November 30, 2011 (Thanksgiving, pool, and haircut)

  Sunday, we had Thanksgiving dinner.  Adrianne, Nathan, and a bunch of Dad's coworkers came over, and Adrianne and Nathan also brought along their camera.  Their really nice Canon camera that takes really good pictures. . . I had a lot of fun. This is our table all decorated.




I discovered I really like pecan pie, and this one was huge, from Mug & Bean.

We hiked out into the nature reserve and this is what our house looks like from a distance.

Francina and Lotta, our housekeeper and her son.  Lotta is 18 months old, and he's a big boy, always ready with a smile, and he loves banging on things.  Yesterday, we turned the metal dog bowls upside down and gave him chopsticks, and he had a blast.

The crowd of people we had at our house.  There were 25 people eating, and we didn't fit at our table, which is very small compared to the octagonal table we had back home, at which we could sit 22 people (I think), so we all spread out around the house

 Prayer out on our deck

Lotta and Esther

 I had a nice camera and an abundance of little kids (four, to be exact) and of course I had to take pictures of them.  This is one of my favorites, of little Bella.

 Our oven, also compared to our big double oven back home, is small, and so were the turkeys.  We cooked up four turkeys, two of them in the oven, and two on the griddle.  Grilled turkey - a new South African Thanksgiving tradition?

After the rainstorm of last week, the pool turned from grass green to muddy brown because of all the dirt that got dumped in.  We gave up with trying to fix the water, and just drained it, and this is what was at the bottom.  Blechh.








Every day at school I'm required to wear my hair up - it can be in a braid, in a ponytail, anything as long as it's up.  I have really, really thick hair, so this pulled on my scalp and gave me not-so-nice headaches, but in the afternoons it was often too hot to take it down.  So I compromised and cut my hair.  It's shoulder length, much lighter, and nearly to short to put in a pony, but not quite.  It was somewhat last minute - Jessica Otter's grandmother is a hairstylist, and I went over to Jess's house today.  Mrs. Otter offered to take me to get my hair cut, and I took the offer.




Exams are done!  

Saturday/Sunday November 27, 2011 (Sushi, Melktert, Drainspout, Peaches, and Turkeys... in other words, food.))

    As soon as we arrived in Jo'burg (or very near there after), Mom insisted all of us try sushi, because she saw lots of sushi-serving restaurants.  I balked. But, Wednesday evening, while Dad was in Lesotho, that's what we had for dinner.  We ordered a vegetarian sushi platter, a regular sushi platter, a plate of squid, and a plate of calamari.  I tried nearly everything, even a piece of raw fish, and some of it was ok.  I liked the calamari, and the veggie sushi was ok, but I didn't like the raw fish or the squid.  Sushi still isn't my first choice, it's still near the bottom of the list, but I'm glad I tried it.  My siblings all enjoyed most everything - they like sea food in general a whole lot more than I do.

     Thursday, Mom and I visited the Bryanston Market while my siblings were all still in school.  We picked up veggies, inquired about raw milk cheese, ordered some new shoes for me (a Christmas present from Mom!), and shared lunch together.  For dessert, we had a piece of milk tart, and it was delicious!    

"Meaning "milk tart" in Afrikaans, melktert is a South African dessert. It is a sweet pastry crust   containing a creamy filling made from milk,flour, sugar and eggs. The ratio of milk to egg is higher than in a traditional European custard tart or Chinese egg tart, resulting in a lighter texture and a stronger milk flavour. Some recipes require the custard to be baked in the crust, and others call for the custard to be prepared in advance, and then placed in the crust before serving. Cinnamon is often sprinkled over its surface." ~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_tart

     We're definitely going to be on the lookout for an authentic recipe for this.

     Dad came home that evening, to not the most pleasant circumstances.  Both Mom and I weren't feeling good, having caught some sort of stomach bug that's apparently been going around.  I slept if off overnight, and by the next evening Mom was feeling better.  Dad has a cold of his own.  Prayers, please, for continued good health and healing!

     The next day, Dad stayed home from work, something he often does after having been gone on a business trip, and I got to share lunch with him while Mom went to school to help supervise a farewell pool party for a teacher.  I haven't gotten to have lunch with Dad all by myself for a loooong time so that was really nice.  During our lunch, we had some workers over working on house and property repairs, and Friday's job was eliminating our rain flow dilemma.  

     During rain storms, water flows in under our doors and attacks our wood furniture and electronics.  The main cause of this, aside from the fact that our doorways aren't sealed (yes, that needs to be fixed too, but it's lower priority), is that on our roof there's a _______ about 5 inches deep, and, by this point, full of rainwater.  When it starts raining, it overflows and a sheet of water comes over the edge, heading straight towards our doorway, instead of into the lawn.  

     To solve this problem, Dan and a worker drilled a hold through the standing wall and put a drain spout in.  Through the hole, however, came a waterfall, and in the waterfall was lots of dirt and muck and rocks and all that.  Yuck!  We haven't had a storm yet, but we're hoping the new rain spout diverts water away from our door next time.  

      Yesterday, Teresa, Mom, and I all went peach picking again (we've been going every weekend), and pick 20 kgs to can on Monday.  We also picked some nectarines and plums.  Afterwards we visited the local craft market, were people sold jewelry, bags, snacks, felted crafts, sand art, pottery, etc.  It's held on the lawn of the library, which we also visited and we're looking at joining.  We stopped by Woolies, the name for Woolworths, and picked up two turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner today.

     We're roasting two turkeys, grilling a third, baking a butternut squash pie, and hoping our guests will bring enough to eat.  We're having 24, 25 people over; a bunch of Dad's co-workers, as well as Nathan and Adrianne.  Crowded and fun!  

     My exams are nearly done, only two more to go.  I don't have to take the second Afrikaans exam, on Tuesday, meaning I don't have to go to school at all that day!  One more week of school, and then we're out on summer break.  

***My camera is dead, so a lot of the pictures on here are off of the internet; only the drain spout*** ***and the sushi are of my taking***

Wednesday, November 23 (Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas play, and rain, plus a bird!)

     Last Sunday, we visited a church called Church of Christ.  Quite a few Americans attend said church, and they invited us over for dinner last Saturday evening.  There were lots of kids, many around our age, and Mom enjoyed meeting the other ladies.  We learned more about the church, are thinking about it being our church home, and enjoyed some pumpkin pie!

     The next evening, all six of us preformed in a Christmas play at New Life church.  It felt really odd to be doing a Christmas play so early in the year, since we're used to preforming on Christmas Eve, but around here, Jo'burg empties over the holidays.  School lets out December 2nd, and everyone goes on vacation, so the churches have to do their Christmas services a month early.  Teresa and Jonathon were both in the family, Esther was an angel, I was Mary, and Becca and Ivan were shepherds.  Pictures courtesy of Nathan and Adrianne Penner.

     I love the rain, don't get me wrong.  I love the thunderstorms around here.  Somehow, they manage to be powerfully peaceful.  The lightning lights the sky up brighter than daytime (contrast at work there!) and the resulting thunder shakes our house.  At night, it vibrates us into waking up.  The rain comes down SO hard, and it's often accompanied by hail.  The sound for falling (hitting?) rain is a beautiful thing to fall asleep to, and we've even gotten some Washington-like drizzle!  My camera was dead, so I couldn't get a picture; this is just for effect, off of the internet.

     Unfortunately, rain has it's down sides too.  We ran out of towels last night - they were blocking up the doors.  Our porch flooded, because it has little drainage, but that dried up this morning.  The worst part: Mom's garden was washed away, and most of the parts that weren't were buried.  Only the tallest plants survived.  And our mango trees have no more mangos - they were stripped off by the rain :(.  We won't leave them outside in a torrential rainburst again! 

    Hopefully, more mangoes will grow, the pool will eventually be clean, the garden will recover, etc., etc... fingers crossed!

     While typing, I saw the most gorgeous bird.  It flew up to our window, which has bars to hang onto, and started pecking the window.  I didn't have my camera on me - I didn't even have my phone!  So I had to resort to getting another picture off of the internet.  I love the way the rust brings out the red tones in the bird's feathers. 

Saturday, 19 October (Birthday Parties and Hair)

     Becca and Jonathon's birthday was on the 8th of November, and yesterday and today we hosted their birthday parties.  Becca had 5 friends - Robin, Kate, Nalili, Hannah, and Sammy - over to celebrate with her, and Jonathon had 7 friends over - Caleb, Luke, Christian, Hudson, Sheldon, Lwazi, and and Luke's little brother.  Technically, they were supposed to be pool parties, but our pool is beyond gross at them moment, so they just had a big play date

     Esther had her hair redone by Francina, and this time, instead of just braiding, she has extensions in.  Her hair is longer than mine!

Wednesday, 16 November (Hello from South Africa!)

As a request from Grandma Joy Derr, a video hello from South Africa!

Sunday, 13 November (Fruit, um... fruit, and an AMAZING story)

     A lot of this weekend has been filled with food, and time spent in the kitchen.  Saturday morning, Mom and the six kids headed out to Peach Cafe, a pick your own peaches/nectarines place, which also sells jam and honey and some other veggies.  We picked 10 kilos of peaches (four boxes), and they are sooo juicy.  We actually also have peach trees on our property (as well as pear, mango, kumquat, and lemon), but ours are of a different variety such that they give fruit later in the year.  Talking to the owner, I learned that they always need help in the kitchen with prep work, and I volunteered.  I can't be paid in money, since I don't have a work permit for South Africa, but I'm hoping to pick up some peaches, and I'm looking forward to the work.  Adrianne Penner is likely going to be working there at the same time as me - she's in the same boat with no work permit. http://www.camdeboofarm.co.za/

     That afternoon, I tackled the two bags of lemons that Mom bought me, with ten lemons in each bag.  I juiced 18 and 1/2 lemons and made lemon sorbet, as well as candied lemon peals - I had to do something with the leftover lemon peels!  Teresa, while I made the candy, was working on de-topping strawberries and de-pitting cherries.  We have this really cool cherry pitter that you stick the cherry in and shoot the pit out from.  In this picture ------> Teresa is shouting "Put your feet up or I'll shoot!" Mom made flour tortillas and we had tacos for dinner, and with the leftover tortillas she made tortilla chips and we had nachos for lunch!!  I've missed my Mexican food.... now to tackle the salsa making! 
     Our friends, Nathan and Adrianne Penner, stopped by last night, and it reminded me that I ought to share who they are.  In November 2009, Adrianne and Nathan were engaged to be married the following January, when Adrianne was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  She was to go in for surgery two weeks later, on December 10.  Because of the diagnosis, Nathan and Adrianne scratched their January wedding plans and decided to get married before surgery.  They got married 6 days after the initial diagnosis; tons of people volunteered to serve food, decorate, arrange... even people they didn't know!  I think the best part is that Adrianne went shopping for a wedding dress on Black Friday and got it cheap; I'm going to remember that when I get married.  

     I'm going quote Nathan on this next part, from their blog, nathanandadriannedolife.blogspot.com "Adrianne's surgery was successful. Dr. Pikul and his team was able to remove the brain mass with no complications, no need for any blood transfusions, and only good surprises. When they removed the mass and sent a portion to the pathology lab the initial report back was that it was not a tumor, but was an abscess."  This abscess, which had shown every sign of being a tumor up until the point where it was removed, stumped the doctors.  It wasn't infected, they couldn't find the cause of it.  Eventually, it got sent to the Center of Disease Control, to the specialists.  Their diagnosis: We'll never know.  The tumor/abscess had been completely sterilized by the body, although it wasn't that way when Adrianne had her first MRI.  In other words, Adrianne experienced a miracle.  The power of prayer is amazing!  

     Nathan and Adrianne are actually very famous people.  Google 'the penners' and their blog is the top website.  They shared that hundreds of people had heard of their story, prayed for them, and shared that their story and experiences had changed their life and convinced them to turn to God.  Praise the Lord, He is good!

Thursday, 10 November (Art project!)

A week ago (ish), I promised to post pictures of my art project.  Here they are:

The photo above is of Jessica Pautz, Kimberly Topham, and me with our project.  On the side of the stairs you can see the colors of the rainbow (the bottom strip is actually purple, it just whited out in the picture), to represent the Rainbow Nation - that's what's South Africa is called.  The picture to the left is the tops of the stairs.  We have a word to describe South Africa on each stair, and a picture to represent the words.  From the top to the bottom step: Hospitality, Determination, Diversity, Unity, Traditional.  The picture on the right is the front of the stairs, as you can see in the top pictures.  The steps make a South African flag, but instead of using solid colors, we used sunset pictures for the red, water for the blue, plants for the green, and coal for the black.  The goal of the project was to show our thoughts on what symbolizes South Africa, through art.  We turned the project in today.

Wednesday, 9 November

     Last Saturday night, we had Dad's boss and her family, and Adrianne and Nathan over for dinner. That same night, once they had left, Paul Conan and Peter Copp arrived, needing a place to stay for a couple of days.  Unfortunately, Mary Copp didn't come; if she had, we would have had Peter, Paul, and Mary over for a few days.  That would have been something to brag about!  After talking with Peter and Paul for a few minutes, we realized that they had just come from Swaziland, from staying with a couple who work on the farm but live off of it, and that the next day Adrianne and Nathan (whom we have affectionally and accidentally started calling Nadrianne) were heading out to the home of the same couple, whom they were good friends with, although Nathan and Adrianne had little connection with New Life Homes.  What a small world we live in!
     This weekend we applied a shock treatment to the pool to try and clean it up.  It's amazing; we can almost see the bottom now!  Not quite, but it's still working.  With temperatures reaching up into the 90's, we're going to quickly be thankful for the fact we have a pool on the property, clean or no.
     Exams started this week for Teresa, Jonathon, Becca, and Esther, and so far they are confident they are doing well - or, as well as can be expected when you missed two-thirds of the school year.  Exams start for me next Thursday.  I, too, am confident I will do well.  That is... if you exclude Afrikaans.  

Saturday, 5 November (Gardens, mangos, and froggies, oh my!)

     In America, Mom had a garden.  A big garden, one with lots of yummy food.  But never beets.  For some reason, Mom always had difficulty growing beets.  However, she planted beets a week ago (ish?), and they're already starting to come up! In our garden (vegetable garden), we have beets and chinese cabbage and potatoes, butternut squash and pumpkins, and tomatoes and sunflowers and peas!  Then, on the rest of the property, we have pit fruit with fuzz, pit fruit without fuzz, raspberries, two citrus trees (one of which is lemon), some unidentified fruit-bearing plants, and And AND a MANGO tree :).
     Mango trees aren't indigenous to the area, but it is possible to grow them if you bring them inside for the winter.  Of course, we were very willing to do that in order to have a mango tree.  Mango!  Mango is well loved in our family.  It's a small tree at the moment, but it has about 10 mangoes on it.  In order to be able to move it around, we had to put it in a pot, and then put the pot on wheels.  A couple of minutes away from us is a company who deals in business plants, so they have a lot of extra pots.  Although it took a couple of days, Mom finally got to talk to the lady who could sell her some of these pots, and we got two pots with wheels already attached for R20 each.  That's a little under 3 dollars each, a much better deal than we would have gotten in the states.  Mom has also been growing her own mushrooms.

     As anyone who's been reading my blog knows, we live out in the 'country', or as close to country as you can get for Johannesburg.  We also have a pool, which equals a lot of water.  Add the two together, you get frogs!  Lots of frogs, that sing very loudly.... rather, croak?  It was annoying the first few nights, but we got used to it.  Last night, Dad followed the sound of the croaking bullfrogs, expecting to find them all floating in the coy pond - which happens to be right next to the pool.  Maybe there were frogs in the coy pond, maybe there weren't, but there were at least 20 having a pool party!  Regardless of the fact we were lying on the rocks goggling at them, they kept right on singing, only swimming away if we moved within 6 inches of them.  20 bullfrogs croaking, with their throats moving in and out, in and out, make a lot of noise!
     Thursday, Esther and Becca played a softball game and won, 14-6.  (Go Kings!) Jonathon also had a cricket match.  Friday, Becca had a friend, Kate Strauss over; I'm friends with her big sister, Megan Strauss.  Today, we're having guests for dinner: Adriane and Nathan, who stayed with us for a few days a couple of weeks ago, and Dad's boss, boss's husband, and boss's kids.
     And these are a couple of pictures of our dogs!

    

Wednesday, 2 November (...a whole lot of things; what's going on)

     Wow, it's November second already!  Four months ago, we left our hometown.  Three months ago, we arrived in Johannesburg.  Two months ago, we started school, and we only have a month of school left.  Time is going quickly as we settle in to our new home, and we are definitely settling in.  My siblings are already starting to pick up a bit of the South African accent, Dad is fully into his new job, and our home is beginning to feel like home - mess and all. :)
     While here, Mom has discovered the places to buy all of our grains and milk and organic vegetables, we've seen zebra, lion, rhinos, ostriches, and numerous other animals, and we've gotten used to the fact that they don't have just one type of wall outlet/electric plug, nor do they have two, they have three!  Ok, maybe we haven't gotten used to that last one yet.  Honestly, wouldn't it be easier if electrical plugs were standardized?  We've learned that now now and just now both mean sometime in the next five hours...sometimes. And that sometimes those phrases mean 'we'll get back to you within the next five years'.  If someone, a company person, says 'I'll check on that and get back to you', then you have to expect to be calling them back, not the other way around.
     These different ways of life can often be challenging and frustrating, when we're used to something different in America, but they are still the ways of life here, and we, as the new foreigners, will have to get used to them.  Our ways are changing; slowly, yes, but they are changing.
     It's much hotter here in Africa (BIG surprise there), so, as I mentioned last Saturday, I had to pick up some summer clothes.  Amongst those summer clothes, I picked up three skirts, and I am quickly becoming a skirt person.  In America, I rarely wore skirts or flip flops (called slip slops here), but now I'm wearing both on a regular basis.  Mom, too, is wearing skirts more often.
     Starting Monday, all of us began music lessons.  Teresa, Becca, Esther, and Ivan are all taking piano, Jonathon is learning guitar, and I (finally!!) am taking voice lessons.  I'm extremely excited to be learning to sing better, as it is one of the things I throughly enjoy, and Jonathon is also excited to start guitar lessons; his response to Mom's announcement: YES!
     One the school side, end of year exams begin soon for a few of us.  Preparatory school exams begin next week (Esther, Becca, Jonathon and Teresa are all in prep school), and my exams start in two weeks.  Thankfully, we aren't required to actually pass our exams in order to move on to the next grade, as the school recognizes that we weren't here to cover some of the material (i.e. Afrikaans, History), but we are all aiming to pass anyways.  Passing grade here is 40% - a stark contrast to what we considered to be passing as home schoolers: 80%.  Last Friday, a few of the ninth graders, including me, and a couple tenth graders were called to meet with Mr. D, the principal, during break.  We weren't told why were were being summoned, so we were understandably a bit nervous, especially when we walked in and Mr. D. and the 11th grade leadership were staring at us and not smiling.  However, it turned out that we had been called in to be commended for our respect towards our teachers and peers and for not being 'swayed by the world'; for staying true to ourselves and who God calls us to be.
     At the moment, I am working on very fun and interesting project in art - alright, I admit, I consider nearly any art project to be 'fun' and 'interesting'.  In Johannesburg, there is a tourist attraction known as the Cultural Arc.  This is a walkable tour of South Africa's history, art, and culture, which many local artists have contributed to.  It consists of museums, a ballet theater, and the Nelson Mandela bridge.  For our art project, we were told to design our own piece to place in the Cultural Arc.  My two partners, Jessica Pautz and Kimberley Topham, and are working on creating a set of stairs which represent South Africa as we know it.  We are including the South African flag, words and visuals which describe South Africa, and a rainbow because South Africa is known as the Rainbow Nation.  As soon as it's finished, I'll post a couple of pictures and a complete description of it.