Madam Zingaras

Last night we went to a seriously "off centre" show and dinner. It was fantastic!

Madam Zingaras is a travelling restaurant which is hosted in an original Belgium circus tent. There are only 10 left in the world.

We got into the spirit of things and dressed up a little.

Shayne and Nicole

Mike and Nicole

Phill, Nicole and Shayne

Dave, Grant and Mike

Shayne and Dave

The food was outstanding. we had Chocolate Chili Fillet for mains -:

Chocolate Chili Fillet

The Madame’s notorious signature emblazoned on your plate... a seductive blend of dark Belgian chocolate, rosemary & a hint of chili, over succulent beef fillet on a bed of sautéed black mushrooms and arugola

I f you have not been...BOOK NOW!

http://www.madamezingara.com/

SA Scrapbooking Convention 2007!

This years scrapbooking convention was at the Sandton convention centre. It was great fun! Kerry, Hayley, Yvonne and Simonne joined me. I love spending this weekend with my girl friends because we have loads of fun. We have 8 classes over two days. This year it was decided that we would only do 12X12 pages (to fit into an albumn)

We were so spoilt! The teachers were great. Some of the teachers were from the USA. I love listening and learning from them. Their lifestyle is so different.

This is JULIE AND ERIC COMSTOCK, they own tha company Cosmo Cricket. They named this company by scrambling the letters of their surname. How fun... you can try it too at htp://www.wordsmith.org. Nicole Clark is scrambled to

• Local Nicker
• Cola Crinkle
• Clear Lick On
• Call Core Ink

This is Donna Downey. I love her style. We did a really simmple page with lots of paint and pictures of the family. She taught us how to pose "Thin" for photos....I am not sure it worked!


This is STEPHANIE RAHMATULLA and SUEZI GURZI from "Me and my BIG ideas". They were both great fun.

My favourite class this year was WILNA FURSTENBERG. She is an ex South African who now lives in Canada. She gave us some great tips on journalling. She always writes a letter tot eh person in the picture and positions the weather and her mood inthe starting paragraph. It is fantastic to journal this way...ty it.


We then put all the things we learnt and took these fun pictures.

Kerry

Hayley

Nicole

Simonne

Signs of summer....

The first morning at Kruger Lodge it was already hot. The kids just loved dressing up in their summer clothes.

Pretious moments with Amy and Mike!

Just look at how cute the kids are. Amy, Ryan, Jordan and Brendan had a ball playing n the rocks. Jordan got a bit brave and ended up planting his face in the mud after falling head first!

Amy just knows how cute she is!

Ryan turned 5!

The Friday before we went to the park, Ryan had a little party at the school. As you can see he thinks he is a prince! (He is to me)



On his actual Birthday we decided to spend the day in the park. Quintin promised that we would get to Skukuza by breakfast. We decided not to give him his presents int he morning and packed them in the car to be opened by breakfast. Well as luck would have it we had great animal spottings so it took much longer to get to the camp. Ryan was so good. He never once asked for his presents. He waited patiently.

He was so happy to be celebrating in the park!


Then later in the day we stopped at a picnic spot an I had packed a cake. It was so windy that we did not manage to light the candles. The poor guy did not even get to blow candles on his birthday! He had great fun sharing the cake with the squirrel and Hornbills.

Kruger Park

Oh boy, I have loads of updating to do! All these holidays are exhausting!

We spent a week in the Kruger with Simonne and Quintin and 5 kids! We went prepared and borrowed a DVD player for the car. Our kids loved it and gave us time to really look for animals. We saw some wonderful sights!





Best of all was this Lion kill. They were ambering down the road and we followed them. We thought they may take down an impala....A Kudu got in their way so they took him out. Quintin managed to get it on film.

This was also amazing... Mike managed to catch a Fish Eagle catching a fish at Transport dam. We saw load of Rhino...we even called a day Rhino day. Ryan thought this was very funny!
Up until the last day we had see all of the big 5 except for Leopard. We decided to drive down to Lower Sabie and on the the way we saw this leopard. What luck!
My Favourite is still Elephants!

This sunset was amazing!

We had a great trip..... thanks to the spotters for all their help!

What a week!

This week was a great social week. On Monday we had roast chicken at Moms. We went to see Celtic Rock at the Barnyard on Tuesday Night and Thursday we went to Donna (just the girls) to make a beaded bracelet. Donna is beading and makes some beautiful things. We decided to be brave and each made a watch! The looked fabulous!



Mike tried a jeep for the evening on Friday so we decided to take it for a real drive on Saturday morning. We visited the Rhino and Lion Park. We were a bit rushed but the kids had a ball! Mike played around in a 4X4 patch and tested some of the abilities of the car.

On Saturday Night we went to the Barnyard for Quintin's Birthday. The show was Grease!

On Sunday morning I met Simonne for breakfast with the kids, She took Ryan for a few hours while I went to the shops (THANKS!). In the afternoon Paula, Jan, Elaine and Kine visited us. Kine has grown so much....it is great to see her personality coming through!

Harvey Farewell

Angie and Dave are emigrating to New Zealand at the end of August. Mom arranged a family get-together to wish them well on their next adventure. Liz managed to get up from Durban so it was a great occasion to catch up with the family.


Liz, Dave, Gisi, Julius, Angie

Mom, Liz and Angie have been friends for .... well for ever in my life terms! They call themselves the three sopranos and are always with one another especially if there is fun to be had...wait actually I think they make their own fun! It was lovely to watch them being silly together and having a good laugh!

Mom, Liz, Angie

Mom, Me, Liz and Angie

Trying to get the family organised for a photo is reason enough as to why we have so few family pictures. Everyone is so disorganised, they don't like to sit still and heaven forbid we should actually smile for 10 seconds while the timer goes off!

Anyway... we go one!

As well as a beautiful photo of Brian, Jackie, Logan and Kade

Amy was very cute....I tied her hair in 4 pigtails. She has such a caracter!

When the men are away......

The women get together!

Mike went fishing this weekend. I had a ball. I did all the socialising possible. I visited my brother Brian, my Cousins Lindy and Slade, had all the Girls (and kids) over for a picnic and went to a tea garden for tea!

No wonder I am pooped!

Anyway a good time.

The picture is of Rhys, Jordan, Ryan, Hannah, Brendan and Amy at tea this morning.

Oh...what a wonderful morning!

This has been the wonderful beginning to my days this week. I am so inspired and filled with hope, joy and excitement when I leave the plot to go to work. It is so peaceful and pleasant...a wonderful start to any day!

Dress up

These were the pictures of the dress up for school this week

Shrek Third

Ryan and Brendan went to see Shrek third today. As you can see they had a ball!

Ryan is on Right