Steve

Today….we became parents to a 5 month old African Grey (a parrot) and his name is Steve! He’s beautiful. He’s a bit of an escape artist, we bought him home this afternoon and he jumped off his perch a couple of times and headed for the door! :( But we have now settled him on his perch in the centre of the house so he should be happy there (we hope!!) It's worked out perfectly, I've been wanting to place something in this part of the house, I just didn't know what!

We’re learning to bond. Thankfully he doesn’t bite (hard) he’s tame enough and I’m sure he’ll love us once he gets to know us.
In the mean time we’re furiously hunting the internet for “what to do with African Grey’s”

Isn't he a beauty!

This is me and Steve bonding...he'll let you scratch him...sometimes :)

Easter

Our Easter long weekend has been awesome. We did....nothing. J Actually we had some awesome sermons from Clint this weekend. We had church on Friday and Sunday. If you go to www.baptistchurchhillcrest.com you can find them on the website. He doesn’t hold back AT ALL and my heart was really encouraged by his faithful teaching of the truth. This is one of the reasons I love Hillcrest Baptist – there’s no milky teaching, it’s all meat!

For lunch on Friday we went to Lyle’s folks house. It’d be great if you could pray for us with witnessing to his family. We so desperately desire for them to know the Lord, but we need great patience with the Lord’s timing. We know that it is only Him who changes hearts and at the moment I’m learning what it looks like to wait on the Lord for the salvation of ones you love. It’s such a big deal. It’s not like waiting for a house , a job or a spouse which are all so trivial in light of eternity. Their hearts are very hardened at the moment, but I know the Lord can do anything.

On Monday we went to the beach with Trevor and Az – they’re a really great couple, Lyle and Trev went to school together. It was the four of us and a whole bunch of people from their church. So we had some new faces to meet, although Lyle seemed to know a few already. The weather was perfect, the water was perfect and it was just a really great day. I even got a little tanned J

Today however, I’ve been mowing the lawn...so I’m completely exhausted. We fired our gardener because it costs too much and we have the time to do it. We were going to do it yesterday but because we had a phone call for the beach I convinced Lyle that I’d be fine to mow it today. But I’m thinking I’ll stick to the weeding and Lyle can do the mowing (our lawn is HUGE by the way, so I’m not just being a wussy girl). The beach day was totally worth it though!

It’s school holidays for the next three weeks. It’s an unusually long break, but I’m looking forward to it. The kids have a few things lined up, so I have some days off.

And life goes on...

Ok so I NEVER update this thing, sorry. This year is flying past and I’m trying to grab a hold of it! We're continuing to LOVE our church, it is truly a blessing to be there. We are headed to the Resolved (www.resolved.org) conference in LA in June. Both Lyle and I are super excited to see people we love and miss. I'm excited to introduce my husband to people too!! :)

Last weekend Clint and Kim moved into their new house! I was privileged to look after their little Noah for the day. He was, of course, an angel. Kim has updated their website with a few pics of the house – and lots of smiley photos of Noah http://www.archersinsa.blogspot.com/

Here's Noah in our living room

and a close up just 'cos he's so cute

He took a little while to be sure of me although I became his best friend when uncle Lyle came home from helping with the move…but if I had Lyle’s face staring at me when I was 10 months old I’d probably get a little upset too

As for us, we’re doing well. We’re enjoying life and certainly keeping busy enough to keep out of trouble! We’ve had a few braai’s (BBQ’s) at our place. With the heat we bought a pool, however, I don’t think it is intended for more than one grown man. Actually I don’t think it’s intended for any grown up anything…however that doesn’t stop some people…

And for something random, yet interesting…this is a picture of a newspaper that is sold in southern Africa.

And in the close up we see the 15 million Zimbabwe dollar price tag in …so absurd. Yet, as I've learned to say "That's Africa baby!"