School vacation

We have a week's vacation this week and another week at the end of the month for the Easter vacation. The weather is still gorgeous, although it is definitely autumn with cool evenings. Today we visited the Natural history museum and planetarium in Cape Town. They have a dinosaur exhibition, which was really cool to see. We are going through another dinosaur phase and even Zack got really excited when I told him we are going to look at dinosaur bones.

Aiden's first sports day

Aiden's school had their annual sports day and it was so much fun to see how excited (and competitive) Aiden was at the race. The main event was the 50 meter dash. We had to wear shirts with the colour of their class (he is in the green class) but he insisted that his shirt has a number on. Because it is not a race, if you do not have a numbered shirt! He did not win a ribbon but he loved every moment of it. The other events included bean bag toss, potato-in-spoon race (which he did not like and slowly walked the entire race) and the dads raced with their kid in a wheelbarrow.

Zack enjoyed the day as well, mainly because there were big sports fields he could run around on. The sports day was at the elementary school, De Hoop, across the street from Aiden school. The sports fields have a gorgeous view of the mountains and the Atlantic ocean, which you can see in the distance behind Zack.

Winos!

The Harvett Boys currently have the rare privilege of being assistants in the making of wine for their parents :-) We are part of a group of a dozen or so people that have pooled some cash, sourced some grapes and are in the process of making a 2011 Shiraz. The process is taking place at Joostenberg's cellars just outside Stellenbosch. Earlier this week we met at the winery for the de-stemming and sorting process that produced 3 tubs of grapes and juice. Later in the week fermentation started to occur, so today we went for the "punch down" - a process that happens 3-4 times daily for about 10 days. The boys were very eager to help and are impressed with the enormous quantities of grapes. Place your orders now s we hope to have everything bottled and ready for consumption (or aging if you have the discipline) by this time next year!

Hiking in Helderberg nature reserve

We are continuing our exploration of our new town and visited the Helderberg nature reserve on Sunday morning. Our house is on the foot of the Helderberg (it means "clear mountain") and it is about a 10 minute drive to the entrance of the park. It was a beautiful, windless morning and it was beautiful the walk through the indigenous plant life. The highlight of couse, was the local wild life we came across. We named him Angus. :)

This photo is just to cute not to blog about, and is the result of Zack's uncle swinging him around in our pool.

Boys!

We are really enjoying the summer, with lots of visits with the family and going to the beach. We were able to combine the two with a visit to my brother's beach house in Melkbosstrand, which is about an hours drive from us. Aiden discovered the two waterguns at the house and did not let go for the rest of the weekend.

Zack just loves the spiderman mask.

Our new home

Here are some photos of the home we're renting in Somerset West. We made good use of the outdoor space with parties on Friday and Sunday. Today we celebrated ouma Annaline's birthday with cousins, uncles and aunts. We cooked a lovely leg of lamb (from the Karoo) on the Weber accompanied by some of the wines we picked up on our winery visits last weekend.

Both boys have turned into excellent swimmers. Aiden can dive out a torpedo from the shallow end of the pool all by himself and Zack does a very decent head-first dive and is able to swim up to the surface. After a few more months of this wonderful weather they may grow scales and fins... Aiden thoroughly enjoyed his first few days of school and looks forward to Monday morning when he get to go again.

First day of school in SA

It's been a long and eventful transition from life in California to life in the Fairest Cape. Today somehow signifies the end of the transition and the beginning of routine with Aiden attending his first day of "Grade 0" at Rooha Pre-Primary in Somerset West. He has been looking forward to going back to school for a long time and thoroughly enjoyed his day. He will now be going 5 days per week from 8am-12:30pm.

We are making good progress with unpacking and settling in, and I even have some time to update the blog for a change. It's wonderful to still have a packed schedule thanks to so many friends and family in the area. We're still catching up with everybody and enjoying every moment of it.