Fish in the Water

Last night we went over to our friends house - Kooways House as Javan says. Tom and Kuulei have been away for a month. It was nice to see them and enjoy a leisurely evening together catching up. Kuulei is a great cook so there's always something delicious to look forward to. Tonight was Hawaiian chicken.

Before dinner we went swimming. All I can say is Javan "Phelps" is in the making. At 2 yrs old he already knows how to dog paddle (of course with our help). He has no fear of water at all ... jumps in, head under water, rises to the top and starts swimming. No time to rest. Once he gets out, he's ready to go again. Getting him out of the pool is the challenge; however once he is out, he enjoys being wrapped up in his towel and chillin' on the chair.





















As always the evening ended with Mexican train.
Jermaine

Celebrating Kate

We went to Riverview Park in Chattanooga this morning to celebrate Kate's first birthday. Kate's story is a testament to what a faithful and awesome God we serve so to celebrate with her family was indeed an honour.

the kids played for a while and then it was party time


Aaron looks troubled cos his pacifier went missing!


Sweet Addison ... seriously making me want a baby girl!


Happy year to Kate (as Javan says!)




So while everyone was singing happy birthday to Kate, my little man found the cupcakes and decided to help himself ... we're working on patience!



cupcakes with Vivi


Brooklynn and Javan waiting on their flower pots - Javan is ticked off cos we had just told him we were leaving!


Javan had a fun time playing with his friends and we had a great time hanging out with ours - thanks for inviting us Claire and Ryan.
~V

Conversations

Just a little collection of random conversations with Javan!

Mummy: Javan, do you want to sit in your corner or are we going to have quiet time and take a nap?

Javan: mmm ... I lie down.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Javan: Hey Bearwool? (thats Veryll in Javan's English)

Mummy: Yes Javan

Javan: Hug please.

Mummy: Ok (hug given)

Javan: (walks away) Awight, I see you later.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

Javan to Daddy:

Hey honey, what's the matter?

you ok?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The time after lunch is known as quiet time (or nap time) so the following conversations happened during quiet time, in the car on two seperate occasions.


**Javan and Noah were chatting so we asked both boys to be quiet since it was time to settle down for naps. Noah kept singing and Javan was quiet but really wanted to talk to him but knew he'd get in trouble. Eventually Javan says: Noah, ssshhhhh. Its quiet time. I tired.

They both sat in the car for the remainder of the drive with their fingers on their lips!


**After church (or even school) I want to know what Javan did and if he had fun so I usually ask him about his time. Sometimes he'll answer me, other times he'll just say 'No Mummy, No Daddy'. This time I kept asking him what he did. Finally I said:

'Javan do you not want to talk to mummy?'

he replied: 'Mummy, its quiet time'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Javan to Ma (while he's drinking his juice and she's waiting for him to answer her question)

'Be patient Ma. I drink my juice'

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Javan to himself when he gets hurt:

'oh sorry toes/feet/elbow,etc'

followed by 'kiss it mummy' (kiss given) 'ok its all better'

I've started to ask him to kiss my imaginary owies which he thinks is hilarious but he complies!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Javan: gimme some bread.

Mummy: When you want something how do you ask for it?

Javan: I have it the bread please.

Daddy: Can you say 'may I have some bread please?'

Javan: Sure!

LOL! He we tried this over and over and every time we told him what he needed to say, he would just answer the question!

~V

First Girlfriend

Eleanor (our neighbour) called tonight to see if we wanted to go walking. Javan and Leah hadn't seen each other in a few days and you'd swear by their first glimpse of each other it had been months! They were so excited to see each other they hugged and then held hands the entire walk (a lap and half around our neighbourhood!). Every so often Leah would kiss him and he'd just look at her in awe and laugh and say 'Hi Leah'! It was one of those priceless moments were you wished you had the camera right then. I didnt:( So on the next lap I grabbed it and I got this pic: /div>

~V

A Surprise Package!

I love packages and when they're a surprise - all the better! My mum sent me an early birthday package this week and I couldnt wait to get into it. But J told me I needed to wait until my birthday. Mum said no need to wait so I opened it tonight. Javan wanted in on the action and thrilled to help!





Part of the pacakge was some of my (our) fave biscuits (aka cookies) and chocs. I figure since it was a package for my birthday, no need to split them with J and Javan ... though not so sure how well that will go over with either of them!
~V

It's over

They took so long to get here and just like that two weeks are over. I just finished watching the closing ceremony of the Beijing Games and I will admit that I'm sad. For the last two weeks we've basically had dinner, gone walking/to the gym/swimming and then plopped in front of the tv from 8pm onward. I can only imagine how the athletes feel - they've waited 4yrs for this and worked so hard. These games were definitely wonderful. China did a fabulous job as host country. Looking forward to London 2012! The waiting game wont be so bad - World Cup 2010 is coming up and we'll be there:)
~V

Farewell ...

Throughout our time here we have been blessed with really great friends. Some have come and gone and most we keep in touch with and still visit. Nicole and Serge fall into this category. Nicole and I have that South African bond and thats really how we met - I heard through others that there was someone from SA at Lee and the rest is history. Since then we've spent numerous days, evenings, weekends together ... just hanging out. As luck would have it, we were both pregnant at the same time and ended up having our babies two weeks apart. So the four of us have journeyed into parenthood at the same time and enjoyed watching our boys grow together. Last year Serge's job moved them to Kentucky and we've managed to visit and keep up. Now its going to get harder to visit. Next weekend they move to Canada. Its sad and exciting at the same time. We know exactly what they are going through cos we're experiencing a lot of that right now. On Friday Serge had to come to Cleveland to work for the weekend so we got to hang out Friday and Saturday night ... just like old times. Swimming and braaing and staying up too late chatting. The kids had a blast and Javan loved having Noah around.


J's 'great idea' to put them down to nap together. Took 2hrs for them to fall asleep cos they wouldnt stop talking!
heading out to the pool friday night


reading night time stories with J last night
I'm not sure when we'll get to see them again but thankfully we have skype and Javan and Noah have been chatting - its pretty cute. We got this picture this past week. I dont like goodbyes (airport are the worst) and they were supposed to stop by today on their way back to Kentucky this evening but didnt get a chance to so we didnt have a 'formal goodbye'. Only sad part is we didnt get a photo of all us before they left :( So last nights hugs were farewell ones until we get together again.
~Veryll

The Tumblebus

One of my top fave shows on tv is Jon and Kate plus 8 on TLC. J used to make fun of me when I first started watching about 2yrs ago but now he'll occassionally watch. A couple of months ago my friend Tammie told me that she was getting The Tumblebus for Sophie's birthday party. My mind immediately went to the episode where Kate got 'that old school bus' to come to the house. The sextuplets knew they were getting on a bus but didn't really know why. Tammie doesn't watch Jon and Kate but she knew what I was referring to since others had asked her the same thing!

Well we had been looking forward to the party for a month now and then I got sick but I had determined that Javan would be going cos I knew he would enjoy it. I drugged myself and we drove the hour and forty minutes down to Canton while listening to Javan sing 'happy year to Sophie!' I'm so glad we did. Javan loved the bus and we enjoyed watching him jump, climb and tumble around. Those buses have lots of space when you take out all the seats! After an hour of activities, each kid got a medal. And the bus went away and Javan was mad but he quickly realized there was cake and juice!

singing happy birthday to Sophie

So this is one idea that I'm keeping on file for a future party! There's more photo's on his website.
~Veryll

The Apron

Javan attended summer school this summer from June to August (his regular semester started this past week) and the theme for summer school was 'Growing your own garden'. Such a fun idea. He got to learn about different vegetables and even helped plant some of them. One day he brought home some lettuce, zucchini, okkra (I didnt know the English word for this veg so I had to ask J so my spelling might be wrong) and he also brought home a fresh raspberry vinagrette salad dressing and basil pesto sauce that he and his classmates made with the help of their teachers. Both were delicious - we used the pesto on salmon and it was quite exciting to tell him that we used something he helped make for dinner. One of the acitivities the kids did was paint their own aprons using the different vegetables. The vegetables were cut in half and then the kids dipped them in paint and pressed it onto the apron. Lastly they used their little fingers to paint a caterpillar and put their stamp on each others aprons.



The best part of this was that aprons are on display at The Seasons Harvest (cleveland's fresh market) and have been for a while. Javan's principal told us about it so we went and got some pics. Javan was actually the last one to do his apron cos he didnt want to get his hands messy!

If you're in Cleveland and go to Season's Harvest look for Javan's apron! I'm not sure how much longer they'll be on display but I think they've been up for at least 5wks or so.
~V

My Best Friend...

...that would be the couch, or at least it was this past week. I spent all day Tuesday sneezing and by the evening I was kinda congested. I thought after a good night's rest I'd feel better. Who was I kidding? I woke up Wednesday miserable, unable to breathe let alone speak. Needless to say I called in sick at spent the rest of the day on the couch heavily medicated while listening to Javan say, "Wake up mummy. All done lie down. Get up. Let's play/read/go outside." I thought Thursday would be better but the cough got worse and so did the congestion. I started to get pretty loopy from all the meds I was taking! Thank goodness the Olympics were on cos I spent my time watching that and dozing on and off. I thought I'd be okay this morning to go in to work - you know cos I'm superwoman! Yea right. It didnt take me long to realize that I wanted/needed my bed. After lunch at Chik-fil-A (why is it that you bump into everyone when you're looking like death?), I got home and spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping. Good thing Javan did as well. I haven't had a cold in a while and I forgot how miserable it can make you. I had zero energy for anything. J brought me flowers on last night to cheer me up and he got me some ice cream from Brusters! Yummy stuff. I dont need soup when I'm sick - just a bowl of ice cream will do:-)

~V

RECORDS ARE SET TO BE BROKEN!!!

Michael Johnson, the U.S. athlete that held the world record in both the 200m and 400m races absolutely disrespected Usian Bolt. He told some commentator that Bolt would not be able to break his 200m world record of 19.32 set in 1996. He said that at best Bolt would run 19.50. I admire Michael Johnson but how dare he?!! Johnson had to break someone's record so why did he think his own record could not be broken.


Well I am overjoyed that Usain Bolt broke Johnson's record by running 19.30 with a headwind. Great job Bolt. It proves once again that RECORDS ARE SET ONLY TO BE BROKEN!!! These Olympics have shown us that.

Check out this article:
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/track_field/news?slug=jo-200meterbolt082008&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Jermaine

Bye Bye Green Machine

Today was a bittersweet one. We said goodbye to my very first car - the Green Machine though Old Faithful might have been a better name! I was so proud the day I got it and being very sentimental its hard to let go of things very easily. More than anything though this car was an answer to prayer. When I finally found the church I knew I was supposed to be attending, I didnt have a car. And, being that the church was in Chattanooga and I was in Cleveland, it was impossible to get there every week. So I prayed and fasted and it took a few months but I finally got my car. Two weeks after that we started attending this church and we're still there!

This car has taken us many places. It has over 248,000 miles. We've travelled the roads to Pennsylvania, Kentucky, DC, Florida (several times), Texas, North Carolina, and of cos all over Tennessee and Georgia. Fun times indeed! This is also the car we brought Javan home in two days after his birth. It may not have been the fanciest of cars, nor was it the latest model when I got it, but it was certainly reliable (can't go wrong with Toyotas!) and definitely a huge blessing to us.

~Veryll

9.69

What the....

I have never seen anything like this before. The men's 100m final for the Olympics was explosive. I appreciate what Michael Phelps has done, but a human being running at 30 miles an hour is absolutely out of this world.

What is even more scary is the fact that Usain Bolt (the winner from Jamaica) started relaxing with about 15 meters to go.

Even if you are not a track and field fanatic (like me) you have to appreciate the "awesome-nessity" (my word) of what this 21 year old has done. I can't wait until the 200m and 4x100m events.

Jermaine

Envy

I think Javan has beautiful eyes but I'm his mama so I'm entitled to that thought! Quite often we get comments about his eyes or his eyelashes. Just a few days ago we were out shopping and some stranger was talking to him while I paid. When we were walking away I heard her say to someone, "did you see his eyelashes? They're so long.'

Yes they are. and I want them. Seriously. I do want them. Look at them:



We've had people say 'if he were a girl he'd never have to wear mascara or even curl them.' Ha! Don't worry I won't be putting mascara on him, but I do want to tame those eyebrows!!!



So yes I am pretty envious of those lovely long lashes my son has:)

~V

Woo Hoo!!!

'I did it Mummy, I did it!' is what I heard from the bathroom at precisely 6:15pm (yes I checked the time!) on Friday night. Javan pee peed on the potty for the first time! I had just finished his bath and he climbed out the tub and told me he needed to potty so I helped him set up his stuff and figured it would be another 'lets just sit on the potty and read' time. I went to his room to get his clothes out and hear him screaming to let me know. I ran back in there and sure enough he had pee peed. He was so excited so I kept hyping it up. We called J to tell him what happened and amidst all the cheering and screaming he finally heard from Javan 'daddy I did it! I potty pee peed'. We called my mum and she wasnt too thrilled to be woken up at midnight but hey it was big news! We called Owa and Javan told her and Grandma Flora too. It was incredibly exciting, especially since he understood that he did something big and wanted to let them know!

~V

Exciting News!!!

My cousin Dene is engaged!!! Shawn FINALLY popped the question on Saturday night. YAY!!! We've been waiting for this to happen forever now. They've been together for like a decade (literally - they started dating after high school). I cant believe I missed the phone call yesterday but I got the scoop today and couldn't be more thrilled for them. Congrats guys - we are beyond thrilled!

The happy couple - old pic but still a cute one! love that she's wearing her dress from our wedding:)


Now hurry and set that date so we can start planning! Love you guys:)
~V

Bumbo Fun

We were at Katie and Randy's house on Friday night and Javan found many ways to entertain himself with Rody's baby stuff. It didnt take him long to find Rody's bumbo seat. I'm pretty certain he remembered he had one of them (we packed it away when he was about 13mths or so). He pulled out Rody's bumbo, set it up on the couch and climbed into it - he fit in pretty comfortably too!

His cheese face:




and here he is the first time i put him in his bumbo (2yrs ago!!!)


he really loved it ... and so did we:)


~ V

Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremonies

All i can say is WOW. China made certain that whatever controversy surrounded them as a nation would be dwarfed by the show they put on. The opening ceremonies was absolutely incredible. The effects, the fireworks, the choreography, the lighting, the history, the sheer magnitude of the event was amazing.

That is what $100 million would produce (btw that was 10 times as much as what Athens spent for their opening ceremonies).

The scenes that really stuck out for me were the drummers in the beginning, the people under the blocks (I thought that was operated by hydraulics), and the person who lit the flame being hoisted to the very top of the stadium.

Of course the most proud moment was seeing the Bahamians cominginto the stadium. My friend Debbie Ferguson was carrying the flag. Katie (we watched the opening at Katie and Randy's place) also knew her cos they trained at UGA together. Katie actually knew many of the athletes.

Today we have enjoyed watching soccer, volleyball, skulls, gymnastics, swimming - all super exciting.

I find it pretty fascinating that so little is known about China but these Olympics will definitely give a "tour" of sorts of this majestic country.

Jermaine

Olympic Fun

(Olympic flag carried into national stadium during the opening of the Beijing Games)

- The founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, was once a rugby referee and officiated in the first Test match between France and New Zealand.

- The five rings on the Olympic flag symbolise the continents. They are connected to symbolise the friendship. The rings, from left to right, are blue, yellow, black, green, and red. The colours were chosen because at least one of them appeared on the flag of every country in the world. The Olympic flag was first flown during the 1920 Olympic Games.

- The Olympic flame is a practice continued from the ancient Olympic Games. In Olympia (Greece), a flame was ignited by the sun and then kept burning until the closing of the Olympic Games.

- The last Olympic gold medals that were made entirely out of gold were awarded in 1912.

- The first opening ceremonies were held during the 1908 Olympic Games in London.

- South Africa’s first Olympic gold medal was won in 1908 by Reggie Walker in the men’s 100 yards final.

- The first winner of a gold medal at the modern Olympics was James B Connolly of the US. He won the hop, step and jump final at the 1896 Olympics, an event now called the triple jump.

- James B. Connolly (United States), winner of the hop, step, and jump (the first final event in the 1896 Olympics), was the first Olympic champion of the modern Olympic Games.

- In 1908 London Games, the British royal family requested that the marathon start at the Windsor Castle so that the royal children could witness its start. The distance from the Windsor Castle to the Olympic stadium was 42,195m (or 26 miles and 385 yards). In 1924, this distance became the standardised length of a marathon.

- Women were first allowed to participate in 1900 at the second modern Olympic Games.

- Tennis was played at the Olympics until 1924, then reinstituted in 1988.

- Though Russia had sent a few athletes to compete in the 1908 and 1912 Olympic Games, they did not compete again until the 1952 Games.

- Motor boating was an official sport at the 1908 Olympics and polo was played at the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920, 1924, and 1936.

- This year 205 countries are represented at the Beijing Games

~V

Less than a day to go!

We cant wait! We've been counting down the days and finally the Olympic games are almost here! J and I cant wait to watch. I can guarantee you that during the next two weeks our tv will see more 'ON' time than it has in the past 3mths! We're looking forward to track and field, gymnastics, diving and swimming but we'll watch anything else that interests us too - this is the Olympics afterall:)

Of cos I'm all for Team South Africa - I do hope I get to watch our athletes in action. One particular athlete I'm wanting to watch is Natalie du Toit. She's a South African swimmer who is actually the first amputee to qualify for the Olympics (she's already a paraolympics medalist).




So let the games begin cos we're ready!!!
~V

On the Phone

Not sure what it is about cell phones, but Javan loves them. So much so that Owa (aka Aunty Eleanor) gave him his own real cell phone (which has mysteriously disappeared!). Today Eleanor and I were on the phone and of cos little man wanted in on the conversation. He eventually took the phone from me so he could talk to her. It was so cute that I had to record it.



~Veryll

'Oh There'sh You Are'

A few weeks ago Javan was sitting on the potty. We usually stay with him, but I have the habit of walking in and out so I can get work done while he's sitting and reading (for the record he just sits on there but still hasnt done anything yet). I hear him reading his book aloud and then he has this little conversation with himself:
'Penis, where are you?'
(I started laughing and of cos have to peak in the bathroom.)
He pulls his book aside and says, 'Oh there'sh you are. I found it!'

LOL! Little boys are so much fun!!!

~Veryll