Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Happy Birthday Mama!

Just a little post to say Happy Birthday to a wonderful mom... I love you.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Prayer for the Day

Dear Lord, I do not ask
That Thou should'st give me
Some high work of Thine,
Some noble calling, or some wonderous task.

Give me a little hand to hold in mine;
Give me a little chid to point the way
Over the strange, sweet path that leads to Thee.
Give me a little voice to teach to pray;
Give me two shining eyes Thy face to see.

The only crown I ask, dear Lord, to wear
Is this: That I may teach a little child.

I do not ask that I may ever stand
Among the wise, the worthy or the great;
I only ask that softly, hand in hand,
A child and I may enter at the gate.
--Author Unknown

My Cuddle-Bug

Kiara is such a cuddle-bug. Sometimes during school time, like while we're reading, she will hold my arm and hug it and kiss it. One morning after she read a few pages in her reader I started to praise her, and tell her how proud I was of her. I put a sticker on her page, (she loves stickers!) then I cuddled her and gave her tons of kisses on her cheek. She just giggled and smiled, soaking in all the love. I turned around to get back to reading when she grabbed me...
Kiara: "I want to give you kisses too."
So she held my face and smothered me with kisses.
Me: "Oh, thank you. My love cup is so full now."
Kiara: "That's because I just love you!"

Saturday, February 21, 2009

A Smile...

Today during our meeting, Brendan was sitting across the room on someones lap. He was staring at me with his "blank day dreamy" stare. (he daydreams a lot!) I smiled at him and tried to get his attention by shaking my head. I didn't work so I just blew him a kiss...
That did the trick! He smiled; his big, beautiful, irresistible smile and then gave a contented sigh. "Ahhhh!" Joy and Steve were the only others who got to see that. But it was so cute, so special it melted my heart.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

A Hint of Spring

I started painting again...Here's the most recent.

Congradulations!

Congradulations Sam and Tina! I'm so happy for you both.

"Showing off the ring..." Sam proposed to Tina on Valentines Day. Just last night Steve and I took them out to dinner, it was lots of fun.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Lunch Out

On Valentines Day we really wanted to just get out of the house and do something fun.--So we did! Joy and Tim came with us and we all had lunch out together. We ordered pizza and waited patiently.While we waited Steve went off to get a surprise gift for me. The pizza was wonderful! (You all know how much I love pizza.) I tried to take a few pictures, but mostly I just wanted to relax and have fun. But here are a few...


My first Valentines Day...with a valentine. I Love You Steve!
Don't worry he didn't eat the whole thing, half was for me.
Joy and Tim anxious to start eating their pizza

Happy Valentines Day!

"When two people fall in love, their lives become so full with all that they share--it seems as if nothing before could have ever been so complete"

"Love is what you've been through with somebody."--James Thurber

"Love is what makes two people sit in the middle of a bench when there's plenty of room at both ends."

"True love does not care for the passing of time...for time cannot change the true meaning of love."--Kimberly Rhineheart


For Valentines day I helped Kiara make cards and that was our project for the afternoon. We decided we'd start with making cards for Daddy and Mommy. I helped her cut out heart shapes and glue them on paper. I wrote what she wanted to say in pencil and she traced it with a marker of her choice. We had to be all sneaky about it because I didn't want her parents to come in the classroom and see the cards before they were ready.
She also wanted to make one for Joy, and then for me as well. "Because you're MY teacher!" she said. I wasn't really sure how to help her make a card for me. So I told her we'd make one for Joy and if there was time we could make one for me. We finished Joy's card just before dinner, so we hid the cards to let them dry(we used lots of glue).
Then on the 14th she gave out the cards...it was so much fun just watching her.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Frustrated?

I'm feeling a little frustrated right now because I was going to post some pictures of our Mafate experience....what else could happen beside me not being able to re size the pictures! Sigh, roll-my-eyes, sigh one more time.
Other than that everything's okay. :)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Picnic Fun

Jan. 25
We went to this place called Anse des Cascades, on the other side of the island, for a picnic. It's between the ocean and mountains, so you have waterfalls on one side and the beach on the other. Quite a nice place if I may say so! The day we went however was a Sunday and it seemed like the whole island had congregated there for their picnics. At first we had such a hard time finding a parking and were thinking of going somewhere else. But we found places for our three vehicles and thankfully found a picnic spot as well.
Something funny happened while we were all eating. I was sitting down on the mat, eating and minding my own business when someone asked for the salt. I saw that it was on the opposite side of the mat next to Pailine and some others. I asked Pai to pass the salt and without thinking she picked it up and tossed it across to me. It was totally unexpected! I had my paper plate full of food in one hand and a fork in the other. So the salt shaker came flying through the air and knocked my plate out of my hand. It landed on the mat and I ended up with a lot of food all over my clothes. I thought it was so funny as it happened so fast and unexpectedly. I had a change of clothes so I was able to change, and with the help of Pai washed the food stains off the other clothes.

Relaxing and waiting for the food.
Some of us know how to redeem the time. Vivi and Seb, (my sister and her boyfriend) enjoying their vacations in Reunion. This was an "action" picture taken by my brother.

Joy and Tim having a restful moment.

One of the many waterfalls.

One of the natives we found on the island.

Oh, here she is again!

My cutie-pie sister Sara. I love you!

Joy and Pai attacking Tim cause they had nothing better to do. Poor guy!

View of the rocky beach. I didn't want to get the other side as there were tons of people in the water...
***
After all our fun at Anse des Cascades it was time to move on. We piled in the cars and continued our tour of the island. We drove past the lava flows, each one with a nice sign showing the year it happened. Unfortunately we couldn't stop as it was pouring rain. It was still interesting to see, even through the car windows, in some places of the most recent flow it was still smoking.
Because it was such a hot day we wanted to go swiming somewhere. My dad took us to this nice little river that ran all the way down the mountain. It was sooooo cold! No matter, we jumped in anyway. We had so much fun going down the natural water slides, and scampering over the rocks like natives.
Joy, Papa, and Sam...first few brave ones to venture in.

Chris, Sara, and Joy. The water was freezing that's the reason for the funny faces.

A bunch of natives going down the little rapids...there was a tiny whirlpool in at the bottom, made it more fun.

Stephanie surverying the situation. The water was so cold I was afraid to get back in!


It's hard to sit still for a photo when the water's so cold...

The water's trying to push Joy off her seat. It's funny how the current is always stronger than it looks.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Piton de la Fournaise Jan. 22

Here are pictures from our outing to the volcano. "Piton de la Fournaise" Most of us had already done this trek before but we wanted to come again for the boys (Steve and Tim). It's not everyday that you get to visit a volcano!
When we arrived at the parking, from where you start walking, the sky was overcast and it was sprinkling a little bit. For most of the walk we continued to have cloudy skies so no one really thought of putting sunscreen lotion. But we had to pay the price for a fun day out...Everybody ended up getting sunburnt. Any piece of exposed skin was red. All the really white people turned into red lobsters, the rest of us looked like "red Indians".
Well, inspite of all that we did have a wonderful time. We brought baguette and cheese and had our picnic lunch along the way. Because quite a few paths were closed off due to the last erruption, we weren't able to the tour of the Dolomieu crater. We took a path off to the side and followed it to the end where it was closed. It wasn't as tiring as climbing up and around Dolomieu and I think many were happy about that.


La Plaine des Sables


Steve with "Fourmica Leo" (the small red-looking crater) in the distance.

The first ones to arrive at Fourmica Leo.Steve and myself. Behind you can see faint hints of the path we came down.


Keep walking..

Steve and Sara exploring the funny rock formations.

Tim and Chris resting on a slab of volcanic rock.

Gina and Vivi enjoying the view

Here we're in some awesome cave thingie created centuries ago by some angry lava...or that's what I like to think.


My two youngest brothers, Chris and Philip, with Seb. These guys were ahead most of the hike.

I love the red!







Weird looking volcanic rock. We saw lots of this, it looks kinda gross...

View of the volcano--just before we're going to climb the stairs back up the cliff to where the cars are parked.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Home

So we're back home in Pretoria...We arrived on the 29th actually, but as you all know it takes a while to get readjusted back to "normal non-vacationing" life. I'm doing fine, just missing my family very much. Because we were so busy in Reunion I wasn't able to post many pictures of our time there. So I will try to post as much as possible now and get you all caught up to the latest news. My post on Salazie actually wasn't finished and I will add more pictures and news there too.