What have we been up to after our return from SA

Ok let's see what happend.

We settled back into life, started homeschooling.... o yes, then it was Christmas and we took another break... ha ha....

Let's tell the story with pictures, this way I will also remember what we did. Jac is now 'n Bear in Cub scouts this year.

Aquaduct in Skopje. They were told a little about the aquaduct and some of its history

We had a welcome back lunch of cabbage stew and roasted pork fat with salad

We filled away our Creation to Greek curriculum and started our new year

Danie and I attended the National Day of Austria

It was still Fall, so we loved the colours of it

Kids attending the Fall Festival at QSI school

Just a pic of the church in Skopje

Danie and Samir preparing for Winter

Beti and Dedo Gjure. He was in the hospital really ill

Our wood stocked up

The Christmas season was really busy, We were invited to two dinners and we ourselves hosted two dinner over this period. I love Christmas here. It is just confusing with celebrating two of each here. The Catholic one as they called it, and the Orthodox one.

Preparing for Christmas

I made something..... trying to remember what it was?

The men changing the daipers

Mom and Jac date

Winter pic's

Helping to prepare dinner

Another mom and Jac date....

Relaxing in the mall

our very own chocolate tree

A little candle for remembering Elida

Christmas dinner at friends in Matka

Christmas dinner with friends in Bardovci

We invited our neigbours for Christmas eve and decorated the house

Our Christmas dinner with the neigbours

On Christmas Eve there was a concert at the International Church. Here Chereni is practising her smile

Wants to sing with the rest of the gang

Our Christmas tree

The sock monkey

Elves

Our front door

This is some of the snacks after the Christmas service at church

Milk and cookies for Santa

Preparing for Christmas lunch with our friends

Donated meat from our American/Korean friends

Just love spending time together

Going to school with Elena

Cub scouts giving gifts at the orphanage

We made cookies for all our neigbours and delivered it on New Year's day

New year scara (braai) (barbaque)

Just after New Year it was that time of the year again......another birthday for Nêo-Rie. She turned 11 this year

Happy Birthday

Celebrating it with Fillip. It was his 2nd birthday

Chereni and Fillip

Walking around the city

Drinking some hot chocolate

When we got home we realized she looks like the pillows on the coach!

Nêo-Rie loves reading the Warrior Cat books. So we had a Warrior Cat birthday theme for her.

Each child got a cat bowl with their name on it and some moonpool water

They each received a unique name on their id tag to know who they are.

They designed a board game with all the elements of the warrior cats

Designed some cupcakes so that they look like....

cat paws!

Then they went outside to play warrior cat games. and collecting mice aka rats.... and visiting the moonpool, they also had to know where all the healing herbs were and what they can do.

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Rats

Moon pool water

Then it was time to eat again and to have some cake!

It was also the day the kids go out on the streets to collect candy and the neigbours, singing an old song Koleni.

Nêo-Rie is still doing girl scouts and this year I took over the girl scouts so it is going slowly but still going. This was a sleepover with some added skills like cooking...

At the end of our Winter we finally got some snow...

Some people liked the snow from their beds....

Jac bonding with his sister

Cleaning the trampoline

Some homeschooling.... learning how the lungs work

To read more about the homeschooling you can visit my other blog: homeschool escapades

Celebrating our 21st anniversary in the car with two take away ice coffees.

We ran out of Pink Nesquick!!!!!!!

Jac at a Birthday party

Neo-Rie at a birthday party

a horse in the street

Our car broke down early January, and we were without one for over a month. We asked and God provided miraculously for us to be able to buy a VW combi. This was not an easy task to find. Try buying a car in a foreign culture and language, knowing that is ok to be lied to. All of the available kombi's have a lot of km on and some has been turned back a few hundred...It was extremely tiring to look for a car, thinking ... looking ...... thinking again..... going there to look (Danie all the way) traveling by bus over snowy mountains to realise the kombi is so old it will not make it back over the mountain.... taking the bus back just to get stuck with a broken bus...... There a quit a few stories like this concerning our search for the right kombi. In the end we found one that was still drivable and didn't cost an arm and a leg. By this time we were so tired of searching that we decided it does not have all we wanted in a kombi, but it has four good wheels and many seats, let's just take it.

HAPPY FAMILY

Testing the 4X4 on our new ride

Do you remember when you received a real letter in the mail?.... well this is something like that just way cooler...

A suitcase full of goodies arrived from the UK..... Thanks Antie Engela!!!!!

New jackets and an Elmo!!!

And a wonderful picture of our family taken in South Africa - so thoughtful.... my only family picture against my wall

When living in transition always thinking you will move soon... don't put up pictures yet... you never do, you never go and make some family photos that you so desperately need. Now at least we have one.

Our neigbours father passed away and we were there......we still are there... Maybe later I will write about this, but not now.

Beti and I went to testimony of and old Macedonian Folk singer. Everything was in Macedonian and I could understand about 70%.... not bad.... Beti loved it