Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's,
and school! November ended very nice with a wonderful Thanksgiving
dinner at our house with about 30 of our South African family
members. Since the holiday is not celebrated here, we moved it to
Saturday since the husbands had to work and some of our kids had
school. Miranda gets some of the American holidays off as well as
the local ones, so she had a little break. I was able to take
advantage of some of the 'Black Friday' sales online. It will be
like Christmas all over again when we return home! We took the kids
to Sandton City to see a live Dora show and Santa. Jackson cried for
the first time, saying 'cheese' through tears, but he finally calmed
down enough to get a nice picture. We traveled there via the
Gautrain which was a 5 minute drive to the station and 10 minutes
train ride to the mall. Christmas brought another round of sickness.
Poor Miranda had to miss the company party due to a 24-hour stomach
bug, and Jackson went to bed Christmas Eve with a fever. Rusty &
I took turns attending Christmas Day dinner at our friend's home.
After 6 days we finally took him in with the result being a double
ear infection as well as chest & throat. As soon as he got
better, Rusty & I started to feel bad. So New Year's Eve was
spent sleeping, waking at midnight to the sound of the neighbors
setting off fireworks. I am currently on several medications to cure
all this junk I have going on.
December was rough, but I knew it would
be. With some good friends moving home and others leaving for the
holidays, it was very quiet and lonely here. Miranda and Jackson had
3 weeks off of school to torture each other which they succeeded at
very well. Santa almost brought coal, I may have to cave and buy one
of those creepy elves for next year so I can have at least one month
of behaved children. But we now have a jumpy castle in our dining
room and an over-priced train set on the coffee table. It will be
interesting trying to get everything home in 16 suitcases/boxes in
June.
Since we spent our 12th anniversary at
the doctor and taking care of our sick boy, we moved our celebration
to the next weekend and enjoyed a show at MonteCasino last weekend.
We saw a live performance called “Potted Potter” which was a
two-man comedy show covering all seven Harry Potter books in 70
minutes. The theaters here are so different, they let you bring in
any food or drink you want! So refreshing.
Miranda and Jackson went back to school
on Monday. I'm going to try sending Jackson 3 mornings a week and
see how it goes. He moved up to the next class as this month is the
beginning of the new school year for local schools. A miracle
happened on Christmas morning, he peed in the toilet! So our journey
down that road has begun, and I can see it being a very long one.
Miranda is getting back in the groove and happy to be back at school
even though she protested at first. I'm hoping to use some of my
free time accomplishing as many things I can for the remainder of our
time here.
Summer is in full swing and it is HOT!
When it rains in the afternoon or evening it cools things off,
otherwise 84 degrees outside with no air con inside makes a stuffy
house. Our pool is freezing but we have used it a few times
recently. The sun is up from about 4:30am to 7:15pm. Since all the
gardeners and maids were off for 3-4 weeks over Christmas, Rusty
actually had to mow our lawn a few times. I found it pretty easy to
keep the house clean, I honestly don't know what our maid/nanny does
all day when she 'cleans' my house Tuesdays and Thursdays. My
neighbor called me the week before Christmas and asked if my gardener
was still in town because she wasn't sure how she was going to get
her garden (lawn) taken care of for the next 3 weeks. She was
serious. I think she's funny.
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