Hexbug in a Megablock Maze
Nathan and Luke have been built a maze for Roy’s Hexbug to run through … pretty cute!
Archive for 'Family'
Bee-Hive for Dinner?
Yesterday I was working (as I sometimes do at home) by the dining room table, and opened the windows just to the left of it, and enjoyed the fresh breeze as I typed away at something (can’t remember now) on the laptop.
I do however remember noticing a strangely large number of bees buzz in and out the window, and also appreciated their reflection in the fresh polish which had been put on the table just earlier that morning.
Anyway, a few hours later I closed the window as Angela pointed out there where a whole bunch of bees inside the house. My wonderful wife then spent a large chunk of the rest of the evening cleaning up bees from around our dining room. I felt terribly guilty, and did a bit of blame-shifty explaining it must’ve been the nice new polish on the table that attracted them.
Frustration was this morning when we again found some bees inside, trying to fly out through the closed window, wondering where they came from … a little while later (while I was peacefully again working away at my laptop on dining room table) Angela found this nest of bees dangling only inches away from where I was sitting – Amazing how in such a sort time they had made themselves so at home … We called the building management and they dealt with it (while we entertained the very curious Nathan and Luke in other parts of the apartment) and now being totally bee-less are thinking of changing our brand of wood polish :-)
Angela and I (and Nathan and Luke to a smaller extent) are still just SO amazed at how quickly the bees got to work – What a beautiful creation we are blessed to be living with, although we’re working at keeping the distance between their home and ours :-)
Boys Baking Night …
Angela went out for the evening so Nathan, Luke and I figured we’d have some fun and bake a cake for our friend Sarah who had a brithday recently and we’ll be seeing her tomorrow.
As you can see, liking out the bowl was most fun part of all …
Baking with the Boys
Airport Check-in
It’s just before 1am – Garikai, James and Karina just dropped us off at the airport and things are looking good for our 4:40am flight to Johannesburg.
Luke (as you can see in the picture) is barely awake but Nathan is all joy and full of excitement.
Happy New Year!!!
We had a relaxing New Years Day, trying to set a trend for what we want to do more of this year, i.e. relaxed with family and friends :-)
The whole family woke up nice and late (Luke included) and lounged around and had a generally “lazy” morning – Then around 11 Nathan and I started getting the fire ready for the “braai” – While the coals were warming up, and the cheese “saa’mies” grilling, Nathan hunted for some bugs to put in his bug catcher.
Our good friend Lisa joined us for lunch, and we all relaxed together and played a boardgame or two. Lisa left while it was still light out, and our other goods friends, Kevin and Christina joined us for a light dinner (we’d had a pretty heavy lunch) and some time reflecting on what a great God we serve, and how we can serve Him better in the year to come.
Here’s some pictures of the Braai and Nathan running around after the bugs – Luke had gone for a nap when we took the group photo.
Welcome Back to Wuvie and Grandma
Dad and Ma (referred to as Wuvie and Grandma) arrived in Dubai this morning just before 1am – Nathan has been anticipating their arrival with great joy and excitement. Here’s a welcome picture he drew (figures, plane and stars are stencil assisted) – He seems to be writing a lot better these days :-)
FAMILY NEWS!
Hello!
We trust that you are all well. We are doing fine.
Nathan is growing at a rapid pace – as I’m sure all kids do! He’s 4 now and can’t wait untill he’s 10 because then he’ll be big like his Daddy! He’s still going to playgroup 4 days a week and loving it! It’s a real mission to get him to come home in the afternoon’s. At playgroup they are all busy practising for the upcoming Christmas Play. He’s going to be a King – to be exact King Belhasa – and will be bringing baby Jesus some frankincense. Nathan’s life’s dream is to become a King. Nathan has started swimming lessons and enjoys them very much. He’s still got a long way to go, but he doesn’t use arm bands anymore and even though the lessons are a hour long he LOVES it!
Roy is busy at work – end of year coming up. But he’s enjoying his work very much. In the past year he’s had a new assistant and a new co-ordinator, but they have all settled in nicely together and make a good team. He’s been to Riyadh, Saudi to set up the sales office. And then about two months ago he was in Austria attending a conference for one of the software packages the hotel uses. Roy is helping Daniel lead our Cell Life Group and has also started helping on a Friday morning by doing the lyric projections. Roy’s had a busy year (haven’t we all) and looking forward to the much needed leave in December.
Angela is busy doing what Mothers do! Taxi, grocery shopping, cleaning house, ironing etc. The Bible Study she’s been attending is coming to an end – next week will be the last study in the series. She has also started playing the piano once a month for the children’s church. Can you believe that there are close to 200 kids on a Friday morning! You can only imagine how many big folk there are upstairs in the Church!!
We have just finished Membership Classes, and will soon become members of our church! We are excited about this as we (Roy) have started this class 3 times – at least we’ve finished them now :-)
We have also been blessed by the LORD, and are expecting our third baby. Angela is only 6 weeks pregnant, but we trust that our Father will continue to bless us with a smooth & healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. Due date: Mid July 2006. Nathan is thrilled that he will be having a baby soon! Guess he’ll soon find out that he has quite a wait ahead of him. ;-)
We continue to thank you all for your prayers, especially over the past year. May the LORD bless you and continue to reveal Himself to you.
Much Love,
Roy, Ang, Nathan & Babee
Frozen World
Nathan, Angela, Ma and I went to “Frozen World”, which is the ice-sculpture hall which is part of Snow World – We all enjoyed sliding down the ice-slide …
Here’s a picture of us all in a REAL igloo, i.e. made totally of ice …
Hangin’ with Bruce Willis
This is Alix (Verrips), my sister, hangin’ with Bruce Willis who chartered the Yacht she works on in St Tropez.
Don’t you just love the “something about Mary hair” in the first pic?
It’s that time of year …
Yesterday Dad and Ma returned to South Africa after close on three months with us all here in Dubai. It wasn’t easy to say good-bye – Nathan in particular was very sad and kept saying “But I don’t want them to go!” – He’s such a loving little boy and Ang and I realise anew every day what a blessing he is to us …
Considering we’d missed church due to the timing of Dad and Ma’s flight we spent the rest of the day together as a family, just relaxing at home … Sometime in the afternoon Nathan starting singing “jiggle-bells” so Ang’ and I thought it a good idea to pack out the Christmas Tree. If nothing else it may fill some of the “extra space” we suddenly had :-)
As always, something that worked just fine when we boxed it up last year didn’t work once unwrapped – Our set of white tree-lights has a wiring problem, but the coloured ones were ok, and we managed to hang all the other decorations. And and I had a little sad moment as we put the last decoration, the Angel, on the top of the tree.
We let Nathan setup the ornament tree – He was most impressed that he had his own tree to “setup” and we think he did a great job *wink*
During this week we’ll start getting our Christmas cards going … Can you believe it’s that time of year already?
Yours in Him
Roy, Angela and Nathan
Happy Six Month Birthday, Rachel
Today was Rachel’s 6-month Birthday. Just before five we all gathered at Dubai Hospital, room 434, to celebrate this joyous event. The birthday party theme was obvious – “Princesses”. We had pictures of Princess Jasmin (from Aladdin), Princess Aerial (i.e. “The Little Mermaid”), Princess Snow White, Princess Cinderella and Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) all over the place.
Elaine had baked a beautiful pink marble cake, and together with her, Richard, James, Dad, Ma, Angela, Nathan and I all thanked The Lord together for the past six months we’ve enjoyed with our “Little Princess”
Rachel looked lovely in her Birthday dress and even sat up straight all on her own (which she started doing this week) for the occasion.
We didn’t have too many games, but the one that kept us all busy was the balloon blowing competition. It ended up a tie between Richard and everyone else, as no-one was able to blow up a single “Balloon Sculpturing” balloon, and with no hand pump we were left with no other option.
Later in the evening Pastor Daniel (Splett) joined Angela and I and we enjoyed another cake and prayed together and Thanked God for His wonderful ways and for the gift of Rachel who we’ve been privilege to love and enjoy since her birth, 30th March 2004.
Click on the picture for all the photos …
Trip to Wadi Farfar
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Today was a public holiday in Dubai so we took the opportunity to take Dad and Ma into the “mountains”.
At around 2 this afternoon Richard, Elaine and their house-guest James arrived at Sahari village – We’d all decided to “sleep-in” and spend a relaxed morning before our adventurous afternoon. At 14:20 our car (“Phoebe”) was ready and packed; We drove out behind Richard and Elaine’s car “Stanly” just before two thirty on our way to the UAE East coast.
The 90 minute drive to where our trail would start took us on the E88 highway past the Sharjah Arab Cultural Capital Monument, the little town of Al Dhaid and the Friday Market just before the village of Masafi. At Masafi we took the lower road heading for Fujairah on the East Coast. However, just before 4pm we’d take a little turnoff, 9km’s out from Fujairah and regroup.
The weather looked a bit ominous, and we were weary knowing flash floods could easily upset our day – A call to my friend Ahmad set us at ease though as it’s not rain season and the Eastcoast had apparently not seen the sun for a the last 10 days (without rain) so all ok.
We then pulled onto the trail and drove into Wadi Farfar. We passed some lovely terraced fields and number of wells and water pumps. Our route then changed a tad and started carving a precarious road out of the mountainside and started to climb steeply to an impressive ridge.
We stopped at the highest point, (about 512m above sealevel) to enjoy the views at around 16:15 and then continued driving along the rest of the approx. 20km route and found a picnic spot in the low lying Wadi Mamduh.
The men started making the fire while the women relaxed on the picnic blankets a little closer to the cars – there was a refreshing mountain breeze which Rachel didn’t much appreciate, but helped the fire along nicely. The food was ready just after a magnificent sunset (around 6pm) and what a feast it was. The ladies had also prepared some salads which were greatly enjoyed.
Some tinned fruit served as desert along with a welcome cup of coffee/tea, which Richard made using his very cool benzine stove/kettle, but which time it was pretty much night-time (i.e. dark beyond belief)
About seven fifteen we’d packed up, made sure the fire was totally put out, and were ready for the 90 minute drive home. Our paths parted at an Emirates Garage just outside Sharjah and as Richard, Elaine and James headed onto their home in Sharjah we spun off towards Ras Al Khor and were home just before the 20:30 news :-)
It was a lovely outing and all of us enjoyed the “closer” look at Gods wonderful handi-work, and the extremity of the mountains that are part of this desert country we call home. The family and friends also made for excellent fellowship … We truly are blessed in what the Lord gives us and allows us to enjoy!
Dad and Ma in Dubai
Dad and Ma arrived in Dubai at around 1am on Wendesday morning, but only got through customs and were home with as at abou5 – Mainly ’cause of something Angela and I were meant to do with the VISA’s but totally forgot to.
Nathan got more presents, and all of us, especially Rachel got a lot of love. Attached are some pic’s.
This morning we went to church (as per our normal Friday morning routine) and will spend the rest of the day resting in each others company.
God Bless and keep you all
Yours in Him
Roy, Angela, Nathan, Rachel, Dad and Ma
Lunch with Mark and Christine
Had a lovely lunch today with Mark and his wife Chris from Uncle Rohan’s side of the family. If you remember Mark and I caught up with each other a few weeks ago but it was nice having the whole Verrips family present to meet them both.
Angela made lasagne and we just hosted them at home here in Sahari Villiage as it’s been a rather draining week for all our whole family.
It was pretty much a relaxing time for us all, except Nathan who was very eager to show all his toys to Uncle Mark and get Uncle Mark to help him built a helicopter out of building blocks. Rachel was very happy to sit in Aunty Chris’ arms and watch all this …
We pretty much spent the rest of the day relaxing as well, just popping over to Spinneys for a few small “daily’s” and then to bed in a little bit.
Missed it my an hour, missed it by a day
Due to a number of factors in Gods hands (and definetly out of mine) I was unable to get Ma’s VISA for her this morning, even though the paperwork had been filed more than a week ago.
The result was that they wouldn’t let her board and she had to delay her flight by a day – Thank the Lord for the gracious ground crew who let extend the ticket.
Let’s pray it all works out tomorrow so Ma can be here later in the day.
Bye Ma!
We just returned from the airport – Ma got on the 9:45 flight Johannesburg
Nathan handled it a lot better than we expected. He was very understanding and although you could clearly see he wasn’t happy with saying good-bye to his Grandma who’s been part of his daily life for 8 months now, he was accepting of it all and seems to realise what is happening.
It was really cute how he finaly agreed to let Ma go back to Wuvie, but “Rachel must stay here in Dubai!”
We plan on spending the rest of the day just relaxing, as a family together – Fridays are my day off, remember :-)
Good-bye Meal for Ma
We had a goodbye dinner for Ma with our best friends Julio, Slovanka and Sebastian at our favourite Mexican place, Maria Bonita.
It was a loverly evening (although a bit warm as the A/C seemed to need some attention) – As always the Mexican food was great, but not as great as the Mexican company :-)
We’re going to certainly miss you when you’re gone, Ma!
Happy Birthday Ma!
It is Ma’s birthday today (not allowed to say how old)
Her present from Ang and I was a morning of pampering at the Grand Spa and this afternoon Angela put on a “tea” with the ladies of Sahari Villiage.
Ma and I shared a 1.5kg Pan-Fried Black Peppered Mud Crab and Angela had deep fried linefish at the Singaporian Seafood place we goto for special occations, aptly called Peppercrab.
We know Ma and Dad were seperated for this one, so we tried to make it as special as we could.
God Bless, and thanks for everything you do for us Ma
Love you Lots!
Roy and Angela
Meme’s Funeral
Meme’s funeral went well. Rohanne did the reading, Henri the thanks and Denby the tribute.
After the service a lady came to me and said that if anyone is still unsaved after the sermon it’s their own fault. So, we trust the Gospel was understood causing people to think about where they are in relation to God, eternity and their own forth coming death.
Yours because His
Don
