Roof wetting

Well after many years of deliberation we bit the bullet and put a roof over the patio. Shirley’s dreams of a Caribbean style high pitched roof with no ceiling was just not practical with the existing roofs. So we went the easy way and put up a ‘carport’ style flat roof.

We have had all sorts of weather from gale force westerlies to easterlies, rain and heat. Its been a pleasure out there in all types of weather. Its actually cooler than we expected.

We have been using it extensively, from breakfasts, lunches, suppers, to work area to chill area. Its really been a great investment.

Taryn, Peter, Marc, Ron and Elze came around for a roof wetting ‘lunch time’ braai. Anyone who has braaied with us knows that is quite open ended! We had a great day and used the new braai/living area to its fullest.

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New chicks

We have a new batch of six chicks. We have no idea whose they are, all three hens took turns sitting on the eggs and chicks. If anything they might be Chocolate’s. We are now up to 4 hens, so 2 more to go then we get rid of the roosters. Hopefully this is the last batch of chicks!

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Summerwood concert

Kayra has had the Summerwood foundation phase (grade 1 to 3) concert on since Tuesday night. Its called ‘A little bit of this and a little bit of that “Ditjies and Datjies”’.

The grade 1’s sang 4 songs about Lolo’s, a character on Afrikaans TV. Kayra was a speaker, of course. It was amazing that they all remembered their moves and words.

We went on the Thursday night and we had a great hour and a half’s entertainment.

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Riempie bench repairs

Kayra and Jorja helped Tim replace the riempies in an old riempie bench that will now be going to the patio. The kids were surprisingly helpful, except for the usual arguments about nothing!

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Addo Elephant National Park

We decided to go to Addo for the day, it had been a while since we had been there. We had a great day and saw practically all the big stuff except the Rhinoceros, even if there was only a few of them to see. The park was surprisingly quiet for a long weekend. We had a great lunchtime braai at the main camp and were the only ones there.

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Shirley has an Algoa Bay soft coral species Eunephthya shirleyae named after her

Thanks to Professor Catherine McFadden of Harvey Mudd College there is a new soft coral species found in Algoa Bay named after Shirley. Her group are assembling the Cnidarian Tree Of Life. They visited us in March 2008 for a three week sampling trip.

You can read more about it here http://www.justblue.co.za/Research/Activities/#McFadden2012-09

Jorja’s artistic gym badge tests

Jorja did her first badge tests for artistic gym. She did tests for floor and beam and passed.

Kayra lost another tooth

Kayra lost her 7th tooth today. At least they have been evenly spaced so she hasn't been completely toothless!

Kites in St Francis

The kids got new kites and we were in St Francis for oupa Ron’s birthday. The wind was a breezy easterly, perfect for kite flying. The kids kept dad busy recovering the kites from the dune scrub! Even ouma ended up flying a kite!

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The Rainbow

Kayra created a PowerPoint presentation of her story ‘The rainbow’ all by herself. Enjoy the phoentic spelling, not bad for a 7 year old!

Proud cousins

Marc went home this morning. We took the girls to go see their cousin in the afternoon. All is going well and the girls are very proud of their cousin and want to love him to death!

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Marc James Riddin is born

Taryn and Peter are now parents! Marc was born this morning by C-section after trying for more than 24 hours to do it naturally. All is well with mother and child. Marc weighed 3.72kg and was 55cm long.

Congrats to the new parents!

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Patensie Rhythmic Gym Invitational

The girls took part in the Patensie Invitational competition. They competed in level two and their persistence showed off. Jorja got a gold ball and a bronze for hoop. Kayra got gold for ball and hoop.

This was Jorja’s last rhythmic gym competition. She has decided to try artistic gym for now. It suits her much better, she likes the ruff and tough stuff! Shantell is very disappointed because she saw great potential in Jorja. But she might decide to come back to rhythmic in the future, who knows.

Kayra is now in level 3 and is looking forward to working with clubs and ribbons.

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New chicks

Marion is a grandmother, Chocolate’s 1st brood has started hatching. We have 6 so far. The 1st one was kicked out of the nest and we hand-reared it for 2 days, then Topsie got hold of it and so we now have 5. We will see how many more hatch!