Christmas, birthday's and seeing out 2009

What a way to end 2009 by taking a snow cat tour up to the top of the ski runs to enjoy a panoramic view at Winter Park Colorado.

Lesleigh, Les and me at the top of the mountain with the valley's behind us and a wind blowing temperatures well into the minus 20 degrees C. Breaking above the tree line in Colorado happens at this height of 10800ft. It is also very chilly but dressed as we were it was no problem. (The secret is layers of clothing and we had many on)

On Christmas day I was lucky enough to bump into Santa Claus on the mountain, He managed to stop over for a few moments to take a photo with me before dashing off again on his busy schedule.

Before heading out to the ski resort we took Les and Engela to see Mount Evans and from just a few months before at this same spot we took a photo with Stewart and Madeline and it was cool but not freezing and the lake behind us here had ducks swimming around in it. Today it is frozen solid and the ducks were not to be seen.

Lucy, my neighbors daughter turned 5 this year and we had a breakfast celebration at the O'Hearns house across the road. I also had a fantastic birthday this year and Lesleigh pulled out all the stops to host a party for 20 good friends to celebrate the occasion at our house. There was Ostrich for starters, followed with beef curry and vegetable lasagna for mains and malva pudding with ice cream for dessert. What a great evening we had and a good way to start the festivities.

The local pond some 200 meters from our house began to freeze at the middle of November and before the end of the month it was totally frozen.

Now watching the geese landing is a lot more fun as they skate to a halt on the frozen pond. I am sure that they prefer the water to the ice but they are supposed to migrate south in winter. These two obviously missed the memo.

A view to enjoy on route from Winter Park to our home, and the end of Fall and the start of what looks to be a great winter.


Snow makers hard at work as they pump snow out onto the slopes in preparation for opening day two weeks away.

The view from our hotel room at the Winter Park ski resort. It is a great place to stay. The pool below is a hot tub and stays open until 11pm.

The resort by night was lit up with Christmas lights and very pretty.

We hiked 6 miles or so amongst frozen streams and forest trails covered in ice and snow. It was great to be outdoors and we had a lot of fun.

Dressed for the weather out on the trail.

Lesleigh at the river crossing, this part had not iced up just yet.

Lesleigh and I went all out for Halloween and we do look like a pretty couple.

3 days of snow and our beautiful fall garden looked like a snow dump.

The good old weber braai with a good dump of snow on top.

Stewart, Madeline and Anna came to visit the big town of Denver and this was taken on a train trip about 2 hours South of our home.

Stewart and Anna at the famous Red Rocks Ampitheatre where the creme of rock has played over many years.

Out at mount Evans the day was a drive to see the mountain views and enjoy the colors of fall on the mountain slopes, too cold to swim.

This s great view of the forests just before the snow came through and dusted everything white.

Stewart and Anna in the driveway at home and a week ahead of a 3 day snow storm.

Lesleigh and I at Art and Melissa's wedding held up in Breckenridge at the ten mile station.

It looks a little disjointed on the time line but we have had been on an emotional roller coaster and a very busy two months with friends visiting, job changes, health scares and a good dump of snow.

All seems to be settling in right now and all the efforts and trivia of this past year are starting to show signs of light at the end of the tunnel. We are both excited about our future here and now that the first year has past we look forward to many more ahead. We miss all our friends dearly but are glad to stay in touch, technology is marvelous.

Thanks to Stewart, Madeline, Anna, Terry and Silvia for making the effort to travel all the way from JHB to visit us, we truly appreciated the company.

Ski season is upon us and I need to get the equipment into shape to head out to the slopes. Ciao for now.

A summer in Colorado

My Neighbour's Scott and Christina at the pig fest. Scott is my tennis opponent and we hold great matches at least once a week

The buffet at Tom's place where we had great food and live bands playing on his ranch for the day.

There is the pig on the rotisserie

Then there are the rodeo boys and trust me these cowboys take some big risks with some seriously agitated beasts.

all four legs in the air for close on a half ton takes some work.

Spectacular and crazy

And they look so docile in the field but beware these bulls can pull off some of the most amazing moves whilst trying to throw the rider.

Not all cowboy's get to stay on, the cowboy below got very lucky.

This is a great effort in hanging on with all you have!


Some of these horses seem to bounce up and down on all fours


But the bull riders steal the show as they really are dealing with very upset animals.




This is the view of the 14000ft peaks in the background taken from a peak I climbed with a team of guys and we are at 10000ft when I took this photo.

This is me hiking through dense and lush forestry in the Golden State Park in Colorado.

Well the Summer finally arrived and the months of July and August have been very pleasant with great temperatures, afternoon thunderstorms and generally a very green scenery in and around Colorado. Lesleigh has started her new career in Real Estate and she has been working on weekends hosting open houses and I have been relaxing at home, playing tennis with my neighbor, Scott, and keeping the garden in shape. With all the rain that we had this summer the garden took off and blossomed into a tropical landscape, lots of pruning was required to keep the garden from looking over grown. Last weekend we got up on the roof and replaced tiles and did some touch up painting on the exterior of the house to prep ourselves for the seasons ahead. I have a strong feeling that with the water table this high we are in for an early and colder winter than we had this past year. Oh before I forget whilst I was up on the roof replacing tiles I disturbed a wasp nest and the whole family came out and gave me a royal stinging which created huge swelling and became very itchy for about five days. I was lucky that they did not attack my face, because being up on the roof did not give me many options to move out of their way very quickly. I learned that the name of these aggressive fellows are yellow jackets. I will be sure to avoid them in the future.

With that being said I am still enjoying braaing out on our back veranda and playing tennis in the midday heat. I had not picked up a tennis racquet for some 20 years and started again in June. The first few weeks were awkward back on the court. I managed to break a set of strings for every set I played for the first 5 weeks. That starts to cost a fair amount of money to keep restringing. But now I have found a place that restrings with some better strings that seem to have lasted me a month an made me much happier not to have to keep paying $30 for every game I play.

I am working long hours in my job at the bank and have worked an average of 13 hours a day for the past year. I am also starting to do a fair amount of local travel which is great to visit different locations and meet with new teams of people. I have been to Grand Junction, Durango, Gunnison, Fort Collins, Oray, Pagosa Springs, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley, Winter Park, Steam Boat, Rifle, Aspen, Breckenridge, Avon, Eagle, Edwards, Dillon, Frisco, Delta, Montrose, Loveland, and Broomfield to host training with store managers over the past three months.

The bank has produced some great results with record earnings in the first and second quarters of 2009. But now the pressure is on to do it again for Q3 and at this stage there appears to be strong sentiment to cut costs which means head count reduction. Unfortunately I am part of shared services and am part of this group that will be under consideration for release. We will only know the outcome after September this year.

Economically the market continues to tick over without much lift as was envisaged by some of the authorities in the economics field. Whilst the exchange has shown a better performance the jury is still out as to whether we have reached the bottom of this recession. There is a lot of controversy regarding the new proposed national health plan and increased taxes which the democrats has promised would not be the case when running for office last year. One thing is for sure, it is great not having to watch or see political ads flighted all day and night as happened over the election period this last year.

So the months of September begins and for Lesleigh and I we will have two sets of close friends coming over to visit with us at our new home. I have taken leave over the period as well and cannot wait to see everyone.

The month of June Begins

Well it has been almost a month since last I wrote, and a lot has happened since then. I have traveled to Grand Junction, Durango, Ignacio, Pagosa Springs, Wolf Creek and many more destinations all in the month of May. In total about 1300 miles were completed and this time of year has some spectacular sights. The rivers in the mountains are gushing torrents with all the snow melts and the combination of some good rain showers.

I got to play my first game of racquet's ball and it was good fun and very different to squash. Our garden is starting to take shape and is looking very green. We have put wood chips out in the flower beds, fertilized the lawn, placed bug killer on the garden and mowed the lawn each Saturday since the start of Spring. It is all great fun and good exercise.

I decided to start playing tennis again after 21 years as squash is not popular out here and golf seems like a lot of money to outlay at this time. But I am learning fast that tennis may in my case be more expensive than golf. I have broken 6 sets of strings in 7 weeks, with my forehand top spin. Sure I can get win the point each time but the cost of the restring is far to expensive to repeat each week. This last week was the icing on the cake as I practised out on the court with the ball machine. After hitting balls back across the court for an hour I managed to snap the strings on the racquet's even against the machine. So now I am thinking that golf once a month may prove less expensive.

The Bulls crushed the Chiefs and what a finish to the Super 14. Even though we don't always get to see the game we check the on line scoring to keep p with whats on the go. I am sure there are a lot of people still recovering after that win.(and I am not talking about the players).

Well we re certainly getting our fair share of rain at the start of this spring but we are looking forward to summer and the warmer temperatures rolling in. Wishing you all a great month of June ahead, miss all our family and close mates and just want you to know how appreciative we are that so many of you are still in contact with us each week.

Anniversary in the US

This is lake Dillon which is still frozen but if you wait a week from now there will be boats sailing on this lake.

The slush season is here and as you can see when the snow starts to melt it gets messy and not all that pretty either, even though the memories just a month before were of skiing up to this patch of ground and enjoying a Bratwurst roll with a beer.

Lesleigh stading in front of the Evergreen Lake that was frozen just three weeks ago.

A View of our condo inside the lounge on the base of peak 8 at Breckenridge.

It was this time last year when we stepped onto that Boeing and took off for New York not knowing what to expect or where we would land up. Well the adventure has taken a little more shape than either of us could have ever imagined.

So in celebration of the one year mark Lesleigh had booked us a room in what is a very upmarket hotel right at the base of the ski lifts. It was a great day and even though it is the slushy season it was a good break from town. The Saturday morning we took a road trip to see the mountains in transition between winter and the spring before heading back past Lake Dillon and then onto some friends in a place called Erie which is an hour north of Denver.

What an evening we had as we drank way to much and as the rain fell all around us as we braaied on the balcony under the umbrella. Well I was well done a long time ahead of the food being ready and got a really funny spate of hiccups which I could not get rid of no matter how hard I tried. We got to bed after midnight and had a very sensitive body on Sunday morning. When I got home, I mowed the lawn drank lots of water and then played 2 hours of tennis to get the alcohol out of the blood stream to feel half human once again.

Now we are at the end of another week and I cant wait for the weekend with warmer and drier weather forecast it is going to be a great one! Friends and Family Enjoy your weekends and enjoy the outdoors come rain or shine, because it is the place to be.

A blizzard sets in and the rain / snow continues

Well as you think Spring is in the air again this week we got a blizzard which is like a cold front, but because the temps are higher at this time of year, we tend to get a snow / rain mix and things get quite sloshy out there. My jetta got stuck twice on Friday but with a little bit of back and forth between reverse and the sports gear mode I managed to get it out and back onto the road. Sunday looks to be a better day and should be a lot more fun outdoors.

We had some friends over for dinner last night and we made pizza's from the dough and a handful of Margarita's to follow the pizza, followed by Melva pudding and ice cream. It was a great evening and we had a lot of fun, I can still feel it this morning.

I need to get out into the garden and put the fertilizer down so that the grass will look great into summer this year. I managed to repair a lawn mower and so now have a almost new machine for $25 versus having to buy a new one for $300 so that felt good and was a great weekend project. When the lawn is cut and green I will post the photographs in a week or two.

Spring is here and with that we got Snow!

Elk walking amongst the trees at Fred and Lorraine's house in Evergreen on Saturday

A snap shot of Breckenridge in the background where I spent this morning skiing, had a lot of great fun even when the wind picked up. I managed to complete 11 runs in total and took on some really steep sections today.

You can tell it's a South African back yard because even with blizzard conditions the Weber braai stood proud against the elements. This is the first time I have seen the snow come up to the door frame and cover the windows with the fierce wind that accompanied the snow fall.

As you can see the roof got around 2 foot of snow in the first 6 hours of the blizzard. There was about another 2 foot that feel throughout the next morning.

Our front garden was transformed from the Spring warmth and sunshine with trees starting to bud to this huge snow dump all in 24 hours. There is another dump expected on Monday so there goes the theory that it will all melt away in 4 days.

The past week was a mixture of hard work, socializing with the neighbors, and today a great day out on the slopes at Breckenridge. With only a couple of ski weekends left before the season is closed the slopes are going to be really busy.