Back on-line

Its been well over a month since I wrote a decent blog post, how time flies! Ouma and Oupa were away for the first 2 weeks of March and took the Internet Dongle with them (one of the benefits of having mobile internet!). We just lay low for those 2 weeks, prepared for the fact that our only communication with the outside world would be on our Blackberrys. One – of the many things – that I can’t do on my phone is sign into and write a blog post!

I did have the opportunity to use the internet a couple of times at my friend Walda’s house, and used those times to load photos of our daily lives. I far prefer visiting with Walda to working on the laptop and can’t usually load large quantities of photos on the connection that we have at home, so it seemed to work well.

Its been a tough 8 weeks or so! We’ve all taken turns to have the flu and it hasn’t been fun! I think it started with Jed and just when he (eventually!) began to get better, Ryan and Ethan got it. It was a nasty thing, which lingered for ages! The only medication we bought was a bottle of cough mixture for Jed, and when it was all finished it didn’t seemed to have helped at all! So, when Ryan began to cry with earache and a throat infection, I quickly did some research and really went out of the box. Have been thinking that was for the longest time, but it’s the first time I made my own ear drops! I found that a concoction of coconut oil and garlic simmered together and strained works fantastically and within 24 hours we had the ear and throat infection beaten! (Prayer also contributed a lot to that healing, I know!)

The boys were all just about recovered when Dieter spent a day or two in bed fighting off the symptoms. Just when I thought it was all over and was celebrating the fact that Aimee and I had been spared we were both hit from behind and almost smacked to the floor! Its been yuck! At one stage, about 14 days into the flu, I thought it would never get better … but 3 weeks later my sense of taste and smell is returning and I can feel I’m doing much, much better. We’re nearly there!

Lots has happened in the past 8 weeks or so, despite lots of ‘down time’ to try and rest and recover. We’ve had tons of grey, wet days and have just enjoyed the opportunity to snuggle up and relax. We’ve watched all 5 games in the T-20 one day-series between SA and Pakistan, a good handful of great movies and lots of travel and décor programmes on Fine Living!

We spent one weekend in Jongensfontein at a church camp with about 250 other people from 5 different churches in the Western Cape. It was a lovely weekend away, in an awesome spot right on the beach! Was great to get outdoors again, and we enjoyed great teaching and worship, but also good times with new friends.

Ouma Malan has been very sick in the past month or so, and spent 3 of those weeks in hospital in Mossel Bay. We’ve popped in to see her a few times over the past few weeks and are glad she is resting and as comfortable as possible in the Sick Bay of the retirement village she lives in.

We’re also working really hard in preparation for our Import venture which is about to happen any week now. We’ve had our fair share of learning curves, and they have been steep! But right now we have successfully registered our business, have all the necessary official documents in hand, have opened a business bank account and have applied for our Importer’s Permit. Our shipment sailed from China this past weekend and is expected to arrive in Cape Town on 30 April, so by the beginning of May we will have products in hand to sell ….. its all very exciting! Its also been awesome to see God’s hand in orchestrating it all and providing for us through the partnership of very generous people. I’m excited to see how this all unfolds.

We’ve just had a short break from our usual term-time routine and today began to get back into the swing of things. Its so exciting to see Aimee understanding and remembering the phonics and math we do together – today I really saw breakthrough! Ethan is also making great progress in his math and phonics and loves the challenge. He hasn’t been to keen on the reading but has just found he is able to read a whole book (a little one!) and that was exhilarating. Ryan pulled out a Sudoku book this weekend and is wrapped up in the challenge all over again, and he and Jed have just learned about Pi and terminology relating to circles. Challenging stuff that they’ve understood so easily! Jed is still reading faster than we can supply books and doing research to make his own version of ‘Top Trump cards’. Never a dull moment in our home!

Diet has spent quite a bit of time lately helping some friends work on the house they are building. It’s a wooden house and Dieter is excited about what they are doing and loves helping out! He’s also enjoying the preparation research as we try to find retailers who can stock our products and make repeat orders possible.

And I am enjoying the wonderful people God has brought into my life for this season of our lives. These are precious friendship and precious people and I’m appreciating that friendship and the times we spend together. My main love language is definitely ‘Quality Time’!!!

And so, Autumn starts and we get ready for winter with a lot of rain and grey cloudy days. It seems George has 9 months of Autumn and 3 months of spring ….. I know we have all 4 seasons here, but summer and winter are both so short here, they only last a few days! The leaves are starting to change colour and fall, and this is the most exciting time of the year to go walking around the neighbourhood because one finds the most amazing leaves, branches, nuts, etc that have fallen from the trees. But, we don’t walk that much anymore since all 6 of us are now riding our bikes around the neighbourhood periodically! Exciting!!