Butterfly farm

is not worth a visit, they have a cultural village, if you can't make it to lesedi then its a good option. The shebeen (read local bar) seems quite interesting.

View from above the long slide... me on the ground. We got Nate a batman suit (he is very into superheroes now).

Cascades

The Cascades has a beautiful botanical garden and is attached to the golf course. We saw alot of different birds (white and black hardeedar like ones) and a few artificial streams but a huge forest.

As the Palace and the Cascades were closed to the public, we found a back entrance via the golf course that gave us access the gardens and the restaurants at Cascades.

There is a nice spa, gym and salon too at the golf club.

More pictures

Porpor and Nate next to a big mask that is actually a door. nate at the passage to the Valley of the waves.

Here's one of nate driving the speedboat.

Ike had a fever on the saturday night and here he is passed out after the monoline rides, still has alot of reserve fatty cells to last through the appetiteless period.

Cabanas

There are 4 hotels at Sun City, the Cabanas seem the most child friendly if you don't want to stay at vacation club, the ground units open up to big lawns and a large area for kids to play. I heard that the hotel itself is quite old and run downish.

Here they have mini quad bikes for kids under 10, long slides, a fort where you can leave your child for day care, a zoo, two large trampolines, a small steam train that goes thru a mini swamp and waterworld where you can do banana boat, parasailing, rent a speedboat etc.

We were back here a few times with the kids, ikes favourite was a wooden ramp at the restaurant where he could practice his bridge crossing skills.

Valley of the waves

The nearest beach to Joburg is in suncity at the valley of the waves, it is a big cement pool but the pool is painted a sand color and imported sand. When there is a siren there is a wave. The first time nate saw the wave, from his height it must have really seemed like a tsunami headed his way.

There is a another area called the lazy river, which the kids did not want to float down but they did like the kiddie pool area with a water slide and a floating croc and a elephant "shower".

Sun City

Well its strange for a place as well known as sun city is that I could not find maps of the compound or more detailed information on things to do before going. Vaguely I knew there were big surf pools, a golf course and lots of kiddy things.

We picked nate up at 1pm and set off, its about 1.5 hours away and we arrived at 3:30 with both kids having taken a nap, the scenery is quite nice as we pass the magliesberg mountains and just vast open land. On the way we pass Harbeetspoort and also many citrus farms with many small stalls selling guava, mangoes and a few types of nuts. On the way there was strong winds, at one part of the journey the wind blew the weeds and they just tumbled across the highway in chunks, here is a car with a "mouthful" of those weeds.

Vacation club is divided into the new part and the old, i did not know this when doing the booking and was told at vacation club you can have open lawns for the kids to run around, well we got one next to a slope and the old part so although its been refurbished the fixtures etc were still of the 1980s. The buildings in Sun City also had a very 80s feel to it.

After arriving, we check in and try to swim but it looked like the Joburg rainy weather may have followed us so we took the boys on a monorail ride. Loren came in at 630pm and we tried to go to a nice restaurant at the Palace hotel but they were booked out by a big group and so no one had access to 2 of the 4 hotels there for a 3 week period. Also information like this was not posted on their web or made clear when I spoke to their reservation desk. A bit disappointing.

Pics of the croc farm (worth visiting and do avoid the butterfly park, really not worth visiting), the croc park has a nice ramp meandering thru a 200 nile crocs of varying sizes, there is also a meercat area (note the one relaxing) and a part for baby crocs. We even managed to buy 2 croc teeth.

After escaping 2 kids, we end up having dinner at quite a nice steak place but with a table of 14, 10 year old boys. Nothing a bottle of good south african vino can't cure....

Harvesting tomatoes

Today the kids and I harvested a number of the tomatoes in my vege garden, we may have plucked them a bit too soon as they are a bit green but quite sizable ones (palm sized). My eggplants are coming along nicely too but I wonder when you know they are ready for plucking. Nate later in the day (when Ike had gone for his bath) helped me cut basil and parsley and I made my first batch of pesto sauce. I should have taken a picture of me trying to force the leaves to blend in the blender.

Autumn Flora

Today as i am riding my horse or rather as I am unintentionally horsing around on that horse, my trainer is laughing so hard as I fumble through cantering (she also probably has a sore throat from shouting instructions at me), seriously how do they expect that I would want to naturally remove my hands (that are used for hanging on to dear life), so that I can steer my horse. I feel like Jojo (the horse) are traveling incredibly fast (this must be that speed rush that people get driving fast cars or skiing down slopes) and thus I should hold on as tight as I can, but every time i let go to steer she then says my hands are bouncing around like a chicken flapping its wings, my new pants with some suede feature that should assist my staying in the saddle is not working and although from yoga my heels can point down fairly well... when the horse is running fast and I am bouncing up and down, thinking about heels down, no flapping wings, take hands off saddle, bouncing up and down trying to steer the horse away from a jump post... is quite alot... anyway the point I wanted to get at is at the far end of the training arena, there is a really interesting plant but as I do not carry my camera or phone riding I could not take a pic of it, if I went near the plant the horse may have eaten it, so I got no pics of that plant that looked like 100 hanging green capsicums. Maybe next week I will try and get a shot.

A spider web with dew in the morning. The pink and white flowers (I think they are a type of daisy) are a pleasure to look at driving around this time of the year, they are wild but so gorgeous, the flower bush has actually gotten denser from a week ago when I took the pics.

Ike before his Preschool days...

Another 11 days and Ike will be attending preschool!

here is a somewhat scary pic of him looking almost like a midwest redneck american, all he is missing is a hunting rifle. The two pics are of him joining porpor and me for breakfast, he gets his own little cup, which he knows to stir (its only milk) blow to cool it and then sip.

We got some new clothes for Ike, the hand me downs have lived long enough as the holes were getting to rampant to patch up! Ike in his chick magnet mobile, he already has the right pose. The last 3 days he has bumped his head on the same spot and he's got a bump on a bump on a bump, Aunty Michelle says any more bumps and he will have a rhino horn.

Some days he wakes up with the cheekiest hair that stands up like an exotic bird crown of feathers, today he won't even let me take it by side profile, insists on smiling into the camera.

We're off to Sun City tomorrow, there better be SUN!!!

Loren and Johnny

Here is Loren with Johnny Clegg, Johnny appeared at their nokia event at zoo lake, nokia is hosting 100 journalists from around africa and apparently they were all dancing after dinner to Johnny Clegg, since I am pretty much musically dumb (except for maybe some classical stuff), I have not idea what type of music JC plays. Loren called the meeting of JC (also a member of the Jewish clan) the highlight of his career in Africa. We go see JC live in concert in June.

Here is Loren posing next to a plant for the pics that will be circulated throughout the press in Africa.

Nate's first sleepover

Nate had riley over for an "eatover" last week and they have been best buddies in school playing spiderman together. He then wanted a sleepover... so it started like this... Monday, Riley was so excited that he packed his bag after school, nate behaved so well the whole day.

Tuesday... they play the whole pm together... (pic of ike with a bump on his bump), Nate has swim camp and that seems to really tire him out as well. Anyway towards the end of the day he is really crabby.

They get tucked in together but then nate seems to not like the out of routine or maybe that he and I don't get to spend quality time together? so he cries alot, most likely over tired. He also asked to sleep in his own bed instead of the floor, which is a first in a long time. Riley doesn't need a diaper now and Nate suddenly wants to go diaper free too, maybe I'll see if he still wants to do that tomorrow... wonder how long it takes to diaper train at night?

Its 30 mins since the last time one of them popped out of the room, I think its safe to go shower now...

We head to Sun City this Friday, think and send us lots of images and vibes of sunshine please!

Various pics

nate and his new sneakers (or takkies as they are known here) and his fav jacket from Zeda, the orange softie roots jacket.

The two crocs at the Lory Park Zoo, they sure do not look as comfy as the latest winter crocs with fleece lining. Ike made away with two feathers...

Nate can have a full imaginary conversation on a fake phone but freezes up when its a real phone.