Spontaneous Ratanga Junction Day

Yesterday morning on the spur of the moment while eating breakfast I decided to take the kids to Ratanga. I don't think they have ever got dressed, brushed their teeth, packed a bag and jumped in the car so fast!


Throughout the day Griffin kept saying, 'Thank-you mommy for having this idea today. This is SOOO fun!'

Here are some pics:

Waiting in the queue:

Saying hi to Murphy the Mongoose:

Inside!

Quinn flying a barrel!

About to go on the Bushwacker - do we look a bit nervous!?

Zooming around in bumper cars:

On the river boat:

Crocodile water ride:



Brothers AND Friends

It was a really fun day out! We went home happy and exhausted

While there Quinn bought himself a set of Magic Tricks with some of his birthday money, and now he is learning how to be a convincing magician. His first trick was bargaining the price down from R150 to R88! I didn't have that much cash on me - and I was hoping that meant we didn't have to buy it. He went off and negotiated with the magician that he could buy it for R100. He then came back and convinced me, and when we hauled out all our change it came to R88, so he went back and bargained some more, until he got it. He came back grinning and saying the man agreed, but we mustn't tell anyone... oh, oops!

That child has the negotiating power of a politician I tell you!

Gugs 10km Road Race

I just ran the Guguletu 10km Road Race, and it was really fun!

I had been worried that it would be a long, hot, dry and dusty race, but it was completely the opposite. It started raining in Cape Town last night and hasn't let up since, so it was cool/cold, wet and muddy. It was long however! Yoh!

Despite many people claiming to be 'too scared' to venture out to Guguletu, I have no such qualms and was happy to not only attend the race, but to do so on my own. Honestly I don't see the issue with venturing into townships, they are fun and characterful.

When I got there I registered and got my temp licence etc. I enlisted a guy standing next to me to help me get my back license pinned on by saying 'I'll do your back, if you'll do mine...?' To which he replied, 'Ok, I'll try not to prick you!'. I think we both blushed, and had a little chuckle


Then I bumped into none other than one of our new neighbours, who is also dad of one of Quinn's school friends since Grade R! We chatted about people's reactions to us venturing out to Gugs - Richard had said to me 'Just run FAST!' ;) - and I laughed at him for having arrived with just the clothes on his back and not even a car, he had got his security company to drop him off.

So I told him I'd take him home, and did.

When I got there at 7am it was pouring with rain, but luckily by the start time at 7:30 it had died down to a drizzle, else we would have had a very soggy and squelchy race.

The race started and off we went. It was great that it was cool, and the first part was quite pleasant. As we moved along to the poorer, more shanty, section of Gugs the street-side supporters started coming out. There were kids on the side of the road and all sorts of people cheering us on. Some of the runners had sweeties to hand out to the kids. About 2 km in we passed a Shebeen where things were quite festive. Some guys were standing holding out high ball glasses and shouting 'water... water'. The glasses clearly contained a shot of whiskey! Tee hee... had we been further into the race I might have been tempted. I gave them a thumbs up and they broke into giggles.

I have been to Gugs before a few times and we passed most of the areas I had been ... the taxi rank, the cemetery, and the road side meat market. There was a guy holding a bunch of still-live chickens by their feet. I yelled 'Nice chickens' and he grinned at me.

We passed several more Shebeens, and were offered quarts of beer. These people were obviously still going from last night!


By the time I got to the second water point I was MOEG. There were no distance markers on this race, I was starting to want it to be over. I asked the water station guy how far along we were, and when he said 7km. I was SO thankful!

The last 3km were pure will power, and luckily there were some great supporters on the last stretch, although I was too tired to chirp back at that stage. I just wanted to get it over.

I finally got back to the stadium, and I finished 156th in 54mins 25secs. So slightly slower than the Spar Ladies Race (54:19).

I had been hoping for a personal best since it was such cool weather and it was such a flat course, but my time was quite good anyway, so I am happy with it.

So that was my morning.

Update: The results are out.

I came 156th out of 394 finishers.

The fastest at 30:50.
The slowest at 159:10

I finished officially at 54:27.

I just noticed that my gynae ran the race too and he finished 9 seconds after me and 2 places behind me. I didn't even notice him back there! ;) :P

The party was a great success!

Ok the party is over and it was FANTASTIC!

The weather was perfect. Slightly breezy but the place was sheltered enough for it not to matter. Thankfully there were not huge throngs of people there at all it was just comfortably and busy with a festive vibe.

We got 2 large tables and space on the grass, and although we had 30+ kids there - I lost count in the end and I only had to pay for 25 but there were at least 30 (some extra siblings joined in because they also wanted to be there) and about 15-20 adults, it was so relaxed and easy going.

The kids just ran and ran and ran from water slide to water slide. I didn't have a single moan, niggle, demand or issue with them, not once! Everyone just got a long and got on with having fun.

I had to haul them all in after a solid 2 hours to cut the cake and get them to eat or drink something, after that they were gone again until their parents dragged them off home.
My kids were there and on the slides for 4 solid hours.

I would actually really recommend the venue, it works out really cheap too.

Anyway I was very slack about pics, I totally forgot until we got the cake going, and then a dad took these.

I don't have a single one on the waterslides

I'm dead tired but it was well worth it and great fun!

Baby Update - nearly 9 months old!

I went to visit my gorgeous prem baby again today, (At the last update he was 4 months old) and man did my heart swell and warm when I saw him!!! 'My' teeny tiny poppet is a big strapping boy now!


He is just shy of 9 months now, and weighs over 7kgs. Not bad for someone who started life 12 weeks early at just 1.2kgs huh!?

Anyway he is the cutest, smiley-est, busy little thing you can find. Too precious. So far he has not had a single issue either. I am amazed and thankful and so impressed, he is doing so very well!

Here are some pics:

With his proud Mommy:

Concentrating on a tassle:

Playing in his baby gym:

Party planner extraordinaire

Quinn & Griffin are having their combined birthday party tomorrow.

Their birthdays are about 6 weeks apart, and when I suggested we try a joint party this year they LOVED the idea. Also Quinn normally misses out a bit with his parties since his Birthday is on 3 January, so inevitably everyone is away on holiday and we only get a hand full of kids attending.

So this year we combined it, since they share many friends and other pairs of siblings anyway, and invited everyone, and it looks like pretty much everyone is coming!

It's a morning party, yikes so I have to get everything sorted tonight, I usually host them later in the day which gives me time to get my act together. I think I am mostly done now though...

I made the cake earlier this evening and thankfully it was much quicker and easier than I expected. YAY!


Quinn had wanted a lot of elaborate ideas like a super tube or entire water park cake - since the party is at the water slides - but I asked him to please try to keep it easy for me and he was happy to oblige so we settled on a sea/beach theme (instead of entire water park etc!). Of course finding sea decorations turned out to be much harder than I expected, but I looked for those last week end and ended up clocking an 11km run last Sunday hunting for them between Rondebosch, Claremont and Kenilworth and everywhere in between, where I looked in every super market and sweet shop I could find. I finally found the sharks and 4 star fish in a mixed tub at Cosmic Candy and got the sales lady to dig them out for me!

Anyway so here is the cake...






Will update after the party tomorrow.

Uncle Paul's Noddy Christmas Party Fun

We went to the Uncle Paul's Christmas party last night, which has become another of our Christmas traditions. We have been 5 years in a row now.

It was great fun as usual. These parties always follow the same format, so I won't go into detail on that again... read my posts from 2 previous years, linked below, if you want to know more ...
Uncle Paul Party 2003
Uncle Paul Party 2005

Uncle Paul Party 2006

The only changes were that the usual Uncle Paul wasn't there last night, there was a young guy. But it was fine and he managed well. In fact it was slightly more relaxed and less controlled than usual which I liked. And there was a new addition an HILARIOUS French accented clown. I was almost having a seizure over him, so much so that my friends were rolling around laughing at ME ;)

When Richard went up to get ice-creams for all of us from him, he was joking that Richard wanted 6 for himself. Richard defended himself saying he was fetching them for 'lazy people over there'. So clown says, 'Where ees zeez laezzee peeepol huh?', so we all waved frantically, so he put his hand on his hips and said, 'Ahhh, zo youaare not too laezzee to wave huh!?' It was so silly but so funny ;)

Here are some pictures taken last night.

Richard, Griff and I, snuggling up - it got a little cold:


Griffin - trying to smile naturally! :


Quinn posing:


Griffin getting his gift from Father Christmas:


Vicki brought her foster children along L&L. It was lovely to see them and they are settling in so well with her.

It was a wonderful evening, well worth attending. I'd recommend it to anyone with young children.

Fa la la la la la la la la

We put up our main Christmas tree 2 weeks ago.
Tonight I got our the tiny one I have had packed away for several years (It was my first Christmas tree and I bought it the year I met Richard. ), and some decorations I forgot we had stashed away too. We also hung what is left of our Christmas cookies - i.e not already eaten or broken. So now everything we have is out on display.

Next year I am getting a bigger more 'proper' tree and will put everything on it!

A journey of a 1000 miles...

So, last time I reported on my running/walking distance I had gone past Bloemfontein and then I reached Johannesburg and stopped really counting.

I keep a running (nice pun) spreadsheet and add daily totals in as I do them, it totals by week, month and year and grand total at the bottom, but I usually just add a distance and save and close... and leave it at that.

I try to do 20-30km a week, and 100km per month, as a rough guideline. But generally I do as much or as little as I want to and/or have time for, and only because I want to. NOT as a chore or punishment. That's important to me.

I checked out my totals this morning, and I can now report that I have returned from Johannesburg... or alternately I have gone as far as Luanda, in Angola (from Cape Town - as the crow flies).
In other words I have now traversed 2800km since September 2005! WOW.

I quite like keeping this tally and seeing how the kilometres pile up. It gives me motivation to keep going.