Scavenger Hunt to the USA vs AUS game

We arrived at our hotel in Johannesburg at 8:30 am on June 5th. Our soccer game was at 2:30pm that same day.

We were still pretty jetlagged and all I wanted to do

was take a shower and take a long nap. Instead we got settled in, cleaned up and at 11:30 decided to get some lunch and make the "30" minute trek to Roodeport to see the game. I put 30 minutes it quotes because that's how long google maps said it would take but that's definitely NOT how long it took.

We took our trusty city map and our trusty Garm

in and got some general directions from the hotel front desk. All we really had to go off of was that we needed to get to the Ruimsig Stadium which we figured was in the town of Roodeport.

So...off we go for a few miles on the N1.

-We decide to ask for directions because we're not sure where to go from here.

- Some guy at a gas station tells us to go this w

ay, then look for the car dealership on your left, then go over a hill then ask for directions again.

- So we follow his directions...or we think we do.

- We ask for directions again, this time from a soccer fan at KFC where we finally got some lunch!!!

- He tells us we 'aren't very far' and to follow this road, then you'll come to a T and then go left and then ask for directions again.

- This basically happens about about 4 more ti

mes, until we are finally are out in the middle of nowhere crossing over some hills and we can see the stadium lights.

- We finally pull up to the stadium and it is called the "Roodeport Athletic Stadium"

That....my friends...is in the Garmin.

So anyway...it was quite the adventure and we made it to the stadium just minutes before kickoff. Oh and our tickets just happened to be reserved for the midfield.

Where are they all going?

We arrived at the Joburg airport at 6:50am. Ouch. Went through passport control and immediately got sucked into the locals helping us out by taking our bags and showing us where the clearly marked Avis Rental Car place was. We then had to tip them...in american dollars.

They looked mad. We vowed to just take care of our own bags from then on.

So we got our car...a tiny Honda Getz and sat in the parking garage psyching ourselves up for the adventurous drive ahead of us through morning city traffic. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Thank you Garmin for showing us the way. Although you did take about 20 minutes to find a satellite. Tall buildings and being on the other side of the world really threw you for a loop.

Driving in on the highway there are people walking along the road...in a very well worn path. I was fascinated by it. I mean, how far have they walked and where are they walking to? Like take for example the distant from Edmond to Guthrie, in that same amount of time we'd probably see about 100 people just walking from/to somewhere. I just didn't get it.

Once we made it to the city there were people EVERYWHERE! People crossing the street at crosswalks, crossing the streets right in front of you, people walking in between the lanes, people trying to sell you car flags at the intersections, people just congregating at bus stops or something, people setting up shop on the sidewalk, people hopping into taxis that are just randomly pulled over.

Obviously I don't have very many pictures of the city life while driving around because the guys didn't like me just flashing my camera out when there were so many people standing around staring at us...Americans. No just kidding...but they did seem to just look at you a lot. It was a little unsettling.

The Longest Plane Ride EVER!!!!

I'm sorry that it has been forever since I have posted about anything. And I'm sorry I've beenhome a week and haven't shared any South African stories. We were supposed to "practice pack" over memorial day weekend just to make sure everything would fit in our bags and we didn't go over our weight limit. 44lb s was the limit, 40lbs was our goal. Well, all we got done was laundry and the cleaning of our house. That left a 3 hour packing excursion the night before we left, and then just the odds and ends on the morning we were set to leave. We packed for about 8-9 days with plans to do laundry and wear it all again.

Our plane was leaving OKC at 4:20pm June 3rd. Ryan and his mom came to pick up at 2:00pm. We were all very excited to be in Africa...but none of us were excited about the two days it was going to take to get there.

Once we made it to Houston we boarded our huge plane and headed east to Frankfurt, Germany. It only took 10 or so hours to get there, but crossing over 8 times zones can really mess with your body. Thankfully I was able to sleep for a few hours here and there thanks to the Fennessy gene of being able to sleep almost anywhere.

We arrived at the Frankfurt airport at 11am June 4th.

That airport is ridiculously Huge!!!!! Just look at this revolving arrival board.

At least we had 9 hours to familiarize ourselves with it. Yeah right. It's impossible to find your way around that airport, and not because it's in German. The nearest bathroom is like a 5 minute walk. And it must have taken 10 minutes

to figure out how to get downstairs to the mall area.

Once we made it downstairs. We treated ourselves to bratwurst and beer. Probably Germany's idea of fastfood type brats, but it was still good.

The rest of the day was spent not getting lost, playing card games and trying desperately to not fall asleep. We figured since it was during the day, and our flight was at night it would be better to just stay awake and sleep on the plane so as not to mess up our sleep schedule anymore. It was VERY hard to do.

At 8:30pm it was finally time to board South African Airways. Really great airlines by the way. Good food and leg room.

On our next 10.5 hour flight we were able to see the sunset over the Swiss Alps.

And the sunrise over Zambia.

Next up....Our Johannesburg adventures.

Oh...just go away.

So I finally decided to do a little google search and figure out what kind of bee has been lurking around my garden for a good week and half.

Two of them in fact.

Just hovering and buzzing and generally being very annoying, interrupting the solitary joy of working in the garden and constantly putting me on edge.

I forgot to mention that the little buggers are HUGE.

Turns out they are carpenter bees. Which would explain why they hover around the corner eave of my house ALL day...EVERY day.

They make a little hole in the wood of the eave with their mandible. Lay eggs and keep watch.

Great....

The other day, I thought about swatting them with a fly swatter, or better yet a shovel. But then I thought that probably wouldn't do anything since they run into the gutters about 100 times a day and they aren't even phased.

I need to get rid of them...any ideas?

Job

I had an interview yesterday and I feel it went really well. It is a temp to hire position through a staffing agency. Please pray that all goes well and that they think I am the perfect candidate for the job!!!!!

Dallas

This past weekend we went to Dallas to celebrate my Aunt Linda's Retirement. She had NO idea about the surprise party we planned for her.

It was also a perfect opportunity to go to here:

The store was fairly modern for my tastes but I still could have dropped a hundred bucks there if I had the money. Oh wait...I still dropped $100 on this:

I have been wanting a bench for our front porch for quite some time. We had a hard time finding just the perfect one until we spotted this beauty. It is just the right size and perfectly our taste. And the best part is that it took 20 minutes to assemble. Way better than the piece of crap Lowe's bench that took about 3hrs.

My Grandparents came down for the event, too.

My Grandma got me inspired to actually put some flowers in my garden...

...and Grandpa helped Stephen learn more about Sheephead.

Fancy Spring

Sometime I think I know what I'm doing in my garden and other times I just look over the obvious. As in, I planted my tulips in complete shade last year. Therefore, only about 5 bloomed.

I had forgotten that I had planted the spiky ones!!!!

In other news, my mom took my to get a manicure and pedicure and this time I decided to do a french manicure. It gives the illusion that my nails are longer and I feel extra fancy which is good for my self esteem.