At the mall!

We braved the mall this weekend. To put you in the picture, I hate the mall, Tersh loathes it & Max...well let's say...if he comes with ever, I need to take Valium before hand.

We headed out to the large Pick 'n Pay hyper in Ottery, we had heard through the media it had undergone a major revamp, so we thought we'd hit groceries & last minute shopping for Christmas all at the same time, whilst having 'an improved shopping experience'. We got there early, so by 9.30am we were already in the store trawling for the goodies we needed. 15 minutes later Max was climbing the walls, Tersh was in his happy place...& I was cursing the person who invented super stores, vowing to give internet shopping a bash. Then in a moment of genius, I wondered if maybe Max was just hungry.(He has been growing like a sprout over the last 6 weeks; 2cm according to the doc). One of these & a toastie sorted him out.....thankfully there was a restaurant inside the store. (Hunger can be a crazy thing sometimes~ Hahaha!)

The Christmas vibe was everywhere...blasting out of the radio overhead, decorations, store staff dressed as elves...they pulled out all the stops. (I admit we did have a moments silence for all the male store staff, dressed in green & purple tights, pointy hats complete with fake elf ears attached.) Sad & tell you sad, to see them cringe & jiggle as most of the women who pass by drop their eyes to their....crotches. I hope the $ was worth it? ROFL!!

With all the festive decorations out, Max had a ball & insisted on touching each display we passed...my cheque book winced each time. I had visions of smashed decorations raining down on us...where oh where was the Valium when I needed it?

On a different note, we found with the store revamp, that they had installed a shiny new spice section...Wow! it was a sensory overload...the colours & smells had my mouth watering in minutes. I spoke to the Indian lady there, who said if I came back sometime, she would mix me up a special blend of spices to make curry just how I remember it, from my days in Durban (Laci's I'll let you know how it turns out:o)

Afterward we headed home to spend the rest of the weekend in the pool. The temp's soared to 35-40C....bloomin' hot I tell you, especially as we were in long sleeves just a couple of weeks ago. There was no adjusting...Summer arrived with a bang!!

This is where I hope to spend most of our Christmas break.....bum in spotty chair, drinking copious amounts of diet Pepsi & reading a good book. Bring on summer....woohoo!! I can do this!

Well girlies! That's my news...I'll be in touch in a couple of days!
Later!
KJ
x

Fair time!

We had a cool weekend past....the weather was a scorching 30 degrees C & we found out the hard way that factor 30 suncream doesn't work!!! Thankfully it was only me with my open neck top that got burned...the guys got off lightly. I'll go for factor 50 for sure next time.

It was Carnival day @ Cass's school, where no expense was spared to put on the slick well organised fair. The only dampener was that everything was horribly overpriced...& we felt well & truly ripped off; firstly by the entrance fee & then by the price of tickets for the rides. I kept having to remind myself it was all for a good cause. Funny how even though I knew that, it still made me feel used.

We met Cass there...she was dressed to the nines, with a bunch of equally dolled up tween buddies. They were strutting their stuff in their micro shorts, leggings, gold pumps, large sunnies & mini handbags. I have to tell you, I was EDU+CATED about how 'not-with it' I am when it comes to what the girls consider to be cool fashion. I thinking I'm going to have to brush up a bit, otherwise Cass is going to seriously think I am a total fashion dweeb :o)

I am about to show you photo's from the day but you will notice that she doesn't feature much, reason being:  I was told that at school...'Mom's aren't cool, especially if they are weilding a camera, so I was to stay with Daddy & NOT take any pictures'.  I did lay low...well almost....*sly wink*, except she caught me :o)
This is the only pic I have of Cas...notice her defensive body
language...hahahaha! I thought I'd gotten away with her not seeing me.
(she's on the right & her buddy is on the left)

Max on the other hand, had the time of his young life....& being limited to three rides (on account of the expence) made his choice carefully....well we thought so at the time.

First it was the rocket ships....

He of course did it his way...which almost shattered  my nerves. I threw my name away by yelling at the top of my lungs for him to 'Stop standing...& sit the heck down!!' ...all he did was grin at me with absolute glee on his face...little blighter!!!

Then it was the octopus....which only made him more manic with excitement. My frayed nerves were only marginally calmed by Tersh being on it with him.

Then came my undoing.....this dratted ride....

It was so bad watching from the ground, that I almost needed a medic. What made it worse was the height of the darn thing, together with Max's lighter weight & the velocity of the spinning; Tersh had a really tough time keeping him in the bucket & I saw panic on his face (t's) more than once. Max on the other hand looked as though he was in boy heaven.... with (almost* I hope) no fear. I never thought in a million years that at 4 years he would be OK to go on rides like this.....he's got no problem with heights, this I know for sure. His need for adrenalin, we will have to deal with as it arises. Right now I prefer denial...from now on as far as Max is concerned, 'the carnival is never coming back to Cape Town'. I'll need at least a year to recover from this one.

The hightlight of the day was the ULTRA cool bikes & racing cars on display. Even I enjoyed looking at them. Tersh said I can't have a Harley Davidson....:o)

This was Max's favourite car...he has been telling us about it ever since....the make, colour, spec's, special features.....Yup! he's memorised them all....it's his 'thing' in life to know all about cars. Cute huh?

Well lovely ones....that's all for now. I thought I'd quickly drop you a line while I was waiting for my paint to dry.....yes literally.I have a ton of L.O's due this week; so I am scrapping myself into a coma and the one I am busy with has paint on it. I know...I am stepping right out there by adding paint hahaha! but I've gotta get over my fear of messing them up sometime hey?

So have a super dooper day!
Chat soon.
KJ

Airshow!

Saturday was our city's annual airshow. We together with hundreds of others queued for ages to be WOW'd by some of the most amazing air displays I have ever seen.Unfortunately, unless you were privileged enough to be classified as VIP, you couldn't get up front, or even see the runway for that matter; so we had to make ourselves comfortable to just park our bums on the tarmac between hangers & look up.
They had an amazing mixture of commercial, military & private aircraft showing off their expertise at hanging upside down long enough to make us all cringe. It was all alot of fun....just so FAR to walk from the car parking, then to each hanger display, then to the airshow. I was mighty grateful we had the bright idea of packing Max's old buggie from the far recesses of the garage, for him to sit in just in case he got tired. Being too wide for it he really looked funny squished sideways the whole time...but he didn't care....he didn't have to walk & for him that was heaven.
The highlight of the whole day for Max, was watching the army divers do their thing in an enormous yellow water tank....he kept exclaiming :

"SEE Mama...that's what I want to do!!"

Anyone who knows Max, knows that it is his hearts desire is to be a diver/astronaut one day.....the diving thing I can help with...the astronaut thing...um...do they even have a Space center here in South Africa...or Africa for that matter??? We'll have to see about that one. For the moment he is happy to be riding in the back of the plane....complete with in flight movies....juice & snacks on tap & the promise to be in a different country by morning. Cosmo kid in the making.
It was certainly fun to be outdoors with the sun shining....for the moment Spring has decided to grace us with her presence...but for how long :o) :o)

KJ
XXX

We got around!

We really got around this weekend....so much so that we were hardly home....unusual for the Watson's :o)

Friday saw Max at his buddy Tristan's birthday! Fun was had by all running themselves ragged around the forest, with water bomb balloons, races & hunt for the present. Oh the joy of being 4!!

The obvious highlight was searching for unpopped paint balls in the undergrowth...then squeezing the paint all over each other :o)

We got home to Cass having arrived...Max was over the moon as usual to see his sister....he thinks she is the BEST thing since sliced bread....so our jaunt to the beach on Saturday, whilst there was a lull in the torrential rain, was great! We ate snacks & enjoyed the sun on our faces....even though the stench of rotting kelp was gag-city! The leap tides have washed huge piles of the gross stuff onto the boardwalk. Yuck...it has got to be my all time worst smell!! It didn't seem to faze the kids & they had a blast at the play park there.

Sunday saw the beginning of the downpours again...so we headed into the city to the museum & planetarium for the afternoon.

The grouch in the front protested audibly that he was sick of me & my camera~ hahahaha! Get used to it buddy I said....living with a scrapbooker has it's challenges (I don't know if he quite got it though) :o)
The whale pit was amazingly well done....made up for the rest which was super boring & smelt of mothballs!

Sandwiches in the park put a smile on his dial in a flash!
(About 2 minutes after this pic was taken, the heavens opened and we had to sprint for the museum again!)

I wanted to leave you with one of Maxi's sculptures. He does this sort of thing all the time. He finds a variety of things around the house & piles, pokes, balances & coxes them into shape...and they have to be just right. Once he is happy he calls he to look at his newest "Artwork" (his word). Most of the time he says he built it for me because I am so special! Can't beat a reason like that, can ya??? Certainly pulls on my heart strings :o)

Well that's all guys! I am going to try & get some sleep...I am bushed from coughing all of last night...yip! I have that awful flu again!
Anyhow....
Have a goodie!
Chat soon.
KJ
XXX

Celebrate!

It was our 6th anniversary on Wednesday! Yes...6 years of wedded bliss...with a cherry on top. Don't get me wrong we have our fair share of hurdles, but we have gotten through them, I think because of a mutual decision we made right from the beginning . 'Never to go to bed angry with each other'... rather stay up as long as it takes to sort it out. That little rule had stood us in good stead & here we are today still very much in-love :o)

To celebrate. we got ourselves a baby sitter (yeehaaah!...this is a rare occurrence in the Watson household & we made the most of it). We headed out for good steak at a local restaurant & a movie.

The meal was outstanding...we even splashed & imbibed in a cider each...woohoo! Go Watson's!! As you can see from the pic...there was no pomp & ceremony, as soon as the babysitter arrived...I popped a sweater on...made sure nothing was stuck in my teeth & headed out. We didn't want to waste a single second.

Afterward we went to to see the Batman movie. Bleuh! what a let down. We, as serious marvel comic & sci-fi fans....thought it was a 'load of horses'...shame & to think that poor actor lost his life over the role he played in it....which was a great performance by the way, just so meaningless in the greater scheme of things. We got home around midnight & felt like kings!!

In honor of our special day, Maxi remembered that I loved lily's & picked me two from the pond at the end of our road....it touched me so much, sweet child. Seeing this pic of them reminded me of the day T & I eloped. I held lily's too that day.

A little walk down memory lane :o)

Our special day, done our way. We were ridiculously happy & cried alot hahaha! Not very flattering for the camera...'snot on the face' heehee! The very next morning, the 11th of September, we flew out to the London for our honeymoon, where T met my parents for the first time.

Good memories!

My passing thought guys, is that marriage is SO important. Through it, God uses our relationship with each other to smooth off our rough edges & teach us about love, forgiveness, compromise, selflessness & grace. He uses marriage to prepare us for life with Him one day. So protect it, cherish it & be ever vigilant to work at it because (the grass is NEVER greener on the other side) if you get my drift.

Enjoy your weekend.
*Hugs from way down south*
XXX

#3 RAK winner is.....

Our guest selector "Clucky-benylin-phil-notty" the toad, pulled the name out of the hat in record time.

Well done Paula......!

Your little 'something' will be in the mail soon. The soonest I will post the next challenge, is later today, because I am about to head out with my bloke on a day time date. Not having PM baby sitters, we catch a day time date everynow & then and are heading to Cavendish for lunch at the Gourmet Burger...thanks for the tip Jo!
So thanks again for all the beautiful L.O's submitted girls.....you are all STARS!!!
XXX

A HAPPY DAY!!!

Yesterday was T & I's 5th wedding anniversary! Yip, we made it through another wonderful year together. It has been interesting, funny, stretching and on a scale of 1-10....10!! T & I are still very much in love and looking forward to spending the next 5 years together. You know you've got it made, when it feels like you live with your best friend!!

The last couple of days have been great! I have frantically been working on some scrapping projects and I am pleased to say that they are finally finished and sent.
Wheeeu! the pressure was enormous.....I am reluctant to say anymore about them at this stage but hopefully I will able to soon, so hang in there I will keep you in the loop.
Pressure is a funny thing isn't it??? It has this weird ability to fill your body with hormones and chemicals to sustain you while you need to be in top form but as soon as the pressure is off so to speak and reality kicks in, so ends the natural 'uppers' your body is filled with. I don't know about you but the result is normally one of the following:

1) you get sick
2) all you want to do is sleep!

Well the latter hit us on Sunday arvi and ....wait for it.........

TA-DA!

All x3 of us managed to have an afternoon sleep....together.......in our big bed. This folks is a momentous occasion because the Watson's never sleep in the arvi, we never have {not that we haven't wanted to} but other than a couple of times while my folks were with us......we just don't {or can't is more accurate} sleep.
I even managed to get the evidence to prove it...LOOK MUM it happened!
The result was x3 very happy & contented people. So much so that when T & I were asked by Max to: "talk the cars!" we both exclaimed: "Sure Maxi, lets go!"
{for those in the know....this task is never tackled with much enthusiasm...ever!}


The afternoon was rounded off rather nicely with a walk around St James.......admittedly the tour of the art galleries was short lived because the stress of potential damage bills courtesy of a a curious little boy, was too much for the Mama and we headed off to find something else to do.

Oh there was one funny thing that I must mention.......Maxi found a piece of art that he decided he loved.

I think it was the: "It is soooo beautiful Mama!" said it all.

It was a wooden bust of a voluptuous, headless woman. He was fascinated and kept wanting to go back and see it again and again. Bearing in mind it was completely abstract in execution...so how he related to it I have no idea???It must be a male thing.

Anyhow we wondered around the back streets of ST James, where we happened upon this really great park. It was nestled in amongst some delicious new modern houses and some of the original quaint period houses. It was really weird tho', because as lovely as the surroundings were, we still didn't feel safe enough to sit back and just let Max play by himself. With so many North African people having moved into the area into rentals, one is never quite sure if the rumors of "the apparent drug industry' are true or not. Hence the parents were ever vigilant over the yellow haired kid who stuck out like a sore thumb in the mix.



Our ever more obsessed boy was deliriously happy, when he discovered these little beaut's parked down one of the side roads.... Could this be the beginning of a life time love affair, I wonder??? {Together with every conceivable version of VW combi's and bugs that were ever manufactured!!!}

In his little world Mini Coopers & VW's ROCK!!!

Well lovely people I am going to go now and see to my sick boy. He was running a 38.8 degree fever a couple of hours ago and nurse Mama is needed {not that the nurse knows what the heck she is doing......HELLO GOOGLE!!}. Have a good nite and hopefully I'll post again tomorrow, that is if we are graced with some sleep tonight.

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