is Sina standing on his head while he is facedown on broken glass! It  was pretty cool having her up there. He was pretty amazing... 

We didn't go to the shows every night, but also watched some movies and played games in our room, or headed to the nearest town of Port El Kantoui to get out of the resort for a bit. 

During the day we were either in the sea or the pool, and they had daily aquaerobics, here in the pool: 

But I actually prefered doing it in the sea: I spent a lot of time in the sea which was a great help to my shoulder, in fact it came along so much in the time in Tunisia, that I am so glad that we went there! 

One of the things that Sousse is known for is the beautiful sunrise which was at 5am in the morning... I hadn't woken up early enough the whole time we were there, and then the last morning, I woke up 1 minute before it was due!! Thank-you God! This is the view from our balcony:

And zooming in a bit later... so lovely! 

The whole holiday was a blessing from God, and we were so amazed to get such a good deal. We did book it early to get the early bird special, but even so... But it was only once we got there that we realised that these resorts haven't been working much the last two years and of course their usual customer base are the Russians. And they wouldn't be coming this year because of the war. So, it made sense that their prices would be very attractive (especially early on) to at least get some customers!

So, the whole time I was just amazed at all the blessings and then the last day's sunrise was like a little nod from God... blessing upon blessing! 

South Africa 2021-2022

 I came to South Africa in November 2021, 6 weeks earlier than originally planned to try and get surgery for my shoulder. I managed to get an appointment with a surgeon on the 29th of November and he was able to perform the surgery on the 1st of December. (For those who are interested it was a MUA/ACR with acromioplasty - a key hole type surgery). Here I am with Mom about an hour after surgery - they gave me a nerve block so I had no pain for the first 24 hours! 

I spent most of December recovering from surgery, and then Mom and I got Covid (Omicron) just before Christmas... So it was just "us" for Christmas day, but we still made it festive! 

I started with physio already in December, but changed to another physio in January and she was absolutely fabulous. She found ways to make the exercises fun for me, and having access to the pool at my Mom's has definitely been a key ingredient in moving my rehab along quicker than expected. But that said, even with the surgery, there is a long road of recovery until my shoulder is completely recovered. Thankfully, now, the good days are far outweighing the bad, and I am in much less pain than I was before. Here are two videos I made along the way - in January and in February

I was able to enjoy being at my home church, and even got the opportunity to preach while I was here: Click here to see it on Facebook

I did enjoy my time in South Africa, spending time with my Mom and with friends and other family. Here are just some of the things I got up to: 

With Mom at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens:

Out for a show with the "Awesome Aunties" (My mom's sister and oldest friend):

Hanging with my friend, Keren, in Kalk Bay: 

Hosting a braai (barbecue) for some of my YWAM friends from Europe who just happened to be in South Africa for a YWAM training: 

Hanging out with some of my oldest friends at another braai at my mom's place: 

Mom and I also hosted the "Smith" side of the family for our family reunion, which was lovely:

While I was here I was doing some digging on my genealogy as I did a DNA test last year along with my friends, Sina and Ljilja, and I discovered that along with being 25% Polish (my mom's dad) and 30% English/Scottish/Irish, there was also 27,8% German! I didn't expect that at all. So I went sniffing for the German relatives... Early on, I was told that on the Smith side (so Dad's mom side), my Great-Great-Grandmother was German, but that wouldn't give me that high of a percentage. So there was definitely someone else. In chatting to my Aunt Pam, she told me I had a "French" Great-Granny who had died before my Grandfather was 4 years old. I immediately suspected that she was not French but German as I don't have that much French DNA. And I was correct, she turned out to be very German,  but obviously when she died (in 1914) it was better to propogate the story of her being French rather than German... so the mystery was solved. 

In the meanwhile I discovered a family tree that had been made for the German Great-Great Granny online... and it goes back to the 1600s! Our family tree goes back to the first Dutch settlers in the Cape and also to the first Hugenotes (French settlers)! So there is French blood, it is just further back and on the other side. It was a fascinating walk back in time and we talked all about it at the family reunion... 

And one of my favourite things that Mom and I did a lot this time, was to go on the walkway from Muizenberg to St James and stop off at Bailey's cottage (about half way). We scattered Dad's ashes there so we would stop off and have "lunch with Dad" before heading back to Muizenberg for a jump in the waves (when my arm as better enough and if the wind wasn't howling too much!).

I am always sad to leave South Africa, to go back to Bosnia Herzegovina, but I can't complain - this has been a lovely time with family, friends, and my church. And I am glad that I had the opportunity also to rehab my shoulder so well to go back much better than when I came!

Bumping into my sister...

During our lovely holiday in Montenegro we heard that Astrid and David (my sister and brother-in-law) were going to be in Dubrovnik... a plan was formed. On the way back to Trebinje from Montenegro we would take a detour to visit them :) 

It meant an extra border, but luckily we were all able to cross into Croatia as Ljilja and I are vaccinated and Sina is EU, so we could "just do it" as they say...except it took an hour at the border, but it was worth the wait! Even thought it was very short, just a coffee together, it was very sweet as we haven't seen each other since the beginning of last year! 

We managed to surprise my mom as my sister called her to say "hey look how hot it is here...while you are cold in SA" and then said "oh and look who else we found here..." and turned the phone unto me! Yay for fun surprises! (Although my Mom is quite clever as she had written to my sister, "Hey, the 3 Musketeers are in the area, maybe they will come and see you"... so I am not really so sure how surprised she was!)

And the best part of all was that she managed to bring me some marmite and Twinings tea, so I was grateful for that too!! 

I have especially been craving marmite which you can't get here... and that is something no one who doesn't love marmite can understand!

Montenegro vacation

This year, our 11th year of taking vacations together, Sina, Ljilja and I decided to enjoy our neighbouring country, Montenegro. We started up in the beautiful northeast of the country, in the Durmitor mountains. We took a lovely hike around the "Black lake", which was beautiful, despite being caught in the rain: 

We also went to see the Tara canyon, which was equally lovely: 

We then headed to the southwest, nearer to the coast: and stayed near to Skadar Lake. One day we took a drive along the scenic route to the sea, and it reminded me a lot of Cape Town: 

We took a little boat trip on the lake, which was very special: 

Then we headed to the coast, just in time to celebrate someone's birthday: 

Sina and I managed to organise a cake and candles and surprise her, yay! 

We were staying near the city of Bar, so one night we enjoyed "Stari Bar" or "Old town Bar": 

This is me with my arty pic through the Arch of the aquaduct! 

One of the down sides of this whole lovely vacation was the fact that I was nursing an extremely sore shoulder and my pain medicine would run out in the middle of the night, so I would wake up take some more and then have to wait until it kicked in... 

But that actually turned into an advantage as I managed to see the moon over the sea in various different ways every night. We had a wonderful view over the sea which really helped! Here she is waxing on a cloudless night: 

And here she is full on a cloudy night, so beautiful: 

So even despite the sore shoulder putting a pall on the vacation, I did manage to see the advantage of it! We had a wonderful time as always otherwise. I read 11 books, we watched 10 movies together and played over 8 different types of games... All in all a relaxing holiday :)