BABY photos!

So today is our 10 month anniversary, and I'm 5 months pregnant. :)
We had our 22 week scan and everything is perfect. It was sucking it's thumb, stretching it's legs and touching its toes! TOO cute. I'm amazed that black and white relative blur can be so darn cute!! We are so thankful to the Lord for the health of our little one. Here are some piccy's.

A Foot

(it has flat feet like daddy)

Close up of the flat foot
profile shot:

if you're confused, it's head is at the left and a long leg at the right

it's little hand is up near its head (this was just before it started sucking it's thumb)

you can even see it's spine and heart!
this was from our previous scan, you're looking at it from a birds eye view

the maternal unit

Ushaka Marine World!

A couple of weeks ago Antonio, a pastor from Mozambique, was in Durban with his wife Gladys and son Danny. Lyle knows them from his missions trips to the church there with Westville Methodist a few years ago. Antonio has such a great heart for the Lord and is persevering so faithfully in his ministry there. It was a blessing to chat with the family and hear the work that the Lord is doing. We had our Monday off and took them to Ushaka for the day. There's an amazing aquarium there with some beautiful marine life.

Antonio, Gladys and Danny

In the background here you can see a shark on the right,

and at the top left there's 2 giant bass, they weigh 400kgs!!!!
This is my favourite piccy - very artistic

that's me on the left :)

We're not sure who had more fun, Antonio or Danny.

Both of them were wide eyed and grinning all afternoon!

Reforming Spurgeon

We currently have Spurgeon living with us. A frightful thought considering he’s been dead for 116 years. No, not that Spurgeon. This one doesn’t have any initials due to the fact that he is of the canine variety. He’s a 2 year old Lab who belongs to Clint and Kim. They moved into their new house earlier this year and while the grass was growing Spurgeon was fostered out to a couple of church families (talk about committed support to church leadership).

It’s lots of fun having him with us – he adds some more life to our quiet home and we have a MASSIVE back yard in which he may frolic to his hearts content. The odd (now deceased) mole sometimes finds their way into our yard – another reason he’s a great dog.

A little history: As a puppy Spurgeon was deprived of playing with any types of balls. Whether they be tennis balls, plastic balls, squeaky balls, the balls from the preschool next door or even avocados which functioned as ball type objects when the bought balls were destroyed by...GENEVA! She was the other dog the Archers owned. She ruled the manse yard with an iron paw (quite by nature as an Alsatian). So effectively Spurg grew up without having any toys. Sadly, Geneva needed to go to doggy heaven (another illusion – see my previous post) because of her health, leaving all the tennis balls, plastic balls, squeaky balls, lost preschool balls and yes, even avocados in the world to Spurgeon! Now that he’s on his own he is truly in the groove of over-compensating his deprived puppy-hood by being THOROUGHLY obsessed with any balls he finds!!!

Of course the favourite is fetch. However, removing the ball from his mouth at first proved impossible, leaving all the balls to merely be destroyed. However, the first stage of reformed Spurgeon after the endless effort Lyle made, was Spurgeon actually releasing the ball!
Once the slobbered ball is collected poor Spurg is in such a frenzied state that he stops at nothing to attain his precious ball!!

So much so that he has crashed (HEAD ON) into numerous items. These include the outside table, many pairs of legs (almost taking us out a few times), the bushes that outline our yard, the shed and at one point he also crashed into the lemon tree, again head on, sending lemons flying in all directions. I think though, my favourite was when he jumped into a bush in efforts to retrieve his favourite red ball only to discover a cat in the undergrowth obliviously hunting for a gecko. The cat took off and Spurgeon fled, with neither ball nor dignity back to Lyle with his tail between his legs.

The launch before the cat incident

Spot the Dog

(he's just right of centre - that white speck in the bushes)

The lemon tree

He also lays claim to any balls that land in our yard. Many a soccer ball, much to the neighbourhood children’s dismay, has been promptly claimed and popped within moments. Even our soccer ball used for the youth kids at church was lost to Spurgeon’s obsession.
When we go out to feed him he grabs the nearest ball in case we forget why we were going outside and are drawn in to his scheme to have us throw the ball instead. This rarely happens. As a result the ball remains in his mouth as he approaches his food bowl. He never seems to know what to do with the ball, so it inevitably ends up in the bowl and he manages to eat is food around it. Now this creates a problem with soccer balls because they fill the entire bowl covering his food. I kid you not. He does not know what to do when this happens! He looks up at you helplessly, even displaying a quizzical brow... as much as a labrador has a brow... But of course as we approach him to remove it he picks it up again in hopes that he’s going to have it thrown for him... so all that to say he’s still in the reformation process.

This makes me laugh

This is one of the funnier sides to pregnancy. These jeans are one of two pairs of pants I wear... like every day! But thankfully they're super comfortable.

Heaven and Hell

Yesterday morning I was hanging the clothes on the line (it was a deceptively day – the rain came with no warning!) and was thinking of and praying for salvation for loved ones. As I mulled over the topic I realised that people who have a view of ‘being good enough’ to get into Heaven, must have an extremely mediocre view of Heaven. If all it takes is looking after an ill parent, being kind to the poor, small children and animals, working hard in your job, but also allows for you to be selfish, hold a grudge, break the law, lie, commit adultery, be self indulgent and racist, then .....Heaven must be just like earth (just without the people you hold grudges against, because of course they don’t deserve to be there). At the same time their view of Hell would be just as much of an illusion. Spending time with friends, being debaucherous, giving Satan (dressed appropriately in his red spandex) high fives.... it’s distressing to realise that there is such a great extent of indifference in the hearts and minds of those who don’t know Christ. Hell is a frightening place. The rejection of God has serious consequences – it isn’t “eternal death” it’s “eternal separation from God”. Death implies the end, whereas eternal separation implies all things opposite to God – darkness, loneliness, torture, fear, confusion, forever and ever and ever. I praise God for the hope which I have been blessed to have in Him. There are some excellent sermons from this year’s Resolved conference on Heaven and Hell. The website is www.resolved.org look for the 2008 messages. It is such a blessed reminder of what we as believers look forward to!

A Wedding

This last Saturday Lyle's friend Neville married his sweetheart Amy. It was lovely to witness them share their vows. The location was inland from Ballito, a place called Collisheen Estate, about an hour north of Durban.

The Bridal Party

(the kids on each end had an absolute blast dancing!

Apparently they had been practicing all week)

The handsome couple - Amy looked simply magnificent!

Thankfully Raqel was so kind as to lend me her matric (year 12 formal/senior prom) dress for the wedding. My bump wasn't quite as obvious as I'd hoped, but I suppose that's where I'm at right now, it's the "is that girl pregnant or just fat?" stage :) hehe

Baby 'bump'?

Here's me and baby at 20 weeks....boring as anything. But I officially cannot fit into any of my old pants . . .