A time for everything

Despite a very VERY long journey, Mom and Dad managed to stay awake and functional for the rest of Saturday, getting themselves unpacked and settled.  In the unpacking process some presents came out...oooOOOooo!  The boys' Grandad in SA spoiled them wonderfully with, amongst other things, some very fancy watches - these are two very happy boys :)

Communal

We sort of invited ourselves over to the Overcomers for Sunday lunch, but with a 'bring and share' arrangement, knowing they already had a full house with heaps of family visiting.  It was fabulous meeting more of Elijah's family and chatting with them about the Lord. 

And we got to celebrate Charity's birthday with a chocolate cake!  Happy happy birthday and many more, lovely Charity :)

Wee new arrival, one week old here - smothered in kisses by her sister!

Elijah with three of his siblings and families - good reunion for them!

Sunlight (referring to dishwashing liquid)

Some early evening slip-n-slide 'it's nearly summer' fun in the front yard with all the neighbourhood kids...

She's arrived!!

Bronwyn texted yesterday afternoon to say "Rosanna's started labour" - yusssss, the news we've been waiting for and a day before her due date.  I barely had time to text around to get our church folk praying before the baby was born, after a two-hour labour - we are in awe not only of Rosanna's drug-free quick-as home-birth, but of our great God who gives life and has knitted this beautiful gift together.  We thank God for a smooth delivery and healthy baby girl.  Whoohooo!  We popped in during the afternoon, along with the Kempfs, and got to meet and hold As-Yet-Unnamed, less than 24 hours after her birth.  What a privilege!  We loved the fun madhouse "everyone pitch in and do something" atmosphere - one of Elijah's sisters was in the kitchen preparing tea, another was babysitting aforementioned sister's two little girls; Rene, Bronwyn and Hannah were co-opted to read stories to Honour, Seth and Zach, and Nick and Elijah started a bible study.  I snuck about with the camera :) 

Our dinner plans with the Kempfs were all on for tonight instead of last night (what more special or exciting kind of 'delivery' is there?!)  Bronwyn is an amazing hostess (I think I may have mentioned this approximately 29 times before); calm, organized and extremely clever with her catering and presentation.  We were treated to prawn kebabs and salad for starters, and these delicious bacon-wrapped salmon thingiemabobs along with the most incredible veggie dishes imaginable.  I know there is a fancy name for the salmon thingies here as they were on the printed menus on the table, but I can't remember the name (they're not part of my regular vocabulary, you see).

It was so great hanging out with Simon and Debs (above) and Matt and Adele (below), especially over a game of Pictionary.  One can find a great many things quite hilarious if you have enough sugar in you!

Shooting families

We called in at the Bothas this evening, initially because they were going to be watching the boys but our dinner plans got postponed until tomorrow night because of a terribly exciting 'delivery' which I shall blog in due course; since we were already on our way to their house we thought we'd keep going anyway and have a quick visit.  For his birthday last month, Nick got an air rifle which will be able to pop off rabbits and possums.  The nature of the rifle doesn't require a license and it's actually quite safe and easy to use, even for the boys - under close supervision of course.  It's also not very loud, giving off just a little flat 'pop' when the trigger is pulled, so can happily be used in residential areas.  He brought it along for the ride and we all had a go, except for Betta who apparently would have put us all to shame.  It's a great activity for those of us who are competitive by nature!

I asked Andreas to take a family pic of us for my parents who requested a 'we want to show people who we are visiting' photo - ideal setting in the Botha's back garden, with the golf course in the background!

Time to return the favour...a-la casual family mode.

Anyone want to guess what Nick was doing here?  If you say "getting down with some hip hop moves" you would probably be pretty far off the mark.

Concert, round II

So, after blog-announcing my early retirement from orchestra after the concert in June, I negotiated with Nick and we decided I could keep going for another term. The only reason for any hesitation and discussion is that practices are on Friday nights, which cuts into our family movie and pizza night. It's workable though as I just slip out during the movie and am back by the time the boys go to bed. I've really enjoyed this term's pieces - all movie related and fabulous to play (except for a selection from Cats which just did not stick, except for the Memory section in which everyone came alive).  Harry Potter and The Hobbit were probably the favourites.  Caleb's Primary School Orchestra joined with our Youth Orchestra for tonight's combined concert, both under the excellent efforts of conductor Rosemary Miller, who seems to have no end of patience for our amateur groups!  Caleb and Aaron were at school camp this week and arrived home today pretty tired and in need of a sleep; I woke Caleb up in time for him to play through the pieces once before pizza arrived.  As a result he felt a little underpracticed (despite the year's lead-up to the event - you really need to be ready on the day) and didn't give it his best effort.  We thought they did very well though.

The younger orchestra stayed on when ours joined them, but perhaps we could have used a slightly larger corner - we ended up being a little squashed, and I got my violin in the way of a bow and was bumped out of tune right before the dreaded Cats selection...turns out Rosemary had cut out all the nasty bits and only kept the much-loved Memory though, so I ended up not being able to play that at all with a horribly pitched D-String.  Ah well.  Had a quick tune up before the next piece.  There's Justus in the front row, who was brought in to lead and/or supplement the firsts as we thought our section leader might be absent on the night due to a rather severe illness.  Since Justus hadn't been at any rehearsals and just got the music the week before, we had a hurried run-through at our house before the concert which may or may not have been helpful...it didn't help in getting us to the concert on time as my "just one more piece" made us run late; I hadn't put my music in order and didn't take in the order of events with me, so didn't know which pieces were coming up when...frantic whispers to the front row seconds before starting is not ideal! 

A flute quartet was surely the high-note of the programme - they were fabulous.

Definitely a fun evening though despite my mistakes and disorganization, and another great experience!

GBC/MRBC/Camp/2013

Church camp 2013...this year our camp was held at Glenroy Lodge in Hororata, about an hour and three quarters' drive from us towards Christchurch. The campsite facilities were lovely although we were a little concerned during the planning stages about 70 campers sharing two showers...glad to report that the site is better equipped and did have an extra ablution block not featured on our original map ;)  There is only one main hall, so eating and meeting happened in the same venue which meant shifting chairs and tables before and after every session.  No matter though, there was a large enough contingent of males in the 10-25 year range to get it done quickly each time.  Our speaker, Joe Fleener, soothed our ears with his American accent while challenging our hearts from the book of Philippians.  We had five sessions over the course of three days, with a lot of free time and great eating in between times. The teenagers particularly appreciated his ministry and picked his brain during a spontaneous Q&A time after one evening session. 

Nick and the boys slept in tents the first night (I assigned myself to a dorm, thanks!!) but the tenters had it bad with excessive wind the first two days of camp.  Andreas had to drive into Christchurch on Saturday afternoon for more tent pegs, and Nick ended up just collapsing our big tent and leaving it flat until the wind died down sufficiently to pack it away.  We found two beds for the boys in the mens' dorms on the second night.  On the third night Nick moved into the lounge above the hall but that was where all the late-night board-gaming, table-tennising and fellowshiping was also happening, so he found himself awake until after 3.30 am, and was up at 6.  Not the best night's sleep - looking a little ragged on Monday morning!!

Being surrounded by so much nature...such a blessing but oh the allergies.  I suffered through puffy eyes despite an antihistamine.

So there we go - all wrapped up and looking forward to our next one in 2014!

Breaking chains and barking at passersby...

Lovely Bronwyn hosted a 'couples evening' at their home...a beautiful affair which we knew was going to be awesome as soon as we saw the elegant table setting and smelled some delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen.  

I miscalculated my dates so ended up double booking myself with an orchestra practice which I couldn't miss as we have a concert in two weeks (Caleb will also be playing as his primary school orchestra is joining with our youth orchestra for a few pieces - he and I sat next to one another at practice!).  I slipped away just before dinner was served and arrived back to enjoy a plateful of a salmon gnocci entree and venison casserole, followed smartly by vanilla cheesecake - wow!! 

Amidst a lot of laughter, there was also a little fire incident involving a menu and a tealight candle...oops! 

Bron and I had planned a few fun games and activities, designed to bring out some interesting facts.  We learned that Elijah likes pepper tree leaves in his peanut butter sandwiches and that no one in our group was born in February.  Fabulous evening, well done Bronwyn and we look forward to the next event!!