Lerinda Foneintjies Concert

For the past few months every time that we saw the Ross family or Larinda she had to sing "Tell me what you want, want you really-really want……" from The Spice Girls. Every time that Lerinda sang the song I was amassed by the fact that a young girl/lady of 6 could keep up with this really fast rhyme of the song. I could see that she really-really enjoyed the song.

Lerinda invited Helgard and myself to her kindergarten concert and graduation. Munda (Larinda's mum) organized seats for the family in the second row from the hall, we had a good view and Helgard could take a lot of pictures.

Lerinda looked so cute with the curly hair and costume jewelry. While on stage, Mariska try to show Larinda that her earring is going to fall of her ear. Lerinda could understand something about the ear ring but the left and right confused hear. She gave the audience a good laugh when she answered that she wants to be a jet-setter when she is she is a grown up.

The kindergarten concert was a TV show and the school principle was the presenter.
The were a few funny characters

At a kiddies show so many things are happening at the same time, and when one laughs, you forget everything. I can't remember a lot because I was laughing too much.
I can remember the little boy (about 3years old) that was singing louder than the CD that was playing.

Then there was the song "Getoor". The little boy with his spiky gelled hair moved his head while the 3 witches were busy dancing with their brooms.

At last Lerinda was dressed in silver with a lot of glitter for her Spice Girls.

More photos here

Clay Target Shooting

Circumstances has forced my brother to consider emigrating to New Zeeland. He is on is way to hack out a new life for him and his family. It is a real sad time for me and my Dad since New Zeeland is 11 hours out of phase with South Africa, which puts it on the other side of the globe. Well at least it is also in the Southern hemisphere so the seasons are the same.

The fact of the matter is that we are not going to see my brother and his family so often any more.

I wanted to do something memorable that the three of us can remember for a while. Quite by chance I bumped into a friend that suggested clay target shooting as something to do together. I organized it and the club was able to accommodate me on quite short notice, highly appreciated.

Clay target shooting is not as easy as it looks. We grew up with shotguns, .22 and air rifles as children but this is a bit different to shoot a moving target. I don't know what happened but Leonard was about 50% better than me or my dad. I think he had some aggression he had to get rid of, the little orange targets were definitely on the receiving end.

It was great fun and is highly recommended. Don't know when the three of us will be able to try it again though.

The rest of the photos here

Ariette Birthday

Helgard's aunt Ariette recently moved to Pretoria. Her daughter Cheryl decided to surprise her with a party on her 50th birthday. Since we just moved in and had lots of space available we offered our place as a venue for the party. The party was small with mostly family members in attendance.

The Saturday afternoon Cheryl and Michelle started decorating our garage. The garage doesn't have any ceilings, so the draping that Michelle and Cheryl put up made a difference. Munda with her "know-how-hands" used flowers and candles to make a venue like the garage look stunning.

Rudi and Ariette arrived a little early, but after some tears from Ariette everybody got something to drink.

Rudi was responsible for the food; the tasteful food on the menu was a sign of good planning.
The following was on the menu:
Starter - Pate and bread nicely decorated with "groen goed"
Main course - Greek salad, braaivleis, spinach and potato
Dessert - Birthday cake

Munda made a special birthday cake, she baked ouma Louise's carrot cake and decorated the cake with family photo. Ariette didn't want to cut the cake, because it was too beautiful. All the guests pressured her to cut bigger pieces, but she wanted to save the photos on the cake.

When Ariette got the opportunity to speech, she used it by making a toast on our new house, she also made a toast and wishing Leonard the best with his immigration to New Zealand.
We also had a toasted to Ariette and wishing her the best for the next 50 years.

All in all a lovely night with the family. More photos here.

Our New House

Helgard and I moved into our new house in Constantia Park on the 1st of October 2008. Hopefully we will never forget the feeling of happiness when we moved in.

In September Helgard seriously started “shopping” for a house. As we all know with the high interest rates it is a buyers market. Everyone says in a buyers market one can choose, but our specifications were very clear. We wanted something that is not a fix-upper in an older neighborhood. The unwritten rule when buying a house is that one has to look at least at 20 houses, before one can make a decision. The third house that we saw was the house that talked to Helgard and me immediately. I can still remember as we got into the car Helgard said to me, “where can I sign”. A week and a half later an offer was made and the Pilchards family accepted it. Everything happened were fast, the offer was made and accepted the beginning of September and the 1st of October we moved in.

Moving, is only six letters, but this six-letter word includes a lot of work and arguments between Helgard and myself (my point of view, moving is the real test for marriage)

Helgard and I aren’t really “movers”, I think this was the first time that I moved. The weekend before moving friends and family asked if we have finished packing my answer was “we are living organized lives, most of our good are already in boxes, because that is how we keep our place tidy.

Between making curtains, moving plants and packing I didn’t know what hit me. People say mark your boxes when moving, I thought to myself, how difficult is it to remember your boxes, after the 5th box I started marking my boxes. Because we are not educated movers everything in the kitchen that includes cleaning stuff, food, cutlery, pots vases were mark kitchen. When the movers carried the boxes into the house, the kitchen was so full, I couldn’t move.

The moving company was also early on the 31st of September; they rang the bell before 12 instead of after 2 o’clock. They were only 2hours early - that meant that the garage, fridge and my bedroom weren’t packed. I still don’t know how we could pack the garage, fridge and…… in 2 hours, just nice to blame other people for my unorganized moving skills. Helgard really worked hard when we moved, because I was still busy with clients VAT payments.

At the new house it was a mess. I can still remember that I was very tired but so excited. When the moving company left and Helgard and I had a beer at the swimming pool, at that stage I could close my eyes and fall sleep.

Marquete the estate agent brought us sandwiches and a bottle of wine, a lovely gesture. Our friends Therese and Jacques brought dinner; was the best lasagna and salad that I ever had. Therese’s mum even bake us a cake, thanks again! Gert and Deléne also shared our happiness by visiting and eating with us.

I’m still making curtains and the 2 new bedrooms still don’t have any furniture. The washing machine broke during the move but I’m happy and all smiling because I’m privileged to live in a lovely house.

I told Helgard that he can pack his Freelander if he wants to move, but I’m staying.

No photos of the house you have to come visit and see for yourselves.

Funny Hat

For Machtild birthday we had to pitch with a interesting of rather a Funny Hat on the head. Ursula had a witches hat and I had my straw hat with a flower arrangement on top. One thing to keep in mind for such a party is to ware a comfortable hat that you can keep on your head the whole night. Mine hat was not so comfortable and it ended up on a chair which defeats the whole idea really. The more memorable hats were a schoolboy, viking, joker, Basotho, pirate, devil and a robin hood hat.

Charmaine and Machtild looked very good as usual but for he life of me I'm not able to explain what type of hats they wore.

At one stage the men some of the men entertained with a bit of belly dancing and Marius realy impressed with is skills as a break dancer.

We ended up playing pool and as usual I did not want to go home.

Thanks for a lovely evening.

More photos here.

Zebra Kick!

Living in Africa has some advantages that one does not always take for granted. My Uncle and Aunt Hennie and Louise stay on a plot that is not fenced. The plot is part of a bigger farm that is stocked with game and is fenced with a game fencing.
While walking on the farm a Zebra came running toward Ursula and me. This is a bit unnatural since game is usually scared of humans and would rather move away.

The Zebra is tame and like to be stroked and fed. It also also does not like it if two people walk next to each other in the road, the Zebra wants to walk with one person in the road, bit of a problem if you are two people.

I saw she readies herself to kick and warned Ursula to stay away from her back. We took photos of the mare with my cell phone. While putting the cell phone in my pocket, with by back to her she kicked me. The hove caught me on me sideways on my chest and grazed my jaw. It hurt like hell but I was fine.
Well at least I had a funny story to tell is this gloomy week we had last week. Decided not to post photos of my chest....the busing look bad, the man boobs worse.

More photos here

Kloets aka Henk Louis

On Sunday 15 June my cousin Henk Louis was tragedy killed in a motor car accident. One hear this type of headline frequently in the news or on a newspaper or a blog. What makes this different is that it is My cousin. What made it a tragedy was that it was on Father's day, it was a week from his 25th birthday, he was killed! and it looked like he was not at fault.

I was quit a bit older than him 15 years to be exact. When you are a schoolboy it is a lifetime, there are no way to associate with a small baby when you have more important things to care about like homework and puberty and, and. Later in life our paths converged a bit and he with his brothers and sister turned out to be very pleasant and interesting people.... If only I knew him better...If only.

During the memorial service, which was the saddest event I have attended in a while, we learned a bit about his character and personality. My uncle and aunt brought up a young man that was going to go places. He lived a full life and will be missed by all.

Henk Louis 20June 1983 to 15 June 2008

Although a sad event the service was also inspirational. The minister was blind and presented a service without notes. The cry of small babies could be heard in he chapel, giving sound to life.

One of the things that one tend to forget during our busy lives is the power of family and friends. I saw the support that was given to the family at a moments notice as a beautiful gesture, from all corners of Southern Africa the family converged together to be at the memorial service. Hendricus had a long list of people to thank in the chapel, people expressing love toward the family by giving the from the smallest to be biggest. I'm glad to be part of such a family.

Our deepest condolences goes to Hennie, Louise, Henricus, Maree, Louise and Natanya.

Helgard's 40th Birthday

Yes it was my 40th birthday! We had a small function at Ursula's mums house in the garden in the middle of winter again. Like last year our dinner was a sheep on the spit that Wilhelm looked after for us. Ursula baked bread and prepared a lot of warm food and I'm sure nobody could complain about not having enough to eat.

This year we had 2 extra outdoor gas heaters that helped to make it a bit more tolerable outside. I also organized some real bushveld fire wood that was burned in 2 containers.

Adriaan had a huge job getting everything in the garden finalized for the party, thanks Adriaan!

I will not forget little Rolan with his inflatable wings and windbreaker and beanie on the head....when he grows up he will realize that his mother dressed him funny.

This year, the party was thankfully fairly civilized except for the hooligan spinning his cars wheels. Looks like the older one gets the earlier your friends want to go to bed. One of these days we will have to get permission from the matron to leave our rooms after 17h00.....ok, ok only joking.

I really appreciate the effort that went into all of the organization as well as the effort that was made by those who attend the function. Thanks for the gifts, I'm sure the wine and beer will last till next year.

More photos here.

Orienteering

OK! This is something I will do again. We gathered at the fountains nature reserve and enrolled for the medium race. There were a 21km race also but I decided it must still be fun don't want to work so hard so the 12km race sounded perfect.
It works as follows: You get a map marked with 16 points that must be reached in sequence as fast as possible on your MTB. Everyone compete on his own against time. Contestants are set off in 2 minute intervals.

What we did: Ursula started 2 minutes before me and waited for me. I navigated and she followed, quit the opposite to how we normally cycle. We cycled quite strong but I made a mistake at the 4 th point. I was still so exited that did not realize you have to follow the sequence of points. It would eventually cost us a lot of time.

Gert, Francois and Daléne cycled in a group and did a lot better. They even gave Daléne all the tags to punch at the checkpoints so that they have longer time to study the map. Francois have Springbok colors in aeronautical navigation, and Gert was in the army and went back as a mercenary where you have to read maps to survive, which must have given them an advantage. Ursula and I are faster on the mountain bikes, for sure!

At the end of the race it stared to rain, so I'm glad we did not opt for the longer 21km one. We had a braai after the race.

According to the official results Deléne was the third woman home. Congrats! During the prize giving function everyone except me got a lucky draw price, looks like today was not my lucky day.

Photography Lesson

A while back I met Ronel, a professional photographer and she invited me to come and play with the lighting equipment in her studio.
I invited friends to join me for a a Saturday morning Photography Lesson. Ronel tough us a couple of things that we would normally not be able to do with our own equipment.
My dad, Therese, Henriette and I all have Canon cameras. Unfortunately Gert were not able to make it, but between all of us we have quite a collection of equipment. Ronel spoiled us with cookies and drinks during the day, and patiently answered all our questions.
We had a very beautiful and friendly model posing for us. My favorite photo is one with a single light box from the side. Must be honest I was not even talking to the model we were concentrating on the light an camera settings and laptop, so much was going on.

We also did simple things that did not require any special equipment other than a flash.
Cheerry in glass, Transparent glass and Light painting

After the day in the studio I realized being a professional photographer is not just a matter of taking pictures, it is controlling every aspect of what is in the picture.

More photos here. Thanks for our time Ronel!