Pampering and playgrounds

I had a pretty busy week at work, so I was really looking forward to the weekend. So was Liesel as there were a couple of days where we had severe thunderstorms which caused flooding in a number of counties in Cleveland. This meant that Nathan had to stay indoors, which is fine for about an hour - not 2 or 3 days!!! Fortunately we woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning, with blue cloudless skies, and no wind. Today was the day we were taking Liesel to the Avanti Salon and spa to be pampered. This is courtesy of the competition that I won on the Christian Radio Station a couple of weeks ago. It took an hour to drive there as it is located on the easternside of Cleveland. After dropping Liesel off, Nath and I found a local park to pass the time. Liesel estimated that her haircut would only 30 minutes, but the spa did a lot more than just a haircut! She said that first, she lay on a couch with her feet up while they washed her hair. Then while she waited with conditioner in her hair, they massaged her arms! When they finished her haircut and blow-dried it, they then did her makeup. She loved every minute of it, and she looked quite gorgeous when she eventually emerged from the salon! That afternoon we headed to a local gym to see what they had to offer and what their prices were. It was a exquisite fitness center, which squash courts, indoor and outdoor running tracks, basketball courts with social volleyball every Tuesday and Thursday evening! There were 2 pools and a host of new equipment. The only drawback was the price. We thought that $108 a month was a bit pricey, considering the YMCA was about half that at $57 for the family!

That evening Nath and I went for a swim in the complex pool, which is quickly becoming one of his favorite activities. Later on we went and rented a DVD (that's what we will be doing since we don't have access to babysitters) and got Chinese takeout from a true Chinese restaurant. I say true, because when you walk in, all the staff are Chinese. There is a TV tuned to a Chinese station, and all the people in the kitchen seem to be the extended family of the manager, from his sons to his grandmother. Liesel had Sesame Chicken (the best chicken EVER!) and I had Sweet & Sour pork. And of course, the meal's come with Fortune Cookies! Mine said" People are anxious to get to know you better". It must be because of my accent ;-) Lekker!
On Sunday, we headed for Church and then went to check out the YMCA. It is nowhere as classy as the Saturday's gym, but in general they were similar. No volleyball however, and only 1 pool which was inhabited by some geriatrics :-(. I thought that Liesel liked it since it was so much more affordable than the other one, and she thought I liked it - so we signed up - only to discover that neither of us were particularly keen on it. Guess I need to polish up my communication skills. I will be phoning them on Monday to see if I can get my money back, so julle moet duim vashou! This afternoon we headed out to a playground, which thrilled Nathan since it has been a while since he has run around like that. He had a blast and even (drum roll please) went down a slide by himself, loved it and said "Again!" and made his way back up to the top of the slide and came down by himself again and again. I was so PROUD :-)
Oh yes! One thing I learnt this weekend - that if the sun is shining, you should always wear a cap while driving! I didn't and I got a hot head and a red nose because Liesel and Nathan prefer driving with the sun-roof open!

Welcome to our world, Kari!!!

Please welome our friends' brand new baby girl, Kari Tamar Smulders!!!! She weighs 4.42kg and is 57cm tall.

Please pray for the Smulders family as they adjust to their latest family addition.

We wish we could be there with you maaitjie!!

Life is good .... as a father!!

A friend of mine in SA, Jerome, who has climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, bungy jumped at the Victoria Falls, jumped out of an aeroplane 10 times and abseiled the Knysna heads has this saying: "Life is good". Although I have only done 1 of the 4 things mentioned above, just being the father of Nathan is exhilarating enough, and I concur, life is good!!!

On Saturday, we decided to head to our neighboring town, Avon, for their Annual Duct tape festival. Yes, a duct tape festival........ Apparently duct tape was invent and first produced in Avon, Ohio, and every year they celebrate this with a festival. We arrived at the back end of the float parade, where organizations had designed and built there own float using duct tape. After the traffic jam, we arrived at the festival grounds and it was very similar to a South African fete, but with an Amusement park thrown in! The one obvious difference was the Duct tape exhibits where they had various sculptures, like a wigwam and a gorilla made out of duct tape. Then there was the Duct tape fashion tent. You won't believe some of the creations that some obviously bored people managed to come up with!

With temperatures reaching 33C we decided to head home around 12:30 for Liesel's and Nathan's siesta. Once Nathan arose again, we headed off for a very welcome swim!

On Sunday morning, I surfaced at around 8am, and discovered that my "mixed up" mother phoned at 6:38 to wish me a happy Father's day!!. Apparently she calculated the time difference incorrectly (or that's her story anyway), but fortunately I always leave my phone on silent, so it did not disturb my Rapid Eye Movement. When I got up I was spoilt by my wife and son. I got some new jeans, a shirt for work, a T-shirt, a waterbottle for work, and an AERO and Cadbury's Caramel bar!!! What a family!!! Liesel took "her boys" out for breakfast to IHOP (International House of Pancakes). I ordered the Savoury pancakes with bacon, and Liesel ordered the chocolate chip pancakes. After a couple of bites we swopped and decided we preferred our partner's choice. The choc chip pancakes were absolutely delicious with actual choc chips in the batter, so every mouthful had a promise of melting chocolate! After breakfast, we headed to the second service at our church. The worship was fantastic with us singing some of my favorite worship songs by Chris Tomlin (Great is our God), King of majesty by Hillsongs and and Michael W Smith's Agnus Dei. The message was just as inspiring!! As the weather was still scorching at 31C, I took Nathan again for another swim this afternoon and he loved it. That was my father's day weekend. Like I said, life is good!!

P.S. Please be in prayer for our friends Ryan and Tammy in SA as their second baby will be arriving this week. I can say that with confidence as the baby's already over 1 week late!

Until next week..........

Off to a good start!

You know you are going to have a good weekend when you win a prize from the local Radio station on Friday. Now don't get all excited, its not anything big and exciting like a car, but I did win a $50 gift voucher for a Salon and spa in Cleveland! This was from my Christian radio station that I always listen too. They had a competition where if you knew the answer, you e-mail it in! It is a lovely feeling when you hear: "And the winner is... Grant Mccarthy who is listening over in Key Bank" - WOOHOO - now why could I never win any of the BIG 94.7 Highveld competitions in SA??? Oh well, Liesel now can get a fancy haircut on me ;-)

The weather cooled down this weekend with temperatures around 15C, but at least the sun was shining, so it was perfect weather to go exploring! We headed to the lake and drove along the lake towards Cleveland. We stumbled upon some breathtaking views, magnificent houses, and extraordinary parklands! We stopped at one park for Nathan to go on the swings and slides, but as we walked around, we were disappointed by the millions of mosquitoes that were flying around. And true to the "Everything is bigger" saying, these mosquitoes were nothing like the whiny little mosquitoes that SA produces. These things were like mini dragonflies - and they were everywhere. Even climbing into the car let about 5 of these bugs on steroids inside, and there a mini-civil war erupted to get rid of these critters! Later on that afternoon I took Nathan to a park closer to home, where there were far less mosquitoes (probably because its further inland). Nathan has taken to sand pits. Liesel has bought him a little cart with some sand tools in it which has become his favorite occupation. He is also getting braver by the day and has started climbing to the top of 2m high slides, which prompts either Liesel or myself to follow him, and then of course slide down with him to bring him back down to mother earth!

On Sunday we went to Church and we are enjoying the current series the pastor is doing! Nathan was fine without Liesel, in the nursery! After church - we decided to drive around the neighboring town to see what it had to offer! The answer - not much! After his nap, Nath and I then went to best buy to buy a Hi-speed modem for ourselves. You see, we have been "piggybacking" off someone's unsecured wireless internet in the apartment complex. Last night, this "charitable" connection suddenly disappeared, and we were lefted stranded!!! I waited to see if the connection would return the following day, but alas, she was gone for good :-( With the Internet being Liesel's only connection to the real world and her communication medium to other humans, I felt that it would be time to bite the bullet and get our own Hi-speed Internet. Besides, I did get my first salary paycheck on Saturday :-D. So now I am typing this to you whilst on our own 4mb/s internet connection. Not too shabby Nige!

Keep well, and keep checking back on my sight to see if there are any updates. I will add them as soon as something exciting happens in our life.

Home-making weekend

After my first week of work, I was hoping to have a laid back weekend, with Liesel bringing me some ginger-ale while I vegged on the couch and partook in some hard-core channel surfing ;-)But alas, that never materialized...

We were awake at 6am on Saturday morning, because Liesel was due to complete her driver's license exam which included the road test and maneuverability test. We arrived at the testing station on time and Lee was sent out to the CR-V (which is smaller and easier to handle than her Buick.) About 30 mins later she came back with a smile on her face and a license in her hands! WELL DONE LEE!!!! Now we have no further use for our international driving licenses from the AA!!!

We decided that we needed to purchase some important household goods that will help us sort out and tidy up the apartment a bit more. First on our list was a desk for us to keep important documents, odds and ends, as well as a place to keep our laptops! Presently, Liesel's Thinkpad had a permanent place set for it at the dining room table. Mine was next to the TV as it was used for Nathan's DVD's. Unfortunately being left out in the open like this made it vulnerable to Nathan's experiments, like what happens to Dada's screen when I hit it with my toy wooden hammer, and does drawing on the screens with my crayons make it prettier?? Hmmmmmm. So we decided we also needed a proper DVD player so that my laptop can be pulled out of the front-lines and returned to the relative safety of a desk!

I headed over to Officemax and bought a nice computer desk. It came in a flat box with user instructions to assemble it. I think the Da Vinci code was simpler to figure out than this book of instructions. Any way it took me the whole afternoon and evening to assemble. It was kind of fun, like a DIY challenge. But soon my muscles were aching from the turning of screws, and my palm is still bruised from the pressure that the screwdriver made. We also bought a HP Printer,copier and scanner so that we can now print out directions or make copies of our passports if needed! And of course, no home office is complete without a paper shredder! It's Liesel's favorite toy at the moment as nothing gives you greater satisfaction than hearing the whirring of blades as it pulls the papers from your hand and destroys them :-D

On Sunday, we headed for Church at 9am. Again we enjoyed it there and the pastor there had remembered our names and where I work, so we were impressed! During Liesel's and Nathan's afternoon nap, I volunteered to wash Liesel's Buick for her. It was the first time I had ever washed a SUV, and I don't think I will volunteer so easily again. There is a lot more surface area to cover than my Peugeot that I had in SA!! After the nap, we headed out to Circuit City to go and buy the DVD player that will be my laptop's saviour. We found the perfect one that has a VCR, DVD, DVD Recorder and Internal hard disk. This covers all our bases, so we can now get Videos or DVD's for Nath, and the hard drive option allows us to pause live TV (while it continues recording to its hard drive) then you can carry on watching when you want to. Also it has a feature that shows you all the programs for all the channels for up to 8 days ahead. You then just highlight the program you want recorded and push record. This will record the program for you without you having to set the date, time, channel or anything! Now that's something my mom would find useful!

Tomorrow I head off to the main branch of Key Bank in downtown Cleveland to meet the rest of my team. Then from Tuesday its back at my regular office and hopefully will be getting my hands into something more meaty this week (not talking about the free lunches I had ;-) )
I will only be updating this website once a week, as my life now consists of going to the office and coming home, and I am sure even the most committed readers of my blog like my mom would get bored with that ;-) I don't want to bore anyone to tears, so I will give weekly updates, unless something big, newsworthy happens during the week!

A just another day in Cleveland

Today was what I assume will become an average day for me. I was at work by 7:30am. I become rather isolated at work as their corporate policies don't allow us to access any web mail (like my Yahoo account), MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger, Skype or anything that could be counter-productive. So I sit there pretty bored, because I have not become involved in any projects yet. I listen to Cleveland's Christian radio station called The Fish, over the internet (one of the very few things that is allowed!!!) Have a look at their website or listen to their music, its really good. Click on the link on the right of the page.

As for Liesel, it seems that the medicine has started taking effect. Praise God! Her ear is still sore, but not nearly as bad as the previous couple of days. I am sure she should be fully recovered by Saturday morning. Thank you for your prayers, but please continue to pray for her for a full recovery.