Dear Richard
It was so great to get your Christmas
letter this week J And thanks for
drawing a picture for the kids – Josh and Hannah ran to come and see the
picture when I told them there was one!
The big news this week has been the death
of Nelson Mandela last week. I must say that I was quite emotional when I heard
the news, and there has been a lot of coverage and discussion around him on the
radio and just everywhere I go. I feel honoured and blessed to be a South
African and to know that my life is better today because of the efforts of
Nelson Mandela and the many that worked with him to make this country what it
is. Without them our lives would be very different! It’s also been amazing to
see the global attention that his death has received, and to realise how highly
the world considered him. There were close to 100 foreign heads of state that
came for the memorial service, which is apparently unprecedented! Plus tons of
other dignitaries, like 4 previous presidents of the US and 3 previous prime
ministers of the UK. So it’s been quite a week to be in South Africa! On Friday
we had a memorial service on campus, and that was really nice to be involved
in.
On the home front, Andrew passed his
course! J I’m so glad to have another module out of
the way! Now it’s just 4 semester courses left to do… Getting there!
Caleb didn’t actually have full blow
measles – it was probably baby measles, which is very mild. His spots
disappeared within a day or two, and now he’s completely better, which is a
huge relief J Caleb has also been climbing and getting
into everything! He’s been climbing out of his cot at night, and we have now
moved him into a bed in his room. So you can imagine what bedtime has been like
the last few nights… And when Andrew went home teaching it was really crazy
trying to put all 3 kids in bed when one of them refused to stay in his bed!
But hopefully once he gets used to it we’ll be in for a better time.
Work is pretty much finished for the year,
and I’ve been doing things like working on the manufacturing videos we’ve made,
and improving on them, I reviewed an academic paper for a journal (a bit weird
that I ended up doing that considering I haven’t had a paper published yet, but
it means that I’m getting more exposure to how a paper should look!), and then
more planning for next year.
The kids have had so many Christmas
parties! We had the ward party, then they had one at school, and we also had
one at my work for all the kids. Caleb was still sick when it was my ward
party, so I decided to leave him with Aunty Wendy while I took Josh and Hannah,
so I ended up having some nice time with the older 2. Dad was attending a
conference on campus, so he came to join us during his lunch break, and then
afterwards the kids and I walked him back to his venue on the other side of
campus. And of course the kids wanted to play around on the plaza and up and
down Jammie steps. It was so cool to think that in 15 years or so they will
most likely be students there J Josh and Hannah
also took part in their first swimming gala on Saturday. Hannah was only
willing to do one of her swims, and
although Josh did all 3 of his swims, he had to be coaxed into the pool each
time… But I was so proud of them that they took part! And of course they were
very keen when it came time to go and get their medals and party packs (more!)
for participating!
So things are slowly winding down to the
summer holiday. There has been lots of swimming already, and we’ve been making
plans to have the kids playing with other kids over the holidays as well, which
will help to keep us all busy J
I’m just hoping we get more sleep!
Love you
Shelly
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