New pets...not some exotic African animal, but 3 delighted kids!

Katie's teacher at school had two bunnies that she needed to find a home for... and we were the lucky family!  On Friday after school we came home with Oreo and Lumpy (named for some cartoon..Lumpy Space Princess?).

Ownership was immediately established, Kelly and Katie own Lumpy and Charlie and Dad own Oreo.  (Mom just gets cleanup duties I guess?)

The kids had a fabulous time with them, our yard here is perfect for them, high walls and gates so its not like our Massachusetts backyard where you would worry about random dogs, etc walking through.  Also our setup here is nice because we have big floor to ceiling windows in the lower level that look out onto our small yard, so you can see the bunnies hopping around.  (notice our former horse stable being tested as a bunny toy)

The girls did tons of research on bunny care and learned about what to feed them and also learned its good to cut up old boxes and make houses, so they already did that and we made a trip to the pet store for supplies. They also got some baby blankets and onesies that they dressed them in, they loved holding them, Kelly's friend came over and they looked like a couple of grannies happily holding newborn babies!

So far they have been great fun for all, we have to say they are much quieter than our old dogs!  The grateful girls just finished their thank you notes to Katie's teacher.

Our other excitement this weekend was we had no water for about 24 hours, along with the entire province of Gauteng.  It was due a pump failure at the water pumping authority and they did not have an operational backup pump. (newspapers are having a field day today as you can imagine) It didn't really effect us, but the nice thing was the Embassy sent a guy around to the different houses delivering cases of fresh water, it was a very nice gesture and we were impressed with how they take care of their people!

Heritage Day's Newest Fans!

South Africa celebrates Heritage Day on Sept. 24, apparently it was a day to celebrate the Zulu king Shaka Zulu and as a compromise they kept as an official holiday and called it "Heritage Day" where people of the Rainbow Nation are supposed to celebrate their roots, whatever they may be.  In South Africa they love to cook out on grills which they call a "Braii", so a few year back they also declared this day National Braii Day as well.

All the schools were closed and all businesses so the kids made lots of suggestions (zip lining, skating) on how to spend our day, we tried to avoid big crowds and hit a homerun at the Land Rover Magazine 4x4 Heritage Day event.

It was in Pretoria at a pub called "Jock of the Bushveld" which we understand is named after a movie of the same title.  Behind the pub they have an actual 4x4 obstacle course, and for this day Land Rover brought in brand new cars and let you test drive them on their special obstacle course they set up.  To get to drive the $100,000 cars all you had just sign your name on their sheet-CRAZY!  Greg took them up on it and the kids happily jumped in the back.  They did the course twice, once with the instructor driving, the second with Greg driving.

We got to watch tons of vehicles do the obstacle course.  Here was a cool one, we decided that having an old Land Rover Defender would be the perfect New Hampshire vehicle for driving around up there!

Here is Charlie attempting the same obstacle!

Here are a few videos of the crazy obstacle course Greg got to drive, the one I thought was nuts is when one of the wheels totally pops up...

We also met some very nice South Africans at the event, one lady had lived in America for many years so she was tickled to hear our "accents".  We look forward to celebrating Heritiage Day again next year!

Air Show- A Boys Dream!

Waterkloof Air Base, which is down the hill from our house here put on an amazing Air Show!  Charlie and I got to go twice, we volunteered to help build model airplanes with students on Weds, then we went back on Saturday with everyone and met up with another family there.

It was everything a five year old boy could want... a real Transformer, planes, helicopters, tanks, machine guns that they let you practice firing....

Charlie loved this gun, you could swivel it in circles and move the barrel up & down. Anything better for a 5 year old boy?

They brought out at C-17 and C-130 from New York, out friend Eric got us into the cockpit, here is the pilot!  The US Army Golden Knights also did the parachute jumps, very cool! The first day Charlie and I saw them go right over our car.

Heading into the C-17-long line around back that we got to skip!

A great day was had by all! Quite an impressive air show!

AFN= AWESOME TV!

We now have a big satellite dish (which we bought from a family leaving SA) and we are hooked into the Armed Forces Network.  Everyone is very happy!  Greg loves the sports-we get football, baseball.  WE saw the BC game yesterday and the Patriots last Sunday.  Charlie loves seeing good kids shows again (like Sesame Street in English)  Here he is enjoying a knight episode of Blues Clues! (that's his Captain America shield on his arm)

The girls love the movies that come on, they got hooked on a Hallmark channel one the other night and I am delighted to have NPR!  South African news radio just doesn't compare, also our experience with South African TV stations, while we stayed in the guesthouse and various hotels, is pretty lackluster.

Another interesting thing about AFN is homemade commercials, instead of advertisers, it is all public service announcements, like keep common areas clean, keep the base looking neat, etc!  This should help keep Charlie's Christmas list for Santa shorter, he won't be asking for all the toys he saw on tv!  

We thank all the taxpayers who support the military & for AFN to keep us connected so far away!

Bucket List Activities in Cape Town

I found this amazing book called Your Bucket List, 150 Must Do Experiences in Southern Africa.  The author, Patrick Cruywagen, spent a decade as the bush editor of 4X4 magazine in SA.  The book tells you all of the incredible, insider places to go and visit.  On our visit to Cape Town he didn't steer us wrong but got us to some pretty cool stops!

Every day (since 1806) in Cape Town they fire off the Noon Gun, you can head to the top of Signal Hill and watch it go off.  We were lucky to have Greg able to give us a ride, it would have been a LONG hike, but we had to wait for him to take some work calls, this meant we arrived at 11:58- Mr. Estramonte, Jim's Dad, would not have approved!

After the blast we got to check out the old fort and look down at the harbor and enjoy the view.  Charlie played his favorite game ever with Dad, he climbed on every old cannon and shot Dad.  It never got old, I think he could have played it all afternoon!

We then headed for the cable car to the top of Table Mountain.  The guidebook said everyone should hike to the top, but perhaps when Charlie is older we will get to the top that way...for this trip the cable car was perfect!

The views from the top were great, we also took a guided walk and had a drink at the nice restaurant at the top.  We wished we had eaten there too, but the kids saw a Subway (like America) on the way and they begged to get that for lunch, so we took it to go and ate it at the top.  We learned that Subway here is not the same, we are tuna sub fans, but here the mayo is strange so our tuna didn't taste like we were used to...also no Sun Chips!

Another stop that the book recommended was having sundowners at Clifton Beach.  We drove along the coast and found the beach, which you walk down through summer homes to get to.  The kids had a ball swimming and the sunset was beautiful.  We know where it would be cool to have a summer cottage in Cape Town!

The next day (Charlie's actual birthday) we took the big red double decker bus tour all around Cape Town.  

Our first stop was the botanical gardens-we saw Giant Protea, the flower of Africa, but they were as big as dinner plates!  We also got to go on the new tree canopy walkway, here is Charlie the bird...

We found a good fish place for lunch and were looking for a beach the kids could swim at.  We kicked ourselves for not getting off the bus at Camp's Bay, we stayed on for Queen's beach and learned that the Queen must have made someone mad because her beach stunk!  It was a one way route and I had disappointed kids but luckily we found this amazing playground, complete with a train and zipline...

Our final morning before we headed home we hit Charly's Bakery which people had told us about, I guess it is pretty famous in SA, it was featured in a tv show here.  It was neat to see all the amazing cakes that people were picking up on Sat AM. 

We scouted a few more places like the SA museum that we would like to check out on our next trip!  Sadly we headed home to school for the girls and had to leave Greg in Cape Town for another week, but we were happy we got to come and see such a great place!

Cape Town, Escape Town! First Day & Amazing Hotel

We got to tag along on a work trip with Greg, we were lucky to join him from Mon-Sat, then he stayed on for this whole week too. We would have liked to have stayed longer, so much to see!

It was a quick two hour flight, the best part of flying with Charlie was he made me read him the emergency card then he checked for the life jackets under the seat!  (I guess he has a future as a Coast Guard inspector, counting lifejackets)

We arrived and headed for the Penguin Colony at Boulders Beach, about a 45 minute drive from downtown, they were so cute, most people only see them from the boardwalk, but there is also a beach that you can go down on and if you are lucky like us you get to see them in the water!

At one point on the beach Greg thought Charlie was coming up behind him because he heard little feet, he turned around and instead saw it was a little penguin!

It's really neat to see them swimming & riding the waves!

Our first fish & chips in a very long time...Pretoria is not known for seafood!

We stayed at the Table Bay Hotel, right on the beautiful Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (people call it the V&A Waterfront).  The hotel hosts all the big names that come to town, a few examples were Micheal Jackson, Celine Dion, President Obama, and now the Hughes family!  I used to think my little Lake Geneva, WI hotel where I was a pool attendant for one summer was the place...this place blew it away, it is listed as one of the top hotels in the world and I believe it!  Here are the flowers in the lobby when you enter.

The first night the lady turned down our beds in the evening complete with rose petals & candy!  The pool was lovely to lounge by and the weather was warm, (I guess it snowed the week before) here are Kelly & Katie...loving vacation!  

Breakfasts at the hotel were amazing, a million things to choose from and a view from the dining room of Table Mountain and the working harbor!  They also gave us a pass to come for High Tea during our stay.  Here is Katie's dessert course at high tea!

After high tea we went for one of our amazing sunset bike rides, along the ocean! 

The mascot of the hotel is a seal that used to come visiting the workers daily when they were building it.  The logo is on everything and here are the kids at the giant statue of Oscar the Seal.

That was pretty much the view from the breakfast room!

Here was the view from our room, we could see Robben Island out at sea...

I'll do a follow up post with our "SA Bucket List" items we completed...

Charlie's 5! Ninja Turtle Birthday Party!

We have Charlie's new gang over to help us celebrate his 5 year old birthday.  Charlie has made out the best in the move, there are a ton of families with kids his age...

Luckily the girls were on vacation so we spent the entire week making cool props for the party.  We had homemade ninja masks, nun-chucks out of foam, newspaper swords covered in tin foil, Katie dressed as splinter, the Ninja Turtles master and gave the kids lessons.

Kelly dressed as Shredder, the evil guy you can see her on the trampoline in her purple outfit.

The trampoline is our new addition and it is very popular with all the kids in the compound!

The girls made Charlie's cake and cupcakes...

The funny part was one little brother beat him to blowing out the candles so I had to relight them all for Charlie!  I guess he'll make his wish faster next year!

Here is the best part, all the kids were playing in the compound street, they had forts set up with weapons, tons of bikes out, all the boring grownups were hanging out in a quiet house!

Charlie was thrilled with his party and all his new Ninja turtle loot, he kept saying it was the best party ever!

The next morning, Labor Day Monday, we flew to Cape Town, Greg had to go for work and we tagged along...full report to follow!