It's finally here!! After having to postpone a couple of times, today is Nicolas' farewell party with his brothers and sisters at the Bou house (where Nicolas has been living for the last few years).
We got up this morning and skyped with Delta Airlines for almost two hours trying to get our flights settled now that we have our appointment with the US Consulate scheduled for Monday. They told us we could leave as early as the middle of next week, but Delta says no. No room for us on the plane. So, we will actually be coming home at our originally scheduled time of 11:30AM on Friday December 21st. Who would've thought?? We knew that if we purchased the unrestricted tickets that our dates wouldn't change......The flights are completely booked up until Christmas Eve, so it was a struggle to even get Nicolas on our flight. We found out today that Delta should have held a seat for him when we booked our tickets back in the beginning of November. Good to know now!!! :) All that matters is that we will be home for his birthday and Christmas!!!
After getting flights settled, we got ready and headed to the car rental place (again) to renew our car. Of course, they tell you it will take only a couple minutes, but it never does. They told us Wednesday that we had to come anytime today to renew our contract. Had to be today. Then, when we get there he says that it goes by time, so if we need the car until the afternoon we should have waited until the afternoon to stop in. What???? No. Thankfully, he offered to amend it to the later time for us so that we didn't have to spaz out on him. :) Then, they just need to inspect the car. Then, they just want to make us fill out a form because there appears to be hail damage on the roof of the car. Half an hour later, our two-minute ordeal was over. :) We then went to pick up the cupcakes and ice cream for the party and headed to Bou house for the party!
All of the kids from both houses (19) were there, as well as the house parents, the Oasis office team, and some of the teachers and caregivers that have gotten to know and love Nicolas. We brought crafts to do with the kids, which was a blast! We made foam stockings and custom ornaments for their trees. Sarinah had music playing, so of course there was dancing! I think all of them took turns wearing my sunglasses, which was adorable! Watching them all gang up on Kevin and take him down was also great! I did suffer a fat, busted lip courtesy of the precious Amy Rose Ponkey Donkey Beukes, but time heals all wounds. :) It was so great to just spend time with the kids. They are all amazing! We had such a blast!
After the party, we stopped at Mary's house (a.k.a. Bev's - Mary and Amy Rose are two of Bev's kids) to pick up her things and Mary came to stay the night at our guest house. We stopped to pick up muffins and milk at the store, and then got in the pool when we got back. Kevin and I both braved the cold and jumped in - although we didn't last long!! Hopefully the rain is gone for a bit so that it can warm up again! Nicolas and Mary didn't mind, so they played and we got to chat with Kevin's mom for a bit while they swam.
We had a leftover smorgasbord for dinner, played outside for a bit, and then watched Kung Fu Panda to top off the night. And yes, we had ice cream! :)
We noticed that the giant hot air balloon at Monte Casino was up today, so we are hoping it will be calm again tomorrow so that we can take Nicolas! He has been wanting to go. I am still undecided at to whether I will be brave enough to try it. It goes very high, but I know the view would be worth it if I can get over the fear......
Stay tuned!
The Longstreets
Friday, December 7, 2012
Day 29: And the Blessings Continue to Flow!
**Power was out when we got home last night**
We got up this morning and headed down to Home Affairs to pick up Nicolas' temporary passport. I must admit I was skeptical that it would really be ready in less than 24 hours. But.......it was!! Praise God!!!
After we left Home Affairs, we headed over to one of the malls to look for a denim jacket for Nicolas because he has outgrown his, but really likes it. Unfortunately, since it is summer here, no luck. We did find some new sandals for Kevin since his have seen better days, so the trip wasn't a wash.
Once back at the guest house, we had to relocate to the Loft Suite. Being that we are here for so long, Stefan had to split our booking in order to accommodate us on such short notice. Nicolas is very excited that this room has a bath tub. :) After lunch, Nicolas headed straight for the pool! If you are friends with us on facebook, Kevin posted the video of Nicolas doing a flip into the pool. I, of course, am just afraid that he will hit his head on the side, but boys will be boys! It is amazing how brave he has become in the pool! He is definitely going to miss it when we get home! Given that the pool is still quite cold, I opted to stay out. We received word mid-afternoon that Nicolas' unabridged birth certificate is ready!!! God has definitely been the driving force in getting this paperwork done so quickly!!!
We got up this morning and headed down to Home Affairs to pick up Nicolas' temporary passport. I must admit I was skeptical that it would really be ready in less than 24 hours. But.......it was!! Praise God!!!
After we left Home Affairs, we headed over to one of the malls to look for a denim jacket for Nicolas because he has outgrown his, but really likes it. Unfortunately, since it is summer here, no luck. We did find some new sandals for Kevin since his have seen better days, so the trip wasn't a wash.
Once back at the guest house, we had to relocate to the Loft Suite. Being that we are here for so long, Stefan had to split our booking in order to accommodate us on such short notice. Nicolas is very excited that this room has a bath tub. :) After lunch, Nicolas headed straight for the pool! If you are friends with us on facebook, Kevin posted the video of Nicolas doing a flip into the pool. I, of course, am just afraid that he will hit his head on the side, but boys will be boys! It is amazing how brave he has become in the pool! He is definitely going to miss it when we get home! Given that the pool is still quite cold, I opted to stay out. We received word mid-afternoon that Nicolas' unabridged birth certificate is ready!!! God has definitely been the driving force in getting this paperwork done so quickly!!!
When we went back to Home Affairs for the second time today,
not one - but two – different men commented on the fact that we were back
again. J I guess we must be a memorable crew! God was with us again in that there was no one there are we were able to walk in and out with his birth certificate in 5 minutes! I'm sure the woman who helped us thought we bribed someone to get it so quickly. She looked up our receipt number and said "You just applied for this today." I replied that we had actually done it the day before. She just looked at me as if she were thinking "Who are you?", but printed it and sent us on our way.
Tonight we met Auntie Beth at the Oasis office to head out
for dinner. First, we went to a park
that starts with “E” and is one of the botanical gardens in Joburg. It has a beautiful series of fountains that, tragically, were not running. We wandered
around the park chatting about Joburg and how different South Africa is from
what we were told/prepared for. It is
such a beautiful place that gets a bad wrap. After having been here for a month, I laugh at some of the things we were afraid of coming here. We met up with Beth’s boyfriend Donovan in our stroll and finished our
loop through the park before heading to a South African restaurant for
dinner. Beth made a few suggestions
about dishes to try – I had the mommy chow (a.k.a. bunny chow - a.k.a. amazing!)
and Kevin had boerewors (similar to brats) and pap. Our South African child had a burger. J My mommy chow was seriously amazing and I
will definitely try to find the recipe online!
After dinner we went to another restaurant to have dessert. It was an evening of laughs and great
conversation. We have been so blessed to
have built so many great relationships in our time here in South Africa.
The Longstreets
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Day 29: An Unexpected Blessing
Finally, the sun is back! It was beautiful today! We didn't have much planned for today. This morning we got up and lazed around the guest house. Nicolas did some drawings, played with his cars, and then we all went out and played soccer and ran around. Then, we came in and got ready before lunch. We had a skype date at 1PM, so we headed over to the Oasis office so that we would have a faster internet connection. Right after we started our skype, we received a very unexpected text message - Nicolas' new ID number and birth certificate were done already!! Petra (our social worker) asked us to meet her at Home Affairs ASAP to move to Stage 2!!! Praise God!!! We experienced some technical difficulties with skype as well, so unfortunately we didn't get much time to talk.
The Oasis office is quite close to Home Affairs, so we were able to get there quickly. We waited for Petra to arrive (she had to come from much further away) and we submitted the forms for Nicolas' unabridged birth certificate. We were blessed once again today in that we did not have to wait too long in line to get our paperwork processed. We were also able to work with the same man (whose name is Gift - fitting as he was a gift to us!) that helped us yesterday. The abridged birth certificate we received today only has his name, date and place of birth. The unabridged certificate will be much more like ours in the US, listing details of parents and such. Once we had the abridged certificate we went to the passport office to apply for his temporary and permanent South African passports. That process was a bit jumbled in comparison, but nothing we couldn't handle. Filling out the paperwork was quite simple, but when it was my turn, the woman looked at me like I was nuts. Turned out she hadn't done a passport for an adoption before, so she didn't know what paperwork she needed. She took some documents and disappeared for 5 or 10 minutes. Then, we told her we needed both temp and permanent passports, but she only processed us for the permanent one. When we went to the cashier (a different person), we explained that we needed both due to time constraints and needing the temp passport for our consulate appt, she explained that we had to go back to the other lady. So, we waited for her and she informed me that I had to fill out another form for the temp one. Ok......so I filled out the next form and by that time the lady who had been helping us had disappeared. So......we waited a little more. A different person helped us with the second application. We paid for that one and then headed back to have his photo taken. They looked at the papers and told me the temp passport application needed to go back to the people who sent us to her. What??? LOL. Ok. So, I took it back to the woman at the cashier desk who told me to take it there. Confused yet?? :) Then she told me we could come back between 8:30AM and 2PM tomorrow to pick up the temp passport. which is awesome!! I have no idea when they are going to process it since we turned it in about 30 minutes before they closed, but I hope she was right! We will be heading back over there tomorrow morning to pick it up. Please pray it will be ready!
Petra was texting our updates to Ruth (who is back in Capetown now - about a 12 hour drive away) and Ruth confirmed that they will be able to schedule our US consulate appointment as soon as we have the temp passport!! So, things are going more smoothly that we ever could have imagined!!! Thank you so much for all your prayers - they are powerful!!
Not as exciting, we headed to the rental car place after we left Home Affairs because we have to renew our rental. You can only rent for 30 days at a time. Of course, they told us we cannot renew it until the day it expires, which is Friday. So.....we will go back again on Friday.
We decided to eat out for dinner as we had planned to go to the grocery store this afternoon. We went to Luigis (bet you wouldn't guess it was Italian). This was the restaurant Beth and Bev took us to on our first night in Joburg. We had also come one other time when our internet was out for dessert. What are the chances that we would have the same waiter all three times, and even better that he would remember us. We had a great dinner and celebrated being one step closer to coming home! After dinner, we headed back to the guest house for homework, ice cream, and a movie.
Here are some more pictures!! The first couple are from yesterday and the rest are from today:
The Oasis office is quite close to Home Affairs, so we were able to get there quickly. We waited for Petra to arrive (she had to come from much further away) and we submitted the forms for Nicolas' unabridged birth certificate. We were blessed once again today in that we did not have to wait too long in line to get our paperwork processed. We were also able to work with the same man (whose name is Gift - fitting as he was a gift to us!) that helped us yesterday. The abridged birth certificate we received today only has his name, date and place of birth. The unabridged certificate will be much more like ours in the US, listing details of parents and such. Once we had the abridged certificate we went to the passport office to apply for his temporary and permanent South African passports. That process was a bit jumbled in comparison, but nothing we couldn't handle. Filling out the paperwork was quite simple, but when it was my turn, the woman looked at me like I was nuts. Turned out she hadn't done a passport for an adoption before, so she didn't know what paperwork she needed. She took some documents and disappeared for 5 or 10 minutes. Then, we told her we needed both temp and permanent passports, but she only processed us for the permanent one. When we went to the cashier (a different person), we explained that we needed both due to time constraints and needing the temp passport for our consulate appt, she explained that we had to go back to the other lady. So, we waited for her and she informed me that I had to fill out another form for the temp one. Ok......so I filled out the next form and by that time the lady who had been helping us had disappeared. So......we waited a little more. A different person helped us with the second application. We paid for that one and then headed back to have his photo taken. They looked at the papers and told me the temp passport application needed to go back to the people who sent us to her. What??? LOL. Ok. So, I took it back to the woman at the cashier desk who told me to take it there. Confused yet?? :) Then she told me we could come back between 8:30AM and 2PM tomorrow to pick up the temp passport. which is awesome!! I have no idea when they are going to process it since we turned it in about 30 minutes before they closed, but I hope she was right! We will be heading back over there tomorrow morning to pick it up. Please pray it will be ready!
Petra was texting our updates to Ruth (who is back in Capetown now - about a 12 hour drive away) and Ruth confirmed that they will be able to schedule our US consulate appointment as soon as we have the temp passport!! So, things are going more smoothly that we ever could have imagined!!! Thank you so much for all your prayers - they are powerful!!
Not as exciting, we headed to the rental car place after we left Home Affairs because we have to renew our rental. You can only rent for 30 days at a time. Of course, they told us we cannot renew it until the day it expires, which is Friday. So.....we will go back again on Friday.
We decided to eat out for dinner as we had planned to go to the grocery store this afternoon. We went to Luigis (bet you wouldn't guess it was Italian). This was the restaurant Beth and Bev took us to on our first night in Joburg. We had also come one other time when our internet was out for dessert. What are the chances that we would have the same waiter all three times, and even better that he would remember us. We had a great dinner and celebrated being one step closer to coming home! After dinner, we headed back to the guest house for homework, ice cream, and a movie.
Here are some more pictures!! The first couple are from yesterday and the rest are from today:
Kevin and Nicolas' palm frond fight by the pool.
Nicolas and Kevin reading 'The Story' as part of Nicolas' homework.
This is right after we received his new birth certificate as Nicolas Wandile Longstreet!
And with Dad!
It seems like things are going so quickly now!! We are racking our brains trying to think of all the things we want to do before we go home! The time has flown by so far, and it's only going to start going quicker! Hopefully, tomorrow we will have his temp passport and we will be praying for a US Consulate appointment early next week. We'll keep you posted!
The Longstreets
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Day 28: Home Affairs - Stage 1
It is hard to believe that we have been here 28 days!!! While it does feel like we have been away from home for a while, it seems like we just met Nicolas. It's crazy how time flies!
This morning we went to Home Affairs (similar to Secretary of State) to start the paperwork process to change Nicolas' name. We arrived there around 7:30 this morning in hopes of avoiding the lines. We started at the ID center. Petra had already acquired the appropriate documents for us, so we started filling them out. We had pre-filled samples from Ruth to ensure that we would fill them out correctly. We started comparing the documents and they had all changed - since last month. Nothing catastrophic, just enough to make you nervous about making mistakes. Not to worry, though, a quick call to Ruth and we were good. After filling the forms out twice (once for practice of course!) we got in line. When it was our turn, we found out that we were in the wrong office. We actually needed to go to the birth, death, and marriage office down the hill. So, we headed that way. After only a few minutes in line, it was our turn. The man looked at our documents and said "You don't need this one and they need to fill out this one" (which was one of the documents we had marked for stage 2 of the process). So, we filled those out. We were back to the front of the queue and got another gentleman this time. He looked though our paperwork and said there were two more forms we needed. What???? Thankfully, he let us fill them out at the counter while he put in the rest of our paperwork. The other forms we had to fill out were ID registration forms for us to prove that we were present to request his record change. With that, we had to get fingerprinted which we also had to wait for. The last step for today was to have them fax all of the documents to the processor. It took a while, but they got it done and we received confirmation that they had been sent successfully. Total time at Home Affairs for stage 1: 3 1/2 hours. I would say that the biggest difference between Home Affairs here and SOS at home is that there is no official queue (and the departments are broken up into fairly small offices) or numbering system, so people just wait at the desk until they are done with a client. It was easier than we anticipated. Hopefully, all steps will go this way! Special thanks to Petra and Ruth - it would have been stressful without their help! We did hear from Ruth that the processor who will prepare our documents is currently unable to access the system she needs in order to process our paperwork, so please pray that it is back up and running very soon!!!!
After Home Affairs we were hungry (surprise!), so we were planning to go to Luigi's for pizza. Um.....no. Apparently people don't eat lunch on weekdays until 12 (it was 11:30). So, we settled for Steers instead (burger joint). It was actually quite good! And, if you saw on facebook, we celebrated our step in the right direction with ice cream! I know, we eat a lot of ice cream.....it will be a tough habit to break! :)
Nicolas has been dying to go in the pool after three days of rain, so despite the fact that it's freezing, he went in anyway. Given that it was so cold, he would get in for a few minutes and then warm up on the tiles around the pool which get very warm in the sun. He was also enjoying using the water and his finger to make art on the tiles. He also got into a palm frond war with Dad. Good times!
The clouds came in and it began to sprinkle once again, so we headed inside. We played for a bit and then had dinner followed by our evening routine. We e-mailed Nicolas' teacher in Byron Center to ask her for some specifics on what we should be working with him on. She gave us a long list of sight words to practice and he rocked the house!!! He'll need to some time adjust to american money and measurements, but I think he will do very well!
Tomorrow is open on our calendar, so we will see what the day brings. The forecast has rain threatening our fun almost all week, so who knows if it will be another day in.....
The Longstreets
This morning we went to Home Affairs (similar to Secretary of State) to start the paperwork process to change Nicolas' name. We arrived there around 7:30 this morning in hopes of avoiding the lines. We started at the ID center. Petra had already acquired the appropriate documents for us, so we started filling them out. We had pre-filled samples from Ruth to ensure that we would fill them out correctly. We started comparing the documents and they had all changed - since last month. Nothing catastrophic, just enough to make you nervous about making mistakes. Not to worry, though, a quick call to Ruth and we were good. After filling the forms out twice (once for practice of course!) we got in line. When it was our turn, we found out that we were in the wrong office. We actually needed to go to the birth, death, and marriage office down the hill. So, we headed that way. After only a few minutes in line, it was our turn. The man looked at our documents and said "You don't need this one and they need to fill out this one" (which was one of the documents we had marked for stage 2 of the process). So, we filled those out. We were back to the front of the queue and got another gentleman this time. He looked though our paperwork and said there were two more forms we needed. What???? Thankfully, he let us fill them out at the counter while he put in the rest of our paperwork. The other forms we had to fill out were ID registration forms for us to prove that we were present to request his record change. With that, we had to get fingerprinted which we also had to wait for. The last step for today was to have them fax all of the documents to the processor. It took a while, but they got it done and we received confirmation that they had been sent successfully. Total time at Home Affairs for stage 1: 3 1/2 hours. I would say that the biggest difference between Home Affairs here and SOS at home is that there is no official queue (and the departments are broken up into fairly small offices) or numbering system, so people just wait at the desk until they are done with a client. It was easier than we anticipated. Hopefully, all steps will go this way! Special thanks to Petra and Ruth - it would have been stressful without their help! We did hear from Ruth that the processor who will prepare our documents is currently unable to access the system she needs in order to process our paperwork, so please pray that it is back up and running very soon!!!!
After Home Affairs we were hungry (surprise!), so we were planning to go to Luigi's for pizza. Um.....no. Apparently people don't eat lunch on weekdays until 12 (it was 11:30). So, we settled for Steers instead (burger joint). It was actually quite good! And, if you saw on facebook, we celebrated our step in the right direction with ice cream! I know, we eat a lot of ice cream.....it will be a tough habit to break! :)
Nicolas has been dying to go in the pool after three days of rain, so despite the fact that it's freezing, he went in anyway. Given that it was so cold, he would get in for a few minutes and then warm up on the tiles around the pool which get very warm in the sun. He was also enjoying using the water and his finger to make art on the tiles. He also got into a palm frond war with Dad. Good times!
The clouds came in and it began to sprinkle once again, so we headed inside. We played for a bit and then had dinner followed by our evening routine. We e-mailed Nicolas' teacher in Byron Center to ask her for some specifics on what we should be working with him on. She gave us a long list of sight words to practice and he rocked the house!!! He'll need to some time adjust to american money and measurements, but I think he will do very well!
Tomorrow is open on our calendar, so we will see what the day brings. The forecast has rain threatening our fun almost all week, so who knows if it will be another day in.....
The Longstreets
Monday, December 3, 2012
Day 27: School of Rock
Day 3 of rain!!! It was supposed to be cloudy in the morning and then clear up. The sky cleared for maybe half an hour, but then clouded over again. Boo!!!
This morning we got up and around and headed over to the Oasis office to meet Bev. She accompanied us to The King's School (Nicolas' school in South Africa) to meet his teacher and classmates. When we walked up to the door, the kids swarmed over and practically knocked him down with hugs of excitement! It was so sweet to see how excited they were to see him. Some of the kids went to to board and drew this picture for him:
This morning we got up and around and headed over to the Oasis office to meet Bev. She accompanied us to The King's School (Nicolas' school in South Africa) to meet his teacher and classmates. When we walked up to the door, the kids swarmed over and practically knocked him down with hugs of excitement! It was so sweet to see how excited they were to see him. Some of the kids went to to board and drew this picture for him:
"we mist you" :) Love it!
We were able to chat with his teacher while they played about what he has been working on and what they have worked on since he came to stay with us. We shared with her what we had been working on with him and what his school in the States will be like.
Nicolas with his teacher Mrs. Turner
After our school visit, we went to grab lunch as we were expecting our documents to arrive early afternoon. Our paperwork was delayed, so we headed back toward our guest house to pick up groceries. No sooner than we walked under the protection of the Spar entrance, it began POURING!!! (We heard later there was also hail!) Thank you God for helping us avoid getting soaked!! We were also thankful that the rain had almost quit when we were ready to leave the store. Once we arrived back to the guest house, we found that the combination of wind and heavy rain had caused a leak into our room. Stefan went up and put a tarp on the roof for us right away. He also had water in his room as a result of the water flooding the gutters. We have seen at least 3 different storms that come out of nowhere and bring very heavy rains and wind. Each time, the water practically floods out the roads. It's crazy!
Nicolas had said he was tired when we were at the store, so he had planned to lie down after we got back, but as you can imagine, he was awake again by the time we got back. So, we read Narnia instead until Lee called to tell us our paperwork had arrived. She met up with us and we drove over to Bev's house to have her Father-In-Law certify copies of our docs to take to Home Affairs. Another blessing that we have someone who can certify docs for us!! Nicolas played soccer with Mary and Kieran while we got our documents ready and then we ran quickly to the Oasis office to scan them in to e-mail to Ruth. Lee had dinner plans back at her guest house, so she headed home and we headed back to Bev's for dinner. After dinner, we played Guitar Hero. We thought you might enjoy some pictures of the festivities :)
Bohemian Rhapsody "Galileo, Galileo Figarooooooooooo"
Nicolas rocking the drums!
And guitar as well! :)
What a fun night!! We always have a blast with the Beukes fam!!! :) :) It's off to bed for us as we have an early morning tomorrow (not really early in real-world a.k.a. Michigan standards, but earlier than we normally have to get up in SA). We are meeting our social worker Petra at Home Affairs at 7:30AM. Please pray that this part of the paperwork process will go quickly and smoothly!!!
The Longstreets
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Day 26: Rain, rain, GO AWAY!
Another rainy and gray day in South Africa today. Not complaining, just informing -it was about 60 today. From what we heard from my parents, it is about the same temperature at home today! We were excited to head to church this morning! New Creation has been an amazing church home away from home. Pastor Grant (and SO many others) have been so welcoming - it is the true definition of a church family. As I mentioned previously, the radio stations don't play Christmas music here, so singing some Christmas songs in church was a great way to get us into the Christmas spirit!! Also, each week at church we meet new people who tell us what an amazing child Nicolas is or how they know who we are from seeing the book we sent him or they share stories of their experiences with him. It's so cool to hear how many lives he has touched already in his short life. God has got some big plans for this boy, I can see it already!
After church, we headed back to have lunch. I had hoped the sky would clear up so that we could get outside, but no such luck. We flew Nicolas around on our knees (we have to alternate as it gets tiring - a great workout though!), the boys played motorbikes on the ipod, and we measured Nicolas' feet and ordered him some snow boots so that he is geared up to hit the snow when we get home! We also were able to skype again this afternoon, this time with my parents and my niece Sophia. Skype has been such a blessing to keep us connected to our family and friends. I can't imagine how isolated we would feel without it!
Homework, dinner, ice cream, and a movie rounded out our evening, Tomorrow we are going to Nicolas' school to meet his teachers and hopefully headed to Home Affairs for paperwork step 1. Please keep us in your prayers that our paperwork process will go as planned!
Here are a few more pictures:
After church, we headed back to have lunch. I had hoped the sky would clear up so that we could get outside, but no such luck. We flew Nicolas around on our knees (we have to alternate as it gets tiring - a great workout though!), the boys played motorbikes on the ipod, and we measured Nicolas' feet and ordered him some snow boots so that he is geared up to hit the snow when we get home! We also were able to skype again this afternoon, this time with my parents and my niece Sophia. Skype has been such a blessing to keep us connected to our family and friends. I can't imagine how isolated we would feel without it!
Homework, dinner, ice cream, and a movie rounded out our evening, Tomorrow we are going to Nicolas' school to meet his teachers and hopefully headed to Home Affairs for paperwork step 1. Please keep us in your prayers that our paperwork process will go as planned!
Here are a few more pictures:
This is Nicolas posing from Thanksgiving before we went to court. Fancy lad!
Air time with Dad!
Snuggling with Bella (One of Stefan's dogs - our Penel away from home!)
Yup. I get to experience this every day :)
Good night everyone :)
The Longstreets
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Day 25: Lost in a Sea of People
I'm sure there's been some bitterness when I write about how many gorgeous days we have has here in South Africa while we know the weather at home is all over the map and mostly on the colder side of the spectrum. Well, today was noticeably colder with very little sign of the sun. No actual rain, just a bit of a gray day. And noticeably colder was somewhere in the mid-60's.
Nicolas was very excited to start his advent calendar today! He did a performance for us about how it was the 1st of December. It was combined with a song, but of course I can't remember what it was now. :)
We spent the morning hanging out at the guest house - more tickle fights and giggles. Nicolas also thoroughly enjoys "flying" with us. By flying I mean that we lay on the bed and he lays on our legs and flies around. It's a great workout for us and he has a grand time flying to London, Sweden, and Japan. Despite a few crash landings, everyone made it out safely.
This afternoon we headed out to the mall (even though we know that going to the mall on Saturday is the definition of insanity). As I have mentioned before, the mall here are huge. The one that we went to is probably 5 times the size of Rivertown Crossings and is completely insane - especially when combined with the fact that we don't know where any of the stores are or what stores have the things we need. Stores like Target or Meijer - your one-stop shop - don't really exist here. We did go to a store called Game today which seemed like a combination of Sears and parts of Target, but still not quite like home. Our mission was simple - a few more shirts for Nicolas and temporary tattoos. The shirts were easy. The tattoos - not so much. We started at Game (which I naiively thought was a game/toy store). After no success finding them there, I asked someone who worked there are she told me the name of a store we could try. I repeated the name back to her and she nodded, so we went and found a mall directory board. I searched it and could not find the name she had given me. I must've looked confused because a security guy came and asked if we needed help. I told him what she had told me. He looked at me for a second and then said "She said Showbiz". Oh.....now I feel dumb. Thanks! So, we headed toward Showbiz. This mall is so busy that even I - the ones who loves the search for a great deal - don't enjoy it. It feels like swimming upstream no matter where you walk. It's as if people are determined to walk as close as they possibly can to me, if not run directly into me. We did, however, make it to our destination. The store lacked logical organization, so after wandering the entire thing, we hadn't found our temporary tattoos. So, I asked someone and she kindly led me to them. No wonder I didn't find them. They had one kind on an endcap with fake eyelashes and "freaky nails". They aren't exactly what we were looking for, but they'll do. Another weekend adventure at Cresta shopping center! :)
Once back safely at the guest house, we went on a search for some Christmas music. It seems that they do not have a radio station that plays Christmas music and we need some tunes to help us get into the Christmas spirit! No snow, no winter coats, no tree, and no music - it just doesn't feel right!! Thankfully, Kevin was able to find some options to stream Christmas right into our living room. :) The rest of our evening followed our normal routine, although we did start a new flavor of ice cream tonight! :)
We were able to chat with family again today, which was great! It's nice to hear how things are going back at home!
Tomorrow starts a new week! It's hard to believe we have been here for almost 4 weeks now. The time has really flown by! We'll be back home and in the snow before we know it!
The Longstreets
Nicolas was very excited to start his advent calendar today! He did a performance for us about how it was the 1st of December. It was combined with a song, but of course I can't remember what it was now. :)
We spent the morning hanging out at the guest house - more tickle fights and giggles. Nicolas also thoroughly enjoys "flying" with us. By flying I mean that we lay on the bed and he lays on our legs and flies around. It's a great workout for us and he has a grand time flying to London, Sweden, and Japan. Despite a few crash landings, everyone made it out safely.
This afternoon we headed out to the mall (even though we know that going to the mall on Saturday is the definition of insanity). As I have mentioned before, the mall here are huge. The one that we went to is probably 5 times the size of Rivertown Crossings and is completely insane - especially when combined with the fact that we don't know where any of the stores are or what stores have the things we need. Stores like Target or Meijer - your one-stop shop - don't really exist here. We did go to a store called Game today which seemed like a combination of Sears and parts of Target, but still not quite like home. Our mission was simple - a few more shirts for Nicolas and temporary tattoos. The shirts were easy. The tattoos - not so much. We started at Game (which I naiively thought was a game/toy store). After no success finding them there, I asked someone who worked there are she told me the name of a store we could try. I repeated the name back to her and she nodded, so we went and found a mall directory board. I searched it and could not find the name she had given me. I must've looked confused because a security guy came and asked if we needed help. I told him what she had told me. He looked at me for a second and then said "She said Showbiz". Oh.....now I feel dumb. Thanks! So, we headed toward Showbiz. This mall is so busy that even I - the ones who loves the search for a great deal - don't enjoy it. It feels like swimming upstream no matter where you walk. It's as if people are determined to walk as close as they possibly can to me, if not run directly into me. We did, however, make it to our destination. The store lacked logical organization, so after wandering the entire thing, we hadn't found our temporary tattoos. So, I asked someone and she kindly led me to them. No wonder I didn't find them. They had one kind on an endcap with fake eyelashes and "freaky nails". They aren't exactly what we were looking for, but they'll do. Another weekend adventure at Cresta shopping center! :)
Once back safely at the guest house, we went on a search for some Christmas music. It seems that they do not have a radio station that plays Christmas music and we need some tunes to help us get into the Christmas spirit! No snow, no winter coats, no tree, and no music - it just doesn't feel right!! Thankfully, Kevin was able to find some options to stream Christmas right into our living room. :) The rest of our evening followed our normal routine, although we did start a new flavor of ice cream tonight! :)
We were able to chat with family again today, which was great! It's nice to hear how things are going back at home!
Tomorrow starts a new week! It's hard to believe we have been here for almost 4 weeks now. The time has really flown by! We'll be back home and in the snow before we know it!
The Longstreets
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