Christmas

We all woke up early to go to the early morning  service (7:30am) at St John’s Methodist church. The kids were excited that father Christmas had come and left all the presents under the tree.

After the service we came home and made quick bacon and eggs breakfast. Aunty Taryn and Peter came around with grandpa George for breakfast.

Then we started opening presents. The kids got spoilt rotten, as usual. Everyone had a great time and got lovely presents.

We then lounged around until about 2pm, when we had a terrific lunch of roast gammon, roast turkey and roast fallow dear leg. There was way too much food and drink! Jorja was overcome by the occasion and fell asleep at the table.

We had a quiet evening, relaxing after a hectic day.

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Christmas eve

Ouma, oupa and oumies came through from St Francis Bay late in the afternoon. We had a lovely Springbok potjie for supper.

As there wasn't a breath of wind we made a bond fire in the braai pit for the kids.

The kids were each allowed one pre-Christmas present. Kayra got a tea set from aunty Cathy, and Jorja a marine toy set. They were both thrilled with them.

The kids put out carrots for the reindeer and milk and biscuits for father Christmas. We all had an early night, waiting eagerly for father Christmas to come!

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Dad in hospital

George had a very low blood count, so he went into hospital for a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy to try and find out where he was bleeding internally. Nothing major was found and a bit of medication should solve the problem.

He is recovering with Taryn.

Van Staden’s Protea Reserve

We met ouma and oupa at the Protea reserve for a nice relaxing day. We had a picnic lunch and walked around the reserve a bit. There were very few Proteas because of the big fire last year. The small ones are all starting to pop up all over the place. A great day was had by all.

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Addo

Well a new car can’t stay clean very long in this house. We went to Addo National Elephant Park for the day and the car is now very dusty and muddy.

The new roads in the southern section of the park are now open so we had to try them all. There isn’t much game there now, they are only starting to stock it. But we did see a baboon, jackal, a bush buck, hartebeest and some warthog.

We are in a drought now, so Addo was very dry. In the main park we saw the usual, albeit few, elephants, warthogs, kudu, hartebeest, ostriches and a buffalo kill.

We had a small braai at the main camp for a late lunch and then made our way home.

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Kid’s room

The kids had another surprise, Shirley instead of working on contracts painted their room. They now have a pink door, lilac beds and drawers, and butterflies and flowers on the wall. The kids helped paint the flowers and butterflies.

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Christmas came early

We went off to Humansdorp to pick up our new Toyota Avanza this afternoon. After signing a forest’s worth of paper we went through to St Francis. The kids were more interested in the new car than their mom and dad!

We spent the night in St Francis and came through to Port Elizabeth about lunch time.

The new car is great and the 7 seats will come in handy. For now we have it configured as a 5 seater with a massive boot.

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Kids are off to St Francis

Ouma and oupa came and fetched the kids to spend some of their holidays in St Francis. Shirley has some overseas contracts to finish, so hopefully the quiet time will help with that.

Kiki died

Kiki, the hamster, died yesterday. Hopefully of old age.

We had a burial this morning. Kayra showed me a spot to dig a hole, she said it was next to Squeaky’s grave, and guess what, while digging I hit a cardboard box. So I quickly closed it up and tried another spot further out.

We are definitely running out of burial space!

So I guess mommy is going to be buying some new hamsters soon.

Jorja’s school play

Jorja had her school play today. The groups were much younger so all they did was sing a few songs.

The kids all got a book as a prize at the end of the show.

Everyone had a great time and enjoyed the performances.

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Kayra’s school play

Kayra had her school play this morning. It was about a trip to the Kruger National Park and all the animals and sights to see there. She was the colour red!

The kids put on a great show and everyone enjoyed themselves.

The video I made came out quite jumpy because I was laughing so much!

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Heather’s 5th birthday

We went to the Snow’s for Heather’s 5th birthday party. The girls had a great time and wore their fairy wings the whole weekend.

Had a good braai after woods, with a few beers of course!

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Steytlerville

The girls were invited by friend to the farm Hopedale outside Steytlerville for the weekend. We left Friday after lunch and got there late afternoon. The kids had a great time became plaas jaapies quite quickly.

Graham shot a Springbok on Saturday morning. Amazingly the kids didn’t have a problem seeing it skinned and cut up in pieces. They had Springbok liver on the braai that night, all 4 of the kids enjoyed it.

The 4 girls loved riding on the back of the bakkie. We went on a great game drive on Saturday afternoon. We saw Springbok, Kudu, Steenbokies and of course plenty Angora goats.

The Karoo is a desolate but beautiful place. It was hot but thankfully it we had a breeze on both days so it was bearable. The kids cant stop talking about their trip to the farm.

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Ouma Elze’s birthday

The kids were in St Francis with ouma and oupa last week. We went out there on Friday for ouma Elze’s birthday. Shirley’s sister Brenda was down from Cape Town. A good party was had by all.

Brenda and her boyfriend Massimo walked from Oyster bay back to St Francis on Saturday. Took them just over seven hours, but they enjoyed every minute of it.

Its great to have the kids back home again, it was very quiet without them!

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Connor’s 3rd birthday

Jorja’s friend Connor had his 3rd birthday out in Heatherbank. There was a pony and everyone had a ride. The weather was great and we had a great time.

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Sports Day

Jorja’s play school, Little Eagles, had a sports day. We all had a great time watching the kids run, ride, balance bean bags, balance eggs, etc. etc.

Mom’s and dad’s also had to take part. Thankfully the track was only 40m long!

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1st beach day

We had our 1st beach day this season. Was a great morning before the wind came up. Water is still a bit cold, 17°c

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New dove

The latest chick is out of the nest. That's 3 chicks this year, not bad!

All we need now is father and daughters to get together and we might have a dove birth explosion!

So the kids have called this one Diamond #3.

Tim’s 45th birthday party

We woke up to a scorcher on Saturday morning. Started getting everything ready for the party. We had invited about 30 people for dinner, a 3 course meal. We had the tables and chairs outside and then the weather turned fowl. I was busy putting up Christmas lights in the garden and froze to death. So at 3pm we moved everything inside. The four tables just fitted into our kitchen / dining room. We got everything set out just in time for our guests who arrived at 5pm.

The fireplace was put to good use. Although with all the beer, champagne and wine flowing there enough hot air going around.

A good time was had by all. Too good for some of us, Sunday was a nightmare! The babelaas subsided by about 3pm.

Thanks to Shirley for organising everything and preparing a delicious meal.

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R.I.P. bunny Tom

Well the small bunny Tom died this morning. He was always a sickly one. Had a burial in the back garden before breakfast. I am running out of burial space!

Ear ache

Kayra had an ear ache and mom put ear drops in and taped the cotton wool to her ear, so Jorja had to have the same!

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Kids play dough art

The kids did some art with play dough, this is the result

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Funky hair

The kids came back from Hope’s birthday party with funky coloured hair!

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Diamond has flown the coup

Our hand-raised ring neck dove Diamond has flown the coup. We haven't seen her again, so she possibly was a very easy meal for any lazy cat!

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Kids are back home

We went through to St Francis to pick the kids up. Must say oupa Ron seemed very happy when the quietness returned to his house!

Thanks to oupa Ron and ouma Elze for looking after the kids during the school holdiays.

School holidays

Ouma and Oupa arrived back from their 3 week tour around the western and northern cape with their new camper. Everything went well and they really enjoyed themselves.

Saturday they came to pick up oumies Janet and the 2 dogs who stayed with us for the 3 weeks. We had a great Snoek braai.

They took the kids with to St Francis for the school holidays. So the house is very quiet at the moment!

Spring has sprung

We spent our first day on the beach yesterday. The water was a freezing 16°C, but that didn't stop the kids from swimming. We saw some amazing dark blue Nudibranchs in the rock pools, possibly Tambja capensis.

Today we are all a bit browner with a slight hint of pink. Except for Shirley who is a pink prawn!

Jorja’s ear, again!

So Shirley took Jorja to the doctor for a very red eye. Luckily it turned out not to be pink eye, but a cornea infection. During the examination the doctor noticed something in her ear. So it was off to the ear specialist to remove an eraser from the end of a pencil out of her ear. Doesn't seem like there was any damage.

So we have had a perforated eardrum, courtesy of Kayra and a feather. A bead up the nose, and now a rubber in the ear. What next?

New dove

We have a new dove chick, hopefully the parents will not try and kill this one!

The previous one, Diamond, is going well in the house. It flies around and back to its perch. It also cleans the floor quite well!

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Shrek died

The Kakariki Shrek passed away this morning. His eye was improving, but over the weekend he took a turn for the worse and it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened.

Shirley buried him in our pet graveyard.

Dead budgie

We lost a budgie yesterday. Think it tried to fly through one of the wooden uprights and broke its neck.

The pet grave yard is growing in size. We have Tia, a bunny, a dove, a wagtail, a hamster and now a budgie.

On a more positive note, the Kakariki is still alive. I think it will lose the eye, but it looks good so far.

Kakariki improving

Our male Kakariki (a small New Zealand parrot) was trying to remove its eyeball on any stick it could find. We rescued it from the aviary and checked it into the Parker-Nance animal hospital. It has stopped scratching and the eye seems to be healing well. Hopefully it wont lose the eye.

Shirley is back from Cape Town

Shirley got back last night from a successful reef biodiversity workshop in Cape Town. Seems like she missed the kids more than the kids missed her!

Shirley's in Cape Town

Shirley left this evening for a workshop at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in Cape Town. Kids are all asleep. So tomorrow I will be working from home between taking and fetching the kids to and from school. Shirley gets back tomorrow night.

Family addition (dove)

We have a new family member, a dove. The proud parents managed to get the baby out of the nest, but 3 days later tried to kill it. So it came into the house until its wounds healed. That included a trip to St Francis. It went back into the aviary, only to be viciously attacked by the parents, especially the mom who had new eggs. So its now in the house.

Shirley made it a perch, similar to a parrot perch, and it now sits there most of the time. Even with the doors open, it stays inside, so I think we have a dove that wants to stay inside.

We now have a love triangle, the dove is in love with the dog, the dog with the guinea pig, etc. etc.

Welcome

Welcome to the Parker-Nance family blog. We will try and keep you up to date with family news.

2009 July

Missed the best Billabong day (Tuesday) because car was in for bearing repairs. Wednesday was the quarters, semis and finals, but the swell had dropped a lot so we decided to give it a skip, the 1st time in 5 years!

Sadly we lost one of our beloved hamsters Squeaky. She had a big cyst on her neck / ear. She did not survive the surgery to remove it.

2009 June

Auntie Brenda came to visit for the long weekend. It went too fast! We went to Addo for a day with ouma and oupa.

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2009 May

Went to St Francis for Ouma's 94th birthday / long weekend. Well it ended up being a very long weekend! On the way back on Sunday, just outside Humansdorp, our Corolla died. Ron towed us to a garage in Humansdorp and we all went back to St Francis. We eventually got the car 8pm on Monday night. We left for PE early Tuesday morning. The old lady is going well again, thank goodness it didn't happen in Cradock!

Well age is catching up with me! I have got to the age where your eyes start deteriorating. The black cubicles at work seemed to have helped speed the process up. So I am now the proud owner of glasses for computer use.

We have a new addition to the family, Blossom the bunny.

We decide to get a fireplace for the lounge. Took a day to install and has been a great addition to our house. We might smell a bit smoky, but warm we are!

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2009 April

Cant believe the kids have finished their 1^st term of school already! They went to Ouma and Oupa in St Francis for 4 days 'holiday'.

We decided not to have a party for Shirley's birthday this year. Instead we went to the Mountain Zebra National Park just outside Cradock. Being Easter long weekend the campsite was very busy. The kids had a ball. We saw a lot of animals and were very lucky to see a Cheetah on our last drive.

		Family Blog 2009 April VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL