Unseen pics...

 Well who knew that I took so many photos with my phone during our holiday in the bush.  Mostly to share instantly with our family back home, but it's such fun to look back on.  I downloaded these pics shortly after our trip, but have never looked through them since.  I think it gives a slightly more personal view on our holiday.  Please also note that they are in no order whatsoever and they are completely unedited.

Above is Jake at Mooiplaas picnic site, enjoying boiled eggs, left over braai and a freshly made toastie.

Evening life in the bush feels incomplete without a glass of wine - in this case on my balcony at Olifants. There is nowhere to beat a Kruger sunset then at Olifants...

 The view from our room at Skukuza...

 A selfie at Mooiplaas.  I love it when I find these selfies on my phone that Jake takes of himself...

 The aforemetioned toastie.  These are standard Kruger lunch fare for us.  And most probably the main reason for my putting on weight during our holiday...

 Our bungalow and view at Olifants...

 Jake looking for ant lions at Olifants.  He found them too...

 Playing travel games...

 And cooking our dinner (we shifted bungalows in Olifants, hence the different view)...

 

 Up really early for our morning walk...

 Somewhere along the road on an evening drive...

 A dinner feast.  We like to keep our food simple in the park, especially when it's just the 2 of us.  This went down a treat...

 Oooh - there's the yellow bellied something sandsnake, which nearly landed in our skottle braai in the picnic site at Letaba.  In this pic, the lizard is still alive and biting the snake back...

 Jaeke making breakfast for us at Letaba picnic site.  The snake landed in those leaves just behind the skottle braai...

 FEAST...

 Another Olifants sunset...

 And more selfies.  Oh gosh, wrinkles are fast appearing now...

 Watching movies and eating chocolate in bed at Satara.  The beauty of life in the bush is that you get up early and go to bed even earlier...

 Jake snuggled up on the balcony at Olifants to watch the sunrise...

  I lost my camera along the way too.  Watch this space, I will need to upgrade my camera before our next holiday, so that Jake can take his own pics...

 An excited boy...

 Our bungalow at Skukuza and Jake braai'ing...

 Oh gosh - this was arriving in Nelspruit.  Look how cute the airport is.  I wish that it wasn't such an expensive airport to fly to...

 Jake watching the mongooses raiding our stoep for whatever they could find...

 This was at the airport before we left.  Either Jhb or CT - who knows...

 This was leaving CT - the pilot saw us taking this snap and invited Jake into the cockpit...

 Nelspruit airport again (I did warn you that these weren't in order)...

 Jake snapping away - can you see the lion...

 Jake with the 3 male lions - they were one of our best sightings and we had undisturbed views of them for hours...

 This picture shows you well how close they were to our car...  Roaring and playing - it was incredible!

 Roooooaaaar....

 I must be honest, lions look cuddly.  I do want to hug them every time I see them...

 The view from our bungalow at Mopani - this campsite is well worth a visit if you haven't been there before.  It's fairly far north, so the game isn't as plentiful as further south in the park, but look at the view!  It's also slightly cheaper than some of the other campsites.  And there's a 45 minute walking trail that you can do around the campsite.  Birds are gorgeous too...

 Another morning, another sunrise...

 Pretty impala lillies...

    Jake making friends with a young bush buck at a bird hide...

 The worst part - packing up to go home...

 A dead dung beetle...

 Our last morning in the park - a breakfast stop at the Skukuza day visitors site for one last toastie...

 A mommy hyena with her two tiny babies...

 Sad times - dropping our hut's keys into the key box.  Goodbye Kruger...

 Lake panic - this is one of our favourite bird hides.  There's apparently a resident leopard there, but we seem to miss him...

 Our favourite picnic site - Tshokwane.  Our friend who helped Jake get involved with a rhino rescue and elephant darting lives just across from this picnic site and it was our meeting point for our adventures last year.  Sadly, they were busy this year with family commitments, so we didn't get to see them this time...

 Jake discovered that if you hold a phone or tablet up to the camera view finder, you can take cool pics, like this lioness yawning...

   I will never tire of the sunsets...

 A massive herd of buffalo...

 Buffalo grazing just outside our bungalow at Skukuza...

 Jake strolling along the walkway at Skukuza...

 We had a grey, drizzly day, which was actually really great.  It gets quite hot in the park in June/July during the day, so it was nice to have a change...

 More pics of the buffalo at Skukuza.  That electric fence marks the edge of the campsite...

 Jake in the wild - out the car at a view point...

 Skukuza again...

 A warthog family grazing inside Skukuza...

 The birds in Kruger are amazing - this is one of the glossy startlings...

 A walk along the fence at Lower Sabie...

  This walk looked like a good idea, until we got fuzzy, sticky, thorny things in our socks, shoes, hands...

 Another breakfast somewhere...

 Soaking up the views at Lower Sabie...

 We stayed in Safari tents at Lower Sabie - you can see some just to the right of the frame below - they were fantastic...

 A giant kingfisher...

 We had to wait for this massive herd of buffalo to cross the road and nearly missed gate closing time...

 Gerry Giraffe...

 One of the many traffic jams that you usually get stuck in when there is something extra exciting on the go.  In this case, lions at a kill not too far from the roadside...

 Lions causing above traffic jam - 18 of them to be exact...

 They were enjoying a buffalo and we just missed them taking it down.  There were 6 cubs too, which was very exciting...

 A baobab tree...

 View from our bungalow at Satara...

Our bungalow in Satara...

Pork chops and sausage braai'ed by Jake - salad and fries courtesy of cattle baron...

Another view point where we were allowed out the car and another dry river bed...

Dusk in the bush...

Double trouble - our favourite animal has to be the rhino - they're so gentle and vulnerable and yet so powerful...

I love the wildlife traffic jams that you get stuck in...

A hungry warty trying to find something to graze on - look how dry everything is...

The thing about Kruger is to never stop enjoying the small things.  And I don't mean size-wise.  I mean you have to slow down, even after 19 days and enjoy watching giraffes forage.  Watch the impala play (there are a trillion of them in the park, I'm sure).  People rush from one point to the next and in their haste to try see the cats and forget how lucky they are to be able to see everything else...  Jake doesn't let me do that.  He loves everything about the bush and even makes me stop so that he can check (by hand) whether a pile of dung belongs to a black or white rhino.  Yep, he's my turd nerd...

I mean, seriously - look how close these massive animals get to your car...

This is a terrible photo, but it's the only one I have of this silly yellow billed hornbill and he proved to be one of the highlights of our holiday - he kept on flying into our bungalow windows at Satara.  Over and over and over again.  I wish I'd taken time to go sit outside and get this on "film" properly - he made us laugh a lot...

The entrance to Nelspruit (Kruger Mpumalanga Airport).  We were excited as soon as we saw the giraffes...

One of the banded mongooses that raided our bin at Satara...

Another view of the bush - beyond that fence is wild...

Looking back on our photos always makes me so heart sore.  We love Kruger and all that it has to offer so much.  We spend the rest of the year conspiring and saving to get back there again.  Oh how I wish the life of a single parent weren't so costly!

In other exciting news, I am busy putting together a website whereby I'm going to try selling some of my images, especially overseas.  I know that I have some good work and hopefully I'll manage to sell some to put towards our next trip.  I've booked myself in to do another photography course in November - this time for editing and I'm really very excited about that.  Fingers crossed that this new little chapter will be an exciting one.  Watch this space, as soon as I have everything up and running, you'll be the first to know about it!  In all fairness though, it will take a while and I imagine that I'll only really be up and running early next year.  Wildlife photography has always been a passion for me and Jake is learning so much and is really very good too.  Hopefully we can turn our hobby into something more on the side.

Sending love,
Sue xxx

Boys being boys...

 Jake and I are so lucky to be able to spend so much time with this gorgeous little boy.  He is such a cutie pie and it's such fun to see his personality growing.  He gets so excited to see Jake (and Corky and Bi), he really loves his cousins a lot.  Jake really loves having younger cousins, although sometimes he gets a bit impatient and he can't understand why Corky wants to copy him all the time.  Such great life lessons for him, especially since he doesn't have siblings!! 

 Winter has been tough for this boy, who loves running around barefoot outside, swimming and eating ice lollies.  Summer just doesn't seem to be coming fast enough!!  Spring is here though, we can see it in the garden as everything is starting to grow wild!  Rylee helped clear up the cuttings from our pomegranate tree yesterday and very proudly told Jake "I working very hard, Jake".  Too cute.  It didn't last for long, but he's definitely a very practical boy, like his daddy...

 Look at those gorgeous eyes!  and his hair doesn't look that red in real life.  He's definitely got some red in there, but not entirely...

And let me not get talking about this boy's eyes.  Oh my.  The windows to my soul!  I love this boy so much and he's growing up far too quickly now.  Just slow down for a minute...

 Duracell's still hanging in there.  He enjoys his food very much and every now and then runs around like a puppy.  His legs are sore though and he struggles to get up and down the stairs.  He can't even lift his leg for a widdle any more.  It breaks my heart to know that our goodbye isn't too far away...

 Like Jake, Rylee's grown up with dogs in the house (and Hilux is not a gentle boy) and he is crazy about them.  We try keep him away from Duracell though, he tends to be a little grumpy sometimes...

 There's my mom too, enjoying some spring sunshine in the back garden.  Our kids have all been so blessed to have grandparents who give up so much to look after them while we work...

 Oh Jake... you're too big, boy!  The top of Jake's head is past my eyebrows now and I'm sure it won't be long before he passes me.  His feet have been bigger than mine for a while already...

I've booked a photo shoot for Jake and I too.  We don't have many great photos of both of us and I feel that it's something important to do before Jake gets a hairy face.  It's not a cheap exercise, but I am really looking forward to it!  We're booked for 4 November and so the diet is on - I have to look good!  Hopefully she can airbrush away a few inches ;o)  As soon as the pics are ready, I'll share the link!

Sending love,

Sue xxx

PS.  It feels like Friday today.

The times they are a-changing...

 We had the most wonderful day yesterday.  The weather was beyond perfect, with not a breath of wind.  I can't wait for summer to kick in properly!!  I was given a voucher for lunch for 4 people at a restaurant in Blouberg and we went through yesterday with friends.  It was divine and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Lunch at the beach wouldn't have been complete without a walk on the beach...

 My little pumpkin is growing up far too quickly at the moment.  We seem to be on a bit of a rally ride and his pre-teen hormones are definitely starting to kick in with a few really good teenage tantrums.  It's all part of the journey and he's a good kid (most of the time).  His life is really full and he keeps his old mom pretty busy...

 Ok, so this was edited, but look how beautiful our mountain is...

 Jake's not as into having his photo taken these days as he used to be.  It's more and more tricky to actually get him to make eye contact with the camera, but I guess it's all ages and stages.  I'm busy booking a pro-shoot for the 2 of us, it's long overdue!

Not much news to report from our side.  I really do need to try post pics more regularly here.  Promise to try.  We're staying with my folks again for a few weeks.  We have a really lovely tenant staying in our house and renting it out has proved to be a really great way for us to earn some extra money for holidays and up-coming high school fees (OK, only for 2018).  We have plenty of space at my parent's home and we all get on really well, so while we're all prepared to make the effort, we may as well take advantage of the situation.  It's like going on holiday ;o)

Sending love,
Sue XXX

A good week...

Last weekend was amazing!  To have Jake back with Michael and Cameron was just fantastic and their mom is keen for them to spend more time together going forward, which really made us super happy.  Jake landed up spending the evening with the boys too and I collected him at 10pm - they had so much fun together.  It was very bittersweet and it made my heart hurt a lot, but I believe that I have dealt with Marius' break up and I realised that I am really missing the boys most of all now.  It's been about 9 months since we split up and I think I will have a very different attitude towards relationships going forward - lessons have been learned over broken hearts.

Besides the excitement of Saturday, Jake had a scout competition on Sunday, which they did terribly in, but really enjoyed.  It was an orienteering competition, which is map work.  They spent the afternoon running around the Helderberg Nature Reserve and the weather was glorious, so he had tons of fun.  I ate sushi and drank wine at home on my own...

Jake's been doing a lot of extra rugby training, which has really started to boost his confidence in the game and he's already looking forward to next season.  He's got his heart set on making it to the first team and his "Saturday coach" is training him up to be a fly half.  He told me this week, that Jake's improved by 100% since he started the extra training.  They'll continue throughout summer too, so by next season he'll be fit and ready.

Jake continues to do swimming training.  He's doing really well at it, even if he doesn't always feel like the training sessions - mostly because he's not 100% swimming fit yet.  He trains twice a week for an hour at a time and yesterday managed to do 4kms with his team.  He still doesn't want to swim competitively, so just doing it for fitness, which I love.

I've begun walking on the treadmill at the gym again too while Jake trains.  Mostly just walking for now and I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit.  Gym is boring, but it's a whole hour that I sit alongside the pool and do nothing, so might as well walk.

This weekend is also set to be a pretty busy one.  I'm going out to dinner with a friend tonight and Jake's got training tomorrow as well as moving their scout goods out of storage and back into their hall (they had their hall's roof replaced).  Sunday so far seems to be free and we are looking forward to taking the day slowly and deciding what to do as we feel like it.  Jake's got a test next week, so I guess he'll have to study a bit too.

OK, better run.  Sending love and have a great weekend, Sue XXX

The boys...

These boys.  Oh how my heart misses them and how I long for them to be together.  My 3 little amigos...

Jake had some exciting news this week - the boys are missing him as much as he's missing them and when Michael was told that he could bring a friend to Cameron's birthday party tomorrow morning, he wanted Jake to join them.  So, tomorrow is a fairly big day for us and Jake is literally bouncing off the walls.  It was the first thing he told me this morning - "I'm seeing Michael & Cameron tomorrow!!".  Besides bumping into them quickly at Canal Walk once, they haven't seen each other since last December!  Considering that Jake thought of them as his brothers, that's a long time!  

Like proper brothers, these three used to fight like cats and dogs and I guess they all had their issues over one thing or another, but at the end of the day, they were like family for 2 1/2 years.  That's a long time in a child's life.  For Jake, coming from a home where he is an only child, it was fantastic for him to experience life with "siblings".  At least every other weekend.  We hated the weekends that Michael and Cameron were with their mom and used to look forward to the next one when the kids would be back with us again.

Even though our break up wasn't my decision, I've felt really guilty for the hurt that's been caused to them through it.  They were the innocent victims in a grown up mess.  The worst part is that we weren't able to say goodbye and we've done our best to pick up the pieces of our lives and move forward.  There's really no other way to go.  We've had limited contact with the boys via Instagram, but it's not the same.  Things change for them tomorrow and I hope that their friendship can grow again.  It will be different and I don't want anything to do with their father (he won't be at the party tomorrow), so time spent together will be through the boy's mom, but hopefully this is a small stepping stone.

I am so nervous about tomorrow too.  I feel like our hearts are starting to heal again and I am scared that this is going to open up old wounds for us, but we wouldn't miss it for the world and it's also nice to know that the boys are missing Jake a lot too.  Fingers crossed that all the therapy Jake's been through this year will stand him in good stead tomorrow.  And hopefully I don't just sit and cry!

Love,

Sue XXX

Growing up...

How did life get so complicated?  And so busy?  We seem to spend the terms rushing from one activity to the next and the weeks seem to fly by in no time at all.  How can it already be September?  And Christmas is just around the corner.  Again.  They say that, as you get older, time moves faster and it's quite frightening that our kids are already noticing how fast life moves. 

When we were kids, it felt like time moved in slow motion.  We had time to swim all afternoon and enjoyed countless hours riding bikes and playing with our friends at the park across the road.  We made up games and ran around the garden, making fairy gardens under my parent's pampas grass.   We used to use empty snail shells as flower pots in our fairy garden.  We used to have sleep overs and watch movies and parties where all of our friends were welcome.  Somehow it feels that a lot of that is lost on our kids today.  They just don't have the time.

I'm very aware of the fact that our children are living in a fast-paced society, but every now and then I just wish that I could press pause and slow life down a bit.  Move into the country for a year or two.  Do you know what I mean?  It seems that the year moves from Christmas to New Year, to Valentine's Day, Easter, birthdays, school holidays and back to Christmas again.  It's a blur.

This year has been a fairly tough year for Jake and I in many ways.  Jake took Marius' break up very hard and he misses Michael and Cameron so much, it's so sad to watch.  I've learned a lot through that whole ordeal too.  It's taken months of counseling for Jake and we're slowly starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Jake seems much happier in himself too, which is great.  I think our holiday helped us deal with a lot of our issues that we were trying to be brave about; it just gave us time to be us and to talk things through.

Jake's also been trying out a much lower dosage of his Concerta this year - he's gone from 36mg to just 18mg and he has a lot more bounce in his step!  That said, his concentration is definitely lacking a bit and I don't think that he's coping as well as he says he is.  We've been giving 27mg a go this week and he's had to admit that he feels that this dosage helps him concentrate better.  He doesn't like having to take his meds, but they are essential if he wants to pass.

Other than that, believe it or not, we've started exploring high school options and went for a tour of a BEAUTIFUL private school this week.  Unfortunately, it was just too far out of our price-range and so we have to keep looking until we find the right school.  I would really have liked for Jake to have gone private, as I think that he would benefit hugely from being in a smaller class and obviously moving from our government syllabus to Cambridge curriculum would be awesome, especially as it would give him an internationally recognised qualification.  Either way we go, at this stage, it looks like we will be traveling outside of our area for high school.  So many choices and decisions - all boys vs co-ed, private vs public.  Oh the joys of being a single mom!

Jake and I are also staying with my mom and dad again.  We had a last minute rental offer on our house and moved out last weekend, with our new tenant moving in yesterday.  We love being with my folks and so this is a great way for us to earn extra money to pay school fees, or save up for the next holiday!

Anyway, I guess what I'm sort of trying to say is that I'm sorry for being an absent blogger lately.  My mind's been distracted in a thousand different directions!  We're good though and moving forward and, most importantly, we're happy!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!
Sending love, Sue XXX