Joshua & his Birthday Cake

Joshua & his birthday cake

Click on the picture above to see a few more messy pictures of Joshua eating his cake!

Joshua is one year old!

J-1-1

J-1-2

J-1-3

Recent fun!

Being silly!

Joshua at 11 months!

Joshua-11 mo.

J #2

J #3

J #4

Having fun!

Joshua with tp

Joshua & daddy

Joshua & Lucas

Joshua & Alexis

Capetown-part 2

Capetown #2

We finished our time in Capetown with a visit to Table Mountain and Robben Island, two famous landmarks. Table Mountain is flat on top thus giving it the "table" look. When the clouds cover it in the afternoon they call it the "tablecloth." Robben Island has a maximum security prison. It is where former South African president Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner. We learned a lot about South African history on that trip. The last fun event of the week was letting the kids stick their feet in the freezing ocean water just one time! Brrrr!

We only had one little hiccup in the trip - Lucas made one trip to the emergency room. He was sitting in a car where you put money in and it moves. He later explained that he leaned too far and fell out...on his head. He was quite dazed. He didn't cry but he also didn't remember things for several hours - thus the visit to the ER just to get him checked out. He was fine and we were so thankful. We arrived back at the lodge a short while later and he was very frustrated with me when I wouldn't let him climb the outside wall and jump off. Hmmmmm....!

Homeschool Displays

Recently, all the homeschool children in our organization put together a display of something they were currently studying. Lucas and Alexis have been studying the ocean and its animals in science so we picked that for Alexis' theme. Lucas had just checked out a book on robots at the library and it showed several different ways to make one at home. He was enjoying learning how robots work and learning how to draw them. So we picked that for his display theme.

Homeschool

Homeschool #2

I did my hair all by myself!

Alexis' hair

Alexis' hair #2

Our First Few Days in Capetown

Capetown Trip

The finance team here in South Africa visited Capetown at the beginning of September for a week of meetings and retreat. This was Joshua's first airplane ride and he did great! The lodge where we stayed was a 5 minute walk from the ocean so the first night we took a walk down there. We saw whales!! It was so amazing! Usually we just saw a fin or tail but one time there was a whale that actually jumped out of the water. So cool! On the first day we visited the town of Hermanus which is famous for its whales. Every year at this time whales come very near the shore and this is the best place to see them. We were not disappointed! We watched 2 whales swim side by side down the shoreline. Alexis' quote of the day - "All this whale watching is making me hungry!"

Our 2nd day was also full of adventures. First we went to an area called Boulders which is known for its African penguins. These are relatively small penguins that live in the sand along the beach. After lunch at the wharf we took a tram ride to the top of Cape Point which is the southernmost tip of South Africa. It was soooo windy we literally had to hold on to our kids at all times. We didn't want them blowing away! We then took a 15 minute drive down to the Cape of Good Hope which is the southwesternmost tip of South Africa. Click on the picture above to see lots more photos of our first 2 days in Cape Town.