13th Anniversary!

Yesterday we celebrated our 13th Anniversary! We had a great weekend celebrating it. The girls had a slumber birthday party on Saturday, so the evening before we had the kingdom to ourselves! First we went out to eat and then to the movies. Not the greatest choice we made on that one! We went to District 9, which was filmed in Joburg, so we thought a good movie to see, but jeezz.. what a horrible movie I thought it was! Blood and insides splattering around, black vomit and fluids coming out noses, weird creatures.... everybody is raving about this movie, but it made me grinch the whole time! Especially not a good choice for an anniversary... a romantic comedy would have been better!!



On Sunday, our day, we had a romantic breakfast Dirk prepared for us complete with 13 Red Roses!... the girls were still at our friends home and after we picked them up we went to Melville. That is a great artsy area in one of the neighborhoods of Joburg. Very cute! There is a designer lifestyle center called Bamboo which has an art gallery, some cute artsy shops and boutiques, a glass blowing place, where you can follow classes. A lovely book shop and a delish deli kind of place to eat with the most fresh food around. So we spent the afternoon there, buying some books and hand made jewelry. Having a light lunch since we made reservations for a 6-course dinner later in the evening.

Khetho our housekeeper did the babysitting part for the evening and we went out later for our dinner. Roots is one of the better restaurants and 5-star boutique hotel in the Cradle of Humankind, one of the most famous heritage sites. While we were driving up there we were welcomed by some wild Kudu's and Springboks who just wander around in this private game reserve. On a Sunday night not many people go out for dinner anymore, so it was already quite when we arrived. But they told us that 6 other people booked for tonight, so we wouldn't be the only ones.... Well, it turned out that we WERE the only ones. So this 6-course dinner with wine pairing was totally made for us alone. They opened 6 bottles of wine, each course had a different one... The crew of staff was at least 6-9 people, working just for us... what an experience for our Anniversary!




Let me tell you about the food. We started with a Roots lobster bisque. Next a Ceasar salad, followed by a Pan fried Cod with citrus segments, fennel & leek fricassee. Then a trio of beef with butternut puree, chickpea cassoulet and salsa verde. After that the confit Duck with wild mushroom risotto, spring veggies & jus. And last but not least, hazelnut parfait ice-cream, walnut pumpkin seed nougat with almond financier and orange flan sauce. The food and wine pairing was divine!! I can definitely recommend this restaurant to my friends here!!

We had a fun day at our 13Th Anniversary and are looking forward to the next 13... say the least. If we can top our adventurous lifestyle for the next years we will do just fine! We can't top the amount of continents anymore, since we lived already in 4 during the last 13 years, but we can still top the number of countries, so let's see what the future has in mind for us! We are looking forward to that!

Have a Marvellous Monday!
Mireille