From the Horse's mouth!

Well, It's kind of weird to be writing on my own blog, but here i go...
Hello, firstly to all of you! (and thanks for being interested enough in me to be reading this blog, by the way)
I thought I'd update the blog for Eve this time, since she's been running around a bit lately, doing what she does best - Everything for everyone else!

We returned last week from a GORGEOUS week away with our family at Shelley Point - I must mention that it has to be one of the most beautiful spots on the planet! I have made a little comp of pictures of our holiday, so hopefully I can get the pictures uploaded okay. Anyway, when we came home Eve hit the ground RUNNING... more on that in a minute. She and Pete went camping for the weekend, so I mentioned to her that I might update the blog for her while she's away.

So, it's now 3 in the morning and i couldn't sleep. We started off getting to bed a bit late after having my folks around for a yummy dinner, so I thought it would be easy to fall asleep (trying to not rely on sleeping tablets) I tried getting all comfy, and that didn't work, we even killed mossies to ensure a good night, so the mossies were dead... and i was wide awake. I thought maybe 3 pages of my book might do the trick, so Adrian kindly agreed to me keeping my light on for a wee bit... but the 3 pages didn't do a thing ... now the light was out... but no.. still wide awake... so i had a brainwave - i used my ipod for a light for reading a couple more chapters under the duvet... which worked for about 20 minutes, but I have this thing about breathing stale air... so that got a bit claustrophobic. In hindsight, i should have thought of getting a snorkel out of the garage, to breathe fresh air from under the duvet, but that would have meant getting out of bed, and waking up even more. I'm glad I didn't do that, because, knowing me i would have probably stumped my toe on something lying around on the garage floor, and causing trouble than it was worth, and then, if i had got one, i would have probably been suspicious of spiders or something... Then... (and this is where you come in)... I had the idea of updating the BLOG.. so here I am.. (OOPS Dan's awake... see you in 10) - I'm back he was having 'silly dreams' poor little chap!

I'm sorry, I know I get really silly when I'm tired, so I'll try to be a bit more helpful with information.
Our time away... WOW what a lovely time we had! It is always such a treat to go to Shelley Point... we absolutely LOVE it there, and it has all the comforts one could hope for, which made my stay this time, particularly comfortable. (A big thanks to the van 't Hof's - who generously let us stay at their beautiful holiday home) The house is right on the beach, so we could watch Daniel fishing (95% of the time we were there) from the balcony (notice him telling a 'fishing story' with his hands to a new friend on the beach in one of the pics). Anyway, all was going well up until the day before we were due to leave. Adrian was diving for something interesting to put in a nearby rock pool (smallish shark or something) for the kids to look at. He had just found a really big star fish, and 'Queenie' (my mom) came leaping accross the rocks to show Megan what Adrian had found. From where I was standing, I could just see that my mom was not going to make it accross to the other rock from where she was - and then I saw her jump - oops! She fell really badly, and broke her arm. She couldn't feel her arm at all and when my dad got to her, he had to bend it back to face the right direction (gulp!). So ... Queenie ended up staying 2 nights in a nearby (very nice) hospital to have a long pin and 2 screws put into her badly fractured arm.
The up side of this little ordeal was that we got to extend our stay by an extra 2 days. (thanks again to Leen and Mies) on the last day (Sunday) as we were about to start packing up, the kids walked down to the beach with their buckets and nets, and we noticed that there were dolphins jumping out of the water just in front of the house, close to where the kiddies were - Adrian took the opportunity to gear up and go for a swim with them - pretty awesome! (managed to snap a pic with the kids and the dolphins - so that's why i put that pic in, too.. it just tells such a story, and summed up our time away beautifully).

Since we've been back, my folks have had their work cut out for them with big groups coming back to back for dinner, bed and breakfast. Since my dad's (right) shoulder was operated on a few weeks back - and is still very painful, and now my mom has her (left) shoulder in a sling and is in loads of pain - Eve has picked up the ball at Afton Grove. She should run for President. She's just too cute!

Okay, now seriously, I am still not in the slightest bit sleepy, but I am rather sore, and we're due to get up in a few hours, to visit friends up the line, so I should really TRY to sleep again.

Catch up again Soon...

Nikki

ps. in the pictures: Bianca dropped in for a day to visit us with her gorgeous 3 children, (our kids 2nd cousins) - that's them all in the pool