An Outing to the Heath

On Thursday we took my dearest mother to the bus depot in Plettenberg Bay as she was going down to Cape Town to visit her mother for a week. My granny stays in a log cabin in the Bain’s Kloof mountains. She has her very ‘own’ river and the sweetest little garden where she even grows vegetables – but more on that in another posting! We made the trip worth our while by supplying one of our shops in that area called ‘The Heath Trading Store’. On the premises there is also a restaurant, wood shop, jungle gym and foofie slide.

While my dad took the fudge into the shop, we played with our three little ones: Lady Beth, Miss Gabrielle and Rebekah at the jungle gym. We decided (Nancy and I) to take them on the merry-go-round first...

The merry-go-round was made of little cars and Rebekah made a choice of taking a ride in a little yellow one – Nancy had to push them!

Lady Beth riding in a blue landrover!

And Miss Gabrielle decided to have a spin a white landrover...what a lady!

Then the two girls, Lady Beth and Miss Gabrielle wanted to play on the hammock

Miss Gabrielle having a little breather on her own...

Sweet sisters

The foofie slide was next in line and Nancy and Lady Beth were keen to have a go!

The foofie slide is the last part of an obstacle course.  One of the ‘daring’ things you have to do is to walk on a rope and hold onto another above...Lady Beth enjoyed this part!

Lady Beth reaching the end of the course...

Nancy walking on the very long swing bridge to the top

...And there she goes! Nancy having her turn on the foofie slide!

Miss Gabrielle got a turn, but she started at the bottom and Nancy pulled her – but just a little way in case she fell off or let go!

Rebekah watching the goings on above...

I have to say, Rebekah has been a star and hasn’t moaned very much for her mommy at all who is due home at the end of this week!

We could only stay a little while at The Heath, but the Little Ones enjoyed their outing so very much! We will probably be going back there next week to fetch my mom. Hopefully then I will try out the foofie slide, but really, it is quite scary!

Blessings

Learning through Living - the Most Beautiful Farm Ever

My sisters and I have had a very full life and we have learnt so much over the past few years. We have lived almost all over Southern Africa and if we haven’t lived in a certain place, we might have visited it on our travels.

We have seen beautiful countryside, long stretches of ocean, busy towns and hectic cities! We have seen so much and sometimes we forget to take moving around the country as a blessing – we have learnt things most of our friends haven’t!

I decided to take you through our travels, showing places in beautiful South Africa that you may or may not have visited before. I want to show you crazy things we have done and enjoyed so much! So now sit back and enjoy looking at the heap of photographs I have to show you! I know it might or might not inspire you to step out of your front door and tour the beautiful countryside that you live in! But we learnt and we are learning about life and the world around us through living!

Each week I will show you a different place we’ve lived in.

This time I will show you Bekezela Adventure Farm where we stayed for six months, learning about nature around us

Bekezela did a lot for Nancy and me. We became better outdoor girls, and have been ever since. My mother hardly ever saw us – we were forever outdoors come rain or shine. I can’t say we learnt much in terms of maths, english, grammar, etc. However, we learnt how to ride horses bareback over the hill, to have picnics, go for long walks, do lots of cycling, foofie sliding, swimming in dams and much, much more! I can hardly begin to tell you all Nancy and I did – we were in our element

Look at the view...no other place on Earth that I have visited has been more beautiful than that farm in Kwa Zulu Natal – it’s my favourite piece of countryside!

The hills and slopes were our playground!

The second house we stayed in on the farm – The Red Door Cottage.

The first horse I ever loved and that loved me…

Chantilly Lace…an old race horse.

Me with Bolo, Tilly’s friend. A friend of ours sent us these two horses for us to love and look after for the time we stayed on the farm!

The thunderstorms on the farm were unbelievable!  Nothing can compare to those storms!  The thunder so loud and the lighting so near that we couldn’t sleep!  We used to get them almost every afternoon after a humid and hot day.  We also used to have heavy mist.  Here Nancy and Beth hold our goslings in the mist.

We used to take them swimming in the dam.

Three calves were born during our time there.  Here we were with Oscar, a newborn calf.  His momma let us cuddle him!

Farmer Beth...isn’t she cute?

The fist bench we ever made.  This was our first house on the farm.

Beth found many little animals on the farm.  Here she is with her pet lizard that needed some sunshine.

And here she is with her wild bunny, which we sometimes were able to catch.  We used to put food out for it every day but one day it didn’t come and we think it became snake food.  As I recall, his name was Ginger.

The Tarzan swing – look how high it is!  I was so scared swinging on it, but Nancy jumped on and went!  She thoroughly enjoyed it and once she had hopped off she said: “Come on Dad, your turn!” – She has no fear of height whatsoever!

Ella and Abby came from England to help on the farm – they were such good friends!

Eating jelly!

Nancy and Beth getting ready to go abseiling!

Sweet sisters

We had such fun and it was a very healthy experience for us as children and I will treasure those times always!

In my next post I share with you the next place we lived in....Sedgefield, a little seaside town near Knysna.

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

Time for Tots - Activity #6

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and healthy? This week my mom is visiting her mother in Bain’s Kloof. Nancy and I have to play ‘house’ and look after our sweet little sisters!

This week I am challenging you to ‘Let Your Little Ones Get Messy!’ Give them a tub of powder paint and let them go for it. I put Rebekah outside at our little plastic table so that she could go mad with the paint and not worry me by decorating our walls in a new fashion!

She started off by doing a neat painting...

Then she experimented with another colour!

...It got messier and messier....

She loved rubbing the paint all over her hands!

“Hello” – Rebekah age 1.10months

“That was fun!”

I let Rebekah wash her hands in a bowl of water, but she ended up playing in the water and making an even bigger mess...she had lots of fun!! Sometimes toddlers can’t really ‘make a mess’, so by allowing them to do so you give them freedom to ‘mess’ on your terms – they will then understand that there is a time and a place to have fun!

'To the Tots'

Kelly-Anne

A Girly Birthday Card

 

 Hello everyone. This week I would like to show you a girly birthday card I made for my friend, Abigail who turned thirteen on Saturday. She had a beautiful ‘Butterfly Tea Party’. All the young ladies had to wear hats and gloves! We had a lovely time and I would like to share more of our lovely afternoon with you in another post!

So here is my card...I hope you like it!

I made this a card a few weeks ago, but never posted it on my blog...Abigail admired it and I knew she liked it very much so I decided to give it to her with her birthday present; a handmade diary.

 

I love this stamp!  The colouring was slightly difficult, but I enjoyed it very much!

I put a pearl in the centres of the three flowers to match the pearls on the ribbon.

I am sure you must know by now that I have a ‘thing’ for spotty ribbon...I love it and use it on almost all my cards because they seem lost without it!

I got this little butterfly in a prize on I won at Heidi’s Crafts... I think it adds the finishing touch to my card!

I would also like to enter the following challenges:

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Happy Birthday with Lots of Pearls!

The Crazy Challenge - Just Add Flowers
By the Cute and Girly - 'Cute and Girly'
PaperCrafting Journey - for the Ladies in your Life
Little Claire's Designs - Spring Colours
One Stitch at a Time Challenge - Something 3D
Ooh - La - La Challenges - Mothers day/Special Friend
Stamp, Scrap and Doodle Saturdays - Glitz
Digi Doodle Shop's Best Challenge - Happy Birthday
Fairy Tale Challenge Blog - Happy Birthday
Craft your Passion Challenges - Anything Goes
The Crafty Pad - Flowers
Catch the Bug Challenge - Anything Goes
Anything Goes Challenge - Pearls
Dream Valley Challenges - Things with Wings
I Did it Creations - Anything Goes
Dutch Dare Challenge - Distressing

So that is my card for the week!

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

Learning through Living - the Long Journey to the Farm

My sisters and I have had a very full life and we have learnt so much over the past few years. We have lived almost all over Southern Africa and if we haven’t lived in a certain place, we might have visited it on our travels!

We have seen beautiful countryside, long stretches of ocean, busy towns and hectic cities! We have seen so much and sometimes we forget to take moving around the country as a blessing – we have learnt things most of our friends haven’t!

I decided to take you through our travels, showing places in beautiful South Africa that you might not have visited before. I want to show you crazy things we have done but enjoyed so much! So now sit back and enjoy looking at the heap of photographs I have to show you! I know it might or might not inspire you to step out of your front door and tour the beautiful countryside that you live in! But we learnt and we are learning about life and the world around us through living!

Each week I will show you a different place we’ve lived in.

This time I will show you our journey up to Bekezela Adventure Farm. My dad bought a caravan which was our home till we got to the farm. Along the way we camped at different sites and enjoyed the beauty we had never seen before! We visited places we never dreamed existed and walked along beautiful beaches and up magnificent mountains!

Our first stop was Paarl where we stayed at The Berg River Resort

Me on my bicycle

Washing the dishes at the sinks

Another place we stayed at was Glentana Caravan Park

We visited friends who live in Wilderness near George. We stayed there for a week. They also had a dam that Nancy and I enjoyed playing on.

The view from their house – stunning isn’t it?

We stayed in Knysna for a week and visited many places, too many to put on here!  Mom and her girls aboard the Three Legs, a boat that takes you to the famous Knysna Heads!

I remember it being so cold and windy that day and we had to wrap up warmly!

The famous Knysna Heads

We went for a walk in The Garden Of Eden near Plettenberg Bay

Me standing in the hollow of a tree!

We also visited the Knysna Elephant Park

Look at the size of that elephant!

Touching the tame elephants!

We stopped at Storm’s River Mouth for a day

The swing bridge

We hiked up to the top of the mountain because someone said there were dolphins one could see from the look-out.  We walked and walked with no shoes, no water...that someone hadn’t said how far up we should go.  Nancy’s favourite animal is a dolphin, but what a disappointment when no dolphins were to be seen!

Look at the view from the top – it was so worth it!

On the beach in Port Alfred

Coffee Bay Hotel, Eastern Cape

The beautiful beach in Coffee Bay!

On and on we travelled till we came to Howick, Kwa-Zulu Natal.  We stayed at Nutmeg’s Bed & Breakfast for a night before leaving to stay with our friends in Harrismith in the Free State. 

After a long journey we finally arrived at Bekezela Adventure Farm, Kwa-Zulu Natal!!!

And more about that in the next post – till then
Kelly-Anne