The Fey Family

I know, I know. I keep saying I am going to be better about blogging and then I’m just not. So I just won’t keep saying that I’ll do better. It is Saturday afternoon. We are leaving for a cell braai (cookout) in about an hour. Right now the kids are outside playing with beetles. I am so glad they are so easily entertained. We had a creature in our kitchen. We weren’t sure what it was, but three nights running it managed to grab the cheese off of the rat trap we had set for it without setting off the trap. Last night we decided to set the trap with something a little more difficult to remove - a piece of bacon and this morning we found out what has been leaving little turds in our kitchen cupboards - a Dormouse. It was fuzzy with a longer and fluffier tail than a normal mouse and kind of cute looking, more like a hamster than a rat, but now it is dead. I thought that was the end of creatures and turds in our house, but earlier today I was reading in the “hot tub room”, where the two h...

Marulas are small, yellow fruits, between the size of a puffy cotton ball and a golf ball. When ripe, they are a sweet fruit of white pulp surrounding a large pit. To eat the marula fruit, you bite off a bit of the skin, pop the fruit into your mouth, suck out the juice and a bit of the pulp and then spit out the pit. Marulas are a favorite snack for elephants. The trees that they grow on have strong branches that grow up high on the trunk, making them great trees for hanging swings. The only downside to hanging a swing in a marula tree is that the fruit, both ripe and unripe, often falls from the tree in large numbers and might result in a bonk or two on the head. In addition to being good for eating, there are several other fun things that can be done with these small round fruits. For one, picking up marula fruit is a great consequence for children, especially when your yard has three trees and the fruits seem to be falling by the hundreds. There was a period of several weeks wh...

My dad flew out on Thursday night. We are so glad that he could spend some time with us, but goodbyes do not get easier. The kids were both quiet and sad on the drive home and missing Papa reminded them of all the other people they miss. : ( We enjoyed a few meals at Mugg and Bean while my dad was here. My new favorite sandwich is the Warm Herby Chicken Sandwich, which is like Thanksgiving dinner on bread, only with chicken instead of turkey. Stuffing, cranberry sauce, herby chicken and delicious bread, YUM! Last night we watched the Super Bowl with some new friends. The Doritos commercials were among the best. I will also admit to loving the half time show. That Madonna has still got it! The kids had a great time learning how to play flashlight tag and we all enjoyed a good old American cookout, complete with potato salad, deviled eggs and baked beans. It is nice to know there are other Americans on this side of the mountain, not that American's are better than the other peopl...

For those of you who have been following our time in South Africa, both now and in 2008, you know that we have a friend named Amos who works at the house we stay at.   He mainly takes care of the lawn, but also does other small projects around the property and when we weren’t staying here full time, he also slept here during the week to provide some security.   Now the lions and elephants and rhinos tend to keep people from strolling around the bush looking for a place to break into.     Amos has 2 children still at home, along with his wife Sarah.   His sister and sister-in-law also stay with them.   He has a nice house in Hammanskraal that he built years ago.   Sarah works as a “domestic”, a term used here to describe a maid/nanny, in Pretoria and rides a bus there and back every day.   Amos and Sarah combined make less than $500/month in these two jobs.   To supplement their income, a few years ago Amos opened a “tuck shop”.   If yo...

Tyson's Lion Park Report We drove to the lion park. Then we got out. Then we drove around we saw all different kinds of animals even one that we don't have sable antelopes. Then we drove to where we parked. Then we went in. Then we saw baby meerkats. 3 of them. They're so brave that the big ones can take down a snake. They saw a cat and then they turned from side to side. They followed a airplane sound. We went into a baby lion cage. We got to pet them. One climbed on the roof of there sleeping thing. Then the same one that climbed on the roof climbed on the rocks. Then that one got a drink from their watering hole. Then we drove through lions we saw yellowish orngeish ones. Then just white ones. Then one in the yellowish orngeish group tried to lay on a male but it bounced back up. One in the white group is a star in a movie called White Lion. We also saw cheetahs they ran because of a truck. We also saw Wild Dogs they just sleped. Then we fed a giraffe. We fed him...

Hi again. Long time, no post. We are enjoying this special time that we are having with my dad. He was busy with Timothy Leadership training last week and Darin has been chauffeuring him around to various meetings this week. We are beyond grateful that my dad is able to use the talents and gifts God has blessed him with here in South Africa so that we can also spend time with him. It is so good to spend time with someone who knows us! On Monday my dad had a meeting with some people at the University. While he was in his meeting the kids enjoyed climbing trees and watching koi swim in a pond. We enjoyed a picnic lunch outside while we waited. When the meeting was over we headed to Johannesburg for a visit to the Lion Park. We had to call a friend to get directions as we are no longer able to look online for that information and were a little surprised when we pulled up to the entrance. We thought we had asked for directions to the Rhino and Lion Park, which is where we went back in 20...

After many weeks of struggle, our boy has lost his first tooth! We are ALL so happy to have that little tooth out of his mouth and in the pillow for the tooth fairy, or according to South Africa tradition, the tooth mouse. He has been fist pumping and saying "Yes" since the big event happened. We are so glad he has his courage back and now knows for himself that losing a tooth is really not such a painful thing after all.  One down and I don't even want to think about how many to go : )

It is Tuesday afternoon. The kids are outside playing something, either "Tuck Shop" or "Orphanage" seem to be high on their list to play these days. When they play Tuck Shop, Darin and I get to be their customers and they are always generous and offer us free sweeties. We were without power most of the day. Why, I couldn't tell you, but with Darin gone for a few hours, it just makes for a long day. A couple weekends ago Tyson went to church camp. He had a fantastic time, although he came home so tired that he could hardly tell us a thing about it. Here is the report that he wrote about camp: We drove to a camp named kimiad.  We only got to stay 1 day so sad hu.  But we still had fun because there was a pool.  I (Tyson) got stung by a wasp. That wasn't fun.  There was a tuckshop .   I got lots of  candy.  Do you know what they call golf here? (put put)!  We got to do games and do activities.  Our theme for camp was Psalm 139.   Darin and Jori dropped Ty...

Well, it finally happened. Our friends across the road no longer have unlimited internet : ( They were kind enough to let us borrow their wireless modem these past 8 months, but now they need to use it again as they also need access to the internet, even more than we need it as they have a whole organization to run. We have other friends who can loan us a modem, but not for a couple weeks, so I'm not sure how often we'll be able to get online right now.  If you do send us an email, please double check to make sure you are sending it to our gmail account, and not our old hotmail account as we are going to be even less likely to check hotmail now that we are so limited on internet.  If you share really exciting news on Facebook or on a blog, please drop us an email so we can share in your good news as well. Hopefully we can get our internet situation squared away soon. In the meantime, keep sending us emails! We love to hear from you.