End of year madness

I thought it was time for another catch up to let you know what we’ve been up to and what’s happening on our side of the world.

I’ve enrolled in a 4 week “Photoshop” course and have just completed week 1 of the 4. It means that life is REALLY hectic at the moment but luckily it’s only for a month and I have an incredibly supportive husband who has taken over most of my household functions for the next while (don’t know many men who’d do the same so I’m very appreciative). My day involves waking up at 5:45, going to gym, working from 8 – 4:30 and then heading through to Cape Town where my class runs from 5:30-8:30pm and then getting home around 9:15pm. Doing that for 4 days in a row has left me quite exhausted but I’ve got the weekend to look forward to and I’m going to get some good rest so that I can start it all over again on Monday. The course will end Thursday 13 Dec and I finish up with work on Dec 14 (which is actually the day we have our end of year staff function so no work anyway) and then I’m on leave for a month – yippeeeee!!!! In the 13months that I’ve been at my company I’ve only taken 5 days leave and I have accumulated 26.

The course has been really cool and I’m learning so much – it’s very tricky though – and I’m excited about all the things I’ll be able to do by the time I’m finished. Here’s an example of what we learn’t to do on our 2nd day. We were given about 5 different pictures and we were instructed to ‘remove’ certain parts of each picture and bring all the ‘removed’ pictures into one new picture. Eg: the frog was hanging on to a leaf in the original picture and the daisy was on a black background.

The weather has been quite bizarre. Technically it’s the end of spring, with Summer starting 1st Dec but the winter seems to have made a reappearance. The past few days it has been quite cold and raining – really hard. So hard that certain areas have flooded. See below for pics of the flooding in Sedgefield along the Garden Route. My aunty said that although her house isn’t flooded, the 2 roads leading into the residential area are flooded and the only way they can get food and stuff is if it’s delivered by boat. Then I also read that there were flash floods in Johannesburg somewhere. Very bizarre indeed. Here are some photos:

Montage Village

River mouth

A month tomorrow, Brad will be celebrating his 30th birthday. I’ve got a few suprises up my sleeve but won’t reveal anything yet… but be sure to watch this space.

A colleague forwarded me a link to the most incredible "You Tube" video and I wanted to encourage you to watch it if you can - it is the most beautiful ballet performance - by a lady with one arm and a man with one leg. It is truly amazing to see what can be achieved despite the circumstances we find ourselves in. Give it a watch, and have the tissues nearby: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LnLVRQCjh8c
Time to head off home and start my much awaited weekend.

From Rugby to seafood

Last Friday (2nd November) Brad and I were thoroughly spoilt. We attended a Rugby World Cup Breakfast at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. The tickets were R350 per person but we were given complimentary tickets. We had to be in Cape Town at 6:45am so in order to avoid the chaotic traffic that one encounters en route to Cape Town every morning we left home at 5:50am. This is certainly the earliest I've been up in a while. It was all worth its while though as we were treated to a scrumptious breakfast ofscrambled eggs, bacon, tomato and boerewors (I couldn't quite figure out how I'd be able to eat boerewors so early in the day but Brad had no problems with that!). Then Schalk Burger, Percy Montgomery and Jean de Villiers came up on to the stage and the crowd at breakfast (1000 people) got to put forward any questions to them. The event was MC'd by Nick Mallet. We thoroughly enjoyed it and got to shake hands with Schalk Burger and Nick Mallet afterwards. Needless to say my husband was thrilled to have met 3 of the Springboks.

On Friday evening we went through to the Strand where we enjoyed the Christmas function for the Radio station where Brad works on Saturdays - Radio Helderberg. Another meal out for the day - this time a seafood platter. Yummy!

I took this photo from our table at the restaurant:



I recently took these photos of some flowers in our garden. Aren't they beautiful? God is an amazing Creator:

I have also completed another painting which is up on display and for sale at Brad's mom's Bistro. I'm including a photo below. If you want to see my other paintings then you can visit: http://laurakirstenpaintings.blogspot.com/

Other exciting news is that Brad has been getting more and more into website design. We recently teamed up and went off to a guesthouse in Rawsonville where I took the photos and then Brad put a website together. You can see the website at :http://www.ledomaineguestfarm.com/ . If you know of anyone needing a website then give Brad a call as he's putting together great websites at really affordable prices.

Work has been really busy on my side but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Can't wait for the holidays though. I'm going to be on leave from 14 Dec till 14 Jan. We're flying up to Johannesburg from 26 Dec - 6 Jan where we'll be visiting Brad's dad. Then one of my friends, Julie, will be visiting from the UK and I hope to see her while she's here. Can't wait for the holidays... relaxing, at the beach, spending lots of quality time with my gorgeous husband.