June 2010

Sunrise

As we marched on into winter, with the chill air, and the promise of frost we thought it might be best not to have too much going on. But save for the snow this month, and not being able to do much outdoors, it was a pleasant winter all the same. I think we had about 5-10cm of snow here in Haarlem, and in Avontuur they had 20cm. We had been invited to dinner on a Saturday where is was only sleet here by us, and by the time we got to the turnoff to De Hoop it was hopeless. We had to call Pierre and Carmen, and tell them we were stuck, and had to turn around. This was met with, "Nonsense! We will come and fetch you! So they drove out to the turn off in their VW Syncro, and off we went.... with Jan on the back bumper for extra weight at the back.. apparently this gives extra traction too...lol.

Snow in Gary and Ronalee's field

And despite being cold, a little wet and frozen from the neck up, this theory actually worked and we made it safely to their place. We had a glorious time, had a few laughs about the whole situation, and had some awesome conversation, and some really good food!! The snow stopped, and by the time Pierre drove us back to our car, the road was ok. :-)

The boys building a snowman

There was still snow the day after and the boys decided to build a snowman. But being back in South Africa, and having gotten rid of most of our overseas winter gear, they were not prepared for the wet, biting cold that is snow... still with a little perseverence, and warming of hands now and again they managed to finish said snowman. There is something to be said about the determination of kids sometimes, that where there is a will there is a way, and they will do something to the end... especially if it means that they can have fun doing it. Sometimes I wonder why its so hard for us as grown-ups to have the same attitude...

Looking for extra bits

 Anyways, so with the snowman done, they started to look for extras, like stones for the eyes and mouth, and twigs for the arms. At this point Rene's hands were pretty frozen, and red from the cold, but that still didn't stop him..lol.

Adding said bits :-)

And at last the snowman was all finished!!

All done!!