Well what an exciting week we have just had. Lesleigh came out to visit and it has been wonderful catching up with her and for the girls to spend some time with her. She was a big hit and had 2 shadows around her everytime we all got together.

Lolly had her swimming gala on Friday and made us very proud with her swimming performance. Their house came 2nd overall and a fun day was had by all.



The big swimmer at the finish after her "froggy race".






On Saturday we headed off to Tala Game Reserve to give Lesleigh her fix of the wild animals! We had some good sightings and the wildebeest and zebra even gave us a mock run of the Serengeti Migration!!!

The crowd at the hippo hide

Mom and Les enjoying the ride

School breaks up on Friday the 3rd, which also happens to be my hubby's birthday!! We are off to the beach cottage in Kelso this weekend - so looking forward to a good start to the holiday.

Can you believe how stupid I am!! I just typed out a whole story and must've forgotten to save it!! So here we go - round 2....

Lolly-pops turned 8 this week. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. There was great excitement for this birthday as she woke us up every morning for about a week before the actual day reminding us of how many sleeps she still had to go.... Eventually the big day dawned and she was smiles from sunrise until sunset. She really tried to stretch her birthday over a number of days, starting with dinner at Spur on the 19th and then a party at Ushaka on the Saturday.

We all had an absolute ball at uShaka. The weather was amazing and we all the hit the slides with great enthusiasm. Even mom and dad were running up to the slides and screaming all the way down. How many 60-something year olds, do you see doing that!!! Mom even managed the 3rd highest slide - the Torpedo! We played hard all day and fell into bed exhausted that night.

Sunday, Sean had us all up really early and onto our favourite beach in Umdloti for the morning. The waves were pretty big, but the weather awesome again, so we pottered around there for most of the morning bumping into half of the white population in Durban - we even managed to get the Ras's down the hill!!

Well work has been hectic for both Sean and I over the past few weeks. I am hoping for things to slow down a bit this week. Sean is gearing up for the April holiday season and has even been driving his trucks around delivering stock.

We are really looking forward to Lesleigh's visit later on this week - just wish Chris was with her - really missing you guys!! Lauren has her swimming gala on Friday - so hold thumbs for the yellow house!!!

Until next time.....

Well it's already March and the kids have already passed half-term! Time is flying by too quickly for me! We have had a jam packed year already. We have been up to mates in Nottingham Road, where we had a lovely weekend. Sean enjoyed the country bike rides, whilst I went for a run with Dee.

We have also been down to the beach quite a bit and I must tell you that Lauren is an expert fisher-girl when it comes to catching those little dogfish in the rock pools. She always gets bucket loads of them and always attracts lots of children. We do follow the catch and release programme!! Talking about fish, our fish tank at home hasn't been too much of a success - we've managed to kill off about 12 fish so far, there are 2 hanging in there, but the snails are thriving!!! This is very perplexing for Sean - as he has had fish all his life!! I think it's got something to do with the water.

Sean has just come back from a fishing weekend in Pongola on the Jozini Dam. He caught 6 tiger fish and was the leader with a 2kg tiger after the first day, but Alf managed to pip him on day 2 with a 3kg tiger! It sounds like they had a lot of fun, with a lot of drinking in between!!

We are off to Nottingham Road again this weekend as my great friend, Heather, turns 40 and we're all going away to have a party!!! So really looking forward to that.

Happy New Year!!!

Lauren's 1st fish of the holiday!!

Mtonga

Well hello there! I know that I have been terrible at updating my blog and I apologise, but we have been so busy!!!

The holidays are now over and we're back to the grindstone. A little different for me this year, as I am getting into my morning job and trying to organise my afternoons around my private clients. It's a little difficult to get everything running smoothly yet, as the girls are still on holiday and only go back to school on the 21st of Jan.

Sarah starts Grade R (can you believe my little baby is growing up so quickly!!!) and Lauren goes into Grade 2! Both are really excited and ready for school now.

We have all had an amazing holiday. We had a few days at home and then headed off for a week at Mtonga in the Transkei. Mtonga is a tented camp right on the beach. The camp has 10 tents and can have 20 people there at a time. We went with another 3 families and kids, so our crowd totalled 17. We had excellent weather whilst we were there and spent every day on the beach. We are all very tanned and healthy looking and still feeling pretty relaxed. We fished, boogey-boarded, swam, snorkelled and had sundowners and bon-fires on the beach. We truly had a relaxing holiday as we were also spoilt with maids and gillys (for the fishing). I could do this again!!!

Well can you believe that Christmas is around the corner? This month has been very exciting for the Proctors.


I started my new job on the 1st. I am still feeling my way around, but the guys that I work with are great and the office environment really relaxed. Most of them have gone on leave, so I've been pretty much by myself here, but I have my radio!!! My afternoon business has also picked up! My great friend, Deb in Pmb, has been keeping me very busy sorting out their work as well as my other clients!!! I also have some new possibilities on the horizon - so watch this space!!!



Sean has been incredibly busy this month. He leaves early in the morning and trudges in at about 9pm!! They are delivering so much stock right now, and apparently breaking all expectations and records in their business. So we're hoping that this is an excellent month for Classic Foods and it sets the future tone for their business!!!



The girls have been having a wonderful holiday so far. Granny took them for 3 nights to Pmb and they joined up with Liam - their Botswana cousin and had a ball. They went to movies, animal farms and pantomimes!! We then had Pat, Beth and Liam for the weekend and took the inlanders to the beach - which they thoroughly enjoyed.

After that, they headed off down the coast and Kerry kindly looked after them for 3 days at Kelso. They have a fabulous beach cottage right on the beach. The girls found eels, crabs, fish etc. on the beach each day and have come back tanned and healthy looking. They also spent a day on Kerry's folks sugar cane farm and came home telling me how sweet sugar cane is!!!

They have had friends to play every day, so have been really spoilt. Sarah is very excited about going to "Build-a-Bear" which we have promised them for their Xmas pressie from Uncle and Lesleigh!! She has already chosen the Bunny and can't wait to create it!!! Will post pics next time!!

Other than that - we've been shopping up a storm for Xmas and we are looking forward to having the "gang" arond next week for Fran's "Turdunken"!! This is a turkey, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a duck!!! Sounds delicious. Sean is in charge of weber braai-ing it on Christmas Day!! (I hope he's not delivering ice-cream on that day!!)

Well to all of you reading this - Have a fabulous Chrsitmas and New Year and I wish you all of the best for 2009!!

A special mention to my brother and sister-in-law, Chris and Les, we are all missing you very much here in sunny SA and Christmas won't be quite the same without you!! Enjoy your 1st white Christmas, whilst we bake in the sun!!!

Until 2009..............

Sarah turns 5!!

What an exciting week we've had. Sarah turned 5 and she had a lovely party at home. We played lots of "old fashioned" games and the kids had a ball. We were very lucky with the weather which managed to hold out for her party and let the kids swim!!

She was very spoilt and has played with her gifts non-stop!!


The favourite being the microphone. We have mini-divas here now.



I flew up to Jhb last week to hand over some of the my work to the Pretoria guys. whilst I was there I stayed with Rob and Ta and we had a Nintendo Wii challenge. It really was good fun, even though I'm sure the neighbours must've wondered what we were up to!!! The skiing and tennis were my favourite and I discovered that my balance is terrible!!!

This week I was supposed to go to Cape Town to hand over the balance of my work, but my trip was put on hold, as our company is in the process of retrenching!!! I guess I got out of there just in the nick of time.

We decided to cut the girls hair and give them a summer look the other day. They look gorgeous! Whilst they were having their hair cuts, we had a very unusual hail storm which caught our attention. It was all over in the matter of half an hour!!

We have had another busy weekend, with parties, rugby and dinners, so today is relax day!!! Sean has found his couch and I indulged in a little retail theraphy this morning. So many clothes, so little money!!!

Well all - until next week......

Nottingham Road and Changes in the Air

Well hello again. It's been awhile, and lots has been going on!! To start we went up to our good friends, the Butcher's, last weekend in Nottingham Road and had a stunning day on the farm. The kids got covered in good old fashioned mud in the dam - I had to toss their brookies away as they were so brown!!! We saw Paula and Andrew (Balmer) for a quick brunch as they were in the area, and saw Paula's swelling tummy!! They are all well and looking forward to their new bundle of joy - their due date for baby is on Rob's birthday - 19th Jan!!!

I have resigned from my job at i to i, and have been offered a fantastic half day accounting job in Westville. I start on the 1 December, so just in time for summer! I will be doing books in the afternoon from home, so have lots of new things on the cards!!

Sean has been really busy of late, they've picked up a few more principles, and soon I hope to do my grocery shopping at his office. He is now selling salmon, muffins, ostrich, cheese, ice-cream, spices, lamb and caviar!!!!

I have really been enjoying my gym of late, and although the scale is not going down drastically, I have been feeling much healthier and fitter!! Squash leauge is now finished - we had our end of year dinner this week.

We tried out the pool this weekend, and although slightly chilly, the girls are ready for summer! Sarah started swimming lessons this week, and tells me she is a fantastic dolphin. She is also convinced right now, that in the next week or 2, she is going to turn into a "Mer-Fairy". She is rubbing magic potion onto her cheeks, and soon she will grow a mermaid tail and fairy wings, and I must please be prepared and fill up the back of my car with water, so she won't dry out!!! I have also been told to stock up on seaweed, as that is what mer-fairy's apparently eat!!!

Anyway - have a good weekend, and I'll chat to you all soon.