South Africa 2011 - First weekend

We're back! :) Oh my goodness, so much to share!
I apologize that it's been such a long time since I've sat down to plot down a little about our lives...I'm so far behind and can't keep up!

But I'm just going to have to skip to the present instead of doing all the catching up now, because we just had the best vacation since we've been married and would love to share some of the pictures. :)

We just got back from nearly a whole month's trip to South Africa! My family moved here to Tyler 10yrs ago from South Africa and every year I imagined what it would be like to go back for a visit to see all of my family and friends. I never imagined that it would be 10 whole years before that dream will finally become a reality. Family was part of my everyday life...cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, all of them! The majority of us all lived within a small radius from each other, and were all part of each others' lives. I've missed that and them more than I can ever explain to anybody.
And now finally, I got to see all of them again, and not only that, I also got to take my husband with me for them to meet.

We had a great time, it was filled with family! Out of our 3 1/2 week trip Rob and I were alone 4 days, and I really wish we could've spent even more time with the family!

We got there around 7pm on new years eve. My family (my parents, my bro and his wife from Houston, and my other bro and his fiancee who still lives in South Africa) celebrated new years with great family friends.


Funny pic. I laugh everytime I look at this...look at my dad at the bottom left, haha!


Here we are with my best friend, Danielle, and I finally got to meet her boyfriend of 4 years.


Nikki and Stephaan with Wentzel and Ash. Stephaan and Nikki came to get us at the airport, it was my first time to finally meet Nikki and to see Stephaan in 2 years. So happy we were all together again!


Some pics of what it looked like on their game farm. It was dark when we got there, so we woke up to this beautiful scenery!

The house

The house from the back

On the back porch



That next day we kayaked, relaxed on the river, cliff jumped and went on a game drive. What a first day!! :)

Camping

A few weekends later the weather was PERFECT for camping. Thank goodness we didn't choose one weekend before because we had lots of storms and tornadoes in the area that weekend!!

Setting up all our tents. Mandy and Robert provided a blow-up mattress for Abbie since she was 39 weeks pregnant! :)

Oh kiddo's.....so cute!

Breakfast burrito's in the morning.






Such a fun time! We headed straight from there to working in kids church Sunday morning - we figured the little kids wouldn't mind. :)

Cooking...cooking...cooking and birthdays :)

I apologize for my SLOWWWW blogging routine! I'm very behind, and hope to catch up soon on everything that's been going on. So this weekend I'm blogging about was actually SEVERAL weekends ago...maybe 4 or 5?? :(
Any whoo, I'll figure it out eventually :)

This weekend consisted of cooking...LOTS and LOTS of cooking...and lots of birthday fun!

Friday after work started with me doing grocery shopping to cook for an entire month in ONE day!

If you are ever interested in doing something like this, it is SUPER fun! Yes, it is LOTS of work and you are GASPINGLY tired after your full day of cooking but think about it, then you don't have to cook again for about 15 meals!!!

We followed a website called http://onceamonthmom.com/, it is designed for you and a friend to cook together. They have meals planned out for two families for each month of the year as well as any other information you would need for your cook-day to be a success.

They give you:
~ a complete grocery list (which has insane amounts and proportions on it
as you can only imagine!)
~ a to-do list for your cook-day for Person A and person B
~ complete recipes and packaging instructions for freezing
~ and whatever else you might need

Seriously, check it out if you're interested. I've had two other friends to do it since Abbie and I, and they loved it!

So back to Friday...

Abbie and I divided the grocery list in half, I bought all the groceries on my list and decided to get as much pre-cooking done as I can. (This saved us SO much time)!
This consisted of 31 cups of cooked rice (yes, that would be THIRTY-ONE CUPS!! - I've never cooked that much of ANYTHING at one time in my LIFE!), about 13 pounds of chicken and 2 pounds of ground beef. And no, that was not even close to all the meat we used for all our recipes - Abbie had the rest with her.


Saturday cooking:


This is not quite ALL the food even...




Some more food

All the food when I got home


Thanx to Abbie, who was very pregnant, for doing this with me. (And for taking on all those onions that had to be chopped - lots of crying took place!)

So finally after our 8 hour cook day, I had to run home and find Rob and I outfits to wear to a MURDER MYSTERY surprise birthday party! It was at a masked ball that this murder took place and we had to dress accordingly. We all received our character assignments a few weeks before the party and had to dress accordingly to our character as well.
I have to admit, I was a WEE bit doubtful of how fun and/or awkard this party was going to be, but it was A BUNCH OF FUN!! We all got into our characters - so funny!!

Dr. Mag Niffie (me) and Mike Robes (Rob)


Our characters were:
Dr. Mag Niffie is the rude, ill-mannered optometrist. Her address book is a barren wasteland as there’s not a lot of folks she can honestly call a friend…besides Bameril Lacrosse. Mag’s one hard person to get along with!

Mike Robes is the infamous and overly-inquisitive bioterrorism
researcher. He’s invented mind-blowing bioterrorism counter
devices that you would never even imagine could exist! Some say
he’s an utter genius! Mike’s also known to be a tad paranoid…so
when you’re around him, try to make him feel at ease!
(Get it, "Mike Robes"?) -say it fast.




After a long day of cooking, TIRED, but had a blast :)


And finally, after a late night Saturday, we headed to church in the morning and had another birthday lunch for Mandy

Mavericks game

With perfect timing of needing to break free from our routine, we received a phone call at 4:30pm from a friend of ours. They had free Mavericks tickets 4 rows from the front, behind the benches! The game started at 7:30pm in Dallas, which meant we had to leave by 5:30...which also meant Rob had 15 min to leave work, take a shower and be ready to go (he has a 50 min drive to and from work every day).
We ended up not getting to leave until about 6ish...but don't you worry...we still made it by 7:30!

Just got there, excited to hang with friends and watch the game!


Our awesome seats. I'm used to sitting at the very top...quite a difference!!


Having a good time with friends




Rob chillin' with little Haven. It's all becauswe of her that we got those tickets! Sweet little Haven was born with a heart condition and has been on the transplant list ever since. She received a new heart about 2 months ago and they've had to live in Dallas for a while in a suite that the hospital provides, which is where they receive awesome tickets to games.



Beautiful mom and daughter...SO sweet!


After the game, TIRED, but had lots of fun!


After a very fun day (been up since 5am), we left and didn't get home until 1am and had to get up again at 5am! We loved it, and even though we paid for it with the lack of sleep a couple days after, it was exactly what we needed to break away from our every day routine!

Life as we live it in our jobs!

God is so good, so faithful and so gracious when truly we don't deserve it!!

Rob and I are so blessed! We both have amazing jobs that the LORD gave us, and we both really love our jobs and are so thankful for them. It's so refreshing to see my husband work hard at the plant farm to bring money in and love every moment of it! And all I can do is thank you Jesus because He's the one who blesses us repeatedly, when we simply don't deserve it!

Me on the other hand, never WANTED to be a nurse. I basically felt forced into it with no other options of receiving a green card. During my 4 years of college (actually 5, because I did psychology also) I just had to persevere and hope that in the end it all will be worth it.
Well the end came, and I married the love of my life 2 weeks after I graduated with my nursing degree. It ended up being much faster and easier to get my green card through marriage instead of nursing ...whoopty doo!

BUT....

God always knows what He's doing! As I started looking for nursing jobs I had no idea in what area I wanted to work. All I knew was I did not want to work night shifts, but I quickly found out as a knew nurse it was basically impossible. Everybody asked me to work nights at least a few months on the floor.

Until...

I randomly bumped into someone I knew from nursing school. He asked what kinda work I wanted, I said I don't care as long as it is days. He told me about a day job that his brother has. Couple days later I bump into his brother and he immediately says "hey, my boss is looking for you!" Within a couple hours I went for an interview. And today I have a job that I never knew I could enjoy this much as a NURSE! I cannot possibly think of a more perfect job for me. How good is He!!!?

And here's what I do...



Yes, that would be heart surgery. God gave me a job where we work on people's hearts every day. It is with great hours during the day and no weekends (except for being on call sometimes). I work with a great team of 10 people and great surgeons who I have much respect for.

We are humbled by how God has blessed us, and we want to strive to remain thankful no matter our circumstances because we know that God gives and takes away whenever and however He pleases all for His glory!

It's beginning to look a lot like Fall

I LOVE the first signs of Fall! We've had cooler weather for about a week now and it is so refreshing. Though we know the cooler weather will only last for a little while until the summer temperatures battle back again. The summer and fall temperatures here will battle each other probably until about November, but that just makes us appreciate each time the cooler weather makes it's appearance. Rob has been bringing lots of fall plants home that isn't perfect enough to sell (yay for me!) ...so we've been working on transforming our yard from summer plants to fall plants. Basically so far it's just been Mums and Petunias, soon we'll be planting Pansies, we're just waiting for the weather to get a little more cooler.

All of these pictures are just showing our work in progress, can't wait for all of it to bloom. I'll post more pictures when it all is at it's fullest potential!







And these are some pictures of our back patio. I have yet to blog about my sewing adventures, but I will soon for sure! In December I picked sewing up as a hobby, I've basically just been teaching myself from ground zero and LOVING it! In these pics you'll also see my cushions and pillows that I made for our patio furniture :)



Still working on this cushion...




Enjoying our patio-in-progress, plants and great weather!


Soon we're gonna have to say bye to our Coleus! They've gotten really big, and we've cut them back several times already.


And these flowers are just for fun. Aren't they gorgeous!? I don't know what they are, but when Rob showed up with them from the store I immediately loved them!


And I love Gerbers!