Hermanus whale watching

 On Mike's day off, we drove to the town of Hermanus for the annual whale festival. We saw several South African Right whales like the one in these pics.
 
 Nicholas loves balloons so he couldn't help snatching one at the festival. It was windy so I had to buy a cap to keep my ears warm.
 Mike and Nicholas posing with the world's only whale crier...he walks along Main Street blowing his pipe to alert visitors to the best whale sighting spots. Notice that Nicholas is fascinated by that pipe.

Carrie's attempt at blogging

While Mike's been the blogger in the family, I thought I'd try it out too. Today is a holiday here - Happy Birthday to my brother. I took Nicholas to the toy store this morning and we had fun picking out some new toys. He really loves his Thomas the Train pool filled with balls. Next on our list is to go buy a backpack (one we can put Nicholas in) so we can go hiking around here...anyone have any suggestions? Oh, to add to Mike's booklist, I can recommend "The Invisible Wall" by Harry Bernstein. It's a well-written memoir about a Jewish boy growing up in England around World War I. The invisible wall refers to the religious divide between Jews and Christians on his street. While the book revolves mainly around Harry's life growing up, there's a side story about his sister falling in love with a Christian boy and the ramifications that has on his family. I really enjoyed it, but what amazed me was that the author published this first book of his at the age of 97. And he has a sequel out this year, "The Dream", which I'm planning to read. What a great tribute to the fact that age doesn't have to be an obstacle in achieving your dreams.


Hugs and kisses from South Africa!!

Reading in Spurts

I tend to read stuff in spurts so here's a couple groups of good books I've read recently. It's interesting to get different points of view on similar topics for a richer learning experience.

Self-Improvement/Motivation:
- Who Moved my Cheese? - dealing with change
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - the Heart of the Rose technique is a really powerful way to improve controlling your thoughts!
- The Alchemist
- La Buena Suerte/ Good Luck: Claves De La Prosperidad

Very interesting to compare & contrast the themes and ideas in these 4 books.

Middle East:
- Winter in Kandahar by Steven Wilson - historical novel set during war in Afghanistan
- Ascent from Darkness - sequel to Winter in Kandahar. Historical novel set in Syria & Iraq during Iraq War
- Three Cups of Tea - true story of Greg Mortensen's efforts to promote peace by building schools for girls in Pakistan during the rise of the Taliban

Great reads - really helped me fill in my hole of ignorance about this part of the world. None was as well written, however, as The Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

First Night Out

Checking out the neighborhood in front of the apartment. Nicholas quickly spotted 2 neighbor dogs, one of which looks a bit like Cheerio. He went after them right away. It turns out their owner is part of a group that gets together regularly to speak Spanish. Behind us you see part of the the Twelve Apostles mountain range. It is quite a comforting reminder that the Twelve Apostles are right here protecting us both physically (the mountain range) and spiritually (the living Twelve leading Christ's restored church here in the latter-days).
We attended a free, outdoor comedy show. Where in the world is Peppy? He refused to sit with us; instead, preferring to slide in between his two new friends. I love this picture because it shows a representative cut of the local population and Peppy fitting right into it.
Enjoying some ice cream while looking out at the ships in the bay. You can see Table Mountain in the background.
Ice cream = all smiles!

Cape Town Here We Come!

Nicholas snuggled into his seat next to Carrie. These seats were pretty cool since they laid back completely flat, so when it when it was time to sleep we made Nicholas' seat into a cumfy little bed.
Nicholas survived the two 11 hour flights like a champ. Just a few fussy moments, but mostly he got a kick out of messing with the seats, windows, and surprises we stocked up to take out one at a time to entertain him. I think the best item was the jeweled stickers. They were shiny to catch his attention and fun to stick all over the place. Riding horsey on the armrest was pretty fun too!
This is our apartment in Camps Bay. It's a beach town along the Atlantic seaboard about 20 minutes from downtown. They had a little Volksvagen Golf ready for us and some driving lessons set up. It didn't take long to acclimate to driving on the other side of the road after our experience in Scotland. You might remember Carrie's rule for surviving the driving in London - just drive really fast to get out of the way of everything! Fortunately, we don't need to do that here.
This is the view from our apartment. We have a little splash pool on our porch a little smaller than the one's you can see below us. The ocean view and sunsets are great!