How do you respond to changing seasons? We are experiencing change in many seasons right now; the weather in SA is shifting from summer to autumn, our family is preparing to return to life in Canada and our children are changing and growing in so many ways. I have to admit, I’m not always good at change. I love going new places, meeting new people and having new experiences… within a controlled, predictable and generally reliable context. For example going on a holiday to the beach, staying in a nice hotel and eating great food is always a fun change. However, I know I will come back to my known life at the end of the holiday. As we begin our transition out of SA back to CA, I am faced with the great unknown again. I have to say good-bye to the wonderful friends we’ve made, the beautiful country and the warm sunny climate. I am excited to return to family and friends but also nervous about re-entry into our life there. The kid’s friends will have new social dynamics, my friends will have their own routines and we will be coming back to rainy days and a big house to clean. First world problems entirely, but this blog is where I share our joys and struggles and we are at a bittersweet time right now caught between changing worlds.
We are always ready to go out and enjoy the local fauna and flora. This is a local Cheetah breeding project. We went on a tour of the Cheetah enclosures and listened to the tour guide tell us about Cheetah breeding habits and what factors most seem to determine their survival and ability to thrive in the wild. The beautiful King Cheetah is a rare recessive genetic colour pattern. We found out that the reason they are so rare is twofold; first of all they only occur when a mating pair each carry the recessive gene, and secondly this pattern does not actually camouflage as well with the landscape so consequently they are usually unable to hunt as well or are more easily spotted by other predators such as hyaenas.To compare the two here is a typical cheetah colour pattern.D has been taking tennis lessons much to his delight.He loves the activity and even more, loves his friends K and C who are in the same class. We made our monthly rounds of the zoo for E’s honey badgers program. It was a cold rainy day this week so we spent a bit of time hiding under the umbrellas at the cafe… …with hot chocolate of course!Despite the rain the animals were out and about and we had some great viewing of animals we don’t always see on sunny days.E’s s group stayed mostly indoors learning about bats and doing more paper-based tasks.E practised her reading aloud with some story time for the younger kids.Our beautiful sweet potato vine is finally living outdoors in a pot.This is the jungle gym at our house and in all this rain we have to get out and play whenever the sun comes out for a few minutes.
We have been so blessed in our time here in SA. We’ve connected with a vibrant and diverse homeschooling community with many social learning opportunities as well as just making great friends. We did an art co-op with another family this week. Who doesn’t love to play with finger paint?? Tying into our pioneer/voortrekker theme we have been working on an multidicipinary project; a paper quilt using symmetry, geometry colour, pattern and line. I explained to the children that pioneers were very frugal and because they couldn’t always buy new things they learned to make most items for themselves. They used small scraps of fabric to make quilts out of whatever they had. The use of pattern was a way to beautify their simple, rustic homes and express their own creativity. It also gave them an activity to fill their time during long evenings or days indoors during winter. We went to our last homeschool skating time :( One of the highlights at skating is hot chips with lots of tomato sauce or as we would say in Canada; fries smothered in ketchup! Ending our week we had a joint dinner with two families who have been dear friends to us here. Between our families we represent, British SA, Afrikaans SA, Italy, England and of course Canada. The 3 musketeers! And what dinner party would be complete without Kareoke? C rocked out the Afrikaans alt/country beat! Sweet A singing a beautiful rendition of Norah Jones Me pretending to a be an 80s rock star with Summer of 69, LOL!A mother-daughter moment with Abba! These times together have been rich. full of laughter, heart sharing, growing and simply sharing our lives together. This morning we slept in after the late night last night and I watched E and her dad cuddle at the breakfast table with a full heart. This life I have is so good! How can I measure the value of these days? The answer is that I simply can’t, these moments are priceless. Today is Sunday and I am counting the 1000+ gifts in my life and feeling profoundly grateful. Change will happen and we will adjust and choose gratitude wherever we find ourselves.