My 32nd Birthday....

It was my birthday on Sunday & such a beautiful day with Geoff & my family...

I got spoiled with a Le Creuset cast iron oval casserole pot which we've already made Moroccan lamb shanks (from the Entertainment Ideas magazine from my mom & dad) in... I've been dreaming about owning one Le Creuset for many years now - it is a great asset to our kitchen repertoire ...especially now that its chilly and Wintery..!

Geoff and I drove through to Kalk Bay where we had breakfast at The Annex with my Mom, Dad, and T'Neal, Dave & Grace. 

Grace turned 1 on the 1st of June & is just about the cutest thing on hands and knees!

From breakfast, Geoff and I headed North on the N7 and ended up at Riebeek Kasteel for the night... On Monday we looped upwards & back down to Cape Town along the coast - stopping in at 2nd hand shops to look for shop stock (I realised that in addition to closing the fridge door & my stomach now getting in the way, I can't actually fit between narrow shop isles any more!!)

Mom's Birthday

T'Neal and Dave, Geoff and I joined mom and dad for mom's birthday on the 16th of April this year: "camping" in the flat in Mosselbay. As usual...too much food & WAY too much cake was had by all ....along with a bit of champagne (not preggie me! - but I had 'extra cake' to make up for it!) :)

Geoff's Birthday Celebration(s)

My Love turned 50 this month & so we had a number of celebrations...The first of which, was a family dinner (mine & Geoff's) on the night before his actual birthday day. I made a big pot of fresh pasta...2 huge salads & Geoff made his favorite bolognaise sauce (I made a veggie alternative) & we had a wonderful dinner around our party-size yellow wood kitchen table:

We were really spoiled with Robyn's chocolate birthday cake for dessert.

We have a bit of a tradition of birthday cake in bed with tea on the morning of our birthdays, so I made some fairy cupcakes from Tina Bester's book "Bake" which turned out DELICIOUSLY! (It is actually one of the easiest, most delicious recipes I've come across for cupcakes - even better than my "White Cupcakes" recipe which uses the creaming method) ... I made lemon and (fresh) vanilla flavored icing which I spaghetti'ed on top:

After a lazy morning, we headed out to town to the dangerous camera supplies shop, ORMS. We went out for lunch at Mugged on Roeland and had a pretty lovely day in general.

The last phase of Geoff's birthday was last weekend: we invited loads of people for music, pizza and drinks at Solole's BAROCCA LOUNGE.  Here are some scenes from Geoff's birthday day and of the party: