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!