Home sweet, amazing, beautiful home!

Ah, yes! I think have have told Liesel everyday since we moved on Thursday, how much I love our new home. Just to see Nathan have so much space to run around and explore makes all the hard labor, bruises, and tedious hours of packing and unpacking all worth it!

On Wednesday, we had arranged for all our new furniture to be delivered to the house. This included the washing machine and tumble dryer (washer and dryer as they are referred to here), our lounge suite (a 3 seater, 2 seater, chair and storage ottoman) and our bedroom suite. With these new additions in the house, the living area started becoming more "homely"!

On Thursday, I took the day off work, as well as my colleague Brian, who graciously offered to help with the move. I rented ourselves a U-Haul truck, and around 9am we started loading the truck with our American possessions. We started with the difficult and heavy things first, such as our queen bed, sleeper sofa and office desk. Once those we out of the way, we loaded Nathan's things and a heck of a lot of boxes and trunks. This took us less than 2 hours.... we were good! Did I mention that it was one of the hotter days of the year and the temperature was around 34C (92F)..... With our t-shirts clinging to us, as if we had entered a wet t-shirt competition, we went to go and pick up a refrigerator that our friends had given to us! Next stop, our new home!!! Unloading was a lot quicker, with special thanks to a dear friend Robin, who came to watch Nathan for us, which in turn freed up Liesel to help with the unloading! We had everything out of the truck in about 40 minutes. All that was left to do was to return the truck. The grand Total for the move was less than $60 for the truck rental, and $10 for its diesel. Not bad going for two IT guys! Thanks again Brian!!

The rest of the weekend saw Liesel going back to the old apartment to give it a good clean, and myself assembling media stands, shelving and office desks with my trusty cordless screwdriver/drill! On Saturday we realized, that our lawn was about 3 times longer than our neighbors and was probably being frowned upon by the neighbors, who religiously keep their lawns manicured. So off to the shops I go to purchase a new lawn mower for myself. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for me, when I came back with it, the heavens had opened up again and we were receiving another shower, which meant I would not be able to mow. That was OK since there were plenty of indoor projects to occupy my time!

On Sunday, I headed off to church at 7:30am for worship practice before the 2 services. When I got home at lunch time, the cloudy skies had dissipated and the sun was shining in all its glory. After lunch, i went and started up my mower and met the mowing challenge head on. It was quite tiring, since last time I mowed a lawn was about 13 years ago! That kept me busy all afternoon, not to mention the fact that my back is now glowing a deep red, as if I was radioactive!! When I had finally finished, Nathan had woken up from his nap and came to play outside with me. It's such a wonderful experience seeing your sun on his little South African scooter, heading down the driveway with a look of pure pleasure as he fights off a speed wobble! That look alone makes it all worthwhile for me! Then we put together a play gym, complete with twin slides, that we found on e-Bay, and has since been kept, dismantled in our apartment's garage. Nathan absolutely loved this new toy of his, and he played on it before and after supper! At bed time I said that we have to go inside now, and his response was "When my eyes wake up, I come play outside again!"

We are so blessed with all the space that this house has! (Sorry for rubbing it in DJ-but after being cooped up in the apartment for 15 months, I can't contain my excitement any more!!)

Keys! Glorious keys!

I knew we were off to a good start to the week when my volleyball team had a 3-0 win on Tuesday, with Liesel and Nathan witnessing the event! On Thursday, we were called to our realtor's offices, to sign for our house! These papers were successfully filed on Friday. Then on Saturday, we were called at around 3:30pm to let us know that the house is all ours and the keys are ready to be handed over! WOW! We rushed over as quickly as we could, got the little shiny metal object in our hands, and placed it into OUR front door to let ourselves in!!!

We were so fortunate to be left with a home in near perfect condition. One of our recent purchases was a fancy vacuum cleaner with a dirt sensor built in, that goes from green (clean) to red (filthy). For 80% of the house, the indicator stayed green, with it going to amber on a few occasions!

Nathan of course loves the "Big, big house" as he has access to 4 ceiling fans that he can control himself with a wall switch! There are usually tears flowing when we tell him that we have to leave and return to our apartment, but he does cheer up when we promise him that we will come back tomorrow!

Nathan after enjoying his doughnut reward, after a Saturday's morning shopping trip to buy things for the house!

Now that we have a big empty house, the real work lies ahead. After Nathan went to sleep on Saturday night, I went back to the house to drop off a load of his toys, and then did some vacuuming. I went home around 10pm as I needed to wake up early as I was again playing in the worship team at Church and had to be there before most people even wake up, at 7:30am! I am loving being a member of the Providence Worship team. This morning, I had my ear-bud monitors in, and they were connected to a wireless receiver giving me a whole lot of freedom. Does it get any better than this?? Oh yes, I remembered to turn my guitar on for both services this week, so I could be heard by my adoring fan, Liesel.

After church - we headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch, after which, we had to make a few more purchases for the house. Then as Nathan went down for his daily afternoon nap, it was Liesel's turn to go to the house, and she also vacuumed and did some cleaning! When Nathan woke up, his eye's lit up as I told him we were going to find mama at the "Big, big house!" When I got there, I had to change a few light bulbs and clean some hard to reach places, such as the light fitting above our stairway!

The rest of the week will involve a lot more elbow work, as Liesel cleans the kitchen until it reaches the Lippert standard of cleanliness! I need to paint a few rooms where furniture had covered some dirty marks, and plugging holes where nails were once holding pictures. This all needs to be done before Thursday, when I take the day off, rent a truck, and move everything from the apartment that we own, to the house. So signing off for the last time from my apartment in Westlake.... good bye. See you next week from our new house (hopefully the internet connection will be up and running by then).

One of my favorite songs!

"Simply amazing" is only way to describe this video!

Who Am I - Casting Crowns

Birthday, Balance beam, Bedroom and a basement inspection

Early this week, North-East Ohio experienced some severe weather! At least 4 tornadoes touched down in various spots, and a number of torrential downpours that turned streets into canals! Liesel was even forced to cancel one of Nathan's gym classes as the roads were impassable! But fortunately for me, the weather cleared up and I had a lovely birthday on Wednesday. Thank you to all of you who phoned, or sent me e-mails, as it really did mean a lot to me! I was spoilt by Liesel and Nathan, and that evening we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner! I had to have my favorite American dessert, Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake! The perfect reward for putting up with a couple of extra gray hairs :P

On Friday, we had our final home walk through! We were actually very interested to find out whether the severe weather had impacted the home's basement in any way, as a number of people reported flooding in their basements after the rain..... and we are so happy to report that the home is still in a perfect condition. And I think I may have stumbled upon somebody who is actually more of a neat freak and hygiene hero than Liesel!! Yes, the lady who is selling the house has officially taken over Liesel's crown. She has kept her house spotless, even as they are packing up their possessions into boxes!! I bow to her ;-)



The exciting news is that this time next week, we will have the keys to our new house in our hands!!! We can't wait, as even Nathan didn't want to leave the house after our 30 min walk through on Friday night!

On Saturday morning, we took Nathan to his make-up gym class, and here I could see him just loving every minute of it! He even managed to climb up on the balance beam (set at about 1 foot above the floor) and walk across the entire beam unaided!! But what really made me proud, was when at the end of the class, the children collect bells to sing the closing song. One little boy was too late to get his own bells, but Nathan, on his own accord (without even looking at us), walked up to the little dude and gave him one of his bells to play! WOW! Liesel, you are doing an amazing job of raising our little gentleman! Thank you!

After the class, we headed off to a furniture store, and finally, found a bedroom suite that we both liked, was solidly built and met our budget! Woohoo, now all the big ticket items for the house are taken care of, and these should all be delivered next week, the day before we move into the house!!

My International Debut

Does being a South African, playing for the first time in an American worship team, constitute an "international" debut? Well, let's pretend it does ;-)
Today (Sunday) I played for the first time with the Providence Worship team, and I had a great time. I only had one "minor" mishap, was that I forgot turn my guitar back on after tuning it before the first service, so no-one could hear me! So there I was playing to myself, thinking that the ear-bud monitor system I was using was missing something..... me! After the first service, I was told by the sound desk that I had not been picked up at all throughout the service, including my solo intro for one song. Oops! But for the second service, I checked and double checked, and made sure I was "on" and being heard. It went a lot better the second time around ;-) Luckily we have 2 services each Sunday, so I can fix all my mistakes the 2nd time around!
Our friends Robin and Brian even made a special effort to come watch me play today at church! Thank you, sorry that you couldn't hear me :-( Next time will be better, I promise.

This week, the worship team made use of the earbud monitor system that I mentioned last week, for the first time.

This took a bit of getting used to, but the benefits are incredible! The guitarists will soon be getting wireless earbuds, so we can move around more freely! Today I was using a wired set of monitors that take some time fitting snugly into the ear. But once in, we have the ability to mix our own sound and it makes a huge difference!

On Friday, some friends moved into their new house in Avon. We drove past their house at around 6:30pm to see if we could offer any help. When we arrived there, there was no-one at the new home. However the front door was unlocked, the garage door wide open with a variety of furniture pieces placed on the garage floor. Also, the children's bicycles and toys, were left outside the house on the driveway! According to our friends, this was left like that all day, as they drove between the 2 houses, transferring stuff. We explained to them how this would never be possible in South Africa, as any thing valued at more than R10, has a tendency to grow legs and be liberated! Speaking of moving in two weeks time, we should have the keys to our house in our hands! We will be doing a final walk through inspection of our new house this Friday evening.... woohoooooooo!

On Saturday, we continued our quest to find the elusive bedroom suite, but again return empty handed :( On the brighter side, we did get ourselves a stunning six seater dining table from Costco on Wednesday, and tied the table top to the top of Liesel's Buick and drove it home where it is now in our garage! Sorry Brian, a few extra boxes to move :P My colleague Brian, has graciously offered to take a day's leave and help us move into our house. Thanks Brian!!!!