Enjoying the Great Outdoors

We spent as much of our free time this week-end outside enjoying the beautiful weather. It's mostly for self-preservation since Nicholas turns into a nut after being cooped up too long.

Where there's water, there's Nicholas! He made friends with the neighbor boy and they spent half a hour rearranging the rocks in the stream, trying to divert its course.
La Penseuse! Actually Carrie couldn't resist taking in some rays while keeping an eye on Nicholas. Or was she really thinking about finishing her book, Pillars of the Earth!

Me in my dork hat - hahaha!!! At least Nicholas thinks it's cool.

Nicholas got a kick out of wearing his hat. Whatever dadda does, Pickle does. You should have seen him at church putting on his sunglasses and laughing really loud! P.S. in case you're wondering dadda doesn't do that in church.

Carrie striking a pose for the camera - she knows she's hot! In the background, a view of part of the Atlantic seaboard. We were part way up Lion's Head. Nicholas rides up in dadda's new backpack and then gets to play around for a while.

Look a da! (Nicholas' version of dog). He loves every dog and they love him too.

Nicholas always tries to find a little place to sit. This was a perfect spot along the path to sit and pick around in the plants.

Penguin Time

 We drove to Simonstown on Saturday to check out the penguin colony there. Nicholas loved them!
 They were everywhere!
 Next stop after the penguins was Boulders Beach, a nice cove where Nicholas ran around half naked : )
 We've got a climber on our hands so, of course, Nicholas had to climb all the rocks on the beach.

The Current Administration - A Case of Financial Mismanagement

The current administration has overseen the largest growth in government spending in our country’s history. In my opinion, many of our recent woes are directly attributable to this. The blame cannot be really placed squarely on Republicans or Democrats, Congress or the President, since the largest new spending measures had significant support on both sides of the aisle: homeland security spending, the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and the recent financial bail-out. At the same time that spending increased at unprecedented levels, taxes were cut causing our budget surplus from the Clinton years to slide away and become a tremendous deficit.

This is where the economic effects can start to be observed. First, exporting countries such as China started investing their vast financial reserves in dollars and thereby funding our deficit. As the deficits and spending increased and the U.S. economy started to falter, contagion spread around the world about the strength of the dollar and foreign countries with U.S. dollar reserves started turning instead towards the euro or yen. This greatly diminished the value of the dollar and caused oil prices to reach record levels since oil sales are primarily denominated in dollars. Record oil prices caused large increases in prices Americans were paying at the pump and wrecked havoc on manufacturing and transportation companies who ultimately passed on the price increases to consumers. All this, while Americans were already overextended after having gorged themselves on easy credit card debt and home equity loans secured by inflated home values.

Another unwelcome effect was one of the greatest wealth transfers in world history as oil exporting countries raked in the dough at $100+ oil. Unfortunately, not many of these oil exporting countries have our best interests at heart. Saudi Arabia, flush with oil money, has founded thousands of madrassas in Pakistan (schools teaching Islamic extremism). Also, these particular countries are the ones currently ready with cash who would like to acquire hard U.S. assets and significant stakes in our ailing banks. With all these negative effects, my greatest hope with the new administration is that spending is controlled; however, I don’t think we’ll get that from either candidate.

Shark Alley

 Mike and I went cage diving with great whites this weekend and had a blast!! These creatures are amazing!
 Mike getting suited up to get into the cage. Man, was the water cold!
 At one point Mike and I were both in the cage and a shark swam by so close that his tail hit the side of the cage and gave us a good smack. What a rush!
 What a great experience! We have now gained a deeper appreciation for the great white.

Hout Bay

 We took a drive over to Hout Bay (about 20 minutes from here) and Nicholas loved watching this fat seal getting fed in the harbor.
 This is our new nanny, Jennifer. She's been great with Nicholas!
 We all went to the World of Birds in Hout Bay one afternoon, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of Nicholas on top of this gorilla. Just check out that pose!
 My what big eyes you have : )