FIVETRIBE

The day finally arrived. She had been so patient and long-suffering. The 5 days prior to her birthday she had had to move out of her bedroom so that the makeover could be completed. We painted the entire room and all the furniture (barr one cupboard) white. Hung her favourite pictures. Added some vinyl decals. Added new handles and light switch covers. Put up numerous hooks for all her bags, medals, jewellery, belts and and and! The medal hanger made of scrap wood and old door handles. The mirror selfies The onsie clan! We went out for breakfast at Ellies Deli with my mom and later did the family dinner vibe at Spur as is tradition. A happy ten year old girl finally slept very well in her new bedroom!

Faith made the semi finals for the Ackermans Style Squad - basically a competition to win the position of 1 of 12 fashion bloggers for Ackermans for 12months. Competition is stiff and am now navigating my way through how to help her manage the possibility of both success and failure. For now we are just going to enjoy the pleasure of waiting for the courier to arrive with her first assignment …. all we know is it will be delivered by the 16 May and she has  to submit a finished product by 31 May. In other news…..I have recently started hosting a group of kids in my home from about 1130 - 1330 to do some group learning (and messing about!) Today we had a look at the layers of the earth and discussed minerals and Mohs scale of hardness. We are doing more and more co-op type learning with a creative writing class (Kerrin)  a craft class (Carrie), a geography class (me), a historical class/activity (Tracey) and a Nature Study/Ambleside class (Joy). All of these classe...

This weekend was a whirlwind. So much activity but all good. Saturday morning saw us all at ParkRun. I was really impressed that my teen actually got out of bed at 0730 on a cold Saturday morning. No threats involved. Russell and I are running with them until they are comfortable to run the route alone (probably from next week). Rachel ran a 40min, Faith a 38min and Levi a 32min (with his broken toe!) We came home, mellowed a little bit and then headed to town to fetch our race number for the Jive  Slave race on Sunday. It was pretty cool to be in town on a Saturday afternoon, we met up with my D&S at Truth Coffee Shop (hipster hangout deluxe) and tried to have a civilized cuppa. This didn't really work out for 2 reasons 1. My kids were highly annoying. Seriously, they acted like they were all 5years old. The oldest being the main instigator of chaos. I had MASSIVE sense of humour failure. There were moments of amusement. Very few but this was one. 2. ...

Our elections have come and gone. With results trickling in it would seem that our countrys' poorest are happily still choosing to re-elect their corrupt oppressors. The Western Cape remains the last bastion of hope in this beautiful country of ours and thankfully we get to call it home. We spent our public holiday lazily - first lunch at the Octopus Garden (very unimpressed) and then a great afternoon chill at my folks place before making our mark around 4pm. Took the kids along to show them how it is all done - all rather exciting for them. I share my running life via Endomondo with a few fellow enthusiasts and I have to say that this form of 'social media' is very beneficial. After a few days of my feed filling up with all their running exploits I do seriously begin to suffer a) guilt   b) fomo. It is pretty helpful in getting my butt OUT THERE. Yesterday, I had promised myself I would NOT let another day pass without pulling on my running shoes  (and had made t...

Lately: We did our first family trail race about 2wks ago. The Constantia Valley race - early morning rise on a Sunday, packed kids and hot chocolate and off we went. Thoroughly enjoyed by us all - we have booked our next family race for 11 May - Slave Race 2014 in Cape Town city centre. someone was very excited on race morning! Levi broke his toe 10 days ago. It turned out to be a bit of a drama. Initially I ignored it and taped it to the alongside toe but later felt I needed to get it checked out. X-rays showed a nasty fracture….he had to have it anesthetized  and the doctor realigned it. He was super brave. It is still not right though but we are hoping he will be able to do Park Run and Slave race this weekend. Faith did her first Park Run last Saturday (Rach stayed home with broken-toe boy) and she really surprised me and herself. She ran the 5k trail route in under 35mins. Fantastic achievement for her. happy mom proud dad! She is also back at dan...