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

The boy that could shoot...

  I mean with a camera, not a gun!  Jake has completely blown me away with how quickly he has learned how to use a camera.  Not just any camera, my Nikon D7000, complete with a 150 - 600mm zoom lens on board.  It's heavy to say the least.  I quite a bit of time while we were away explaining the manual settings and how to play with light.  I also tried to explain how to make sure that you catch light in the subjects eyes and a bit about the rule of thirds and framing.  Jake has decided that he prefers manual focus, to the auto-focus that I always use.  On the down side, our next holiday is going to have to include a second camera.  Jake will definitely need his own camera, so that I don't have to share mine ;o) There were some situations when it was VERY hard parting with my camera, but I think that Jake more than did it justice...

The majestic king...

Eye contact (almost) - there's something chilling about having one of these massive beasts look you in the eye...

 These were the 3 male lions that sat in the road next to our car...

 I mean, seriously, look how well he managed to catch the light and how clear these pictures are...

 Alright, I do also have a lot of pictures of random things on my memory card, like this, but I guess that's all part of the fun in learning...

 Oh you also get shots like this a lot when a young boy's got your camera.  Lion boy bits...

 This little honey badger put on a great display in the dying sunshine for us at a little water hole near the road.  He actually ran across the road, but we got such a fright, we weren't ready for him.  It was a good opportunity for Jake to learn a bit about ISO settings and hence these pictures are a little grainy...

 Did I tell you that one of these guys came and sat next to me on our stoep one evening?  Jake was inside and I was sipping on a glass of wine, reading the news on my phone, when I heard sniffing next to me.  We'd been raided by mongooses (mongeese?) that morning and I presumed that there was a mongoose visiting us again, so got quite a fright when I saw a honey badger right there.  These things can bite!  When I moved, he shuffled backwards, hissed at me and then disappeared down the steps, all while I was trying to call Jake as quietly as possible, so as not to scare the badger off.  Jake missed it...

  A dwarf mongoose...

More nuts... this is a buffalo, in case you're interested...

 The huge lion pride, where we had the camera on completely the incorrect settings, but were too excited to notice until much later that day...

 Looking straight into my soul...

 Another pic showing Jake's sense of humour...

 An attempt at panning, also in the fading sunlight...

  I know it's not a great shot of either of us, but this is the only shot of both of us from our holiday.  My camera's too heavy for selfies on my own, so it's quite nice that Jake knows where to press the buttons and help.  Technically, this was a joint pic...

 What I really love about looking through Jake's pictures is seeing how he manages to get them so well in focus.  When there's lots of plants and grass in the frame, they're all at different heights and distances and so you have to have a pretty good eye to focus on your subject properly...

 Peeking through the gap...

 Lion love...

  A giraffe got their attention.  These lions were hungry and they stalked a bit, but didn't ambush...

 A young male enjoying the sunshine...

 One of the females in full on stealth mode...

 They're so aware that you're there, watching them.  You have to be so quiet, which is difficult when you're excited...

 Dozing in the sunshine...

 Seriously - this would be impossible on auto-focus and I think I'm starting to need glasses...

 Look at that light in his eyes...

 Yawn...

 A female closely watching the giraffe...

 OK, I know this isn't a great shot, but again, not an easy shot to get into focus.  I love that "don't mess with me" look...

 Gorgeous...

 More lions in a bit... how cute are these baby hyenas???

 One really good thing about Jake getting into his photography too, is that when something was on his side of the road, it was nice knowing that he could get the shot for me...

 Peek-a-boo...

 They were so sweet, we actually visited them a few times...

 The didn't stray too far away from their mommy and their den was in a pipe under the road...

 A huge croc lazing in the evening sunshine at Lake Panic...

A fat hippo getting ready for a swim, also at Lake Panic...

 A brown hooded kingfisher...

 More lions - I did tell you that we saw 104 of them, so I didn't mind sharing my toys when we got to see them again...

 There are 3 lions in this shot.  The one that's feeding on the left shot (below the male's hind leg) was so aggro, she wouldn't let any of the other lions (there were 7) near the carcass.  She landed up being chased away by 3 males, after she got into a tiff with one of them...

 I always thought that the females did the hunting and that the males ate first, but we saw it twice, where the males were waiting for their turn...

 One of the females with a very dirty face...

 Jake loves birds and there are some truly amazing birds in Kruger.  It's not always easy to get good shots of birds in flight, but Jake did OK with this hooded vulture, don't you think...

 And so to Jake... thanks for the amazing holiday.  I loved every second of my time with you, it was so special and I can't wait for our next adventure!  I love how much you love animals and nature and I am constantly amazed by your knowledge of it all.  I hope that you continue to learn more and keep up the amazing work with the camera - who knows, we might still have a pro in the family!!  I love you with all my heart XXX

 So, what do you think of Jake's hidden talent?? I have to confess that I did tweak them in Picasa, but I haven't cropped anything.  Other than minor highlights, shadows and saturation adjustments, these are as Jake saw them. 

 Love, 

Sue XXX