Letter to Richard - 24 November 2014

Dear Richard

A busy week last week. The highlight was Josh’s Grade 1 orientation. He was all excited, but then when Mr van Vuuren was explaining what was going to happen he realised that he’d be going without us to meet his teacher. Then he started getting a bit upset and anxious. And as the names started being read it turned out that he was in the last class to be called, so he was sitting getting more and more anxious. I prayed with him, but he was still sitting with tears in his eyes. But when his name finally was called he immediately got off my lap and went off without even looking back! And then a couple other kids from his class this year also got called, and then he actually cheered up. But I was so impressed with how he was able to go and do what he needed to do, even though it was obviously difficult for him! :) My boy is growing up! And so he’s in Mrs Thomas’ class, who’s the grade head. I am so glad that he’s got an experienced teacher as well, because he will struggle to adjust next year, and he needs a teacher who will understand his personality. So on the whole a very positive experience!

We’ve had power problems this last week. Over the weekend there were rolling blackouts, but on Wednesday when I got to work the power was off in my building, and it turned out that with all of the construction work being done on campus they damaged some power cables! Just a bad week! But we at least had power the whole day today.

We’ve pretty much finished our Christmas shopping now. I did a bit of shopping for Andrew the day that I eventually left work early because of no power, and then on Friday Andrew and I took the day off and did everything we need to do together. We bought some clothes for Andrew to give to me, and it was a matter of traipsing from shop to shop at China Town. In our 10 years of marriage this was actually the first time that we’ve done a shopping expedition like that. But we did find quite a few nice items, but now I have to wait until Christmas to get them!

We had our first proper meeting of the school governing body last week, and we allocated all of the roles. I’m the secretary, and I’ve got the education portfolio and a couple other things. I’m quite excited about how this is going to work out :)

This weekend was stake conference, and you should have had the same conference as us on Sunday :) So you know what a great session that was, although I need to re-watch it because the kids, especially Caleb, were giving me a really hard time :( But what I did hear from it was really great. And on Saturday we had our local meetings. Andrew was doing training and giving a talk on Saturday, so on Friday night he was up really late working on them. But they went great as always. Things are coming together nicely in our stake now :)

And on Sunday afternoon we put up our Christmas tree for family home evening. Mom came over, but the kids were so excited that they actually couldn’t wait until she got here… So lots of excitement, and since then they’ve been playing a game where one of them goes into the play room and gets a couple toys while the others pretend to be sleeping on the couch, and then the toys get put under the tree and the child runs to the passage to hide behind the door frame, and then the others wake up to get their presents. So cute!

I’ve got a lot of family history done over the last week, entering the 30 pages onto family search. Quite a few names that can have temple work done :) And something else I’ve been doing all the time is listening to general conference while I’m driving to or from work. I’ve gone through all of conference 1 ½ times already :)

So that’s it for this week. I was telling the kids everything that’s happening this coming week, and it’s going to be crazy again! But we’ll survive ;)

Love you lots

Shelly

Letter to Richard - 17 November 2014 (Richard's 21st birthday)

Dear Richard

So as of now you are officially a grown-up :) I hope you really had a good day!

I finally finished my second year marking at the end of last week, and that means that I don’t have any more marking until probably about September next year! Which is just awesome!!!

But I also took some time off to have lunch with Mom which was really special and some visiting teaching. I shared the talk from the October conference “Approaching the throne of God with confidence” which I think is a really awesome talk! Such an important perspective that we need to be feeling confident and worthy, otherwise we won’t feel happy to be in the Lord’s presence, even if we’re basically doing everything right. Good food for thought…

On Friday morning we took the kids to Home Affairs to get their passports and unabridged birth certificates, not because we are planning on going anywhere, but so that we’re prepared like President Monson has counselled us. They’re improved their system since we were last there, and it wasn’t too painful at all :) The only bad part was that the photos that I had fought hard for the previous evening, to get the kids to actually stand still with a good expression on their faces, weren’t what they wanted, so we had to have more done, and it was nearly impossible to get Hannah and Caleb to stand still! But we eventually won, and then we got out of there. And what was also great was that the whole time Josh was saying that he wanted to go to school. LONG may that sentiment exist!!!

We also spent some time discussing the new Honours program for next year last week, and then today we presented it to the rest of the staff. It seems that the feelings are generally positive from the other staff, so we’ll see how it goes from here :)

We’re busy reading the New Testament scripture stories with the kids right now, and it’s been quite nice to be able to talk to the kids about Jesus and the things He did. Somehow these stories are lending themselves much better to some discussion than the previous scripture readers, but hopefully we’re establishing some good habits :)

On Saturday we had our carnival ward activity to help the youth raise money for FSY which is just a few weeks away now. The kids had a blast with all of the games (Josh was pretty good at throwing darts at balloons!), and what was great is that the youth exceeded their target by a lot! So they’ve got everything they need to get them to FSY now :)

Sunday was the Primary presentation and all 3 of the kids did their parts great! Caleb’s line was right at the beginning and he wanted to then sit with me afterwards, but at least he did say his line, and Hannah and Josh were willing to do their parts nicely, and I could see them singing, although neither of them is going to be willing to sing very loudly any time soon ;) But we were still really proud of them! Andrew’s family came over to see them, and then we had them over for lunch and a visit afterwards. It was so great to see how our 3 kids had a ball playing with Sarah. Cousins are so awesome!

So that’s us. It’s been another busy week, but lots of fun stuff too :)

Love you

Shelly

Letter to Richard - 10 November 2014

10 November 2014

Dear Richard

Last week was a lot of marking again, this time for the second year exam. I'll still be busy most of this week with it. I am looking forward to being finished with marking! I also got to work on my supp a bit and more or less finalised the results for students.

But what was great was that Andrew and I went to watch Jeeves and Wooster at Theatre on the Bay on Tuesday which was great fun! I had read the book that the play was based on, but seeing how the stage was used and the characters, really brilliant!

We've been having pretty good behaviour from the kids lately. Not perfect of course, but all 3 have been doing pretty well, which is such a relief :) I hope this is the start of an overall good stage ;)

The weekend was really intense! There was hardly anytime that we weren't doing something :( But it was mostly good stuff at least :) On Friday evening we went to Kirstenbosch for a picnic and firefly walk with the ward. Andrew's family and a few other people joined us too. I think the group was actually too big, but it was still nice, and the kids had great fun, especially running around with all of the other kids while it was still light.

On Saturday morning I took the kids to the chapel to practice for the primary presentation which is next Sunday, while Andrew stayed at home and did some chores and errands. We came home briefly and then I dropped Josh off at a party and then I went to the Stake Relief Society High Tea, which was nice to spend some time visiting with the sisters. Then back to fetch Josh before coming home to get Hannah ready for her ballet concert. It was surprisingly quick to get her ready, and she was so keen to be getting out of the door and on her way! She was one of a group of Snow Whites, and her dancing was cute 4 year old dancing, but it was so awesome to see her up on the stage dancing, not bothered particularly by the hall full of people :) What an amazing life skill to be getting at the age of 4! And she says she enjoyed being up there, so we'll see what she gets up to in the future ;)

Sunday was church, and then we went to Fish Hoek to have a small party for Luke's birthday. The kids are really enjoying spending time with their cousins right now, which is so special to see.

So after that weekend it felt like a holiday to go back to work this morning! Things are winding down now, as we're getting closer to the end of the year. I can't believe that it's just 2 months till Josh starts Grade 1... We've got his orientation next week, and his graduation the following week. It's all very real now! But we know that he's ready and I've seen him growing up so much this year, which has been awesome to see. It makes me much more confidence in his readiness for Grade 1. I do need to get going with things like buying his uniform and stuff now... :(

So that's us! All growing up quickly and moving forward. So life is busy, but good! Yesterday in my class we we're talking again about how we need to choose to be living the gospel, but I can honestly tell them that I have a good life, and it's because I'm trying to live the gospel, not getting it perfect, but my life is good!

So on that note I will love and leave you :)
Shelly

Letter to Richard - 3 November 2014

Dear Richard

I’m so enjoying a slightly slower pace at work now! I finished my marking for my course last week, and once it all got captured the results are looking good :) My external examiner now needs to go through a sample and sign off on the results, but I’m nice and ahead of schedule which is a huge relief! I’m going to be marking some second year papers as well, but they’re only writing on Wednesday this week, so I’ve got a bit of a breather still. And it meant that I could take a bit of time last week to do things like sorting out the kids clothes for the new season, and sorting out the 2 freezers. It feels so much better to have things a bit more organised! And then I also made a new dinosaur mask for Josh, which he’s been desperately asking for for ages now! It came out quite nicely :)

One sad bit of news last week for me was that one of my good friends at work is resigning :( Apparently we have a 6 month notice period to work out, so she’ll still be around for a while, but I’m definitely going to miss her once she’s gone :( There are some people at work that you get really close to! But change is the nature of things in life, so we carry on.

I went to a very interesting talk on parenting – about strong willed children and how to deal with manipulation and domination from them… Lots of good things to learn and try and implement! I wish I could say that all of our parenting problems are over immediately, but there’s a learning curve of course… But I think we do have a few things that we can work on specifically now.

On Friday when I was at gym my left elbow started hurting, and by the end of the work day I could hardly lift my arm! I was picturing myself back where I’ve been in the past with joints that are giving major hassles. But I put a Transact patch on, rested it well, and lots of prayer of course, and with my regular visits to the chiropractor my body is supposed to be able to heal itself as quickly as it can, and all of that together, and by the end of Saturday I more or less had my full range of motion back! I can honestly say that it was a miraculous healing! What a blessing :D

Saturday was intense, with a party for Caleb in the morning, and a party for Hannah in the afternoon… I was exhausted by the end of the day! But it was good to spend time getting to know different parents at the school. I was looking through the class lists for each of the kids, and I actually know most of the parents in all 3 classes, which is impressive, I think!

Yesterday afternoon Eunice Sibotoboto and her 2 boys came to visit for a short bit while Siya was at the BYC over the road. She is so desperate to have a daughter! She loved playing with Hannah, doing lipstick and hair… I ended up being the model for most of it ;) But at least now someone has been able to actually show Hannah how to plait my hair! It’s something I couldn’t do myself, for obvious reasons… They’re a really great family! I hope nothing happens that they move out of the ward before you get back and get to know them ;)

So that’s about it… Hope you’ve had a good week!

Shelly