Weekly Wrap-Up: The Short Week

The short school week went by in a flash. Keren and Zak tackled their work daily with great attitude.  There were tests and new concepts and revision too. Zak was thrilled to learn that he is moving onto a new unit in History, Ancient China. He had asked me a few weeks back if he could learn about Ancient China. What a blessing that it has come up in his studies and I don't have to plan a unit as it's all done for me!

 He enjoyed learning about Confucius and had fun making a copy of the five virtues of Confucius.

There was art too.....always art!

Quality pencil drawings by Keren.

Just love Zak's chameleon!

And a lovely Worldwide Culture Swap parcel from France.

In the package there was an informative letter, CD, sweets, a French book, postcard, some pamphlets, stickers, money, and a  magazine. We had fun learning a little about France. 

Thursday brought a lovey surprise around lunchtime! My sister arrived two days early to come and spend the night . We invited our niece to join us for dinner and surprised her too.

 That evening we did a fun Easter egg hunt for the teens as they wont be home on Easter. They had a blast and turned my lounge upside down hunting for Easter treats.

Good Friday was good, ever so good. Church with the family and communion was precious. After church we enjoyed hot cross buns and coffee with my in laws and then the younger two set off on church camp. 

I know they are having a good time but I miss having them around the house. 

Weekly Wrap-Up: the holiday week

The week whizzed by far too fast for a holiday, but the kids made the most of their week off school . There were movies and visits with friends, there were sleep ins, sleep outs and sleep overs. On Wednesday evening the connect group teens decided to have an all night stay awake and movie marathon. The lounge was strewn with pillows and blankets and long legged teens...they had fun!

On a perfect, crisp Autumn morning Keren and I had some girls time out and went for tea at a delightful place we haven't been to before.

It was wonderful to connect with her as she has hardly been home over the last week. We relaxed in the beautiful garden, enjoying red cuppachino and chai latte and the soothing sound of the fountain.

We had surprises from the post office. 

I won 10 kg of assorted biscuits which came in handy with all the extra teens around. We also received another Worldwide Culture Swap parcel from North Dakota, USA.

Flags, a puzzle, coins, pamphlets, a letter, sunflower seeds, tootsie rolls and chocolate coins, a fridge magnet and a key ring made up this fun pack. We are grateful for this fun exchange and learning more about other cultures.  

The younger two enjoyed youth group on Friday evening and have been making the most of the weekend.  It's back to school next week!

Slow Living Essentials Monthly 9 Link -Up: March 2014

March brought a noticeable change in the weather and our first good rains. 

We hurried to complete the term's work and are now enjoying the short school holiday. 

NOURISH: 

Our granadilla harvest has been good and delicious deserts as well as cordial were made. Our neighbor made some granadilla sorbet which we enjoyed on pancake day.  

Hubby made homemade pizza which he hasn't made in a while. 

The cooler weather has meant nourishing soups are back on the menu. 

Omelettes are always welcome meals any time of the day, and so cost effective. We have made delicious variants with home grown herbs and marinated peppers.

PREPARE: 

 Besides marinated peppers and granadilla cordial, I have made basil pesto and a batch of sweet chili jam. 

I have also discovered a local shop selling dry goods at much reduced prices. I have popped in there a few times and always manage to pick up good bargains on tinned and dry goods. 

REDUCE: 

Decluttering is an ongoing process and it's good to donate or recycle goods that are no longer used or needed. 

GREEN: 

We observed earth hour.

GROW: 

My red sunflowers have blossomed! 

I love the rich color!

This month I planted heirloom beetroot seeds, gemsquash seedlings, black basil and aubergine seedlings. 

Our harvest has consisted of chilies , peppadews, baby cabbages, carrots granadillas, tomatoes, herbs, peppers and red onions.

CREATE: 

My goodness, I began a new scarf for my daughter using circular needles. I found them very difficult to use and pulled it out, only to begin about three more times before I manged to get the pattern right on two needles.It is nowhere near finished but is looking good. 

My neighbor commissioned me to make mosaic numbers for her house. It is also an on going project. 

DISCOVER:

 Most of the reading has been school related this month.  

I have enjoyed the last of the magazine subscription my sister blessed me with. 

We learned much about Spain and California as we received two wonderful cultural exchange parcels. 

ENHANCE: 

My daughter began teaching a group of younger girls and two adults to crochet. They met weekly for the month and are all making good progress. I still need to learn the art of crochet. 

My younger son and I took part in a 4 km walk in aid of the Chaeli Campaign.

I have enjoyed clocking up kilometers with my walking club. 

Hubby and I continue to enjoy our church connect group and the teen group meets here weekly too.

ENJOY: 

Hubby and I enjoyed a rare evening out at a local food market to celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary.

I have taken part in three fun runs this month with my kiddos. 

Our neighbor hosted a pleasant neighborhood dinner as one of our neighbors is moving soon.

My dear sister surprised me with a visit for a week. We enjoyed wonderful family times with our dad, brother and aunt and uncle. Her visit was a blessing. 

Thanks Christine for the link up.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with a taste of Spain

This week started with a wonderful "escape" for me. My sister and I spent Sunday night in the wine-lands with our dear Aunt and Uncle. 

We walked in the vineyards, enjoyed conversations and memories of days gone by, ate our fill on a delicious home cooked dinner and slept soundly in the equivalent of "grandma's feather bed". A wonderful time of recharging before the busy week ahead. 

Keren spent most of her week working for hours on her pencil drawing assignment. Despite the long hours, her picture was not complete by the end of the week in order for it to go on exhibition in Copenhagen. The quality however was excellent and had it been completed, it would have been sent.  

She received her term art mark and has done really well with an overall mark of 89%. We are so happy for her.

Zak spent the week tying up loose ends and completing sections of work that needed completing. I was grateful that hubby worked from home on the day he needed extra help with math. 

There was connect group this week, crochet group and Zak joined the monthly home school outing to the ice rink. We had the pleasure of visiting our niece's first term photographic exhibition at the Cape Town School of Photography last night.

We received an exciting Worldwide Culture Swap parcel from a family in Barcelona, Spain this week. 

We learned about Barcelona, Spain and enjoyed listening to a CD of flamenco guitar music by Paco de Lucia .There were photos and a collage of the family's local beach made by their little girl and a wonderful book on Picasso.

Their children drew us cute pictures of tortilla and sangria and we look forward to trying out the kid friendly sangria recipe.

We received a pencil , soccer cards, shells, a magnet and postcard of Barcelona, a wonderful Spanish Tapas recipe Book and Turron. Turron is a tasty confection made of honey, sugar and egg white with toasted almonds.....scrumptious!

Zak and I made Tortilla Espanola for lunch today. Such a simple and tasty dish!

And now we are going to enjoy a week off school until the new term begins!

Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with an awesome surprise!

There is nothing boring about our days, full and bursting....

In our school this week we read Mathew and watched the Prince of Egypt. 

Essay assignments were written and fine tuned. New math concepts were taught and hopefully caught!

We learned about digestion and finished off an Afrikaans program. 

English and Religious studies were completed for the term (yay! 2 down and 4 to go). 

There was an all day art practical for Keren with Kasper Kobke at her art school.

There were two basketball games for Zak, one lost and one won. Morning walks in the rain for me and a 4 km fun Walk 4 Wheels in aid of the Chaeli Campaign for Zak and me.

As part of the Worldwide Culture Swap we received an  awesome parcel from California! 

Beautiful photos and wonderful descriptions of the life of the sending family were included. They sent us some of their favorite recipes, postcards, a flag, a map, loads of delicious candy, California poppy seeds, pencils, and vial of sand collected from a nearby beach. It really gave us a good sense of what their lives are like and we have learned much from this wonderful pack. We are grateful to the sending family!

We had visitors of the cute kind and made a tent under the duvet with loads of giggles and fun.

We got an awesome surprise when my sister arrived totally unannounced on Wednesday evening to stay for a few days!

We had an extra day off school as there was a public holiday so my sister and I went to spend a night with our Dad. The kiddos stayed home with hubby.
We got me meet the sweet 2 week old baby alpaca, Lyra.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and our brother and his little guy joined us for pizzas on Friday night. We missed our other sister...

Weekly Wrap-Up: a busy one

The week has been busy again and we are all beginning to look forward to the month end school holiday..

I managed to fit in two early morning walks this week and Keren and I enjoyed Curves just once. 

Zak practiced basketball and there was a mid week match too. Unfortunately their team didn't win. 

He also enjoyed his monthly technology class where he made a spatula.

 He and hubby will finish it off over the weekend.

Keren ran her craft class and taught the girls and two adults how to crochet. It will be a long term project and they will be making blankets out of patterned squares. 

The rainbow colours of balls of wool have inspired me and I am keen to learn how to crochet too.

I had to run around a fair bit lifting Josh to and from work. He did some of the driving and despite my trying to press invisible brakes on my side of the car, he is actually coming on well with his driving. 

Online school has taken a new turn for Zak as he has been enjoying his recent purchase of a tablet.

He is rather chuffed he can use it for his school work. We experienced some load shedding this week and that meant a couple of hours with no power during school . We used the time to read aloud and Zak continued making HOPE bracelets.

Keren has been working late into the evenings on deadlines for art essays and many hours have been spent on her last Mona Lisa painting. We look forward to seeing the end results of her diligence. 

There were parcels again this week, the last of Keren's books, religious studies, and Worldwide Culture Swap parcels that we sent out to four families overseas.
 It's always fun sending and receiving these parcels. 

We put a mix of goodies into the parcels, no two being alike. There were handcrafted felt elephants by Keren, Rooibos tea, animal stickers, coins, stamps, animal crafts, flags and postcards and DVDs depicting our beautiful city. 

Tonight the younger two are enjoying a relaxed pj evening at youth with hot chocolate and popcorn. Keren is master of ceremonies.

 Josh is at an all night stay awake for Cansa Relay For Life. He and a team of friends will be spending 12 hours walking or running along a track to raise funds for cancer research and education. 

Tomorrow morning it's up bright and early for me and Keren as we are doing a 5km fun run. I think I may just spend the rest of the day relaxing....

Postcrossing

We recently discovered Postcrossing, a fun new way for us to learn about other cultures and geography too.

The idea is that you send a postcard to another postcrosser in the world and once your postcard has been received and registered, you will get a postcard from somewhere else in the world.

You may ask why we like this idea?

Simply put, it's fun to pick out beautiful postcards depicting our home country and more fun to receive surprise snail mail....

 and we may even receive mail from places we have never heard of before!

Here are some interesting stats about Postcrossing:

428103 members

213 countries

361 postcards/hour

18888263 postcards received

97937879322 km traveled

2443865 laps around the world

We sent our first postcard to a young Russian lady living in Germany, and studying history there. Our postcard traveled 9496 km to reach her. It was good to hear she had received it and she sent us a sweet message thanking us and telling us it was her first postcard from South Africa. 

We also received a mail telling us the postcard has been chosen as a favorite by another member. 

We look forward to more Postcrossing fun and learning a little about the world around us.

Mini Summer Swap

Despite being winter here, we decided to join up for Worldwide Culture Swap's mini summer swap. 

Mini swaps are fun, inexpensive and easy to take part in!

 Just pick 3 to 4 items representing summer in your country or your family.

 What do you enjoy doing, seeing, eating or playing with?

We sent some black mussel shells from one of our favourite beaches, 

Fish Hoek beach, represented in the pictures.

The paper bag depicts our beautiful Table Mountain, and as we love to picnic in the summer, we sent some cute straws and S.A flags to decorate picnic snacks.

The pack would not have been complete without some "proudly South African" Safari dried fruit.

We look forward to receiving our pack from USA.

Thank you Worldwide Culture Swap for this fun mini swap.

Bastille Day Celebration

During the school holidays our neighbour and his son decided to make a replica of the Eiffel Tower.

 The neighbourhood kids had fun joining in and adding a piece in here and there....

July 14th , Bastille Day, came around and our wonderful neighbourhood decided to have a celebration and enjoy some French cuisine together.... 

French loaves and various cheeses with French Onion soup were the order of the day.

I made the soup using a simple recipe that was delicious. The soup should be served with toast and melted cheese on top, but we enjoyed it with fresh French loaf and cheese instead.

We took the opportunity to learn more about Bastille Day and the French Revolution, and enjoyed watching  a spectacular on-line clip of the Bastille Day Fireworks.

My youngest enjoyed cooking us a delicious French chicken and sausage cassoulet.

 It was great to learn a little more about France and enjoy their fabulous food!

A Beautiful Cape Afternoon

Last week we had the pleasure of a beautiful and rain free winter's afternoon at the waterfront. My friend needed to be there and I played taxi . It was a wonderful unplanned afternoon and very unusual for a Monday. But aren't some of the best adventures unplanned?

The water lay smooth and glassy in the harbour. 

We enjoyed some of the best chocochinos ever.

Robust and sleepy Cape Fur Seals lazed about peacefully, hardly noticing those who stopped to stare and take photos.

A cheeky Cape Gull perched nearby and chattered away noisily as if begging for some food or reprimanding those working on a nearby boat.

We were lucky enough to have a quick whirlwind trip around the 2 Oceans Aquarium. Tropical fish with their beautiful colours and patterns never cease to amaze me.

The predator's tank was mesmerising with Ragged-tooth Sharks swimming peacefully by.... as if to the music playing in the background. I think I could have sat there for hours.

The children enjoyed the viewing tunnel enormously, watching and waiting excitedly for sharks and rays to swim around the corner.

All in all a wonderful and care free afternoon!