Grade 7 Farewell...

Friday night was Jake's grade 7 farewell dance - I'm not sure how he reached this stage so quickly, or where the years have gone, but we're nearly done with primary school!

This was Jake on his first day of primary school - look how little he was against how big he is now...

 So the dace was a good opportunity for us to take some photos, which Jake doesn't let me do very often these days.  You can see how tall he's getting - just about to pass me...

 Whoops, I think I might be kidding myself!  I think he might be taller than me already...  And he still doesn't mind the odd kiss...

 After making sure that Jake was dressed, I was allowed to pop down to the school to see the decor.  The teachers really outdid themselves and I think they might have been as excited as the kids were.  The theme was cowboys and this was the welcome at the entrance...

 Each class had name tags waiting for them (Jake's teacher is co-incidentally, Mr Kruger)...

 It was very exciting to see everything before the kids got there...

The hall looked magic and I had quite a lump in my throat knowing how much fun the kids were going to have there later...

There were hay bails converted into couches - it looked awesome...

 The stage was decorated for the teachers, who were there to keep a close eye on our little monsters...

 The photos don't do it justice...

 After I'd been to check out the hall, it was a race to get home and take some more family photos before getting Jake back to school for some photos with his buddies.  Here's Jake and Abi...

 And Becky...

 Jake and Becky both have braces...

Rylee was there too, but not too keen on having photos taken...

 Jake loves his cousins and is so proud of how well they're doing with their swimming - both these lovely ladies are SPRINGBOKS...

 And they love him!

 The Moelans family, excluding me, but including a little photo bomber in the tree (oh how this photo has made us laugh)...

 Jake and my parents...

 And there's me again...

 There was time for some photos at school too.  This is Jake and his best friend, Liam - what an amazing kid...

 A group of the boys - it's quite funny to see them all at this stage, they're all growing at different rates and some are tiny and some are huge.  Lots of them took the chance to dress up extra smart...

 It's so much fun seeing these boys growing up.  I've known most of them since they were really little.  Next year they're all off to high school.  Most of them are going to our local (Jake included), but some are heading off on completely new adventures, so their group is going to split and change in the next little while.

Jake came home full of energy and so excited about the beautiful evening they'd had.  They really enjoyed the dance and made some awesome memories to carry with them into the next chapter.

I felt Jacques around us often this weekend.  He is never far from my thoughts, especially when I face Jake's milestones without him by my side.  Jacques would be so proud of our beautiful son, who is growing in confidence and talent by the day.  Jake is missing having his dad around at the moment - there are just some things that moms don't get.  That said, I think we have a very tight bond and I adore the adventures we share!

Till next time!

Sue

Brace Face...

Jake got his braces fitted on last week Friday. He was so excited to get them!  They've started with just the top ones for now.  Once they've moved Jake's top teeth forward, they'll fit the bottom ones.  That'll probably be in about 4 months time.

Jake's been very brave and hasn't moaned too much about being sore.  I have to keep reminding myself that I'm no longer allowed to squeeze his cheeks (it hurts) and there are certain foods that are now banned from our house.  I guess it would be unfair for me to sit and eat a lunch bar in front of him!

I was quite surprised by how much is wrong with Jake's teeth.  He has to have an op done in about 9 months time to fix up a problem with a permanent tooth that doesn't want to move down.  At the moment, they're making space for the bigger tooth, then when they operate, they're going to extract the baby tooth and cut in to the permanent tooth, attach a chain between the tooth and the braces and then pull it into place.  Sounds simple enough, right??  At the same time, they're going to cut the little piece of skin between his top lip and his gum, which is pushing his 2 front teeth apart and remove his lower wisdom teeth.  No doubt he'll be fairly miserable when that happens.

This is the X-ray of Jake's mouth,  You can see that pesky incisor lying skew in his gum...

Aside from that, Jake has been a brave boy this last week.  He's indulged in too much milk tart, custard and jelly.  He hasn't had to take too many painkillers and did manage to eat a burger on Tuesday evening.  He's learning a few tricks with regards to eating and most importantly, he's brushing and flossing like a champ.  I think the orthodontist has him terrified by what can happen if he doesn't clean his teeth properly.

And that's about all our news.  Exams start in about 3 1/2 weeks time and so Jake's already had to start preparing.  I like that he tries to get a little ahead while he can.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

Sue XXX

Much ado about nothing...

It should be the other way around.  I have little to share and so that's why I've been a bit missing-in-action... To be honest, my camera hasn't even been charged since we got home from the Kruger, which is disgusting for me, who usually has it pretty much strapped to my face all of the time...

 Today marks the start of the 4th school term.  It's Jake's last term of primary school and I can't believe that this journey's nearly completed.  I know it sounds cliche, but seriously - where did the years go???  I know we live from holiday to holiday and the shops are ridiculous about it too - no sooner is Christmas over, when they start selling Easter Eggs!  In our house, we love school holidays.  It's just the lack of responsibility and structure - going to bed later and sleeping in a bit in the mornings.  Not rushing!!  This last holiday was really just a long weekend, I mean, how can you even unwind in a week?  Be that as it may, it was still a nice long weekend.  Jake did really well last term, although it was a manic one and this term is going to fly by even faster.  He's got his grade 7 formal and there's only 5 weeks until exams start!  2 weeks of exams, 1 week for marking and sports day and then the 6-weeks December holiday!  Heee-ha - I can't wait!

Jake has been for his high school uniform fitting and is getting quite excited about it now.  We've decided that our local high school is the best option for him.  It's within easy walking distance from home, so no travelling and the majority of his friends will be going there too.  I'm very comfortable with our decision.

So what else have we been up to?  Jo and Paul and the kids have been to Mauritius for 10 days (we hate them too).  Stinky landed up in hospital for a day, having X-rays, CT scans, sonars, blood tests, only to be sent home with trapped gas...  Despite that, they had a really good holiday.  We met them at the airport and they all looked happy and rested. Gareth's been working away from home during the week and we're all missing him, but it has meant that Rosie and Rylee have been around a bit more, especially in the evenings.

Did I tell you that we're going to Kruger again in July??  Rosie & her family are joining us, as are Corky & Stinky.  My mom and dad are going too, so there's a total of 9 of us.  We're super excited and Jake can't wait to share the bush with his cousins. 

Oh, besides Jake's great report, he's also been told that one of his photos that I entered into a competition on his behalf is going to be featured on one of our local TV shows (50/50).  The presenter has phoned us, which was very exciting.  It'll probably be on in another 2 or 3 weeks and Jake is super excited.  There are some really nice prizes, which he is holding thumbs for too!  It's one of his baboon shots that I shared in my last post (not sure which one, but here's one of them anyway)...

Abi and Becky are doing amazingly too.  Becky's been to the Bahamas to compete in the Junior Commonwealth Games, as well as Indianapolis for the Junior World Competition.  Abi's just returned from Italy, where she took part in a 5 & 10km swim.  They are both doing so well and making us so very super proud!

The drought in Cape Town has started to make us all very nervous.  Bathing is a thing of the past and we are allowed 2 minute showers only.  You have to lather up and rinse.  And you skip a night here or there and we try stretch washing our hair with dry shampoo.  We try catch as much water as we can to use for flushing toilets and watering the odd plant.  Our gardens are dying fast and there's no way that we'll be swimming this summer - we're not allowed to top our pools up.  The municipality has plans to reduce water pressure and to have intermittent outages.  The next phase is for drinking water to be made available for collection at certain drop off points - there just isn't water and it's starting to get quite frightening...

Jake and I had an awesome catch up on Saturday morning with Michael and Cameron and their mom - turns out their dad did hook up with the woman I suspected, so I'm learning to trust my instinct a bit better for future!!

And on that note, time for me to run.  Lunch is calling.  Today is the start of a new go at a healthier lifestyle, let's see how long it lasts!

Love,

Sue XXX

Wild at Heart...

 These photos aren't in any real order, but they're long overdue and so to avoid any further delays, I thought I'd better share them ASAP!  My sweet Jake is a teenager now - I can't believe how quickly the years are flying by and I wish he could be little for just a little longer.  He is close on my heels in the height competition now and it won't be long before he's ahead of me.  When Jake turned 13, I spoilt him with his very first DSLR.  It's a Nikon, like mine and he still has a lot to learn, as do I.  In any event, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves and I'm sure you'll agree, he's a pretty good photographer!  All of the pictures contained in this post are Jake's.  I've done some minor editing, but no cropping...

The best part about Jake having his own camera, is knowing exactly which photos he took.  It's amazing to see how he sees things and the moments that he manages to capture...

 He learnt a lot about light...

 A baby croc...

 A Tawny eagle, enjoying bunny road-kill...

 These birds are so powerful...

 There were 2 of them, the other was waiting his turn in a tree nearby...

 A beautiful male lion, sunning himself in the later afternoon sunshine...

 Sunrise from our bungalow at Satara.  The fence is the boundary between us and the wild...

 A thirsty ellie...

 Early morning...

 Burchell's coucal...

 A mother & baby water buck - these guys are the luckiest of all the buck species.  Their meat tastes funny, so they apparently don't get chowed too often...

 Still our favourites - white rhino...

 A lonely ellie...

 A fluffy baby zebra...

 Sunset (this has not been edited at all)...

 Elephants are really such quiet animals, sometimes you'll drive along and see something move out the corner of your eye and there's a whole heard of ellies along the roadside.  Considering their size, they're sneaky...

 A beautiful fish eagle...

 A tree-ful of vultures - where there are vultures, there must be meat...

 And sure enough, there were lions too...

 When lions look at you, really look at you, you're always glad that there's a car protecting you, even when you know they've just gorged themselves...

 A young male - clearly very full...

 Jake learnt about the golden light and he liked it...

 He learnt about depth of field too...

 For us, this year in Kruger, the grass was much longer than last year.  They've had a lot of rain since then and we didn't actually see so many animals.  Last year we saw 104 lions, this year only 20.  We did see plenty of leopards though and they're my favourite cat.  This one was very aware of the herd of impala a few meters off.  We thought we were in luck, but she disappeared into the bushes and while we waited patiently for her to reappear, she never did...

 This one-horned impala was equally aware of the leopard in the vicinity...

 Zebra's coming down for a drink...

 Ground hornbills...

 A rock monitor...

 This leopard caught me by surprise, so much so, that I swore profoundly and called it a lion.  We were just outside our camp and there were no other cars in sight - always a special moment.  He was HUGE...

 Boys!!

 This apparently bears a strong resemblance to me...

 Gorgeous back lit grass...

 Early one morning, we were heading off to a nearby bird hide.  As we rounded a corner, we saw a lion and  lioness standing in the road, only to realize that she was being chased by 4 huge male lions.  Before Jake snapped this shot, the first male (much younger) had already ducked into the bushes on the right.  She sprinted past us so fast and so close, if I'd stuck my hand out, I could've touched her.  It's amazing to see how much muscle a lion has...

 When we finally got to the waterhole, not even the hippos had woken up yet...

 A Martial Eagle...

 A cute terrapin...

 Our most surprising sighting this holiday was definitely these guys - tiger fish.  Jake is dying to go fishing for tigers, so he was thrilled and kept saying he wished he'd packed his fishing rod...

 Another leopard - this one so orange in colour.  There were lots of cars on the scene when we arrived, only for us to be told that the leopard had disappeared and we'd missed it.  Jake made me drive up and down and we were rewarded with a very quick glimpse of him, before he disappeared into the river bed below...

 Thirsty hyenas...

 And another stunning leopard!  This is my absolute favourite photo from our holiday...

 Another of Jake's stunning sunset shots...

 A yellow-bellied sun bird...

 Impala lilies...

 Dare I show off again?  Yep, another leopard - I think we saw 9 this trip, last year was 11... yes, we know we've been SO lucky...

 And another great shot by Jake...

 An eagle silhouette...

 And the same eagle coming in closer for a better look...

 Klipspringers...

 Leopard footprints in the sand...

 This next series of photos is also amongst my favourites from this trip.  There was a whole troupe of them, all of varying ages and this guy was sitting in the road, right next to Jake's window, trying to crack open a marula nut...

 Baboons get so much bad publicity, because they live in reserves neighbouring residential areas.  They are opportunistic and break into homes and rubbish bins to get food.  They are not much liked in Cape Town.  That said, when they're wild, they're unbelievably cute and very entertaining to watch.  They're so human-like that it's hard not to see a bit of yourself in them.  Some baboons in Kruger have found their way into campsites and one does have to lock up food, but the ones that you see out in the bush are precious.  We can sit for hours watching them groom each other and forage for food...

 I mean, seriously, how cute is this...

 Looking through Jake's photos, I'm amazed by how he often managed to get the subject so well in focus, while the surrounding plants are blurred and do not detract from his subject...

 A big baobab at the bottom of the road...

 3 ellies wandering through a field...

 The Olifants River...

 A little Pied Kingfisher hunting for his lunch...

 A Bateleur - this is Jake's favourite bird and we were lucky enough to see one every single day that we were in the park...

 A little ellie...

 More impala lilies...

 This was a gorgeous sighting of a Martial Eagle - he had caught a monitor and was sitting in the tree trying to eat it, however there was a Fish Eagle in the tree in the background and the Martial was so aware of him, he ended up abandoning his meal...

 Beautiful wings...

 A teeny tiny baboon...

 Back lit baboons grooming...

 A female water buck - I never noticed it before, but their noses look like hearts...

 Sunrise over the Olifants River.  The bird in the middle is a Fish Eagle, snapped purely by accident, he just swooped into the frame, as did the little Blacksmith Lapwing on the left...

 Unedited, pure beauty...

 As the sun rose on one side, the moon was setting on the other...

 My favourite little bird - a Blue Wax bill...  This is the bird that showed me how interested Jake was in birds during his very first holiday to Kruger when he was only 5...

 Pretty flowers...

 A bush baby, clearly not very impressed with the light in his eyes.  This was in a tree next to our braai at Punda Maria - there were lots of them and they seemed to be "roosting" in this tree...

 Another Yellow-bellied sun bird...

 Oh gosh and more baboons - this one posing on a rock...

 A very pregnant buffalo, who wasn't happy to have her picture taken...

 Ellies having a mud bath...  when you give a young boy a camera, he will take photos of willies and poo and it's even better if he can get them in the same photo.  One of Jake's favourite holiday photos...

 This guy was making sure he didn't miss a spot...

 And he looked very pleased (and a tad exhausted) with himself when he was done...

 A crazy ostrich...

 And I call her crazy, because she really wanted to get inside the car to Jake - she pecked and pecked and pecked at the window and we couldn't drive...

 More fluff...

 Some sort of ghost frog at a picnic site...

 And a spider - I only saw 2 this holiday and thankfully both were outside and neither were very big...

 A baboon skull...

 Termites - this was on our walk and they were incredible.  There was literally a whole field that they were chopping down.  You could see the grass moving and hear them working, it was amazing to stand there and be a part of it...

 Army ants - these guys are massive...

 Dwarf mongooses.   They're super inquisitive, but very nervous...

 A lazy hyena with lots of flies buzzing around...

 The feint line in the road, where the red bricks are is the line that marks the Tropic of Capricorn...

 Another perk of Jake having a camera is that there is actual proof that I was also there...

 An old boy with the hugest horns ever...

 One last sunset photo, taken just outside Mopani rest camp with lots of baobabs on the hill...

 Our last full day in the park was a real highlight for us.  We've wanted to see wild dogs forever and we finally got our chance.  There were only 2 of them, but we had them pretty much to ourselves for 30 minutes, as they ran in the road, marked the territory and ran some more...

 The are surprisingly smaller than I imagined and way smellier, but those ears...

  They just trotted along for about 2.5kms...

 I was such a good mommy - I made sure that Jake always had prime spot for his photos and he really did me proud...

 One last sniff and they disappeared into the bush...

 A very tall, dark giraffe...

 A Marabou Stork in flight...

 Buffs enjoying the sunshine...

 That golden moment...

 Oh, I lied - this is the last sunset photo...

 I'd be lying if I told you what sun bird this was... It was super cute though and sat on the side of Jake's window, peeping inside the car...

 Our last morning was a real spoil for us - a cheetah at a kill (we missed the kill)...

 No sooner had the Cheetah stood up from his meal, when the vultures descended...

 They're so ugly, but we love how they hop along the ground...

 A vulture flying over our car...

 Getting ready for take off...

 The black marks in the sky are all vultures...

 It's good to keep an eye on the sky when you're in the bush - this was an eagle being dive-bombed by 3 Blacksmith Lapwings... 

 This beautiful Yellow-billed horn bill had caught himself a snack.  I didn't realize that they ate meat, besides insects, but apparently they do.  We initially thought he had a mouse, but I think it might be a little mole...

 He bashed it and crushed it with his beak...

 And tossed him in the air to do it all over again...

 Until he was sure that every single bone in the little mole's body was broken...

 And then he tried to gobble him down.  Sadly the mole was too big and he couldn't get further than the hind legs.  He regurgitated the mole back up, cleaned his beak and flew away...

 Our last sighting for our holiday was of these two young white rhinos, that were playing so beautifully...

 The darker of the two was definitely trying to show his dominance, pushing the other one around a bit...

 and the lighter one was mostly running away with the other one chasing closely behind...

It was very sweet to watch them learning how to play and defend themselves...

And with that, I'm at the end of Jake's photos.  He did well, don't you think???  There's obviously still lots of room for him to learn and improve, but I don't think you can ever know it all.  I'm busy putting Jake's photos together into a book for him to treasure.

Hope you have a lovely weekend, keep warm and stay safe!

Sue XXX