Catching Up

So Rob is off overseas and his instruction were to clear the camera so that he can take it with him. Was finally the excuse I needed to update the blogsite.

Last weekend we had a little birthday party (cake and jelly joll) for Chris, here is with his new watch on, getting his concoction of cupcakes filled with candles.

A couple of weeks ago we went to George to watch Chris and his U14 Rugby Team play their matches whilst on tour of Wilderness and George. Chris and his team stayed in a place that he called a haunted prison - he swears there were ghosts floating around, it was in fact an empty school boarding house.

We on the other hand stayed at a 5 star hotel . . . James found the pool table and conned both Rob and I into games - he is actually pretty good at it.

Here are Rob and James inspecting the huge koi fish that were right outside our room, separating us from the Golf Course. Of course whilst we were there, we had to visit the Knysna Elephant Park www.knysnaelephantpark.co.za, which was a huge treat for James. We got to feed the elephants and the guides gave us a very interesting run down of the elephants and their lives.

They are incredible animals and a definite must for foreign visitors to experience.

Had to capture this moment, we had a lovely roast for dinner this evening with Gill and Josh (James's friend from school), when I went through to Gran I found James, Josh and Gran playing , which is game like rummy except you have spell words from the cards in your hands. Gran even had the boys looking up words in the dictionary - WONDERFUL.

Chris is still making excellent progress with his Kumon Maths and has now started on the English program as well. Lets hope the report reflects the improved marks.

James has also presented us with his report and it is fantastic, he has done soooooooo well this term. All the hard work, banned TV, moaning and threatening has been worth it.

Gill arrived with her homework, something to do with Shakespear, to be honest I just switched right off, as that is one thing that made NO sense to me at school. I don't even remember what setwork book we read - but then I have a way of blocking trauma out of my brain - that's all I can put it down to (hee hee) sorry Gill - keep at it.

As you can see there is also a lovely bunch of flowers on the table from Brian for Secretaries day - isn't that sweet.

Finally the picture of Michelle (in cognito [NOT!!]). This is going to become her official facebook picture.

Just Another Fun Filled Friday Night

Yay, its school holidays and that means I don't have to swim for a week, might just be enough time to get the smell of chlorine off my body and hair. It also means that I don't have to make school lunches, but that I will need to increase the availability of food in the house as these kids can eat when they are home, add in a couple of friends and 2 loaves of bread a day is nothing!

Our first night of school holidays, I am sitting at the computer at Fran's house when people come running in telling me to phone BKM as Grendon's scooter has been stolen. We had all been sitting having a braai for Adele's birthday when the doorbell rang and women tells us she saw 2 guys steal the scooter that had been parked in the street. It turns out she was driving down the road with her 7 month baby in the car, when he started crying as she drove past the house, she had to swerve to avoid people who were pushing the scooter into the road, she thought nothing of it and pulled over a little further down the road to sort out her baby. The next thing she knew there was a guy in her back seat with a knife to her side, demanding she drive. Anyways after many phonecalls and radio chats, about 8 police vans and patrollers, the scooter was found on the other side of the railway line already damaged (presumably stripped for spare parts to sell for drugs). Unfortunately one of the patrollers spotted the suspects and was chasing them when they ran over a river and he was unable to follow them, so yet another crime goes by unpunished. I suppose we should all be grateful that no-one was hurt, but it just makes a person mad that we cannot live our lives in peace and have to continuously worry about how the criminal might catch us.

But back to Adele's party, we all had lovely evening, with many bottles of wine consumed and plenty of photo's taken that have been updated to the relevant facebook profiles. Adele got it into her head that she needed a photo of every person present with her in the photo.

Frances, Michelle, Ursula, Louise and everyone else there all had their photo's taken, but some of these left a LOT to be desired.

Poor Rob was only flying in late that evening and of course (no big surprise) his flight was delayed due to a power failure at the airport. So he only arrived quite late.

Since we left there late, our kids who are of course past the stage of going to sleep, spent the entire night playing boxing, bowling, tennis etc on the Wii. Even Rob had a got a the boxing and came outside puffing after a few rounds, looks like a great way to get the kids a bit of exercise, rather than watching TV. Chris of course did his usual Friday night stint at the moving, but this time made sure he was there early enough not to miss the movie.

Well after all that excitment, we woke up to a relatively peacefull day. James eventually stumbled out of bed at 09h45. Chris and his friend Kevin spent most of the day at the ramps and as you can see from the photo had quite a hard day of it. Believe it or not he hasn't been beaten up, the eye is from where he was attacked by a candy floss stick (don't ask) and the mouth, I have no idea . . .

for all the joys of technology that makes our lives easier, I tried to go to SARS efiling registration but as simple as it seems, I can't get it right, will have to get my technical director / tax advisor (aka Rob) to investigate the problem.

Poor old Micky he is beside himself without Gran here, and we have been telling him all day that its just a few more hours then she will be home, as I am writing this Rob is on his way to the airport to collect her. Will be nice to have her home again.

Rob as per usual spend his weekend charging around the house like a lunatic, clearning rubble away, visiting his favourite store Builders Warehouse, unblocking drains and throwing a concrete slab (No rest for the wicked)

I on the other hand spent my morning catching up on admin and showing my mom how to get onto facebook and already she has found some of her ólder' friends on there - watch this space, next thing will be her own blog page.