The return of Nate the Great

Woohoooo! Nathan seems to have fully recovered this week and he shared in a wonderful "make-up" weekend! The week started off with a strange e-mail in my Facebook inbox! DJ had tracked me down and was desperate for Liesel's contact details. Basically, Liesel and DJ were best friends in high school and had made contact for about 12 years. One day, DJ was looking at some people who had previously gone to Treverton on Facebook, and she saw a Liesel McCarthy. She slightly recognized Liesel, and saw that Liesel was married to a Grant McCarthy. She then googled me, and found my blog (that you are reading right now)! Here she saw photo's of the family and that confirmed to her that she had found "her" Liesel! After an 80 minute phone call to Liesel, we learnt that DJ is also living in the USA, just two states away from us! She is also married and has a 9 month old boy, WHO SHARES HIS BIRTHDAY WITH NATHAN!!! Now if you don't find that amazing, I highly recommend that you go to the nearest Emergency Room and ask the Doctors to find your pulse!!

On Saturday, Nathan had a "make up" class of his Little Gym, so the 3 of us went there just after 9am. He has such great fun at these classes where he plays with other kids, explores gym equipment, plays with balls and chases his parents around! After the class, we drove to Legacy Village, an upmarket shopping area on the eastern side of Cleveland. We had a look at some furniture there, but when we saw the price tags, we quietly walked away. Later that afternoon, Nathan and I had a swim. After dinner, we met up with our good friends from Church at Mitchell's Ice Cream. This place has the best ice cream in Ohio, and the flavors are phenomenal! I had double chocolate chunk, Liesel had Raspberry Chip and Nathan had cookie dough. It was his first ice cream in a cone experience, and by the look of his face (and the evidence on his shirt), he loved it! After that taste of heaven, Robin and Brian took us to a beautiful park/playground on Lake Erie's edge! Here the boys could have fun in the playground, and then go and play in the warm waters of the Lake together!
(Photos printed with permission of Robin A - Thanks Robin!)


On Sunday I went to throw away some of Nathan's soiled nappies (diapers). At the dumpster, I saw some nice looking chairs there, so I called Liesel and told her to go have a look. She actually saw some even nicer Adirondack chairs, that would go perfectly on our house's porch! The chairs were in perfect condition, just a little dusty, so with a little persuasion from Liesel, I backed up her car to the dumpster and quickly picked up those chairs and loaded them into the back of the Rendezvous! Then we also noticed a classy 6ft standing lamp, which I returned for after church and put it into our garage! So now I can say that I am officially a dumpster diver!! Heck, you NEVER get anything of this quality thrown away in South Africa! But as they say, one man's trash is another man's outdoor furniture set! Nathan took an immediate liking to these chairs....
Later that day, Brian invited me to go hit some golf balls with him at a driving range. It was great to get out and do something different on a Sunday afternoon! It's a pity though that 40% of my balls didn't go in their intended direction........

That evening after dinner, Liesel joined Nath and myself went to have another swim in our pool, so Nathan had a blast showing his mom how he jumps into the pool now, and some other new tricks! And that was our weekend... about 600% better than last weekend! It's great to have Nath back to his normal self! 4 weeks until we get the keys to our house!! Bring it on!