A delayed Xmas and New Year post!

Sometimes blogging just seems like hard work. And the longer one delays, the more there is to catch up on, and so the more one delays. So the more there is to catch up on....
So let me cut back to our holiday in South Africa and try and make amends.
We had not had Christmas with our family since 2006, in which time the children have grown into teenagers and the toddlers into children, so it had a very different feel to it. And credit to the teens and pre-teens - they carried the whole Santa story forward without raising any suspicions in the minds of the younger ones.
It was a very busy and brief trip to SA - only 2 weeks as that is how short the school holidays are over Christmas here. They don't seem to consider it an important time for people to travel home to be with family. I feel sorry for the Kiwi's! At least we're close enough to make it worth while.
After a few days seeing friends in Johannesburg we headed down to the Vaal Dam. My sister and her husband have a little place there. Actually, they have 2 little places there. They bought one a few years ago in a lovely resort. The only drawback was their actual unit didn't have a waterfront position - no view of the dam. So when one at the waterfront came up for sale, they grabbed it. They then spent most of last year gutting it and renovating it, with the plan being to sell the original unit once the new unit was ready for holidaying. Their renovations took so long that by Christmas time they had a newly completed unit and their original one. So they dug out linen and kitchenware for 19 people and the whole of our family moved into the 2 houses. We were lucky enough to be in the one with the waterfront location and spent most of our time sitting on the patio drinking chilled wine (except during the power failure when we drank kind-of-cool wine) and watching the children kayaking, windsurfing, boating, waterskiing, fishing... They only returned to us when they needed something - food, water or plasters. At first Kirsten and Carl were stressed about trying to look after all of us, being very good hosts and anxious to make sure everyone had a good time, but then they relaxed and left us all to our own devices - thus ensuring a good time was had by all.
The biggest hitch was the power failure which lasted for nearly 24 hours. We didn't mind the candlelight at night, it was very romantic and I taught the kids to play cards, or the fact that our wine was getting warmer - but we were getting worried about our Xmas lunch stored in the fridge and freezer. So we packed the men off to the shops to buy huge bags of ice - no sooner did they bring them back and pack the fridge with them than the power came back on. If they hadn't got ice, the power would have stayed off, methinks, so thanks for that!
Christmas day was wonderful, lots of Santa presies for the kids then off to church where we bumped into a cousin of my mother's. Strangely enough, he was visiting friends in the neighbourhood - and we hadn't seen him for about 20 years....
On boxing day we headed back to Johannesburg, did the dance of the koeksisters, and started to prepare for David's birthday party. David's party was a big deal. Firstly, Alex and Steph were dead jealous that David got to invite all the cousins to his party - they never have birthdays in SA. Secondly, David wanted to have it in Auntie Kirsten's garden - and Kirsten, Carl and family were off to go skiing in Europe that very afternoon. So it was a bit chaotic, and Kirsten and Carl spent most of the party time packing for their holiday, and we had to chase everyone out in time to get K&C to the airport, but it was fun and we didn't mess up their house too much (I hope!) in the process.
A couple more days in Johannesburg, spending time with people and relaxing and then it was time for New Year's eve.
New Year's eve we spent in the Lion and Rhino park, spotting game and enjoying the various baby animals on show. We saw baby warthogs trotting along, baby buck drinking from their moms, and most exciting of all, our car was chased by baby lions who were looking for a bit of afternoon sport.
We had booked a chalet (with a jacuzzi on the patio) which overlooked the lion camp and spent the evening there, having dinner, jacuzzi-ing, playing games, painting (OK, that was just Jeannette!), reading... Mom and Dad went to bed before midnight, having no stamina and Darrell and I really would have, also having no stamina, but the kids were determined to stay up until midnight - so we did. By 5 past midnight though, we went to bed, leaving the boys to stay awake all night. They were asleep by 10 past...
New Years Day was opened by an early morning game drive - for everyone but Alex and David who were fast asleep after their late night and myself who had to stay and look after them. Then we headed over to Magaliespark to meet up with the Elferink family. We had a lovely day there, despite some threatened rain, and hardly saw any of our kids.
All in all, it was one of the most wonderful NY weekends ever.
And the next day we packed up to set off back to Abu Dhabi. Our quiet day was enlivened by finding out that Alex had put his foot through the roof of our storage shed and hadn't bothered to mention it to us. We found out by going into the shed for something and finding a lot of water inside it. We were overjoyed with him as we had to empty the shed, throw away ruined stuff, dry everything out, repack it all and patch the shed roof. Just what we wanted before an overnight flight!
Actually, Alex was really in the dog box as he caused us to be stopped at the airport. For Xmas the boys had both received pocket knives which they packed into our check-in luggage, being aware that they wouldn't be able to take it through the carry-on security checks. So when Alex's carry-on was pulled out for examination, I wasn't too worried. Until we found a camping cutlery kit that Alex had received - he didn't think that the knife in that counted! So Darrell ran back and checked in one of the carry-one bags with the set in it, and then we could proceed. Luckily, for once we were in plenty of time for our flight!

What a lovely holiday we had - and what a lot of pressure Darrell was under to bring his family back to SA for good!
Photos next....