Eli's 5th Birthday Party

Eli was honoured to have an early birthday yesterday as he will be in the UK on his actual 5th birthday in December and school's out for summer here so most of his friends would have been away too.

So, he dressed in civvies to school and pretended it was his big day.  He has been asking for months for a Ben 10 cake, so mum and dad bravely rose to the task and it was a pretty good result we think!!! (see below) Eli certainly loved it, and 10 kids and a few parents managed to demolish the whole cake at his party.

Weekend

One of the joys of living where we do is that no matter how one is feeling or what is going on one can always stop and take a minute or two to enjoy the sheer beauty of the mountains and coastline interspersed with stunning vineyards. We really are incredibly blessed to live in a very beautiful place!

The weekend began with Michael rocking up and doing a load of work in the garden which was a fantastic blessing.

On Saturday we had a fun day at home followed by fish & chips on the beach in Gordon's Bay followed by the obligatory clamber through the rockpools. The boys were as happy as a pair of pigs in mud (see pics below).

Prayer Request

We recently asked for your prayers regarding an important meeting we had. Thanks for your prayers as that went really well.

However, things have taken an unforseen and unexpected twist since then and we find ourselves in a very difficult and very unpleasant situation and once again we must ask for your prayers.

As things work out we'll let you know more but for now please pray for grace to abound, for wisdom on all sides, for integrity and for God's will to be done.

Roses Are Pink...Blessings Are Great!

In the midst of a very stressful couple of weeks and no immediate sign of the stress ending I've managed to have a really blessed day!

As I collected one of the guys for our Men's Group he told me not to rush off when I dropped him back home as he wanted to give me something. So off we went and we had a good group. I'm loving the way some of the guys are starting to talk freely and open up about things.

Definitely the highlight of my week!

What Can I Do For You?

I had a great phone call with my mate Michael the other day.

Michael had sent me a 'call me back' which I normally ignore unless he follows our pre-arranged code so I know it's important. Anyway, I decided to ring him and the conversation went like this:
Me "Hi Michael, how you doing?"
Michael "What can I do for you?"
Me "You sent me a 'call me back'."
Michael "I know. What can I do for you?"

What a fantastic call!

I hope that Michael's willingness to serve is a response to what I've modelled to him over the years that we've been friends. Either way I was dead chuffed and my garden's looking quite smart now!

Once Upon A Planet...

Here's a couple of photos from the boys recent school production: Once Upon a Planet

They had such a ball and put in a lot of hard work to make a really enjoyable production.  Joel was a "good soldier" and Eli was a robot, who particularly enjoyed "hamming it up" and playing to his audience.  The play was loosely based on Star Wars, so very popular in our house!

Prayer Request

We've got a fairly big and important 36 hours coming up from 9am this morning. Please pray that all goes well and that the Lord's will is the one that prevails.

Thanks guys!

Holiday In Greyton

There's not much you can say about Greyton except... it is a little bit of heaven on earth!  We absolutely LOVE it, and this holiday was made all the better because the boys were a bit more mobile.  They really enjoyed going out on the roads with Dad on their bikes and even trying a bit of off-road too (it's a slippery slope!!).  There is absolutely no need for a car in Greyton, which was heavenly for mum and dad who seem to spend most of their time in a car. We walked to the shop, walked to a coffee shop/restaurant, walked generally and then just lazed around in the lovely house we had rented.  This was the same house we used last year and it is paradise for the boys.  The garden is big and full of hiding areas, ponds, little pool etc, so they literally spent 90% of the time out there making up adventures and - well Eli anyway - swimming!!

The Ucirsive One Dies

Joel & Eli treated us to their puppet show version of The Cursed One (at least we think that's what it was) at lunchtime. We were actually summoned by ticket!!

The story was about a girl (the ucirsive one) who eventually gets killed by Davey Jones, but before that she meets a pirate and Woody & Bullseye, whilst a Krakken wrestles with a lion.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary...

...how does your garden grow?

One of the fun parts of enjoying the first spring in a new home is discovering just what is in the garden. Our garden was an overgrown jungle when we moved in and it didn't appear that much was going on at all, apart from the marijuana plant in the middle of the lawn!

However as Spring has well and truly sprung now we're seeing some good stuff in the garden.

Puppet Master - Pt 2

Having previously promised a photo of Joel's puppet (Puppet Master) here it is...

Joel finally got to bring Davy Jones home just in time to take away on holiday. He's really chuffed with his efforts and I personally think he's done a brilliant job. The attention to detail is great and it genuinely is his creation from design to construction, nothing was done without his complete approval. In fact, he was so fastidious about the design that it took two days and many many attempts to finally get the hat right.