Keeping Busy...

The kids have finished the first term (of three) and now they get a break for a few weeks, we are heading to the beaches south of Durban.  We look forward to burying Charlie in the sand and if the weather cooperates the girls will try a surfing lesson.

Our last few weeks were busy, with lots of school activities, Katie had a school play, they had an outdoor movie night, it was Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, if they dressed up they could win a prize, so Violet Bouregard and an Oompa Lumpa were spotted, they both won a candy prize!

They also had literacy day at school and Katie dressed as Miss Viola Swamp (from Miss Nelson is Missing) She carried the book around too because they didn't really know the story here.  Her friend is Hermoine from Harry Potter.

Our other fun event was a trip to the Rand Show, which was this giant expo at the Johannesburg Expo Center.  The kids LOVED this one booth where it taught them how to make a healthy lunch, they had real food and containers for every kid, they got to go around and pick their items, come back and make a sandwich and pack everything.  At every children's museum we have ever gone to they always loved the play food and shopping for it, so this trumped all of that because it was real food and they got to take it with them!  I think there is a business opportunity for a kids restaurant if any of you are ready for a new career!

We also saw the "Naked Scientists" Show which is a group out of England that came down to perform at the Rand Show, they did some cool experiments, here is the ending one where they mixed Liquid Nitrogen, Bubbles and hot water...you see Katie & Charlie run up after the explosion!

The kids also liked this turtle that collected donations in the animal area.

On our ride to school Charlie got to see a "real life Matchbox car", a Lamborghini pulled out in front of us and we followed it for few blocks.  I'm not sure how a guy drives that past the people on the side of the street that ask for money or food?

The avocado trees are blooming around town, they are spectacular, here is Katie near the one at school.  I had never seen an avocado tree before...they didn't have those in the Midwest or New England!  This is a tiny one, some are huge.

Our final activity of note...a failed attempt at trivia...they had a trivia night at the community center, we entered a team and they gave us an exemption for having 7 on our team rather than the max of six.  Charlie had some funny answers to some of the questions!  Without Paul to anchor our team we didn't do very well, but we did have a good time trying!  

We are excited to go see more of South Africa this coming week!

Making Easter Memories

On the local radio station here they have a campaign called "Lead SA", which encourages people to make a difference to make South Africa a better place.  They feature stories of amazing things that people are doing every day.  It got me to thinking what we could do, and we ended up going to a local orphanage (where we had visited at Christmas with the Embassy) and we did an Easter egg hunt for the 75 kids that live there.

We had plastic eggs we had brought and we shipped in a few more (good old Amazon) and put the neighborhood kids to work stuffing them.  The girls spent the morning baking....

Hundreds of sugar cookies being made..

A rainbow of frosting colors...

We loaded all the eggs, cookies decorating supplies, a pile of soccer balls, fresh fruit and we headed to the orphanage.

Katie & I kept the kids busy with cookie decorating while Greg, Kelly and Charlie hid the eggs out in the yard.  The kids loved decorating their cookies, eating sprinkles, and frosting of course.

The hunt begins!

I am happy to report that the kids got the best of all of us for a few hours:

• Kelly was playing with the little kids and getting them to smile, they loved when she would lift them onto the back gate of the car, they thought it was fun to sit on the tailgate! She even picked a thorn out of one little guys foot.
• Katie was adopted by a group of girls her age, they wanted to do her hair, they even brought out their own comb (with half its teeth missing) to comb it for her.
• I was perfectly happy in a room full of kids & mess everywhere-frosting, sprinkles, after the egg hunt I held as many of the little ones as possible, they liked just sitting on my lap.  They liked playing with my hair too, with their sticky fingers!
• After hiding all the eggs, Greg handed out extra chocolate ones to kids who didn't get that many, he was nearly attacked for the rest of the eggs in the box, his sprint to get away with the box of chocolate was his warm up for a soccer game with a group of the older boys.
• Charlie was a enforcer in the little kid hunt area, he kept telling the big kids to get out and he helped some of the little kids find eggs.  He also joined in to help Dad in the soccer game.

It was hard to leave and know that there were so many kids there that just wanted some love and attention, if only for a few minutes.  I wish I had rolled in with a bus full of Moms to hold all the little ones!  

Don't you just want to give them all a snuggle?

Back of the car was the "hot spot" to sit on!  At one point there was about five more kids squeezed on the back!

We drove away happy that we brought some cheer to the kids and already planning what we could bring for them on our next visit!