I took Tau to the park to ride the train yesterday and took a few snaps along the way.

Thought I’d post them for the family who haven’t had the chance to visit. They are in our La Casa set on Flickr.

Enjoy!

After our recent crib-jumping escapade we decided it was time to move Tau to a toddler bed.

So, after hunting the Internet high and low, we decided on the KidKraft Modern Toddler Cot because it could take Tau’s existing crib mattress and looked to be the lowest to the ground of all the beds we saw.

As Tau watched Dave assembling it, we talked about the new BIG BOY BED (!) and how wonderful it was and how he didn’t have to sleep in the crib anymore because that was for tiny babies.

Quite sweet and gullible, our child. He has taken remarkably well to sleeping in the bed and has only slipped onto the floor once in the month or so that we’ve had it. Dave found him, still wrapped perfectly in his blankets, on the floor in the middle of the night.

He does push his luck some nights by getting out of bed before he falls asleep and walking to peer over the railing to see what we’re watching on TV. But generally, a firm “Get back in your bed, NOW! please …” sends him back under the covers.

In addition to the yellow sheets I originally made for the bed, I bought a cute Safari fitted sheet from Target to match the Safari monkey pillow and lamp already in his room.

Had to move the lamp up high recently when Tau burned his hand on it. He decided it would be a good idea to touch the light bulb to see whether Mom was right when she said it was “HOT, Tau! Don’t touch!”

And so begins knowledge of the fact that Mom is usually (always?) right.

Oh, and in case anyone is planning on sending Tau a lion for Christmas? A subtle hint in the picture above. Let’s just say the zoos and wildlife preserves of the world have been calling, requesting the return of their beasties.

We are home and all is well. No damage to our immediate neighborhood. We’ll add more news once we are settled and rested. Even though we are home, we have been told to be ready to evacuate in event things change drastically. Basically, it would take a new fire for our neighborhood to be affected.

We are at James and Vix’s place and had a great day — unplugged from media.

Just checked the web and learned that they are reopening areas in our neighborhood, and we called our answering machine this morning and it answered, which we took to be a good sign.

Will probably spend the night here and head home tomorrow.

This post is part of Blog Action Day, a day of environmental discussion and participation by bloggers around the world.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, it’s our laundry. Our humble jeans, shirts and towels hanging on a $9.99 clothes horse, saving us a bit of money and helping to fight global warming.

Did you know that dryers use five to ten percent of residential electricity in the United States? That cutting the number of times you use your dryer by just one load a week reduces CO2 emissions by 200 pounds a year? Hard to know what that means in the global scheme of things but every little bit helps, right?

Dave and I were both raised in South Africa, where the hot, mostly dry climate means that the vast majority of people dry ALL their laundry outdoors in the sunshine on washing lines. Our childhood memories are of folding crisp, bone-dry towels, of chasing our siblings through lines of flapping bedsheets and of learning to hang t-shirts so that they didn’t dry all pulled at the peg marks. (more…)

On Sunday, after the annual neighborhood bike ride, a bunch of riders and friends came over for a barbecue. The last time we hosted this event, two years ago, I was just over eight months pregnant with Tau. He was born a week later.

Though we decided to dodge a formal birthday party this year, I did make carrot-cake cupcakes, frosted in different colors and arranged as a bunch of balloons. And we sang Happy Birthday, which Tau was prepared for because he’s been singing it to himself for over a month!

Because our place is small, it’s always hectic having so many people over, and this time it felt even smaller with toys littering the living room carpet. That said, I think everyone had a good time — I know we did!

My friend Declan had just bought a new camera lens, and so he brought his camera over to try out the lens on the birthday boy. A set of some of my favorites is here on Flickr.

Dave here …

So Sue had been bugging me to cut the dead flower stalk off one of our aloes for some time. Didn’t bug me but the untidiness of it was getting to her, so last night after weeks of asking (begging … nagging?), she sauntered into the garage and came out with the shears. 

I’m in the kitchen and I hear snip, then “Hey! Help!”

The half-severed branch had hit Sue’s head and the dried flower husks stuck to her hair like velcro. Yes, the whole aloe plant was stuck to her head.

The more she called for help, the more I laughed and then ran for the camera! To make amends, I came home from my trip to the hardware store today with DQ Blizzards.

Note from Sue: Uh huh. The only picture he’s taken in the last ten years (I kid you not) is when my head is stuck to a plant. In my swimsuit. With hair scraggly from being in the pool. All sweaty and hot. Nice one, honey. The Oreo Blizzard did make up for it though. He knows how to get me. And by the way, the garden is his thing — dead aloe stalks aside, I don’t touch it.

In other news, we had a great weekend. H-O-T here — upper 80s F (30 C) today. We went to the pool three times this weekend, Tau overcame his beginning-of-summer “what the heck is this pool thing?” fear, and we had a picnic dinner tonight on Moonlight Beach. Yay! Summer is here!

Euphorbia tirucalli

We bought this Pencil Tree, along with six or seven other succulents and cacti at the local farmer’s market this Saturday. And so I spent a couple of hours this afternoon potting and arranging them on the patio.

Our tiny garden is coming along nicely and should by pretty lush in a month or so. Dave has worked hard on it — pulling out stuff killed by the frost this past winter and adding plants that will hopefully handle both the heat and cold a bit better.

I’ve started two new sets on our Flickr page: One for pictures taken around the house, including some of the new plants, and one for Tau pics 19 to 24 months. (Yes, I’m a cheapskate — have a free account, which means you can only have three sets at a time. The old sets get deleted but the pictures in those sets are still available in your photostream.)

Easter Brunch Table

Click thumbnail to enlarge.

Last Sunday afternoon, we spent some time in the garden pulling out a palm hit by the frost and planting some new cannas, wild grasses and a kangaroo paw.

Tau was pretty thrilled by the idea of walking around in bare feet and digging with a tablespoon in the soil.

That evening, as dark fell, Dave was still outside finishing up, Tau and I, inside getting dinner.

“Daddy?”

“Daddy’s outside, honey.”

Under his breath, poking at the table top, “Daddy … dig-dig-dig-dig-dig.”

Ah! Spring has sprung in our fair neigborhood,
and the aloes are blooming!

I ran this through some pretty strong graphic filters.
The original picture was unremarkable.

And yes, Dad, about the Jacarandas,
Oktober is die mooiste, mooiste maand!