- The Finnie family in Blighty, December 2021
- Dean and Paula pastor The Gathering together
- The Gathering
- Baptisms at The Gathering
- Preparing to serve at The Gathering's Soup Kitchen
- Soup Kitchen Welcome To 2022 lunch
- Serving hands - the heart of The Gatheirng
- Thankful Thursdays
- HOPE Home Based Care Team
- Gathering Ground
- Staying fit as a family
- The Helderberg - The prettiest of the mountains we face
Lazy Weekend - Part 3
Joel on his bike, he really enjoys charging up and down the drive on this
Lazy Weekend - Part 2
Debs with Eli
Lazy Weekend - Part 1
Birthday Party
Ohh The Shame!!
David (not real name) heavily into stickers at the moment! So much so that he found 6 pantyliners, stuck them on a bit of paper, drew on them, and then insisted on showing them to the Betterware lady when she came to collect her catalogue. Ohh the shame!!
That made us laugh, hope you enjoyed it too.
PS. Apologies to the original author of the above quote as it was used completely without permission!
Fun With My Boys
Meanwhile, back on the ranch... we were having lots of fun, playing silly games, watching Tom & Jerry and playing on the swings.
Men's Bible Study
Mrs Robinson
Jesus loves you more than you will know.
God bless you, please Mrs. Robinson.
Heaven holds a place for those who pray,
Hey, hey, hey
Chris Nissen Park
Nothing Of Note
Dean had a great 40th Birthday and party. We had promised to post some photos, unfortunatley we were enjoying ourselves too much to bother taking any! So all we can post here is the invite for you to marvel at.
Dean's birthday celebrations have been ongoing over a week & a bit and concluded on Monday when Paula had arranged for the boys to be looked after whilst we went for lunch in Franschoek. Then, halfway through the meal, Paula informed me that we were staying the night! Wicked!! My only concern here is the depths of my wife's deceipt! I had no idea!!!!
Birthday Celebrations
"South Africa is losing its way"
Click here for the BBC article and make up your own mind.
Aunty Kuku
We're really grateful to Aunty Kuku's family for looking after her so diligently since Patrick's death, they really did do a great job!
Blogging Friends
Holiday Photos
Eli's highlight was probably learning to pull himself up and then cruise the furniture, he also really enjoyed the beach.
The Lighter Side
We've just had a wonderful couple of weeks in Sedgefield, chilling out with the boys and re-acquanting ourselves with each other, brilliant! The weather was OK, we managed 4 days on the beach and were only housebound on one day due to really heavy rains.
We had a lot of fun doing all sorts of stuff. Joel discovered pizza and can't get enough of it. He also discovered Tom & Jerry and giggles himself silly watching it.
See you all in 2 weeks.
Snow On Hottentots Holland Mountains
Getting The Shakes
Getting the Shakes is the Blog of Roger & George and their preparations for emigrating to New Zealand. Their lives have been very hectic of late especially as they race around and try to catch up with friends and family before they leave on Sunday! Wow that came round really quickly!
Rog' is an excellent writer and his Blog posts are always good. Recently he Blogged about our brief overnight stay with them when we were in Blighty and you can read this post here.
Keep an eye on the WHSmith bestseller list, one day Roger will be there with his novel!
Matthew's 3rd Birthday Party
Birthday Boy on the train
Videos From The Weekend
As promised here are some videos we shot over the weekend. On average they're about 30 seconds long although the one of Joel spreading jam is a minute long.
The first one is Eli crawling
Enjoy!
Cape Town Bus Lane (& Aquarium)
Hope you enjoy the pictures, we'll post some video on Monday.
Pluto Demoted By Mad Scientists!
Prayer Need
Aloe Vera In Bloom
There are however some great benefits to this, and one of them is the variety of blooms etc. which can be seen in the garden. Whilst we make no claims to be related to Percy Thrower we are enjoying having a decent garden, Dean recently bought a wheelbarrow and a few implements to do some stuff (sad!) which he's enjoying.
Beta Blogger - Finnie's In Focus
This will mean little if anything to you in real terms other than you may notice a few character issues as certain bugs are ironed out. The address remains unchanged, but the Blog itself should look a bit leaner and crisper.
Quiet Weekend
Alone With God!
Create Your Own Zoo - It Must Be Friday
Create Your Own Zoo
Winter Blues
Twinkle Tots At The Fire Station
Last Weekend
Carstens Experiences
Douglas's Funeral
So, how do you address the congregation at a funeral where you had little respect for the deceased and really didn't like him very much. After all, I only knew the man as a cantankerous old drunkard who placed a heavy burden on his son and never showed any appreciation for his loyalty and unconditional love.
Michael's Father
Helderberg Nature Reserve
Watching 'Spikey', both Joel & Eli seem to enjoy watching Spikey, Joel enjoys feeding him bread (although we were told-off last time!)
Whale Watching
Just before lunch it clouded over and the swell was increasing so we decided to go home via the coast road (the same road where Jaguar filmed their ad for the new XK!) and as we were about 15Kms from Gordon's Bay we saw a whale really close to the beach. Hope you enjoy the photos below.
The Law Is An Ass - Update On Douglas
Bell Valley Graduation
Blogging Works!
This posting is aimed at those back home who still don't really get what Blogs and Blogging (yes that really is a verb) are all about.
My post below talks a bit about the interaction between bloggers on the web, and this post will hopefully demonstrate a little more as to how it can work.
What Is Blogging About?
Dean's Perspective
Paula's Thoughts
This is a picture of some ice we found in the garden this morning, just to prove it really is cold!
Thomas & Gordon
Life has certainly been busy since being back, not least because there's a lot going on in Chris Nissen, mostly encouraging but not all of it. We'll post more over the weekend, but for now thought you might like to see some photos of the boys.
Baby Of The Year Finalist!
Break... What Break?
Dean spent Monday afternoon in Chris Nissen visiting his friends and saying 'Hello' & catching up with many people. It was great to be there again and we definitely feel affirmed that this is where God wants us to be which is great as there is no better place to be!
Praise God!
We are so grateful to God for this massive answer to prayer as it means we can now crack on and get other bits of paperwork sorted such as passports, residency etc.
Arrived Home!
We arrived at Heathrow quite early and had to wait to check in which went smoothly once it happened. We managed to find the only bit of terminal 4 from which you can watch the planes coming and going and Joel really enjoyed that. We had some dinner before boarding and that's when our evening started to go downhill. The manager of the restaurant told us that we'd have to take our trolley out of the restaurant (though it was causing less obstruction than the pushchair) and we had a bit of an argument over this. We couldn't believe how pedantic he was being, plus we didn't want to lose the trolley, so eventually we agreed that he could take the trolley on the condition that he finds us one after our meal. To cut it short, he stored the trolley in the entrance to the restaurant which caused mayhem and resulted in them losing several customers! Pathetic really.
Final Countdown
We're in the last 24 hours of our time here in the UK as we fly out of Heathrow around 7pm on Saturday. Things are getting a bit tense in our house as we struggle with the packing and making sure that we're within our weight allowance, thankful we have just over 100Kgs allowance to return with which is a blessing.
Photo Update
On Tuesday Dad, Grandad and Joel went on the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, a real boys day out. We had a lot of fun and hopefully will repeat the event next time we're home, so that Eli can join us.
Our Week In The Lakes
We've had a fantastic week in the Lakes, staying at Santon Bridge near Wast Water. This was a short break sandwiched in between our visits to St.Mary's Cheadle and Holy Trinity Gee Cross. We really enjoyed having some time and space just to ourselves.
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