Merry Christmas!

Charlie, Katie & Kelly's wishes all came true for Christmas, however the Grinch is still controlling our internet connection, so we didn't call anyone yesterday because our internet phone doesn't work...we wish we could have called to find out how your day was and let the kids tell you about their visit from Santa.

Luckily our neighbors let us borrow their signal, which at least allows me to write this post!

We were very busy the days before practicing for the Nativity play at church, another American family recently had their third baby and they were gracious enough to let her be baby Jesus.  Kelly was the Angel Gabriel and was thrilled to have a big speaking part.  Katie played Mary and got to hold the baby (and get bossed around by the Angel Gabriel, just like in everyday life), and Charlie was a very sweet baby star.

When Katie sat down with the real baby, their was an audible gasp from the congregation, everyone was surprised she wasn't a doll!

The baby star in the middle is Charlie...If you want to get Kelly & Katie fired up, ask them about the lady who directed the play, she was very into costumes, acting, and putting on a quality production.  She was a former dance teacher so in her mind we had to go for the gold medal, rather than act out the gospel for the Children's Mass.  (which was how it was done at our old church in Massachusetts).  The only other thing was it was BLAZING HOT in church, no AC here or heat in church, even at 6 pm in the evening it was still roasting in there.  Greg especially enjoyed all of the singing, there had to be at least 20 songs...

As he predicted, Charlie has been very busy playing with all of his new toys from Santa, he got a ton of Ninja Turtles toys, his favorite is the van that they drive around in and also a cool toy that sticks to the wall and lets them zipline around.

The girls were happy with an ice cream maker and a "soda stream" both cool things for South Africa as the ice cream here is pretty awful (all has vegetable oil in it no Richardson's here).  They also don't really sell flavored seltzer (like Polar) here, anything with bubbles also has the sugar in it.  So we are looking forward to a lots of good ice cream and beverages that the girls whip up.

We spent our morning yesterday playing with everything and in the afternoon we were busy party hopping to two different Christmas open houses.  The nice thing about embassy life is everyone is far from home, so they are happy to get together on holidays.

We hope all of you had a very nice Christmas, and are getting some down time to relax and play with all of your new toys!

Riding The Rails!

We got the chance to go to Cullinan, the mining town where they dug up on of the biggest diamonds from Africa, which now resides in the Queen of England's scepter.  Driving it would have taken us about 45 minutes, but instead we went by steam train and it took about two hours!   We were explaining to the kids that its about the journey...not the speed with which you get to your destination.

Charlie & the locomotive...

A special visitor came on the train with gifts!

A very enthusiastic Santa rode up front for most of the journey, people all along the route were waving and getting out of their cars to see the train pass.  We went through one township and the kids were running alongside the train.  We wished we had brought huge bags of candy to throw to them.  I may have written about them in the past, but the townships are the shadow black towns that remain from apartheid days, they are very, very poor areas where most people still live in corrugated steel boxes, without power and running water.  It's tough to be on a train full of well-off white people and go past the areas where people are living in such terrible conditions.  That is the part of South Africa that is really hard for myself and my soft-hearted kids, we want everyone here to have food, clothes, and shelter, maybe not on our American scale...
I have many experiences we have had with those less fortunate here and I'm not sure where to write about them, if I put them in the blog it would probably be too depressing for our readers!

We arrived in Cullinan and had a lovely lunch, checked out the playground full of old mine equipment, Charlie liked it, we also went in the few shops that were open (it was Sunday so most things were CLOSED).

Behind Greg & the kids is the "big hole" from the mining days...

South Africans have what we would consider some strange fashion tastes, people watching at a mall here is always entertaining...this teenage boy had the worst fashion sense we've seen..I had to take a photo..he is on the right walking with his Mom.

We had to get back to the train by a certain time so we wouldn't be stranded in the town with nothing open... so we got there early and had lots of laughs at this guy who was lounging in his front lawn directly across from the train station.  It looked like one of those postcards you see at a beach gift shop!  Hope it makes you laugh as much as we did...

On the ride home the kids learned about coal dust, they spun our train car around and we were now the car right behind the locomotive, by the time we got back we had coal dust everywhere!  

Charlie is very excited for Christmas, he never misses a day on his Advent calendar, he knows exactly what day it is.  He also told me the other day that he is going to be, "very busy after Christmas".  I replied, "Is that because you are going to Kindergarten?"  He said, "No, I'm going to be playing with all of my new toys from Santa!"   Silly me!  So if you need Charlie for anything, get him in the next few days before he's very busy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving, we had a different Thanksgiving here, but enjoyed some of our family traditions, like making cornucopias (out of breadsticks) the night before.  We made one for our family and delivered them to each of the other houses in our compound.  The girls were impressive because we usually make these from Pillsbury breadsticks, which are unheard of here, but the grocery store sells bags of dough so we used those instead, they came out great!  Our neighbors all loved them.  We also loved watching the Macy's Parade, which started at 4pm our time.  Charlie loved seeing his Ninja Turtles on their own float!

I cooked a traditional feast and we had three South African guests, one was Miss Jenny who is someone we are most thankful to have met.  I met her at the Embassy craft fair, she was there with a booth selling all of these beautiful stuffed animals, baby blankets, cloth aprons, all of it handmade and amazing.  She had a sign up for the "Bear Hug Project" and when I started asking her about it, it was her charity that she started with her daughter a few years back.  They do amazing things here in South Africa and are always looking for volunteers.  So of course I signed up Kelly and Katie for sewing projects, and in addition to being able to help her make some cool things for orphanages etc. the Hughes family made out because Miss Jenny has taken on the role of the Hughes kids South African Grannie... She is a regular now at all of the events at our house (she was a judge for the Halloween costume contest), came for Katie's Grandparents Tea at school and has now completely stolen Kelly's heart with her new puppy, a mini-pug.  When we went to her house for the first time and it was all cozy (nik-naks on the walls, homemade things everywhere) Kelly collapsed on the couch and said she finally felt like she was in a real "home" again!

Here is a link to her charity if you want to see the neat things that they do:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bear-Hug-Project/114371271989308

Here are the girls the day of the Grandparent's tea...

Here are Kelly & Katie working on cutting & pinning denim bags for the charity that will be given to orphans as Christmas gifts.

Our other guests for dinner, was the couple that we met back on Heritage Day, (Danny & Nikki) she had lived in America for many years and fondly remembers our traditions and was thrilled to have Thanksgiving dinner again, her boyfriend had his rookie dinner with us and liked trying all our foods.

Before we ate, Greg gave a very heartfelt toast about South Africans and how they have been very friendly and welcoming to us and we were happy to share a little hospitality with them.  We are consistently impressed with all of the South Africans we meet, how genuinely nice they are and how they go out of their way to make us feel at home in their country!

Our final tradition was one we did a few years back with their cousin Erin when my sister Julie & Brian came to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving.  We had a kids rendition of Snoopy's Thanksgiving from the old Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.  For those of you who might remember, Snoopy serves popcorn, toast, pretzel sticks, jelly beans & sherbet on the ping-pong table.  We invited all the kids in our compound and luckily one lady has a ping-pong table, so we had a grand time with Snoopy's feast.

I asked the kids which they liked better, real Thanksgiving food, or Snoopy's food, they all agreed Snoopy's menu was way better! 

 Kelly & Katie scooping the sherbert!

I was suprised they actually ate the toast...I thought they wouldn't!!

Seen any Penguins? (or Christmas Decorations?)

This is a real article from Friday's paper.  I showed it to the girls and they both thought it was a fake ad for the penguin movie that is coming out here soon.  (not sure if its already out in the US).

As we drove through downtown Pretoria this morning, Charlie and I were on the lookout for the penguins, no luck.  Charlie's eyes were barely open he had a rough night, high fever, after a trip to the Embassy doctor and a local pharmacy we started treatment for strep throat.  (Katie may have it too). His fever was pretty high last night and he was mumbling all kinds of things, I was trying to figure out if this is normal little boy imagination or if perhaps he's been in Africa too long...here is what he told us...
"There is a yellow snake over there" I asked if it was venomous, he thankfully told us no.  He then reported there were spider monkeys at the window. He then got really scared and told me there was a crocodile at my feet, I asked if it was a baby crocodile or a big one, it was a big one! Luckily I survived!

We are making Thanksgiving preps here, its very strange though, no one else is celebrating but the Americans.  We have a few South African friends coming over to see what American Thanksgiving is all about.  Luckily I've found a few stores with turkey and I've heard rumors of canned cranberry sauce that Greg and the kids like being available at the local market.  As for cranberries, I've seen them once, frozen at a yogurt place where you can add them as a topping-yet never in a grocery store...not in MA anymore!

Christmas Decorations are EVERYWHERE, as there is no Thanksgiving holiday to at least hold people back from decorating.  We walked through the mall the other morning and saw all the trees, then in the middle of the grocery store the power went completely out...the generator kicked in after about a minute, fortunately I had a flashlight on my car keys to get us through the long minute! (Charlie was a little scared)   They have been doing rolling blackouts here as the grid can't sustain the demand.  Luckily for us at home we have a generator for the compound.   Our only challenge is constantly losing internet access, whenever it rains we lose it...we have entered the rainy season so it rains almost every day and we all look to our little router light and see if our internet light is on or off...mostly its off, so Greg has fun calling Telcom and torturing the poor worker who has to answer his call.

We hope all of you are getting ready for some relaxing on Thursday, think of Kelly & Katie who have school that day (unless we let them skip)!  We also learned the Macy's Day Parade will be broadcast on the Armed Forces Network TV in the afternoon, so we are excited to watch it!

Grade 0 Orientation!

Grade 0 is what Kindergarten is called here and Charlie is super excited to start at WHiPS in January.  His schools real name is Waterkloof House Prep School, it is a BEAUTIFUL, all boys school that is the brother school to Kelly & Katie's school.

They had a party for the kids with a magician and they got to check out the playground and the classroom while the parents had orientation.  The Headmaster gave a very impressive speech and we also liked the presentation by the two Grade 0 teachers.  Charlie has Mrs. Henson (easy to remember if you think of the Muppets).

Here is Charlie in his new classroom, if you can see behind him, the doors in the classroom open completely, then it leads out onto a covered patio, mini soccer field and great playground (with monkey bars which are his favorite).

The campus is stunning and very open, we think someday when he returns to school in America, he is going to be asking us why there are girls in his class and why he can't go outside all the time!

An Elephant Lover Gets Her Wish

We finished Halloween night with Katie tears, although the event we went to was really fun, it wasn't real trick or treating with full candy bars handed out like in our days on Stark Ave.  The girls missed tearing around the neighborhood with the Learys and our tradition was to always stop at Dave & Jeanie's house last where they always had an individual bag full of treats for each of the kids.  They did do the traditional candy sort/trading exercise on the dining room table, but complained about any South African candy which really is not as good as American candy!  Charlie was in full bargaining mode!

Katie's birthday was the next morning, we had made arrangements to go to this place called Adventures with Elephants that had come highly recommended.  I made some signs to reveal the plan, complete with elephants from her vast collection.

Greg got inspired and decided she needed a real elephant wake up instead...

At the place Greg and the girls did an elephant interaction first, then eventually and elephant back safari. They said the best part of the interaction was playing soccer with the elephant.  Greg's least favorite part was the safari, he said his legs were not meant to bend that way to ride on an elephant...he looked MISERABLE when he got off!

Kelly on the elephant.

 What they also had there were two tame baby meerkats, Charlie was delighted!  He loved petting them and one even rolled over and let him scratch his belly like a dog. 

After the safari there was a couple there that waited for the elephants to bring a picnic basket down to them at the water.  The picnic basket had a ring in it as the guy asked the girl to marry him.  Greg cracked me up his joke about how the guy could always say, "When I see you I think of elephants". 

Katie told us on the way home about in first grade her teacher gave a writing assignment and you had to write about a good day, she wrote about seeing elephants in Africa, but she said she never dreamed it would be real!  

Happy Halloween!

For a country where Halloween is not really celebrated the Hughes kids are doing all right!  We had a big Halloween party at our house last Friday and we invited both of the girls classes from school.  Lots of girls came and our whole compound of families also joined the fun.  Our "sponsor family", that has teenage kids were a huge help with the Haunted House, they came the night before and helped us set it up, then the night of the party they all had assignments...Kelly and Katie were tourguides, Greg was the crazy guy in the shower in our maid's quarters, our neighbor Matt hid behind a dummy Kelly had made and moved the dummy's hand, Annalise (sponsor family) was a creepy fortune teller, another girl, Nicole, was in our scullery area hitting a cup along the security bars (like in jail) and finally Luca, who is a crazy, athletic 13 year old would scare people in the maids quarters, then jump up, crawl along the high wall and drop down and scare them again.  I guess he scared his own mother pretty good!  I sadly didn't get any great Haunted House pictures because I was too busy with hostess duties.

We did a costume contest to win buckets of candy.

 Here is everyone waiting to see who the winners are.

The girl dressed as Audrey Hepburn won for one group, our lovely judges were Miss Jenny and Miss Tanya.

Our neighbor girls in homemade costumes, their Dad was busy for a week! Lots of spray paint  and paper mache!  Middle one is a viking and one on the right (Opal- the girl Charlie told me he is going to marry) is Marvin the Martian from Bugs Bunny.

Katie (aka Katniss-note bow on shoulder) and some of her classmates.

 The toilet paper mummy game was as popular as ever, one neighbor didn't make it to the party so it was suggested we should take all the extra toilet paper down and decorate her house....

The best little mummy!  Kelly is in the background wrapping up Luka. (the crazy wall climber)

We had tons of treats and were dog sitting this amazing dog Jake, here he is sleeping under the treat table, for those of you that knew Murphy & Casey they would have been jumping up onto the table for treats!  Jake had a run in with barbed wire while chasing a cat...he had stitches so the kids called him FrankenWeenie.

We handed out bags of assorted American candies that we had shipped in and the best line of the night was one girl held up her bag of candy to show her Dad when he came to pick her up and she said, "See, American!"  (In our experience so far, South Africans think America is very cool)

Event 2= Trick or Treating at the US Embassy

The Embassy rolled out the red carpet for the kids yesterday and turned offices into Haunted Houses and had many dressed up people handing out candy.  The kids LOVED it!

These are offices and conference rooms converted!  There was a weird setting on my camera so everything was black and white.

I think the inside of the embassy really looks like an Embassy Suites hotel...I liked the witch climbing up the stairs yesterday and I'm not sure if you can see it in the photo but they put bloody handprints on the glass elevator-it looked freaky with people inside!

Final event is tonight, at the American School they are doing a Trunk or Treat event.  Since they call car trunks a "boot" here, the event is called Boo in the Boot. The kids are very excited about it!

Happy Halloween!

Our Little House on the Prarie at Golden Gate National Park

The girls had a mid-term break for a few days and we packed up and headed for Golden Gate National Park, it is in the Free State Province, about 4 hours from our house.   Our neighbors had told us about this cool farmhouse you can rent inside the park.  It was set way back off the main road, between some beautiful hills.  We saw tons of animals on the road to the farmhouse. 

That's the farmhouse in the back, no neighbors here!

We unpacked and enjoyed checking out the cool house, it had a wood burning stove and cool antique furniture throughout.  

Katie in the farmhouse kitchen.  

Charlie plays dominoes with his sisters and LOVES it!

There were amazing hikes inside the park, this one was to Echo Ravine.

We loved hanging out in the cozy farmhouse at night, playing scrabble and reading stories, we cooked in the big "braii" area outside.  

Charlie running back to the house.

No heat, other than the stove but we discovered electric blankets and they kept us toasty in the night, although it was warm during the day, at night it was chilly due to the altitude.

After a big breakfast we headed to a Basuto Cultural Village and had low expectations because the last one we went to in Lesotho didn't have much to see, we were pleasantly surprised by all we could see and do in this village!

After we had "permission" to enter the village, Greg got to drink a traditional beer beverage with the Chief.  He wasn't looking for a take home bottle so I don't think it was that tasty!

Then Greg got dressed in traditional clothing of the Chief and Charlie was so excited to hold the spear.

In the hut of the "First Wife" I was dressed in traditional garb, the kids were laughing and saying I never would have made it due to the hot clothing, I would have melted if I had to wear them for a day, much less every day.  A Chief had 3 wives, the first was chosen by the community, then the first wife chose the second wife, then the Chief got to choose his third wife.  (Greg was not a fan of this thinking, he feels one wife is enough to handle!)  We also visited the medicine man, who the girls said looked like the guy in the "Thrift Shop" video, I sadly forgot to snap a picture, but he really did look like the video!

I was too chicken to ask the medicine man the question I really wanted to... I'm reading this amazing book called Apes and Ivory written in the 1950's by a South African woman who was the wife of the British Admiral assigned to Cape Town.  She had a chapter on the people of Lesotho and as recent as the 1950's human sacrifice was still occurring if the medicine man told you that was what you needed to do to solve your problems.  I hope that tradition been phased out!

Here is Katie grinding toasted corn, we got to taste it and it was pretty good!

There was great scenery and overlooks in the park, this one is of the view of the Drakensberg Mountains where we plan to go on a future trip.  This is Greg teaching the kids to yell, "The South Will Rise Again".  (that should make Papa Hughes proud)

After the village we went to a charming village of today, called Clarens.  It was a beautiful little town with a town square and a park in the center of town.  Lots of little shops and restaurants, here is the view from our dinner place where Brad Pitt and Prince Harry stayed when they came to Clarens.

On our final morning we all got to go for an amazing horse ride, all of us went even little Charlie who didn't like going downhill and we did a lot of ups and downs.  The freakiest part was when we rode to the top of ridge and the horses walked along that for a bit, you had to have a ton of faith in your surefooted horse!

 Coming down the ridge...Katie was in the lead, then me, then Kelly, Charlie, Greg.

Cowboy Charlie about to descend the last bit and cross the little river. 

It was a great trip with beautiful scenery and good adventures!  The Hughes family gives Golden Gate Highlands very high marks!