Celebrating BIG time!!!

Serious count down business now!!!

Dream to live BIGGER.

This is our family vision!! We have have allowed ourselves to start dreaming big dreams and look where we are today! Less than 3 weeks before the removal company (we've decided to go with Anglo Pacific...yay!!!) will be arriving to box our earthly possessions up. These will be kept in storage here in Glasgow, till the start of December, when it'll be shipped out to Cape Town. We've decided to included the Land Cruiser in the 40 cubic feet container and sent the Honda with ro-ro(roll on/roll off) in January 2015. Some sweet friends will be looking after our vehicles until shipment. Now for the details of what to bring on a 5 month adventure around the world; what to ship to South Africa; what to give away, to sell to throw away.....my days are laid out for me!!!

Let me tell about the happening of last weekend...

I've decided to give Arno a well and true surprise party for his 40^th birthday. Well, since it is not until August, it would have been a surprise in itself anyway!!! I thought very LONG and very HARD about what he really would like...and whalla.... an extra – ordinary idea popped into my head!!

First squeak

For as long as I have know him, he has told me about him paying a trumpet in a brass marching band at school. I also dug up some memories of him dreaming of playing the saxophone...there you go!!! Logistically I had to really use some brain power how to buy the instrument (without him noticing it on the bank statements!!) and also the fact that I had to give it to him before the removal men decent on our house!!! Result of all this thinking – big birthday surprise party on Friday after school with kids ( I decorated the house while he was out on the school run, had the cake and presents ready). Then I've booked a restaurant for Saturday eve and got a babysitter lined up! He was blown away!!! We had such a great evening with special friends and Arno was still speechless when we got home later that night!!! I am feeling chuffed!!! I think he felt loved and valued and that is where every woman should want her man!! Hee hee!!!

They just loved his playing....

Also a big and bussy week for the children: Alana and Philippa had theory yearly dance show, Margaret Bunten Dance school. We were still covered in glitter at the end of the weekend.... We enjoyed the concert on Friday eve, with Thomas refusing to leave early!! He was more interested in the various pieces of music that were chosen for the different dances...or so he said....

Beautifull girls!!

Dean Thistle Football Club had their yearly presentation ceremony on Saturday afternoon. The girls were not too keen on going, but Arno reminded them gently that Thomas had to sit through a dance show the previous eve...so there was no way they were going to get out of this one!!! We were all surprised by a special presentation that was made to Thomas: he received a framed match strip of the team he was playing for over the last two years. This was to say thank you and cheerio!!

Gifted and talented football star

If that was not enough to squeeze into one weekend....we had tickets for the World Cup Down Hill Mountain bike Championship in Fort William. This was one of our dreams to attend this event, so we were really excited to be part of the atmosphere and crowds cheering on these extreme competitors.

Out of all the 150+ competitors we saw in the final run on Sunday (this include juniors, ladies and elite men), we only witness one fall and one flat tyre. The course was so challenging; steep rocky sections, switchbacks, technical dodge-the-trees parts and then the awesome arial jumps...all against the clock! Greg Minnaar did South Africa proud. He is currently the World Champion. Unfortunately he was pushed off the podium by some of the last riders.

Crowds galorr.... noisy with everybody clanking old bike parts together, blowing whistles and donging small cow bells as the riders came past. They started on one minute intervals so there was action the whole afternoon.

So proud of my kiddo's. We took the Nevis Range cable cart up the mountain(in the summer the ski runs turns into downhill tracks, so the carts are also transform to hook bikes on to the outside, instead of the ski's). we found the starting point at the cable station. So all the spectators just made their way down the mountain, cheering on the riders as they pass. Luckily we picked up a program before we went up the mountain, so we could keep track with who was flying past us.

Thomas, our statistician, was in his element!! Philippa had a slight misunderstanding with a slippery bog and shortly after Arno (and Nina on his hip) follow suit. Well, 2 out of 6 caked in mud, I'll still say we were very successful walking down the mountain!! We were well prepared with midgee spray, suncream, an umbrella, picnic mat, food and loads of energy 'tablets' (Maltezers were used on this occasion). Praise God the rain stayed away. Arno used the golf umbrella as walking stick and we actually used the suncream!!!

If you live in Scotland, this event defo need to go on your bucket list.

Rider zooming past us

(There is another event which you can make a note of too: The annual Husky sledge racing in Aviemore at the end of January.)

So to-do list for this week:

• getting invitations to kid's leaving parties out
• Arno is completing the online application for visa's – China, Mongolia, India
• Marilie is clearing out fills, paperwork, cupboards, and everything els....
• Thomas and Philippa – summer school trip (Newmilns Ski Slope)
• Nina – summer trip to Calder Glen Park
• Thomas - Anandale football tournament
• Alana – Gymnastic Summer Display
• Marilie – travel vacs (MMR)

I was reminded of the last lines of this poem by Robert Frost.....so many roads, so many choices - We are taking the road less traveled by!!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both


And be one traveler, long I stood


And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth; 


Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim


Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there


Had worn them really about the same,



And both that morning equally lay


In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way


I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh


Somewhere ages and ages hence:


Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,


I took the one less traveled by,


And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost