Looks like we will be staying in England, I mean, Cleveland for a few more years

God is so good to us!! This week I was made an offer to become a full time employee at my company! I met with my manager and she made me a very decent offer. After discussing it with Liesel, I have decided to accept the offer, and we will be staying on in Cleveland for at least a few good years. It is a wonderful feeling, knowing that we can start putting our roots down in a place, and starting to build our lives again! So its all good!! To celebrate our new sense of permanence, we went out and bought our first bit of lounge furniture. Its a chocolate colored sofa (with fabric protection for Nathan's creativity!) But the best part is that it folds down into a bed. So my mother now has a place to sleep, and she doesn't need to worry about sharing Nathan's toddler bed anymore ;-)

The weather on Saturday was as dreary, cold and wet as one could imagine from a mid winter's day in England. Between the gusts of 60mph (100km/h) and the frozen rain, the temperature hovered around the 0C mark. Not exactly playground weather! We headed to the mall for 2 reasons, indoor play area for Nathan and winter coat sale fore Liesel! While Nathan jubilantly ran around the rubberized fishes and tortoises, Liesel was busy saving over 65% on a winter coat! This coat will be generously donated to my mother for the duration of her trip to Cleveland. So my mother really scored this weekend!

Later on Saturday, we took a drive past Lake Erie. In the summertime, this is usually a placid lake with a few ripples, lapping at the shoreline. With the 60mph gusts, waves of 5 - 8m were generated! I had to see this for myself, and imagine my surprise when my eyes beheld surfers in water! Now that is worth writing home about!


Sunday's weather was brighter, with sunshine, and fewer gusts, although the wind chill still kept your nose and ears pink! This afternoon, Nathan and I made a brief appearance at the playground, but after 20 chilling minutes, we decided to go house hunting instead. It wasn't very successful, considering I inadvertently started the search in the more afluent areas of Westlake. And so ends another weekend (of many, many more) in Cleveland!

2 + 1 = 3 more videos!

My video page has 3 new videos! Go to http://mccarthys-videos.blogspot.com

Birthday celebrations, breath-taking autumn colors and BRRRRRRRRR

Tuesday was Nathan's BIG day. He turned 2 and it was time to celebrate. Watch the celebrations here! He is growing up so quickly, and its obvious by how much fun he had on his birthday. We hid most of his presents in one cupboard, and he soon caught on to the fact that this was the "pressie" cupboard! You just mention the P word and his face lights up as he runs toward you, then past you to the "pressie" cupboard! He was spoilt by us, as well as his extended family! It appears Fisher-Price will be making a better than expected profit this year from Nathan's birthday ;-) Our lounge should be re-labeled as the playroom, as I think now Nathan has more toys than we have furniture! But its all good! Besides, with the weather turning cold, he will be spending a lot more time indoors from now on!
Thank you all for you gifts, e-mails, cards and well wishes for Nathan's birthday, we value them dearly!

On Wednesday we won our volleyball match again and are currently placed 4th in the league! Really enjoying it!!

On Saturday, we hit the mall again as the weather was cooler, and there is no better place for Nathan to run around in a warm, safe environment. After we thought that Nathan had got his fill of slides, cars, tunnels, and fishes we stopped at the Christian Family Store to buy a couple of Christmas presents. That afternoon, the sun came out and now whenever the sun is shining, we jump at the opportunity to go outdoors. We drove to a park down the road from us that has some lovely trees, hoping for a display of the finest autum colors. We weren't disappointed. We also went for a walk along a leaf-lined pathway around a pond and through the trees. It was a lovely afternoon out! See for yourself on the Video page!

On Sunday, it was another wet and cool day in Cleveland. We went to Church and Nathan changed from the 1 year olds class to the 2 year old class! It was a missions weekend at the church, and it was quite amusing to see the Providence choir (all whities in their starched church outfits) singing an African song. Don't get me wrong, it sounded beautiful, but Liesel and I are used to dark faces, colorful outfits and some definite moving to the rhythm when a song like that is sung. So we had a good chuckle about that! The rest of the day was spent indoors as it was around 7C with wind. Right now as I am typing this up, its pouring outside with the temperature at 0C. The forecasters have predicted snow for Monday and Tuesday, and then again on Thursday and Friday. They say that the snow might accummulate this time around so I may be posting pictures of a white blanket covering the gardens here. Praise the Lord for Central heating though as, I am currently wearing a T-Shirt as I type this!

This week I plan to go talk to my manager about my job here, so please pray for me that it goes well, and I can get what I am asking for! Until next week ---> or a good dose of snow - whichever comes first!

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY NATH!!!

Dear Nath

Your mom and I are so thankful that you have come into our lives! You are an awesome little man and we praise God for you every day. We love seeing you develop and grow up, and are often amazed at what you can do! We are so proud of you and will do our best to give you everything you need for life! We love you so much and pray that you will grow up following God, so that he may shower you with blessings! Happy Birthday big guy!

Love mama and dada!

Two new videos!!!

On http://mccarthys-videos.blogspot.com, I have added 2 new videos. The one is from the Pumpkin Festival at a local nursery last week, when we took Nathan on a hayride. The other one is taken out of the sunroof of our car on our way to Church last week! We wanted to give you an idea of the neighborhood we live in as well as seeing some of the autumn colors in the leaves and fields! Enjoy!

Our first date night and our first snow - no, seriously

On Thursday this week, a triple cold front hit us! On the left is what the temp was for us! It is actually very unseasonal to get this kind of weather so early, but it is also a good wake up call for us, as its still going to get a lot colder! While at work on Thursday, I got a call from Liesel, saying that its snowing in Westlake! When I drove home I drove through a cloud that was spewing snow at me! It was quite exciting actually. Fortunately for us, the ground was too warm for any snow to accumulate, so as it hit the ground, it melted immediately. So there was no driving in snow or slipping on ice for me yet...... (yet being the operative word). The rest of the weekend remained cool with highs around 7C. Liesel and I are starting to change our perceptions because today was a lovely day for us - even though the temperature was 8C. In SA, we would consider 8C horribly cold and not venture outside, but in Cleveland if the sun is shining and the wind is not too bad, 8C is a cause to celebrate ;-)

On Saturday morning we went to IHOP (International house of Pancakes) for a mini-birthday celebration for Nathan. We also invite some friends from Church with their 2 daughters (3 & 5 years old) who Nathan just loves! We had some delicious pancakes for breakfast and Nathan behaved himself and had a really fun time with the two girls! In the afternoon, we went to these friends' house, as they had offered to look after Nathan for the evening for us, so Liesel and I could enjoy a date night - something we haven't done for over 8 months! We started by going to watch a movie (The Guardian with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher - Highly recommended!). At the theater, I ordered 1 medium popcorn and 1 medium Coke. When we got the food, the medium popcorn was about 2.5 times bigger than a South African LARGE popcorn! And the Coke, was easily 1.5 liters large. Luckily I didn't order a large combo ;-) After the movie, we walked over to a nearby restaurant. We were told that there was a 70 - 80 minute wait for that restaurant. We tried 3 other restaurants after that and they all had queues of people outside, so we eventually had to settle for a Panera Bread shop. This is similar to a Mugg & Bean and serve smaller, more "informal" foods, which turned out to be a good thing for us. Liesel and I were so full from the popcorn, that if we had gone to a proper restaurant, we know that we would not have been able to finish any thing and end up wasting money! So it all worked out perfectly. We returned to our friends' place to get Nathan, and he was still happily running around and playing with Faith and Sarah! It's good to know that we can leave him with our friends in future (even though Liesel sat with the cell phone on her lap the entire time.) But Liesel and I did cherish the time we had together and decided that we need to do this more often!

Pumpkin Festivals!

Can't believe another week has gone by and that we have now been in the USA for over 6 months! And in 7 weeks time, my mother should be enjoying her stopover in London on her way to see us! We have made reservations at a hotel 4 blocks away from the White House, so we will have a few days to spend in Washington DC with her. We are looking forward to going back to Washington and this time, looking at some of the Museums we didn't get a chance to last time. Of course, everything will be new for my mom, and I still haven't got the heart to tell her, that the Bush's don't just invite the general public or tourists into the White House for tea ;-)

On Wednesday, I played in our 2nd league volleyball match and unfortunately we lost this one 1-2. But at least it wasn't due to our own incompetence, the other team were a better team than us! You know you are going to be playing a tough team, when their girls are as tall, if not taller than you are, and they are diving all over the indoor court during their warm ups!

This weekend, we had lovely weather. Liesel left at 8am to go to a Kiddies market. She came back with some excelent bargains, such as Fisher Price toys for Nath, and some lovely woolen jerseys and polo necks for him, as well as a Potty toilet! Yes, it seems like it is time to teach Nathan the art of tinkling and toilet-going! Watch this space for updates.....

On Saturday afternoon we went to a local Nursery where they were having a pumpkin Festival. They had a number of inflatable jumping castles and Slides, as well as a Hay maze set up on their premises. Not to mention the hundreds (literally) of pumpkins that were for sale for Halloween! The nursey had a huge property that had a small dam (with ducks) and a paddock area witha horse and goat in it. They were also offering hay rides around the property and we took Nathan on one. He loved it, as the trailer was pulled by this antique tractor around the property. Nathan was very quick to point out the ducks, goat and horse to us and we slowly rolled past them!

Sunday, was another beautiful day, and as per usual, we headed off to Church. I took the video camera in the car with me so I could video some of area around us, and the route to church which is lined with trees starting to change colours for fall. People must have thought we were crazy driving with the video camera sticking out of the sun roof! Don't worry, Liesel drove while I was filming :-D I haven't had time to put the clips together yet, but I should have some clips up before next week's blog!

This evening we went to our first FLOCKS (Bible Study) group at some people's house just down the road from us. We had a great time with the people there, but we were even more amazed at how Nathan just seamlessly integrated with the other children there!!! He is growing up so quickly, as we realized tonight that he can be left alone (with a babysitter of course!) and keep himself occupied. He is not old enough to interact with the older kids yet, but he has no problem being around them!!! He makes us sooo proud.

As for this week ahead, a triple cold front is hitting us later this week, and the forecasters have even mentioned snow!!!! All I say is, "Bring it on!!!"

Here are some pictures of the Autumn colours. First one is Liesel's car underneath a tree that has now turned yellow.

If you're happy and you know it...

Watch Nath singing along and doing the actions for the well known song!

Click here => http://mccarthys-videos.blogspot.com

Life (and weather) returning to normal...

Things are slowly but surely returning to normal in the McCarthy household. The trunks have been unpacked and are being relocated to our garage. We are finally eating with our own crockery and cutlery, which means we can return the rented utensils, and save a few dollars a month! Nathan has a MOUNTAIN of toys to choose from and so we have included a 15-minute "tidy-up time" to his routine at the end of his day. By doing that we get to see the color of our lounge floor again ;-)

This week we were hit by a cold front and have been having lots of rain and maximum temps hovering around 10C (50F)! There was even a day when the mercury didn't rise above 9C! So basically we are experiencing Johannesburg's middle of winter in the 1st week of FALL here!! But it seems that the cold front moved off today and we had sunny skies and I could wear a T-shirt again!

On Wednesday night, I played in my first Volleyball Intermediate co-ed 4's game. For the uneducated, this means we play indoors, in matches with a team consisting of two guys and two girls. I have a great team and even though we won (2-1), we still had so much fun, just playing and teasing each other. I am looking forward to the rest of our games and hopefully continue with our winning form!

On Saturday, it was really cold and raining, Liesel made use of the seat warmer feature in our SUV! So we decided to go to a local mall so Nathan could run around and play in their indoor kiddies play area. It was so interesting to watch him play, because when there were a few kids in the area with him, he was an extrovert and ran around shouting at the top of his voice, Then when the area filled up with more kids, he retreated to himself, quietened down and became very cautious. then when the majority of kids left, he came out of his shell again!

While he was playing in the area with Liesel watching him, I went to go look at a sports store in the mall. This is no ordinary sports store! It has two levels and in the center is an artificial rock climbing wall that must be about 10 - 15m (30 - 45ft) high! I went to go look at volleyballs and in South Africa, you are lucky to find one, maybe two volleyballs in a sports store. Here, I found about 20 different volleyballs to choose from!

But not even that made my day! When I walked into the store I noticed they had winter jackets on a clearance rack. I do not have a proper winter jacket that would be able to withstand the Ohio winters yet, so I browsed through the rack. I came across a Nike 3 in 1 jacket. Basically, it has a weather-proof outer shell, and a separate fleecy jacket that is used as a lining. The fleecy jacket can be worn by itself, or for extreme conditions, it is designed to be zipped into the outer shell for double insulation. And of course the outer shell can also be worn without the fleecy inner jacket if you wanted a lighter weight weather-proof jacket. Now this was originally marked at $180, which I probably would have been prepared to pay for it, but since it was on clearance, it was marked down to $79. So for less than 1/2 price, I was definitely taking it. At the till, they ring it up and the final price is only $57!!! That is less than a 1/3 of the original place. GOD BLESS AMERICA ;-)

On Sunday, we headed for Church, and were very pleased to see the sun again. We had a great Sunday school class, and a good service that followed. After lunch and the afternoon nap, Nathan and I headed to the playground to enjoy the warmer weather while we could. We spent and hour on the swings and the slides and then headed home. So all in all that was a pretty normal week for us, and it ended with a lovely day!