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Willem and Amanda are both from South Africa: Willem is from the Strand by the coast near Cape Town and Amanda is from Williston in the Karoo where you get the best lamb.
Willem went to Manchester (England) to study in 1995 and Amanda went to London for a working holiday in 1996. We met in South West London, near Wimbledon in August of 1996. We started dating from here on until we committed to bigger things......marriage! We got married on December 13th, 1999.
Willem started work at NASA Ames in California in October of 1998. Soon after our wedding, Amanda also moved to California. We met a lot of lovely friends from different parts of the world....America, Turkey, France, Germany, England, Greece and even more South Africans. Amanda began working in the Wine business in May 2002. We lived in Mountain View (30 miles south of San Francisco) for 3.5 years. We finally bought a townhouse in April of 2003 in the city of San Jose (40 miles south of SF). Nowadays Amanda is a stay-at-home mom. She will get back into the wine business as soon as the kids get older and start school again. Willem left NASA after 8 years and joined a small company called SEVEN that makes software for reading email on your mobile phone.
We love living in San Jose and met a lot of new friends, especially our neighbors, the Montoyas. Our circle of friends are increasing every day, since Amanda was in the Wine business and Willem is an avid collector. Our social calendar is quite full with wine tastings, wine dinners and hanging out with all our great friends from all over the globe.
Since the arrival of Liam in January 2005 there has been no slowdown on the social front. In 2004 we started making our own wine with a "cluster of friends"; look out for our Vidmar Syrah 2004 and Thompson Syrah 2005 in a store near you! Oh well, probably not, since we are only making a barrel of each.
We're happy to add Danielle to our lives and website. She was born on April 28th, 2007. Now shares a birthday with her godfather and uncle, Ernie. Danni is extremely active. She's more of a tomboy than a princess.