Don't forget about Fee Fey Foe Fum! Check out posts and photos from the 10 weeks we spent in South Africa in 2008, a bunch of tasty recipes, and lots of pictures, videos and random thoughts from our day to day lives in Hudsonville.
On Saturday, we finally met the DiCocco’s. I had first found out about Billy, Trace and their family through my friend Sarah, who had met them at Mars Hill church. Trace writes a blog, which I began stalking as soon as I knew we’d be moving to South Africa. Strangely enough, my other friend Sarah and I later figured out that the family I kept going on and on about used to be her neighbors! Such a small world. The DiCocco’s have been living near Johannesburg for several years doing ministry with a few different organizations. I loved reading through her blog, seeing the pictures, and imagining what our life might look like once we moved to South Africa. As our move got closer, I began to email Trace and she would answer all my crazy and not so crazy questions. It was so wonderful to have someone over HERE who used to live right near us and knew all about the transition process. Since we’ve been her, we’ve continued to email and we also made plans to meet up with them to check out a ho...
We have almost reached the end of the winter holiday. Tyson and Jori go back to school on Wednesday. We have some fun activities planned for the next few days, but we will also be cleaning bedrooms and setting out uniforms and lunch boxes. Let the school fun begin! Overall, it has been a fun holiday. Tyson and Jori have both had school friends over to play, we've made it to church twice, we've been out for pizza, had donuts, did some baking, and more. Friday, however, was probably the highlight of the school holidays for us. The day started with Jori losing her first tooth! Our baby girl is growing up. We had a few errands to run and took the kids with us. While Darin was busy at Cashbuild ordering supplies for an upcoming building project at TYB, Tyson, Jori and I went to Pick N Pay and King Pie for a little treat. We shared with Darin, of course. We spent a few hours at home, then headed out at 3 for our big adventure. We drove slowly and took a mini game drive on ...
One of the first things we will have to acquire when we move to South Africa is transportation for our family. When we spent time there in 2008, we were fortunate to have made a connection with a lovely couple that was going to be visiting the USA for almost the same amount of time that we would be in South Africa. We were able to rent their vehicle from them for a much better rate than we ever would have found through a rental agency. To make this deal even sweeter, the car was an automatic. Yes, I am one of those people who has never mastered driving a stick shift. I've tried, many times in fact, but as many people know, sometimes it's just enough that I am able to keep my automatic on the road! There are many, MANY reasons why it would be better for us to by a car with a manual transmission. First off, they cost way less to buy and maintain. Automatics are not very prevalent in South Africa, which means the ones they have cost more and it's harder to get parts for them...