Weekly Wrap-Up: The Colorful One

As I mentioned last week, Keren was picked as a hair model for Allilon's hair show.

 She spent all of Sunday there and came home looking like this...

She was one of the first models to be chosen by the team of hairdressers....

 I think it was because she willing to be daring and allow them to do WHAT EVER they wanted with her hair...

On Monday she had to be at the Baxter at 6 AM. 

They had dress rehearsals and they cut her hair on stage.

She was there all day and came home looking like this...

She had a fantastic, fun filled day modelling and meeting new people!

She loves her new colorful haircut and has been enjoying the different ways she can style it. 

She was paid cash, given product vouchers and hair styling vouchers too!

She kindly blessed me with a hair voucher and I went and had my hair done yesterday. 

We babysat on Tuesday...

It was a little difficult for Zak to stay focused on school work and I think he fell in love with this furry little baby! 

Looming has made it's way into our home this week and Zak has spent many hours learning to make colorful new designs.

 Good for fine motor development I am sure!

On Wednesday we had a refreshing morning walk with a friend before school. 

Lovely to walk, talk and enjoy the fresh pine scented morning air.

Keren has been working on her life orientation project this week. She had to research an issue and partake in  community service. She chose the issue of litter, and the pollution it causes within our suburb. We often walk our dog in this particular area and she had noticed the litter on this beautiful piece of open land.

Love the spring flowers popping up everywhere!

She organized her connect group to help clean up the nearby conservation area last Saturday and so killed two birds with one stone as they had service week too.

The kids, armed with plastic bags, spent a number of hours picking up litter. It was great to hear that passer by encouraged them by hooting and giving a thumbs up.

On Friday Zak enjoyed a home school outing to Acrobranch. 

He was somewhat nervous at the start as it is an aerial tree experience, involving obstacles, moving walkways, Tarzan swings and zip lines !

Courage, coordination, a little craziness and adrenaline needed!

These two had a laughing fit way up there on a cargo net!

 Thank goodness for their harnesses!

The boys managed to get through 2 of the courses twice each in the two hours allocated. I am sure that is more than enough time as it is physically challenging. 

Certainly a lot of fun but not for the faint hearted!

A lovely week, how was yours?

Oodles of sprudels and billions of beans!

Last Monday we had the pleasure of an outing to Beanland, home of The Bean People....

and makers of magical bath times for little and not so little people!

 As one of the moms said, we all knew it would be a magical experience when we walked into the factory and it smelled like heaven! 

We were welcomed by Sharon and her team of delightful, happy factory workers. The children paid close attention as the safety rules were explained and then we set off on an adventure through the working factory.

First stop, the children had a chance to be creative and try their hand at a new design for bath beans.

 More creativity followed as they got to work with colourful paints and stamps,

 creating their own wrapping paper.

Next they were shown how the foam is cut into the various designs that are inside those magical bath beans. Each child had a turn to use the machine and do their own cutting.

The dying process was interesting....we learned that vinegar alters the pH of the water, 

making the foam shape hold the dye. 

The shapes are dried in a tumble dryer before the next phase of production.

Loading the bean was not as simple as it looked! 

The one I loaded would certainly have been rejected by quality control as I managed to crush the casing with my clumsy fingers!

We then entered the "heavenly zone" where the sprudels were being made.

 One cannot describe that delicious aroma and certainly think it should be bottled and sold 

so all our homes can smell so wonderful!

The children each got to make a sprudel under the watchful eye of the wonderful workers, who patiently instructed them how to make these magical balls that fizz in the bath....

releasing colour, scent and a bath bean for added fun!

Once dried, oodles of sprudels are packaged and boxed....

ready to delight children at bath time!

   The children thoroughly enjoyed their visit to this working factory and were delighted to go home with a surprise pack containing bath beans and a sprudel! Thank you Beans at Beanland!

Aquarium outing

As mentioned, we had an outing to the Aquarium last week. It fitted in perfectly with our "Dolphin Tale" unit study and we were happy to have two friends come along with us. It was fantastic to meet some new faces  and I was grateful to the mom who organised the outing.

Being a school outing, the kids first spent some time in the well laid out classroom where Mr Zee taught them all about bony fish.  

 There were some dead fish on each table so the kids had a hands on lesson.....

Some were less than charmed and there were lots of giggles as I too battled with the fishy smell and the appearance of the dead fish!

The more adventurous were thrilled at being able to handle the slippery specimens!

Fins were fanned out, mouths opened wide and scales lifted!

Gills were opened and examined closely....

I think these two girls would have been more than happy to be handed a scalpel to dissect the fish!

Though much of what they were taught is not new, it was interesting to have a good look at the specimens, discovering them in real life, rather than diagrams on the pages of a book.

Once the lesson was over, we entered the aquarium and were free to enjoy all it has to offer...

Colourful fish of the warm Indian Ocean .....

and a sweet sea turtle.

              The clown fish are always a hit with the kids who queue to get into the inside of the tank!

The icy cold touch pool had interesting sea creatures to observe closely.

The Hermit Crab was really cute and cautiously came out to see what all the fuss was about.

The penguins were looking rather sorry for themselves as they are moulting.

 Apparently they sit very quietly and don't eat much when this is happening. 

It almost seems that they are embarrassed of their appearance.

The cooler Atlantic waters teem with large silver fish and beautiful kelp forests.

I could sit in front of that tank indefinitely and marvel at its wonders!

The shark tank is always fascinating and I think somewhat scary even though there is thick glass separating one from these seemingly fierce creatures...

I have always wondered what would happen if the glass had to crack, spilling out the contents of the tank!

All though our aquarium doesn't keep dolphins, we enjoyed discovering the wonders it had to offer us!

Crazy, busy and full...

Yes , that is how our week has been....crazy, busy and full!

As you see we are still enjoying near perfect summer weather with no rain. We are thankful for the pool which has been used much in the last week. Early morning dips, in between lesson dips, late evening dips, dips with friends!

We spent a wonderful evening with hubby's parents and his cousin who was visiting from Holland. It was great to see her again as it has been years. It was good for the kids to get to know one of their Dutch relatives too! We were spoiled with treats from Holland , chocolates and "dropje". Dropje, Dutch licorice has a delicious salty flavour and my kids devour it when they get hold of it!

We also had the pleasure of seeing friends who are visiting here from the UK and old friends from our Dar es Salaam days.

An impromptu summer evening braai, with a friend and his kids, had the kids swimming way into the dark hours of the warm summers night.

School has been happening this week , though different in many ways.
J & K have spent many of their "school " hours working on their animation videos. But more about that in another post. Karate lessons began in earnest this week with the two of them training in the evenings, and J giving lessons two afternoons and his usual Saturday morning class.

We had an outing to the aquarium....

 (more on that in another post to follow)

Our co op started up again this week after a long break. It was great to get together again and learn about Zimbabwe. The kids did some map work, learned about the people, resources, natural wonders and more.

Our cute nephew/ cousin came back to us this week for a morning as his mommy went back to work. He has grown so much and is very mobile as his little arms and legs carry him all over the place at quite a speed! We only take our eyes off him when he is sleeping, securely strapped into his pram!

Tonight hubby and I look forward to a friends birthday party and tomorrow I look forward to relaxing at home before another busy week begins.

Co-Op gets out and about

As I mentioned in the last post about our Co-op, we had a wonderful visit to The South African Museum during Heritage Week. Entry was free and that spurred us on to make the trip. It had been the longest time since we had visited there and the kids were filled with excitement and wonder!

To celebrate Heritage Week, there were various additional exhibitions and the kids enjoyed taking part in weaving a Heritage Day flag. A very kind lady patiently helped them and explained how to weave on the large loom. Each child wrote a message on a strip of fabric which was then woven into the flag.

The messages woven into the banner would then be removed at the end of each day and displayed in the trees for all to read and remember to protect our heritage. (grr, can't get rid of these silly lines under the writing!)

We enjoyed the exhibitions show casing the people of Southern Africa.

It amazed us as to how real these statues seemed... as if they might suddenly jump up and get on with their daily lives!

The children were fascinated by the rock art of long ago, depicting the lives of those who were hunter and gatherers in our beautiful land.

The whale well never ceases to cause me to stop and think of the wonders of creation! The 20.5 metre whale skeleton with it's huge gaping jaw is incredible!

We took a relaxing tea break out in the Company's Gardens.This beautiful old garden was first established in 1652 by the Dutch settlers to the Cape. It has been enjoyed by many locals and tourists since it was proclaimed for public use in 1848.

We enjoyed watching the Egyptian geese with their "teens". They were really tame and the kids had fun feeding them scraps.

This cute squirrel also kept returning for his fair share of treats offered by the delighted children.

As we were right there and had time on our hands, we strolled over to the South African National Art Gallery. There was an exhibition of Tretchkoff's work which was truly fascinating and interesting!

A fun outing enjoyed by moms and kids alike!