Wednesday, December 26, 2012

It's Christmas Time, in the City

 Time to go sledding~!  Josh rides a mattress down our steps. 


Of course there are Christmas trees for sale
 in the parking lot. 
 These long needled pines are maybe not what Americans are used to for Christmas trees, and the sellers don't sit in the parking lot in shorts where I come from. 
Josh poses next to a fine specimen of a Christmas tree.  We have a fake one in our house, and it isn't quite this big, but it is an evergreen.   

 It was so fun to have our great-nephew and niece, Daniel and Connie around for the holidays. Here Connie models her innovative use of a scarf for a nappie (diaper). Desperate times call for desperate measures!

Here Connie demonstrates that true happiness is not sharing your new pram with your brother!  She wanted exclusive rights, and was a bit miffed to discover it's a family pram. 

Another little things that may gave me a little culture shocks included hearing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" sung as the special song in Sunday morning church.  :-)   I wish I could think of more to share, but I'm afraid I don't notice them all any more. 

Sunday, December 23, 2012

A white Christmas Sunday

 See all that white to the left of the church?  It's fine white sand.   Today Paul preached in a  church in Vrygrond (Free ground) which is pretty close to our house. 
The last time we visited this church, there was quite a large parking area beside the church, but the pastor told us the story of what happened.  He came to the building one day, and in the night, some drunks had stolen the fence and sold it for scrap metal so they could buy more drink.  The southeasterly wind that blows fiercely around here sent enough sand so that parking lot looked 2 feet deep in some spots, and anyone who parked there would probably need a 4 wheel drive to get out again.

But they were rejoicing.  A Canadian church is donating money for them to get a wall around the building, and the local  city council said they would send equipment to dig out the sand. 

So Paul preached, and the church had Communion and the rest of their program, and handed out food packets as this is in quite a poor neighborhood.  Josh and I split a plastic shot glass of grape juice for the Communion.  I think kids don't generally partake there.  Earlier in life, I'd have asked Josh to forgo for the day, but now I feel strongly that the saved, whether children or adults, begin to participate in Communion when they are saved.  They're not on probation until they are 18;  they are just young believers. 

I notice Paul is getting bolder as he gets older.  He's starting to hit modesty a lot harder then he used to.  It's appalling the amount of skin we see in church some times, some of it shaking and jiggling in the leaders of "worship" in the front of the church.  It's time to remind/teach ladies of what they do to men.  We're finding men are sometimes scorned for their "weakness" toward lust in immodestly dressed women, but that is how the Lord God made them.  I guess there's sin enough on both sexes, but...I was talking about Christmas.  May we all be decent even in the heat of summer!

Merry Christmas! 

Sunday, December 2, 2012

The Changing of the Guard

 OK, Mom was seriously lax with the camera, and only got a few pictures of the party yesterday, but it'll give a glimpse of the sword fighting in the park...

And the
tender moment in jail in Capture the Flag at the beach.
 I had an excuse on that one. I thought my camera would get all full of salt and sand as a southeaster has been raging through here for days, reminding me that we live at "the Cape of Storms" as this Cape was originally called, and then also called The Cape of Good Hope.  I imagine sailors just hope they get to the Cape before they go under from the wind!
 It's always nice to see what Grammy and Grampa send from across the sea.
 I'm looking forward to teasing Tim about being loony when he wears his new Maine loon t-shirt.
And then came the changing of the guard.  Timothy has been our breakfast cook for 5 years, after Evangel did her 5 years, now he got to present Josh with this new blue frying pan as Josh begins his breakfast cooking years.  Maybe no one will notice when his 5 years are up, and we can go for 10!!! 

He's quite excited about the chance to cook, so don't think otherwise just because Evangel has a bull whip in her hand.  That was just another birthday gift for Tim.

Now I'm making him a card with "Finally, my son-ling, be strong, put on the whole armour of God..." because he likes armour and strategy and all that battle stuff, AND because I found some little miniature armour to stick in the card.  He'll love it.




Snail Pizza

I have dozens of cute pictures of babies, and children, and dashing teens, so why do you need to see this gross picture of my snail pizza? 

All I can think of is because it is so gross!  All these slimey, oozy snails, collected along the west wall of our back yard/garden in about 10 minutes...it's like a new horror movie where snails take over the world, sliming everyone to death.  (If they would slim me instead of slime me, I'd like them better.) 
 Obviously there's enough of a kid left in my aging body to still like to gross people out. 
After I collected them, I ran upstairs to show the kids, and Evangel proceeded to make an alphabet out of snails, so you may be seeing more of these babies.  She's thinking of making stationery with
SNAIL MAIL
spelled out in snails at the top! 
 
Cheap missionary humor, at it's finest. 
 
"Then was their mouth filled with laughter..." taken slightly out of context from Psalm 126.