It's 9.10pm and I'm sitting here watching Aussie Jelena Dokic playing in the Australian Open (tennis). Rod has been working in Northam this week and will hopefully be back Thursday night. Not that I can complain...he came home last night seeing as it's only a 1.5hour drive. It's just that he has to get up at 3 the next morning so he can leave by 4 to be back at the job on time. They're busy pouring a 4000 sqm slab for a huge workshop, for which they'll also be doing the panels. So they'll finish the slab this week and will be going back in a few weeks time to start on the panels. So I may as well get used to the idea of him being gone :-(

On a :-) side, Olivia is now in nickers during the day!! Yay! It really didn't take her long to click on to when she had to go to the toilet, I think I was just too slack to get started with this sooner. And of course she's quite proud of the fact that she can go to the loo all by herself. She just won't do poos on there yet...she knows when she has to do one, but she'll just hold it in till she has a nappy on at night. I'm sure she's not the only kid who does this but it is a little frustrating!

Well, I wish one of these women would hurry up and win so I can watch the men play; they're much more exciting and plus a 16year old Aussie is playing so I want to see how he does... then again, maybe I should just go to bed and get some much needed sleep.

Just a little video clip of Olivia singing her favourite psalm at the moment, Ps.116:7 - "What shall I renay" as she calls it :) She loves singing and learning new psalms; she's bound to get 10/10 for her psalms when she goes to school!

New Years Eve

So here are a few photos from New Years Eve which we spent at Oom Jaap and Tannie Yvonne's along with lots of other de Jagers and my side of the family

Paul and Heidi, Andrew and Marleen

Renee, Albert and Marinus

Paul Byl, Rod and Herbie

Tannie Yvonne, Mrs Spaanderman, Jacolien, Renee with Courtney and Ingrid

New look for 2009 :-)

more de Jager ladies

Charlene, Heidi and Marleen
(you rarely get a photo of Charlene with her eyes open!)

Paul, Paul and Andrew having a chinwag

All the noise woke Olivia up just in time for 12 o'clock

Albany

So after spending 2 relaxing days at the dam we headed down to Albany for Christmas Day and the weekend. Christmas Day we didn't do anything overly exciting, just headed down to Middleton Beach with Kaffa and Mike so Rod and Mike could have a swim. As you can see the weather was just magic!

Spot the boys in the wave

Kaffa, Olivia and I relaxing on the beach

Olivia giving Mike a hi-5

Rubbing sand on Rod's feet

At night we went to Glenn and Leonie's for a BBQ dinner together with Dad and Mum vdSchaaf, Fritz, Viv and Samuel, Kaffa and Mike, Roseanne and some of the Kleyn's - Mr and Mrs, Eric, Sonja and Isaac, Tish and Matt. T'was lots of yummy food there too!

Glenn, Rod, Dad vds and Mum vdS with Zachary

Roseanne, Mike with Samuel and Kaffa

Zachary

SamuelTish and Matt
Lauren, Isaac and Hannah enjoying their food

Then on Boxing Day pretty much everyone who was at the Christmas dinner headed down to Two People's Bay for another day of gorgeous sunny weather and good company :-)

Hannah, Olivia and Lauren helping Kaffa put on suncream

Lauren and Olivia

Olivia with her cousins Lauren and Hannah

Two People's Bay

Drying off after a nice swim

Then on Saturday morning we headed down to Mutton Bird Beach with Fritz and Viv and Kaffa and Mike for a bit of 4WDing and fishing - the boys had no luck with the fish though

Mike's rig.
Like the bull bar? (not that you can really see it)...Rod built it. He's so clever :-)

Olivia on the 2-way to Kaffa (in the background). She's also got the map
book on her lap finding our next holiday destination

Rod playing 4WD games on Sunday afternoon

And Olivia reading a book to the dog - for once she's
not terrorising the poor thing! She chased him everywhere the whole
time we were there, trying to catch his tail or put pegs on it...in general,
just annoying him!

Aaww, I love DJ - he makes a good pillow

Tickling him - he likes that

Christmas lights in town

Camping at Logue Brook Dam

I think I've just had the longest and best week of holidays ever! It was so relaxing and everything a holiday should be.
We left for Logue Brook Dam on Monday the 22nd Dec. at around 6:30am; even though it's only just over an hours drive we had to leave early - something you're guaranteed will happen if you're married to a van der Schaaf no matter where you need to go ;-) But that's ok because by the time we found a spot to set up camp it was already 10:30 or so.
Anyway, at first it was just going to be Ali and Rita Kleyn and their four kids: Casey, Levi, Brooklyn and Toby, Ed and Evette and their two kids Tegan and Corey, Ed's apprentice Brent and us going, but Ali spread the word to his siblings Tish, Quint, Matt and Chantelle and invited them along too! So they all took their friends and in the end we had about 25 or so people there! The more the merrier hey!
So here are some pics of what we got up to...

Breakfast at the bakery in Pinjarra - that's our rig in the middle :).
Ali's ute and the boat are to the left and Ed and Evette are to the rightOlivia enjoying her apricot danish

Ali's dog Charlie came along too

A view of our campsite from the water - that's our camper to the right

Evette feeding Corey, Tegan, Rod and Marcel

Cornelia(Bertha's sister visiting from South Africa) , Marcel and Chantelle

Tish, Fred, Willem, Brent and Matt

Olivia's bath time

This was so cute...Olivia just couldn't resist helping Toby wash himself :-)
And when it was Olivia's bath time, he returned the favour!
I'm sure they don't want to see the video footage we got when they're older ;-)Olivia, Tegan and Brooklyn keeping themselves occupied

Rod and Olivia having fun on the giant shoe

Rod

Going for a ride on the boat

Tish getting some air!

Taking the boats out for a sunset ski

What's camping without a fire?! Here's Matt, Brooklyn, Quint, Kyle,
Ed, Rod, Brent, Chris and Casey enjoying the fire

Quint and Bertha

Quint, Cornelia and PeteQuint and the hubbly bubbly

Rita and Glenn

Willem (guy visiting from South Africa), Matt and Tish with Mr Hubbly Bubbly

Ed explaining something to Brent (Ed's apprentice) and Ali

We left the dam on Wednesday so Rod made the most of it and went for an early morning ski with Marcel and Pete. Olivia and I came along for the ride and to take some pics of course

Rod going for one last run

Marcel

Pete