Mac Moments

The Diva to outdo all Divas The Celine Dion concert, it better not rain and it didn't! She was fantastic, what a performance from an absolute Diva of note. She was friendly and is a complete entertainer and what a body for someone older than the Xtina's, Britneys and blah blah young crowd - she outdoes them by far! On a sad note, the organisers did a dismal job of finding a decent venue (there was no athmosphere and you could see that Celine Dion was battling to get the crowd to participate, I could not even hear my husband clapping next to me), some people were left standing with no chairs in sight for them for the duration of the show and when paying R1 000 a ticket you would expect to at least sit in a theatre, not on a piece of ground that looked like a building site, with gravel becoming part of your shoes, plastic seats that were tied together and set together so closely that you could feel the knees of the poor guy hunched up behind you and in the hopes that it was not ...

My morning was pleasant and relaxing, finishing my latest painting.. what do you do about someone who doesn't think past their own noses.... My son battles to express himself and is very straight forward, so when he wants something he'll say what he wants and expects people to listen and respond. what happened: well he was playing with his sister and cousins and his sister would not give him his hockey ball after asking for it (she can be extremely hard headed), in his frustration he told her that he did not like her. His cousin then took the hockey ball and told him to apologies, which he did. But she then would not give him the hockey ball and held it above her head so that he could not reach it. Frustrated, he started to cry and ran away to hide. His Dad then went to find out what was going on and Sean told him the story. Sean's cousins Dad then asked her what had happened and she related a different story. So who is right.... The next day I asked his sister what had hap...

Getting ready for the day

Goodbye Shirls and safe trip back to Ireland Swim baby swim - Sean's gala

Home again after a wonderful weekend....

Spent the morning recovering from the wine hangover, the bacon and egg breakfast definitely helped a lot! Thanks Heather..... The weekend was fun and Gran is an inspiration!

Tripping (literally) to Newcastle was a rather thrilling view of how wonderfully the roads in South Africa are deteriorating at a rapid rate, each time we travel we have to take the car in to be realigned at a wonderful cost of R450 per shot.....add the amount of times we go away on a monthly basis and it comes to 3 times that every month!!! love this government...don't you! So seeing Gran was heartening, she is still so strong and as much as she cannot remember a lot, she does know who you are and is still vivid enough to know what is going on. My Gran is great! Heather and Ati were wonderful hosts and made us so welcome and spoilt us rotten! Thanks so much it was a wonderful weekend! Jess had a party with the dogs, although scared to death in the beginning, she slowly warmed up to them as the weekend wore on.

Balls..... the funniest thing today! Sean, our 7 year old, "I got hit in the balls, Mom - haha". Mom "You don't have balls until puberty, when your voice starts breaking then your balls drop and you get real balls." Sean "no way Mom" Dad starts talking in a voice that is breaking, up and down, up and down......the voice went. Well we were in hysterics, you had to be there!!! Try it out with your kids, you'll see!

Popcorn, no not of the corn type but of the children type. The game of popcorn is played on the trampoline where the one child holds onto his legs in a little ball and the other one tries with an enormous amount of copious jumping to unbundle the little to pop open into a "popcorn" curnel! Very cute to watch and very funny to do..... Enjoy playing.....

So I wanted to write about just how life can actually be, how we must take chances and live every day as if it was your last day. A friend of mine just lost a friend to cancer and I think when you lose someone close to you, you realise how important it is to have had a happy life, a fulfilled life and to just live for today! Steven resigned from his job yesterday, both of us are still a bit stressed about the prospect, but you know what....? whatever will be will be, we are winners and always manage to make things work and prosperous.... so here's looking forward to a very prosperous business and a bloody great future! Sean did Karate today, so here is his little group practicing with Sen Sei...

Boring day back at work! So herewith our brood from the weekend! Jess (5), Kirsten (5), Sean (7), Megan (6), Dylan (6), Danielle (7), Michael (7) and Kayla (10 soon)

A nice long mountain bike ride was the order of the day on Monday morning. I made it up to the surprise of the guys, I was the only female who made it up! It was the greatest bike ride I think I have ever done, barring the jarring (need one of those shock absorber bloody expensive bikes - hint hint lol :) We cylced through the game that we had driven through the day before. So we had zebra and buck on either side of the road, it was wild (excuse the pun). I then went on another 8 kms on my own when the guys decided to go on another 30 kms. The extra 8 was definitely a better idea (hangover included), but the best part of the ride, was bumping into a Wildebees in the middle of the dirt rode. I decided it was a better idea to look a lot smaller than he was and he decided I was not a threat and ambled away. Thank God, as I was wetting myself and figured I did not have enough left in me by that stage to actually outride him, so I would have been a goner! We had to pack up on Monday and had...

Sunday was another lazy day in the sun. We spent most of the day lazing around again. Horse riding and eating eating eating. We went on a fabulous game drive, these photos are great....

Saturday was spent waking up late, having midday namps, some of us horse riding, mountain biking but mostly just chilling..... actually the whole weekend was about chilling! Sondela also has a rehab centre for injured animals, it is a great way for kids to get up close and personal with the animals and to see the great work that these guys are doing for the environment!

Africa is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. We spent such a wonderful couple of days at Sondela in the Waterberg area. I would recommend it to anyone. You feel so removed from the reality of day to day living, you can go horse riding (which we all did, coming back with sore bums!), off road cycling in amongst the game (no carnivores out there!), walking, and just letting the kids run amok without being too concerned that they would get in harms way. The safest we have felt in months, no alarm systems, no electic fencing, no beam alarms or cameras..... but cycling with a giraffe or wildebees facing you in the road felt safer. It is with sadness that I right this, because half the people we went with are all considering leaving beautiful SA, this includes us. As much as we felt so wonderfully safe (believe it or not amongst wild animals), we don't feel safe living and playing in our own backyards, with criminals jumping over the fences, holding people up, shooting, ra...

Happy Valentines Day everyone! My gorgeous husband gave me a Frans Groenewald card which is absolutely beautiful, my next pieces of art I am thinking..... I love the way he can twist words and paint a picture to go with it..... Sean was very sweet and bought me a little tea cup with a teddy bear in it, which we have named Valentine and Jess kept reiterating that she would be bringing me something home!!

So we celebrated Valentines day yesterday by going out for dinner....sushi yum....just to @#uk up the marketing plans of the whoever they are that created the day. Photos: I am so proud of my two little cherubs - Sean is doing fantastically well and Jess is coming on in leaps and bounds

I am not even going to lie to you, I am still feeling absolutely shot. This could be because I have rested a bit, and I am starting to feel the energy and adrenalin from the weekend ware away.... So as much as I have taken photos today, I am going to still include ones from the weekend. As I have said before, I have realised my life revolves around work in the morning and my children in the afternoon, so guess what my photos are always about! I need to find time to start taking some creative photos!!! So my photos are of food (the energy of life) and sisters!!

So I have decided to add some more photos from the weekend on here today, we are feeling exhausted and today was really about getting back to normal. Mom, Dad and Shirls left to go to JBay and Durban respectively so the house is quiet and we are ready for bed.....

Nice quiet Sunday after the business of the weekend!!! And some bubblies for Les and Paul's 18th Wedding Anniversary.....

Friday was a fantastic day, I spent it with my folks and then shopping with Mom and Shirley. Sean is getting great at cricket.... Shirls and I then had our hair done at Debs and we both came back looking fantastic. Steve and I went out and met up with some of my school friends, it was a fantastic night.... It is amazing how after 20 years your friends can still look the same and be the same, we had such a great evening! The time went really quickly and I wish that it could have lasted longer. So to Ronel, Alwyn, Tammy, Graeme and Gerhard, thanks for a fantastic evening...can't wait for the next time!

Mom and Dads' 50th Wedding Anniversary......what a wonderful day...... We had the most awesome day. We all worked hard to get everything together from the cake to the table to the food and drinks! When everything was ready the guests arrived and they were as excited as we were! Guests Included: Aunty Colleen and Uncle Eric (Pike) Aunty Maureen and Uncle Ian (Auret) Pam and Allan Lintott Debbie and Dave Pedlar (Pike) Shirley Cossavella (Pike) Lesley and Paul Dennison (Pike) Joanne and Harry van Tonder (Lintott) Steven and Denise McManus (Pike) and then all the kids...Robyn, Sean, Cameron, Jessica, Lauren, Megan and Dylan. We all had to concoct stories on how to get the folks to Lesley's house (where we had the party) without giving the game away, so Shirley had to let them know that they had to come up to Joburg as she could not get down to JBay, then we had to let them stay with me so that we could set up at Lesley's house and get Mom to have her hair done at Debbie so that...

We rushed around like lunatics today, getting pressies and going to banks and shops. My Dad cannot believe how far everything is here and how long it takes to get anywhere. But we had such a laugh at Jessica when she was at gymnastics, Dad could not stop laughing she was so funny. You had to be there!!! Sean spent the lesson taking photos of his Sister, so the picture today is taken by my baby boy!!

I love going to gym every morning, it gives my day such a brilliant start and I feel like I have done something for me. I almost feel cheated if I don't get to go....is that selfish! Initially I thought so, but you know what, the rest of the day I spend running after everyone else, so maybe not.... Well today we went to see Sean's teacher, as in Grade 2 he is taking 2 1/2 hours to do his homework which just finishes me off for the day. he should essentially be spending 1/2 hour a day on homework. He however tends to day dream or procrastinate or find something else interesting to do or talk about. Anyway she has given us a couple of extra incentives to work with so let's hold thumbs that it works. It is really hard to cope, discipline and work with an ADD child and unless you understand what ADD is and how it affects a child, you cannot even begin to imagine what it is like to get through a day with a child with it. And to all those who don't believe tha...

I was very proud of the kids today, they both are getting so strong at gymnastics. Jessica managed to balance on the beam (the high one) and she walked and jumped (wow). Sean is getting so strong as well and is managing to do a copious amount of push ups and dips.... The picture of the box is us installing the enormous amount of security you need to have in this country. All very sad.... We have put up electric fencing and are adding on with a front gate buzzer and camera system.