Party like it's 2011!

The autumn weather so far is absolutely great. It still feels like summer! We had a busy weekend starting with cousin Johann's 6th birthday party at Helderberg Farm on Saturday. The kids (mostly boys) had a blast playing cricket & rugby but the highlight was 2-story high hill covered with lush Kikuyu grass that they climbed up and rolled down from for almost an hour. Sunday was spent with the other cousins in Noordhoek and we got in some quality beach time in pristine weather conditions. The rain is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so it was nice to be able to spend a lot of time outdoors.

More vacation fun!

I love vacation time! Visiting all these tourist hot spots, make me feel as if I am on vacation too! Today was aquarium day! They have this fish tank with a viewing area in the center, filled with clown fish. Pretty cool to be surrounded by Nemos! The highlights were the giant spider crab, the ragged tooth shark and the Burmese Python, which Aiden was able to hold. We will definitely be back!

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.