Cape Town Aquarium

After a long but fun week at school Joel asked if we could go to the aquarium on Saturday, so we did. Joel adores the place and Eli is developing a passion for it too which is brilliant. As ever we had a great morning, taking in all the tanks especially the sharks, crabs & lobsters followed by the touch tank and the children's activity centre where they both enjoyed the puppet show and Joel made an octopus! We've been members of the aquarium for almost 3 years and it really is well worth it!

Bible Study

We had an excellent bible study on Thursday. We were looking at Daniel 6 (we're slowly working our way through the whole book) and had an excellent discussion at the end about our faith and whether our neighbours, colleagues etc are aware that we serve the living God 'continually' as Daniel did. Darius recognised Daniel's faith so why shouldn't others recognise our faith? We all felt positively challenged which is great and hopefully we'll see some fruit in our lives as we witness to those around us.

Emyezweni Pre-School

One of the joys of my work is that I get to spend time with a wide variety of people in a wide variety of contexts. One of the best contexts is Emyezweni Pre-School which is run by Debs & Rach as part of HCC's outreach into Lwandle. This morning I took my laptop and projector and played Cars for the kids. Needless to say the film was a huge hit.

The boy in the foreground in the check shirt was riveted

Paddling Pool

We had a fairly lazy weekend and spent quite a bit of time around the paddling pool particularly on Sunday. The weather was great with the temperature in the high 20's rather than low 30's so it was quite comfortable. On Saturday we went to the Nature Reserve (sadly the camera battery died) and had a lovely morning feeding the ducks and trying to coax Spikey the porcupine out of his house, with no success.

Cluster Maps

We've just added the 'Cluster Map' feature lower down on the blog (just above the hit counter) for a bit of fun. We were impressed with the results within the first 24 hours of the map being on the Blog. As you can see from the dots we attracted a fairly broad array of worldwide hits. We figure the dot in Argentina is our dear friends Hazel & Martin but beyond that we can only wonder at the global reach of a simple tool like this Blog.

Hadeda Ibis

The Hadeda Ibis (Bostrychia hagedash) is a regular over our house and can usually be heard long before they're seen as they make a right racket. However, they are spectacular birds and it's a real privilege to have one stop on your house like this.

To see more visit our PhotoBlog

 

Home Based Care

We are constantly amazed by God's goodness and faithfulness regarding Chris Nissen Park. Just when things are getting difficult again in many respects, God sends along a little angel and we can start to dream and plan again for the future! As you know Paula has been dreaming of officially launching a small home based care team this year. Around 20 women from the community have received some training and Paula has done quite a bit of work drawing up requirements, budgets, characteristics of carers etc. However, apart from so far lacking any sort of finance to be able to start the scheme, she also felt quite out of her depth in terms of the more medical side of home based care.

Chris Nissen Update

We're currently melting in the heat, today the temp is supposed to drop to 27°C so that will be a welcome break from the high 30's we've been enjoying. On Wednesday Dean was in Jonkershoek where the temp' was 41° at 9 in the morning! Hopefully this evening it will be a bit cooler as Dean goes mountain biking with a friend. Dean's riding three times a week at present which is great.

Comet McNaught

C/2006 P1 (McNaught) has been hanging around over South Africa for several days and will probably be around for a little while longer. Sadly the weather was cloudy for the best part of the comet's time with us so we've only just been able to see it and get any decent photos, hence the not brilliant photo here! What a pleasure to see something in the cosmos so clearly.

Family Fun

We've had some fun this weekend just chilling with friends and at home. On Sat' we went to some friends around the corner for a lamb 'poitjie' which was delicious. The afternoon was very chilled and the kids played brilliantly. Today we've been hanging out having a braai (bbq) and messing about. The kids have had fun whilst we've melted in the heat, it's well over 30°C today and is supposed to remain hot for the rest of the week. Summer seems to have taken an age to arrive properly but it's arrived with a vengeance.

First Day At School

Our little boy is growing up! This morning he had to put his uniform on for the first time as he got ready to go to the Nursery at the International School. Needless to say we got lumps in our throats as we saw our little boy suddenly looking all grown up. Joel was really excited about going and he was really good when we left him. We can't wait to go and get him at lunchtime!