Around here ...

The Craft Club got together at Tanya's house on 1 February for our first 2014 get together.  Tanya is an amazing baker and had done these little babies to use on top of baby shower cupcakes ...

We had a wonderful morning filled with knitting (me), crocheting (Ali and Tanya) and bead embroidery (Leonie).  Tanya made us some carrot cake cupcakes which were thoroughly delicious.

Tanya's cat kept an eye on proceedings.  When we finished up we went through to Scrap-a-Doodles and did a spot of shopping and had lunch.  When we got back to Ali's house I loaded up my car with a double oven and cooker hood, a fan, a wooden table and a couple bags of odds and ends and dropped it off at a charity in my area.

Michelle shared a room with me.

I was fortunate enough to get an invite to my Greater West Rand's team building and brainstorming session on Thursday 6th and Friday 7th February at Hakunamatata Conference and Wedding Venue.  We arrived at 12h00 on Thursday and were whisked away for a full body massage and after booking in we had lunch followed by an afternoon at the pool.

Not being a water baby I sat on the side and watched the antics of the managers I work with and took photos.

Julia ~ Branch Manager @ Carletonville kept us entertained with her stories ...

Dudu (Krugersdorp CBD) and Michelle (Regional Office)

I am still trying to figure out why people punish themselves by drinking Tequilla.

You can see how cold the water was when Nthaby (Branch Manager @ Cradlestone Mall) decided to get in but before long she was having fun and didn't want to get out of the water.

Gerhard and Derrick decided to have a race.  Derrick being nearly half Gerhard's age won ... but only by a fraction.

Gerhard

Dudu is the newest addition to our Team.  She transferred from Jubilee Mall to Krugersdorp CBD in mid January.

Michelle looking pretty as a picture with the flower that Rene picked for each of us

Rene ~ Branch Manager at Randfontein

Alida ~ Branch Manager @ Krugersdorp is a real water baby

We had a lovely dinner followed by some down time and Michelle and I went off to bed just before 10.  We chatted for a long time before we fell asleep and I was woken when my phone rang at 04h20 with Richard telling me that we had another break-in at the house.  This time they tried to force the sliding door on the patio (doing quite a bit of damage to the frame) and when that didn't work they removed a pane of glass and opened the door.  They placed the pane in the swimming pool (the lady who came to take finger prints said this is so that there are no fingerprints left behind as evidence).  Thankfully we had the alarm reconnected after the last incident and the alarm did cause them to rush ... Connor had been playing on my tablet the night before and had forgotten it on the table and this is what they left with ... boo hooo!!!!! I was on level 120 on Candy Crush! and all the books I had downloaded to read were also on my tablet.  So there I was awake early again!!!!

Michelle got up at 05h50 and made us coffee and I logged onto my laptop and did a bit of work, jumped in the shower and we were at the breakfast table at 07h30.  We had a wonderful brain storming session and were finished at 14h00.

Weekend in review

 a couple of hours it will be time to go to work and the weekend will be over ... and what a weekend it was ...

Friday evening was spent quietly at home while waiting for a call from Connor to collect him from a friend's house ~ The call came to pick him up at 11 and when we got home we fell into bed.

Such a cute addition to the group!!!

Saturday morning I met Alison at her house and we drove through to our friend Tanya in Pretoria for a crafting morning.  Leonie met us there and we met two other ladies.  I did some knitting, Ali, Tanya and the other ladies all got out their crochet hooks and worked on their projects and Leonie worked on embroidering with beads ... she is amazingly creative.

Ali is really into crocheting and is getting seriously good at it!

 Leonie's gorgeous bead embroidery

Tanya is busy with many projects including these gorgeous squares.

I took along my knitting ... this is a baby's blanket which I have been knitting on for a while ... perhaps I can keep it for when my precious niece Taryn has a baby (good idea!!!!)

We left Tanya at 12 and drove through to Ludwig Roses and had lunch and then shopped for roses ... I got two yellow roses in memory of my precious friend Joan who was my 'Yellow Rose of Texas'.  

Wouldn't mind having a party in this gorgeous hall

 Leonie and I tried this rose flavoured drink ... it was really yummy! 

 Ali enjoyed an iced coffee.

I had a German treat which was delicious

 

 

 

 My gorgeous roses ... I will think of Joan every day when I leave my house and see these beauties.

We popped into Garden World on the way back to Ali's house and after unpacking the car we had a relaxed cuppa coffee and then I hit the road.  After dinner my hunny sat with me and watched 'The Christmas Choir'. There were LOTS of fireworks but thankfully they finished around 8.

Sunday ... Richard had wanted to go for a ride on his bike but damaged a seal so instead we went to Fego for breakfast after which I took Mom grocery shopping.  Wendy, Graeme and the boys popped past for a cuppa coffee and I then got to my scrapbooking desk and got a couple of pages done on the new project.

All in all a great weekend!

Heart Map Retreat ~ 17 August 2013

Ali Caron and Lynette

Ali hosted her third Retreat at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens in Roodepoort.  There were six ladies ~ the only two that I know are Ali's sister Caron and our fellow Scrap Addict Lynette.  We had a wonderful day filled with relaxation and creativity.  I think all the ladies had a wonderful time getting away from the hustle and bustle of their every day lives and really immersed themselves in each project.

On Friday night I baked vanilla cupcakes for tea time with a bit of a surprise half way in ~ I added a block of peanut butter chocolate or nutella. I had wanted to buy a flake to decorate them but forgot so improvised and grated the chocolate off the sides of a Tex bar ... worked really well!!!

We went into the Gardens for lunch and were amazed at how busy the gardens were however it was a beautiful sunny day so it did make sense. 

There was a soft serve ice cream van at the exit which was VERY busy ... I was watching the people leaving the gardens and many of them had ice creams ... I really love getting an ice cream from those vans ~ when I was a kid it was very seldom that we could afford to get an ice-cream but when we did I was in my 7th heaven!!!

One of the beautiful journals

 Here are some of the heart cards the ladies made ... they really went all out and created amazing works of art ...

On my way home Connor called and asked if we could go to Fego for dinner ~ we had a leisurely dinner and then came home where Richard got ready for his Sunday morning ride.  Connor sat on the couch with his feet in my lap and I tried to stay awake and watch some TV but lost that battle!  We were in bed by 10h30.

So all in all a wonderful day!

This is the beautiful Thank-You gift Ali gave me for assisting her with the retreat.