Happy 21st Landi

We recently celebrated Landi's 21st birthday! She had a Super-hero-Kids party! So, you had to dress-up as a cartoon or super-hero.

Every body dressed-up and had so much fun. There were no long speeches or boring toasts! Just good food, good friends and good dancing!!!

There was even a little spider!!!

Bad News!!!

Ever had the feeling that the noise you just heard meant bad news...

Well, on the 11th of August I had that feeling and so did the rest of my family. Me, Landi and Andre were standing at the back door, chatting about something or other when we heard what sounded like a toolbox being dropped. In that one second we knew something had happened even though we've heard it a million times before. So, we run outside and found my dad with two of his fingers bending in the wrong direction. A car engine had fallen on his hand!!!

We rushed him to the hospital where he had to go into surgery, by the grace of God it was only his ring- and middle-finger that had been broken.

We ask for your prayers for a full recovery!!!

Gold Reef City

Getting to Gold Reef City proved to be more of a challenge than getting onto it's most famous rides...


The type of fun you can only have with a close friends or tourists!!

Pilans Berg with the girls!!!

Well, Sarah and Corinne came to visit little-old-Africa. So, we just HAD to show them how we, Africans, live in the "wild"!!! As you can see Sarah wasn't scared at all, maybe it's because she watched THE LION KING!!!

It was truly a blessing having you here!!!

*BIG thanks to Caroline for arranging the great trip*

The Next Top Model!

Oranjeville, Here we come!!!

In the Free State there's this tiny town called Oranjeville. It has only one road (the one that runs through it) and one "Stop" sign,

But it is safely nestled on an island on a river that runs through

the Free State. It is in this town that I discovered that my

doggy could be the next top model!!!

Everybody was out doing Heaven-knows-what in this town,

so I decided to take Coco for a walk. I grabbed my camera on

my way out and when I opened the lens, I saw something

strange (Not on the camera but in the corner of my eye).

Coco was just standing there as if waiting for something...

looking into the distance... with the wind in her hair...

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, she was striking a pose!!!

She must have seen my camera a million times and now

knew what she had to when I took it out.

That wasn't the only thing that happened that weekend.

The people next door also had Yorkie, one that was born

on the same day as Coco (Now that's strange). At first she

didn't like him, But then later we found them Kissing through

the fence!!! As a mother I must say that I am not thrilled with

the idea of my girl kissing boys through the fence!!!

It’s in the air

…tension!

Tension that is caused by phrases like Super 14, Tri-nations and ICC cricket world cup. This is a season that I can truly say I HATE!!!

Oh, believe me, I am a great supporter of all South African teams, but this is stepping out of line! It’s on every channel, in every news paper and on everybody’s lips and its driving me nuts! Unless you go to a cinema, you have no chance of watching a movie without someone saying “I just wanne check out the score!”

In my house everyone is on holiday at the moment, even me! But I can tell you now there will be no late-night-movie-marathon that keeps you up till the early hours of the next day or home-made popcorn and sugary treats.

…and what is a holiday without at least one movie marathon?

Wanting wintry bliss

Here in Sunny Africa we’ve had temperatures soaring into the 40’s over the last couple of months and I have now had enough.

After a year of summer, it is no wonder that I am now praying for winter to chill up my days once again. You see, for the past year it has just so happened that I have always been in a country were it was summer. But, gigantic coats, cozy Sunday-afternoon naps and oversized mugs filled with steaming hot chocolate is all that I’m hoping for now.

…Then it happened a few nights ago. I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning with a desperate need for the loo. I slipped my feet into my favorite slipper and then swiftly made my way down the hallway with a yorkie following close at my feet. I did my business and then quickly returned to room with my eyes still half closed just to avoid waking up completely. I checked coco’s bed and found that she had returned to my room, I then closed the door and sat down my bed. I kicked my slippers aside and then laid my head onto the pillow. It took me one long second to realize what I felt, it was the crispy cold feeling of a pillow returning to its wintry-state. OH HAPPY DAYS!!! I quickly fell asleep with a big smile on my face.

Drakensberg

Had a little weekend away in the Drakensberg and I thought I should share some pics!

(And this is also where I'll be having my wedding in a few short years :-)

We stayed on Mount Champagne!

Did a little walking and ...
...a little nothing.

The BIG question!!!

We want aks you a little question. Well it's actually something that Landi wants to know.

How would you define "inbetween"?

We dont want to know what the Oxford Dictionary says, so be creative people!!!

Say No to New Year’s Resolutions!

Every Year I hear of a lot of people making New Year’s Resolutions to loose weight, make more money or just do better at something. I think their only setting themselves up for failure, I mean not all things can start with a jump into the deep end. Why not rather start small, start with changing your thinking or those ugly little habits off walking to the fridge in between meals.

I myself live to eat and only made the decision to eat more healthy food and a little less sugar and when the time comes I’ll make the decision to change another bad habit.

Plus who can start with diet when I have just discovered YUMMY Aussie cookies right here in lovely SA!

Hope…prayer…faith…God… Everything that makes it happen…

Have you ever waited for something for long that you started thinking it was never going to happen. Something, some happiness or some love that just looked like it was never going to come your way, well …I got it!

Let me explain! …I love animals! And the last time I had what you would call a huggable creature was in 2002. It was a Yorkshire terrier called Millo, and she was beautiful and such a little miracle! So, for the last 4 years I’ve been looking for a new miracle, in the Newspapers, at pet shops and with everybody I knew who had Yorkshire terriers. But it just didn’t happen, something was always a little off! It was either me being in London (where I obviously couldn’t keep a dog) or there were some money issues and other stuff that always got in the way!

…And then it happened! Almost exactly 4 years after Millo died. I was given a BIG blessing in a tiny body!

She is now about 3 months old and is almost fully house-trained, she knows where her bed is and where I keep her toys. She knows not to wake me up but rather sit and wait patiently until I open my eyes. We’ve even had our first “drowning experience”! I was lying on the one side of the pool and my sister on the other and as usual Coco was just going nuts! She was fighting-off bugs and chewing on plants when, like a student driver, she just backed-up all-of–a-sudden and found herself in 3 feet under water and still going down. It took me what felt like forever to realize I need to do something and the next moment I found myself standing next to my sister in the pool with a wet puppy in my hands.

So, I hope you’re not just sitting around waiting for it to come your way, you better be out there …patiently …searching…

What a waste!!!

The South African government decided a while ago that they need to change all names that stem from the apartheid era, talk about holding a grudge. I didn’t mind when it was small changes but now they’ve gone and changed Johannesburg International Airport to O. R. Thambo Airport.

Let me tell you a little something… in this country 30% of the people don’t have jobs. That means 30% is starving, and that means 30% needs to steal, kill or hi-jack cars to get some sort of income and that’s not even taking into account the children that are starving, dying of diseases or growing-up without an education meaning that they to will become part of the now 30%.

Like I said, I don’t mind the small changes, but taking food or education away from an already deprived child is just wrong. There is no way to justify spending millions of Rands on changing a name when there is a hungry child.

Hills in SA

When I heard that Hillsong London was coming to SA, I just had to go! Landi and Andre came with me and it was a good night to share them. As always, spending a night in the presence of God is great and then having Pastor Gary saying just what you needed to hear maked it even better!!!

She's here!!!

I am happy to report that the yorkie I have been waiting for is here!!! On the 27 Oct I was invited to go and pick a puppy so that I could decide on a name and then she could be registers. Well, after much consideration and a few strange suggestions I decided that a designer dog should have a designer name! So I would like you to meet Coco Chanel...

I get to pick her up on the 25 Nov, YAY!!!

Before I go I would like to apologize for not blogging as much these days and also ask that the person responsible for the Shakespearian-hate-mail please stop!!!

This Applies To You

A good woman is proud of herself.
She respects herself and others.
She is aware of who she is.
She neither seeks definition from the person she is with,

nor does she expect them to read her mind.
She is quite capable of articulating her needs.

A good woman is hopeful.
She is strong enough to make all her dreams come true.
She knows love, therefore she gives love.
She recognizes that her love has great value and must be reciprocated.
If her love is taken for granted,

it soon disappears.

A good woman has a dash of inspiration, a dabble of endurance.
She knows that she will, at times,

have to inspire others to reach the potential God gave them.
A good woman knows her past,

understands her present and moves toward the future.

A good woman knows God.
She knows that with God the world is her playground,

but without God she will just be played.
A good woman does not live in fear of the future because of her past.
Instead, she understands that her life experiences are merely lessons,

meant to bring her closer to self knowledge and unconditional self love.

An email from a friend.

...shoes

I’ve just recently re-done my room, and noticed that I have a LOT of shoes. So I thought that it’s probably time for a name change, I mean, this season is a bit of a lonely one and I think it has more to do with the shoes that I’m in (you’ll get it if you can read the deeper meaning)…It’s such a girl thing to do, comparing my life with shoes. But for those of you who get it, I’m not exactly in the high-heel of party seasons! I’m in more of the comfy slipper season, plus I think I’ve been spending to much time in my slippers.

My apologies for being such a bad blogger these days, I haven’t had much time to spend in front of the computer! …and if your wondering what have I been doing with my time seeing as don’t work or study …yet! I have been taking art lessons to help with my portfolio for Varsity next year. Please pray that they like it!!!

PS. The Springboks played a lovely game on Saturday, didn’t they?

Rabbits

Women's day

Africa

So, all you peeps out there that is not from Africa believe that we live with a pet lion at our front door and a giraffe in the garden trimming the trees, not to mention the fat hippo in the swimming pool. Well, have a look at these pics!

Nah, just kidding they were taken on Saturday at a nature reserve called Rhino and Lion. We went there as part of a surprise for Landis birthday. She loved it! While there, we got the chance to play with two lion cubs called Shakira and Nandi. Yes, that is correct the lion was named after me!!! My soon-to-be-brother-in-law was bitten on the hand and above the knee; guess they didn’t like him that much! But here most of the animals live together in harmony, you could see that when we went to see a snoozing baby rhino cause he had a goat standing on top of him… how funny is that…

It was a great day. We even got to see somebody’s tyre get ripped off because they got to close to the big lions (that’s what happens when you don’t sick to the rules) …

The new season

It's all done! I'm back in S.A. and loving it... I must say that I've heard some bad stuff about South Africa lately (back in London), but this is where my heart is and my home.

So, this new season has started and it's gonna be a great one! I haven't got my puppy yet (just incase you were wondering). But I have got my family and three other dogs (not mine) to look after. Plus I have forgotten how good it is to sleep in your own bed, cook in your own kitchen and have your bathroom to yourself!!! It's fantastic!!!

I've only been home for 5 days but there are some places that I miss, like the Dominion Theater, Starbucks on Putney High Street and No. 48 Evenwood Close... not to mention the people!