The Lord is gracious!

We have been getting people to give us quotes for painting our house.  It has been a frustrating process with people arriving at our door saying someone sent them for a quote and we do not even know who the person is that sent them!

Eventually we had someone here that I liked very much (also recommended by someone I trust!) and we are currently waiting for his quote.

We have also been doing this even though we do not really have the cash because it is something that we felt is long overdue.  

Well, the Lord has blessed us  by giving David a bonus at a time we did not expect it at all!  As everywhere, our economy is not at its greatest and people at David's company has been retrenched.  There were also a couple financially bad things that happened in the company last year like international clients not paying for a job of millions of US dollars.  As you can imagine, we were not even thinking that maybe there would be a bonus even though part of David's contract is profit share!

Now we can paint our house cash and help someone we know are in terrible need!  

Praise the Lord with us today for His mercy and grace and loving kindness!  His mercies are truly new every morning!  To Him be the glory and honour and power forever!  Amen!

So, watch this space because hopefully soon we will be able to post before and after photo's!   

Quite a challenge!

We've had 6 little girls at our house this afternoon and it is quite a challenge.  The rules had to be very clear!

I have the privilege of looking after my friend's 8 year old daughter, Mieke, in the afternoons. She is a lovely little girl and we are enjoying having her here! This is why there were 6 here!  If I invite a friend for every one of mine it comes to 6!

They get quite rowdy even though they are girls!  The rules also had to be strict for the pool to prevent accidents.  The girls enjoy being so many friends and they can play all kinds of games you need lots of children for. We could also have a mini party with sweets and chips after swimming.

The children are from left Mieke (back), Elizabeth, Suzelle, Luzaan, Safre and Elseke.

Massive construction OR destruction?

The farmer, whose farm borders our yard, is busy with a massive preparation job!  For months now he has had heavy duty machinery (earth moving equipment) moving and reshaping the fields. 

It has been very interesting to watch and even more interesting to speculate about what he is going to plant here next.  The whole field has been reshaped in waves similar to that in which they plant vineyards except  that it is much bigger and to far apart to be for vineyards.  

At the moment they are busy excavating and removing massive rocks from the ground!  The rocks are so big that, sitting on my bed folding washing, I could feel and hear the headboard vibrating when they load the rocks on the big trucks!  Here are some photos with one of the big rocks.  It is difficult to really see the size because of being on the ground and that is why I included the "bakkie" and machine in the photo.

By popular demand!

David started growing a beard in the December holidays just because then he would not have to shave.  Well, after the holidays he decided to keep it as he was comfortable with it.  He also received so many compliments about it!  Many people even said that they did not recognise him with it.

I spoke to my sister, Danita, today and she did not know about it.  She was quite surprised and asked me to put a photo of him with his beard on the blog, so that she could judge his appearance herself.  

So here it is for those of you who have not seen him with it!   

School Sports!

Luzaan had her first sports day at school on Friday. These photos are before and after. The brown marks on her face is from chocolate ice cream. She loved every minute of it but, as you can see from the one photo, Suzelle was not impressed!

Luzaan enjoyed the crowds, the running (coming 4th in her group) and the food of course! She was happy with her run and enjoyed it! She was even happier that it meant that she could do whatever she pleased after that and that the teacher told them they are free to buy something to eat. Suzelle went with her to stand in the impossibly long queue for ice cream because I was not willing to. I just joined them when they got to the front to pay of course!