Eli my little helping hand with the pool cleaning

Goofing around after a swim.

We spent a lovely day with the Salzwedel’s enjoying catching up, eating, quick dips in the sea and splashes in the pool. While the braai was going, Grace and Eli spent some time relaxing on the floor and listening to Beatrix Potter stories on a CD.

We needed to clear some reeds from the pond today, so I was in the water cutting, hacking and sawing the reeds to get them under control. Eli and Grace were busy helping to collect the bits which fell into the water.

Grace has wanted to take a swim with the fish for a long time, so she was asking if she could go in. I didn’t really want her in, as I was thinking that it would cause issues with Eli wanting to get it. At one point Grace was struggling to reach the bits of reed floating in the pond, so I decided to let her have a “swim” with the fish. She was in for a short while feeling the cold of the water and getting to grips with the slipperiness of the pond.

Eli now felt that he really should have a turn, and was trying to climb in on his own. I wasn’t going to get out of this one, so in he went for a brief stand in the pond and then out again. Luckily he was happy to get out after a very short dip.

And that makes today the official first swim in the pond day for Grace and Eli.

Grace has been working hard at the hundreds board, which you can see from the photos of her classroom. Thanks to Newberry for the photos.

Working on the hundreds board

Learning to read – working on phonograms

Completing the bird’s eye view, which takes some time to do

Grace was running a fever today, did not go to school and lay on the couch most of the day. She even had a sleep with Eli…and if Grace sleeps in the day, you know she is feeling terrible.

She was looking even worse and her temperature was high at the end of the day, so we gave her the strongest stuff that we had, which fortunately broke the fever. Thirty minutes later and she is bouncing off the walls, super happy to be feeling better, and riding scooters around the table with Eli.

Hopefully the fever stays down.

Grace had quite the exciting day today. It started off with an owl in the pre-schools’ tree. She took a book to school and got to read it to the class. She sat in the teacher’s seat and was chuffed with herself. Close to the start of this term Grace said that she really wanted to do the bead cabinet work, but she wasn’t able to start because she still needed to master some other things. Today she was very excited to report that she started working on the bead cabinet, in her words, “I’m so good with numbers!”

After such a busy day at school, she went on to swimming and learnt how to do breaststroke. Today was the first time she was introduced to breaststroke, and she picked it up incredibly quickly.

Helping Eli tie shoelaces this morning

At the end of school today Grace says to me, “I’ve got such exciting news,” and she goes on to explain. “Kai from Lindy’s class and Jackson, a toddler, were on the seesaw and Kai was so gentle that Jackson didn’t fall off!” I’m not sure why this was so exciting, but it was the first piece of news that Grace shared, so she thought is was exciting.

Grace seems to be having a sensitive period for reading and she is coming home with different reading work that she likes to practice. Today she brought home a book, “Ben and the hen,” which she enjoyed reading to Eli at story time tonight.

Spice was suffering from kidney failure, and after a stint in hospital and a little bit of hope of recovery things just kept getting worse. We took him for his last visit to the vet this afternoon. We all had our chance to say goodbye, but it was a difficult thing to have to do.

Spice was such an amazing, super chill cat and we’ll miss him. Coffee will never be the same again, as he always used to come for cappuccino foam. Cappuccino foam was how we taught him to sit on command. He was a big cuddly teddy bear who didn’t even mind when our children lay on top of him.

The prize winning kitten photo

Spice never had a problem with water

How about some fish for dinner?

Goodbye Spice, we’ll miss you

We spent a lovely afternoon with our friends the Parkers, and on the list of things to do was dig a hole…

I just love Karen’s micro burgers (which looks bigger than it really was). They were so cute, and you feel like Gulliver in Lilliput while eating them