Bike Race - Preparations

Joel's nursery are holding a 'Bike Rally' tomorrow and there are prizes for the best decorated bike, so Joel & Daddy set about creating a masterpiece. Joel loved using 'real' paint and could barely contain himself. The biggest struggle for Daddy supervising was trying to persuade Joel to wait a while to allow one colour to dry before using a different one. Anyhow, he got the hang of it and did a sterling job.

Eli Standing

Here's a video of Eli standing. He's getting really confident now and has taken one step on a few occasions so he's sure to be walking soon. Scary thought!

Eli

We took this photo of Eli this morning as he was showing off with his standing. He's been standing freely for a while now, but yesterday he took his first step and took another this morning. Having has a child who didn't move for 18 months it's quite scarey having a monster who's been moving since he was 4½ months old! Eli is a week short of being 11 months.

Chris Nissen

I had an interesting morning in CNP today. His first task was to deliver a load of toys and two cupboards to the newly established créche in the community. This créche is a bit of a mixed blessing for us, it's great that at last there is something for the kids and their parents, it means that I can no longer use the containers for my bible study on Thursday mornings.

There's Mischief In Them Thar' Hills

Joel seemed to spend the whole of Sunday getting into mischief one way or another. Here's a sample of some of his antics plus a couple of cute shots of Eli to counter balance it all. Check out Joel's novel use of peas over on Finnie's In Focus

P. W. Botha

I wasn't planning to comment on the death of P.W. Botha, most realise that he was an anachronism from another time. An ugly reminder of the dark days of the apartheid regime of the 1980's. However, two things have come out of his death that warrant comment. The first thing is 'historical revisionism' and the second is 'forgiveness'. Clearly the second is by far the most important so I'll concentrate more on that one once I've dealt with the first.

Update On Our Week

The week in summary... It started last Saturday when Dean & Joel went to our 'Launchpad' camp near Grabouw. Dean was the official photographer and Joel was the able assistant! Look out on our PhotoBlog early next week for more photos of that. On Thursday, Dean was again the 'official' photographer, this time for Choices, our pregnancy crisis counseling centre. Dean has done a few bits for them and really enjoys serving this BRILLIANT ministry.

Health & Study

The good news is that Dean doesn't have TB! Praise God!! The bad news is that he's going to have to see the Dr. and try to sort out his cough and wheeziness as it's been going on for quite a while now. Dean is really frustrated as he can't shake off the cough but really doesn't want to take any more antibiotics. Probably the biggest frustration is not being able to go cycling, he's missed two rides this week and one last week, so he's trying to sort out a ride for tomorrow.

Firefox 2.0 - Rediscover The Web

In case you're not aware, Firefox version 2 has just been released and can be downloaded from their website. I fully recommend it!

Ditch Internet Explorer today!

Sunday Afternoon

The weekend was quite manic with a lot of runnig around, with not much family time to be had, so yesterday afternoon we had another picnic tea in the Nature Reserve. The boys love being there and it really is a lovely place. The only shame is that it still closes at 5.30. Thankfully in Nov' they extend it to 7.30 which will be much better. As we were leaving we were treated to a rare sighting of a Bontebok calf, we were all pleased with that! Normally the mothers keep them hidden for quite a while but this one was only a few days old and proudly parading around with the herd.

Sickness & Stuff

Please pray for Dean as he's struggling with his third bronchial infection in a short space of time. Dina and others in Chris Nissen have nagged him to have a TB test so he'll go and get that done on Monday. Dean's sure he hasn't got TB especially having read up on the symptoms. However, it is possible that he keeps getting ill from his incredibly regular contact with TB sufferers in CNP. After his last illness Dean had barely recovered when he took a few TB patients to the clinic in his car. Such close proximity when your immunity is low is not great! Please pray for a sustained period of good health for him.