Happy birthday...

It was my dad's birthday last Wednesday and he had his annual birthday party.  Dad loves a party and I guess he has good reason to celebrate his life each year.  Even though he can drive us all mad sometimes, we are lucky to have him and he has been a wonderful dad and grandpa to us all.  He has a great group of friends who love him to pieces too.  Cheers to another happy, healthy year ahead to the best dad in the whole world!

Rosie and Gareth live around the corner and so joined us all for a bite to eat...

 A definite highlight for little Rylee (aka Gogga) was the birthday cake and singing happy birthday - he throws his arms in the air and yells "hooray" as loudly as he can...

 Jake's growing by the minute at the moment and it won't be long before he passes me.  His head is already up to my forehead and I think he's grown about 6 or 7cm since his birthday in May.  His face is changing too - those chubby baby cheeks are a thing of the past...

 Rosie and Rylee listening to Dad's speech...

 In other news, Jake continues to play out of season rugby.  They've got a fantastic coach who trains a small group of them on Saturday mornings.  He's an ex-pro player (for Zimbabwe) and he has done all his formal coaching courses.  He puts a ton of effort in and Jake's confidence in the game has improved in leaps and bounds.  On Saturday morning, they trained at Milnerton rugby fields, which is where Jacques used to play when we were dating.  I have spent many Saturdays watching rugby on those very chairs and that club house was a frequent watering hole after practices/matches...

 Jake was chuffed to be playing on his dad's grounds, but wasn't too keen for me to photograph him in front of his buddies...

 On Sunday we had a little family braai, also for Dad's birthday, this time just for our family.  The weather was magnificent and the kids spent most of the day swimming...

Our kids are all little water babies - they've all done swimming lessons since they were tiny and it's lovely to see them enjoy themselves together...

 Sweet Stinky...

 Corky...

 The Princess again - I daren't tell you what she did to me after I took this photo...

 Jake and Corky had a really good day together.  They haven't seen each other in a while and miss each other a lot.  Corky spoiled Jake with a lego advent calendar, which Jake can't wait to start tomorrow!!  Can you believe it's nearly December?

 My special prince...

 Goggle eyes...

 Rylee's swimming beautifully.  At his proper classes, he isn't allowed arm bands, but at home, generally the grown ups don't stay in as long as the kids.  It did mean that he didn't want to put his face in the water at his lesson on Monday morning though.  He spent hours in the pool on Sunday, just bobbing around with the bigger kids and even after they all got out.  He was a little dried prune...

 At 5, Stinky is very confident in the water and she has been for a while...

 Jump...

 Rylee also had a turn on Jake's shoulders...

 And used Jake's head as a drum...

 A precious moment - Rylee and his Aunty Jo...

I'm really sorry that I've been so bad at blogging.  I am trying to find time to write more often, but life is just crazy...

We had some great news yesterday - Jake's been accepted as a Junior Ranger for 2017, which is a course run by the South African National Parks.  Jake will start on Level one next year and graduates up to the next level once he's completed the full first year's program.  Once he's completed all levels, he will become an honourary ranger of our national parks.  It's right up his street and he is going to learn a lot about indigenous/alien plants, healing plants, animal diversity, dune ecology, healing plants and life on our rocky shores.  They meet once a month and explore different things each month.  It ties in well with his scouts and all these things are helping develop a well-rounded boy, who's goal for the future is to make a difference and to help our wildlife.  I am very proud of Jake for being selected for this program - he was only 1 of 27 kids chosen and I can't wait to watch him grow and learn as he follows this adventure.

Love always,

Sue xxx

The things I'm up to...

Hi,

Just a quick post - time always seems to be rushing away from me these days!  Life is full and beautiful and Jake and I are looking forward to the up-coming holidays.  How is it possible though?  The year has gone so fast.

The end of the year always feels like a bit of a schelpp.  I hate the build-up to exams and Jake seems to be overwhelmed with homework amidst the studying.  He has decided (on his own) that his lower dose of Concerta actually isn't working properly and so we have upped him back to the 36mg he was on last year.  He's doing really well and trying his best to study as much as he can at the moment.  Sadly, when you have to medicate your kid to get him to focus, it means that once that medication has worn off, there's not much that can be done in the way of studying.  It also means that all Jake's studying needs to be done before 5ish and if he's got extramurals on, that time is very much reduced.  It does mean that evenings are calmer and we have time to enjoy relaxing a bit too.

For me, I've been working hard!!  Things around the office are crazy busy (productive) and I'm really enjoying it most of the time.  We all have not-so-great days at the office, but those are really few and far between for me.

I attended a photography workshop last weeked, called Wild Shots and it was AMAZING!  There were about 15 speakers for the day, who shared their work and I left feeling very humbled and inspired!

I begin another photography course next week, this time for processing my images.  I've never really managed to get the hang of editing and it's about time I did.  It's a 3 week course run in the evenings, just once a week.  I can't wait, because the next step is that I'm going to start working on getting a proper photo website going.  Watch this space!

We are busy planning out 2017 holiday and it's going to be an exciting adventure.  Again, watch this space.  I am doing lots of number crunching to see if we can actually afford to do what we want to do...

In other news, Jake received an award at scouts last night for the most promising scout of the year - I was completely blown away and very surprised, especially considering that Jake HATES sleeping out anywhere and I have been called to camp to fetch him on more than one occassion.

Sending love,

Sue XXX

 

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