Why I chose to have balloons.

I'm 1 year older. I have entered my thirties and I am of opinion that the best is yet to come. I received a beautiful wish from someone I 'met' recently. She is blessed with remarkable wisdom and has an amazing gift for writing prose and poetry. She wrote: "I hope they (30's) are a time of great settling into yourself and of great discovery. "

'...time of great settling into yourself.' These words have such a deep and profound meaning for me. It dawned on me that many people squander their time wishing they were younger when 'settling into yourself and discovery' comes with age. Nothing about stagnating appeals to me. A part of life is about growing wiser. Nothing less. And if it means I have to put up with a few more wrinkles every year, then so be it. No one likes to see their appearance change, however, it is the condition of your thoughts and the purity of your heart that are essential. It made me think about this little story I read a while ago by Dr. Phil McGraw.

'On one particular occasion, I remember a boy to whom I gave a balloon. Unlike the other little guys who territorially clutched the strings of their balloons, this fella looked up at me and asked, "If I let go of my balloon, will it go up real high?" Moved by his question, I knelt down and responded, "Sure it will, son. It's what's inside your balloon that makes it go up real high.'

That is why I chose balloons.


Patriots!

Kurt enjoying a 'boerewors' roll.

Angela, sorry hun! I caught you off guard there!

Rodger (please note that this is the CEO of my hubby's company mowing OUR lawn.) We've got it sorted!

Claire! Always gorgeous. Always smiling.

Claire, myself and Kels!

Brad having a sleep on my couch at my party!

Kels, Fi, and Donna!

Standing around the braai (ok, BBQ). There are a two people missing here. Jess and Noah, pity you couldn't make it.

My Baptism

As some of you might know, my baptism was yesterday morning. I still have a hard time trying to put in words what it was like. The only reasonable conclusion I can draw is that the physical body isn't able to comprehend the wonder of being baptism and my mind, therefore, struggles to describe it in ordinary words.

Nevertheless, I'm posting some pictures for you to see. Yes, I'm very happy and Yes, I'm very proud to be called a Christian and a Princess of God.

Time to stop being lazy!

I haven't posted anything for a long, long time and realised that now might be as good as ever. We had pictures taken of us while we were cruising earlier in the year on the Vision of the Seas to Mexico. I've scanned the nice ones in and am posting them here for you to see. Apart from our wedding photo's these are the only formal photo's we have. You'll agree that these one are really nice. The first one is my favourite.





As some of you might know, my 30th is tomorrow (20th Sept.) and we are having a small party. I will post these pictures on Sunday or Monday for you to see. After that, there will be silence from our side as we are off to Spain on the 29th. I'll be staying a few more days in London for the fantastic Hillsong Conference while Kurt will probably go to Gibraltar for work.

We will definitely have some pictures to show of this little trip to Spain, Barcelona. Kurt is there for work/conference and I'll be spending my time wisely shopping for much needed clothes and winter necessities. After the conference we are going to Tarifa where we'll be staying at the Hurricane Hotel.

Well, there you have it. Take good care of yourselves! Will post soon.

Last House Updates (unless something good comes along)

Here is some final pics on the house......

Just one last pic on our new curtains in our room...Finally. We've worked out that it gets dark at 10:30pm-ish and get light at around 4am-ish...See why black out blinds and curtains are necessary??
Just the lounge from a different view...

And Kurt's fancy sports car. Don't be fooled...This thing is 10 years old, slightly rusted and have a few dents and scratches. But it's perfect for island life! You should see him in this thing. He puts the roof down, switches on the heater and off he goes. Brilliant!!!

Oh, and see, a cloudless day. Yes, we get some of those. Except the last three days. It's been raining non-stop, the wind has been howling and it's like winter in SA (constant 9°C during the day....add a rather strong wind and driving rain and you have summer on the Isle of Man.) Just kidding...we had a beautiful weekend, meaning I could sit outside in my bikini and get a tan with an average of 24°C. Kurt got sunburned (from working in the garden, don't laugh! We don't have gardeners), is peeling and is probably scratching his back as I write this. Oi, peeling is an itchy business.

Anyways...it's getting late and I rose with the sun this morning....so I'm off to my bed!

Cheers!

Something Old and Something New

I figured that I haven't been too good with keeping our blog updated so I decided to post some more pics. I felt a burning desire to publish the first three photo's. These are the flowers I got for our 5th wedding anniversary. PURPLE TULIPS!!! PURPLE TULIPS!! PURPLE TULIPS!! One more time...PURPLE TULIPS!!!

*sigh. They are (were) so gorgeous.



The next bunch of photo's we're taken on the promenade on the Main TT Race day. It was something to experience. The guys in the brown army jackets call themselves the Purple Helmets and all the stunts they do are performed at whopping 130 miles/hour. Really!! Seriously!!! (you'll need to click on the photies to get them a bit bigger.....)

This is Bake Bean Man....Say No More!

This chap was more upside down than anything else...

Ah, and Mr Piano Man...I'm glad for him it was a glorious day and we had awesome weather.

Left to Right: Chris in the yellow shirt and jacket, Hanro in the green shirt and Kurtis in the grey shirt. Behind Kurt in the red shirt is Karina and next to her is Kelly. The only one not South African is Kelly.

Karina with a bike she adored.

Kurt got hold of the camera and got a bit of a blurry photo of me.....nevertheless I was giggling again!

Promenade from far....

Promenade from a little closer....

I realize I'm going a bit back in time, but I decided to post some pics on the latest changes we made to the house. It's going terribly slow, considering we haven't touched the garden and it's probably going to cost a small fortune too.

We've been working on the few things we can change, so have a look if you'd like.

Our bedroom with blackout blinds. We added dress curtains today, so I'll publish those pics in the next few days.

Study with the vertical blinds...

Lounge bay-window with vertical blinds....

Slider in lounge with vertical blinds again...See the garden looks like a jungle.

Windows in lounge with roller blinds. The only reason why we had to go for roller blinds attached to the windows themselves was because all the windows in this house opens to the inside. Clever for on a miserable day when you need to was windows but don't want to go outside. But a nightmare if you need to buy blinds and curtains.

Bored?....NEVER!

The past three weeks marked the celebration of the centenary year for the well-known TT races. This tiny island was all hustle and bustle with absolutely loads to do. Considering we didn't do much, I still have over 500 photo's to show for it. That is excluding tonight when we're off to the promenade to see the laser shows etc. Those pics I will post at a later stage.

On Tuesday night we sailed around Douglas Harbor with the beautiful Tall Ships. It was a magnificent evening which was highlighted by the awesome Red Arrows (Probably because I got such lovely photo's. Especially when you watch it on a 21" monitor.) See for yourself..

This is the Artemis. There were two ships that sailed for 4 days around the harbor.

Artemis again....

The houses in the back is part of Onchan, where we stay.

This is the Atlantis we sailed on.

Red Arrows, up close and personal.





Mr. Kurt playing Tarzan. Wouldn't expect anything less of my dear hubby.

Me..having a good giggle!

Just some shots I managed to take today. I LOVE Image-Stabilizer Lenses.





Blow-up doll tied to the back of a bike...Quite a few of those around.

They say there are safety in numbers. In most parts of the world it means that people should stick together and never walk alone. I'm not entirely sure if that is applicable to the Island. I was on my way to take a pic of the blow-up doll and came across so many bikes with helmets and bags on it while the owner is having a pint or two a 100 meters away. Yeah, right....safety in numbers....

Well I'm off to take some more pics. I'm really looking for those weird and wonderful people that don't care what the world thinks and do what they like. They make SUCH good entertainment.