Interview with batman

Here is my first attempt at using the video function on the Nokia N82.

Gold reef city

Loren and the boys at the amusement park on passover.

A cold front is heading our way and some mountainous regions will even get snow. I have bought two pairs of fuzzy crocs. One for me and one for porpor. We will have warm toes.

ike's first day at school and nate's first football game

Ike survived his first day at school... or rather I did... was told to pick him up at around 10, got there at 10:15, he was crying... the teacher said he was crying on and off. He later came home and napped closer to 1pm and slept till 330pm. He has done this 2 days in a row now and wakes up at 6am, while sleeping at 7pm. I put nate to sleep at about 630 and get to read to Ike for about 30 to 40 mins, his favourite book is now Noah's Ark.

Here is Nate finally participating at football. The coach paid him alot of attention and for the first 20 mins I was there playing on the field as well. The things parents have to do and people never warn you about! Now he wants the whole uniform and the spiky shoes as well. he's actually quite good at it, with karate and football on monday, he ate a snack and also finished his dinner! Passed out quite quickly at bedtime. His favourite book - King Smelly Feet. can't remember who got him that one but he seems to wonder how feet can get smelly.

Loren's Birthday

its nice having one's birthday on a monday as one can celebrate the whole weekend... we started with a nice massage at a spa on friday then dinner. I managed to escape Nate and Ike by offering them pop corn and cartoon watching after dinner with porpor.

On saturday, we went to Casalinga, its a gorgeous place and with the shortcut from our home its only like 10 minutes away, we should go there more often. They now have a great chocolate bar (see pic) and also a coffee special thing with beans imported from all over africa (pity i don't drink coffee, loren was very tempted).

On sunday we had brunch at a nice river setting called river place (www.riverplace.co.za), too bad Ike was so sleepy and grumpy I didn't get to take pics of the place, it had a nice river meandering thru (the kids throwing rocks here), on sundays they set up in the gazebos and also have a jumping castle and a playground for the kids. It was a nice nice sunny day with good food (yogurt, scones, muffins, fresh fruit and the optional omelette or big fry up).

Not sure why loren's cake has 4 candles but... maybe the guy was rounding up.

And here is his birthday gift, the "throne" seat or a chieftains chair... the only condition to this chair is if he over invites people to shabbat, I will not sit on a small stool next to him! For those who want to get him something... the chair may need a soft cushion...

The last pic is a pig and a sheep that nate made for dada's birthday.

First compost and worm casting harvest

The first two pics are of batman and spiderman (riley) helping me to get the compost out of the compost bin and to get the worm castings without getting the worms in the mixture. Even my gardener said its the best compost he has ever seen.

The leaves are shedding so much and so fast that my two compost bins and a 21 days cycle still cannot process the leaves. Am sad to report that we have to have the garbage people take them away.

last two pics are of ike and nate out with dada. Ike passed out at 11:00am which makes me wonder how he will survive school next week considering he woke up at 630am today (slept at 5pm yesterday!! must be still recovering). I think I'll go with picking him up at 11:00am and feeding him at home and nap here.

Loren said two wonderful and well behaved boys with him today, they must enjoy each other's company!

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.