This is us

Family Theron!!

Who are we in 2017??

Arno and Marilie (early fourtees)

Alana (13, just started High School, dedicated gymnast)

Thomas (11, sport and reading fanatic)

Philippa (8, ballerina and horse lover)

Nina (6, creative, expressive and precious one)

Since falling in love in 1998, Arno and I, chased life. We got married in Tulbagh, South Africa, on my parents farm, Mont Rouge on the 2nd of January 1999. We went against status quo, got married in the 2nd Oldest Museum Church in South Africa, at 9am. (We got loadsa complaints form the family, but we want to such the marrow out of every day...so why not starting your journey together in that way??) The reception was in my parents garden. All our friends helped us to set up, and the family were running around with little to do lists. My youngest bro (aged 14) took the wedding video..which resulted in the most comical footage!!! This is just a small intro of how us grown-ups started our life together.

January 2000, provided us with the opportunity to relocate from Stellenbosch to the UK.

Arno was working on site in Southern Ireland, and I volunteered as a table tennis coach at the local primary school in Adare, CO Limerick. Then I 'upgraded' to housekeeping assistant at the Dunraven Arms Hotel, Adare.

May 2000, we got settled in Glasgow, Scotland, I got registered as a teacher in the Scottish Education System and we bought our first little garden flat in 2001. A few years of travelling (France, Switzerland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain,Morocco, New Zealand) preceded the arrival of the first sprog in 2004. She was barely 10 weeks old before her first international ski-trip to Morzine, France. So needless to say, the arrival of the babe's did not dampen our exploring spirits.

A great opportunity was put before Arno, to work as a liaison between the Brazilian and Scottish offices and we relocated to Rio in October 2004. The next 8 months provided us with an open door to South America. Argentina, Chile and Brazil fell away under our 4 feet en 3 stroller wheels. It just wet our appetite for more...so there is still a BIG adventure waiting for us!!!! The arrival of Thomas moved us back to Scotland in 2005.

So yes, we love exploring new countries and places, but to me it's the culture and the people...that's what my spirit craves for. God has created us all so uniquely. To understand God completely, I want to explore people, I want to love people and expose my children to people. Through the eyes of people we get to know God better.

We left South Africa as a young, inexperienced couple. We wanted to explore, learn, taste and see... We never planned to emigrate from South Africa. We actually grew more fond of our birth-land as the years ran in and out. With a growing family we relocate to a beautiful 4 bedroom house in Kilmarnock (Home of Johnny Walker Whiskey), 20min south of Glasgow.  We started praying very seriously about moving back to South Africa. The children, (there were four of them now), were growing up without a true identity. Their Scottish accents had the South African family in stitches of laughter, but their South Africa parents will always be foreigners in their country of birth. We realised also that our ageing parents  were missing out on opportunities to invest into the lives of their grand kids...and vice versa.

So at the start of 2012 the Theron-clan started putting plans together for an epic move back to South Africa.

Preceding years included travels to ski-slopes of France and Scotland, camping holidays in Austria, Germany and our family favourite, Port Ban (Mull of Kintyre, Scotland). We visited friends in Colorado and Texas(USA) and Vancouver(Canada). Reflecting back now over all these interesting destinations, I am really sad that I have not started writing blogs in 2000....!!! Mind you Internet was more or less no-existent at that time anyway!! Ha haaa!!!

So this blog was started in 2014, to document the travels of this family on our journey back to South Africa, which took us through 11 countries over 5 months.

We settled in a small village in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Riebeek Kasteel is the place where God led us to put our roots down. The children (after no formal education for 6 months) were eager to glide back into school. The village school accommodate for both English and Afrikaans children in a single class. We did not have any issues transferring the children form the Scottish Outcomes Based System to the strict assessment based South African system for education. The children were set according to their level of education and not according to their ages, which was a great relieve. This result in Philippa, Thomas and Alana being one year younger that their classmates. Our kids does not stand back emotionally or development wise to their peers. This just proved my thought that a society prepares a child to be 'school ready'. Anyway, that's another discussion for another day!!!

2015 led us to an opportunity to explore Namibia extensively. I had to plan this road trip carefully around Arno's offshore schedule (He took on a contract working in Angola on a rotational basis during 2015 and '16) I think there is a nice travel blog waiting to be written there.....

We believe that we need to plan for the things we would like to see happening for us in the future...so we started writing vision for Arno's offshore work to be replaced by an local opportunity here in South Africa. We started planning our 'reward' holiday for April 2017 and then we trusted in God, seek out local opportunities, contacts and prayed some more. Great was our joy when Arno was offered a job(designed around his abilities and experience) in Paarl, 40min drive away form our house!! 

So this is bringing me to our reward/dream holiday of 2017. You can follow us as we ski in the French Alps, exploring culture in Hungary and visiting friends in Scotland.

A final note: travelling internationally does not come cheap. Through the last 18 years of married life, Arno and I have invested a lot into exploring. Yes, it is our great love. It is our hobby and we will travel, God willing, for many more years.

It is in our blood!!

We've learned ways in planning for a big trip, saving up for it, seeking out cheap ways of gaining life-enriching experiences. In short, we are teaching our children: If you can dream it, you can achieve it. Nothing is tooo BIG or impossible. If you can set your mind to a task, you can do it.

You need to write the vision down on paper(and I mean it...like in writing it with a pen...), you need to stick it up on the fridge (where you can see it multiple times per day) and you need to trust God with your vision. When we started to pray about our vision, uncannily our planning started gravitating towards that vision. Relationships were developed with people who helped us to achieve our vision, God provided the resources and ideas.

Travelling with children is the most enjoyable, humbling and enriching experience any adult can expose him/herself to. God is teaching us through the eyes of our babe's. Yes, it is tough at times, but it is the greatest privilege and joy to be sharing these experiences with our kids. We would not choose to have it any other way!!!