Christmas Break

Happy Holidays to everyone in blogland!

We went on our first family mountain bike fun ride last weekend. It was the Twilight ride at the Backsberg Estate. There was a 20km, 10km, and 4km ride with the 20km starting at 6pm. We finished at 7:55pm and then Michaela and I entered the fancy dress competition and won a prize as the Tutu Girls!

AT the start

Took this photo while riding!!

Michaela and I with our race numbers at the fancy dress!

I finally got all my Christmas baking done too....fruit cake and lots of Christmas biscuits!

Batch 1 of Biscuits before the oven

Yesterday was the annual Fenn Cape Point Challenge Surfksi race...an epic 50km surfski paddle starting in Scarborough on the Atlantic side, around Cape Point and ending at Fish Hoek Beach. The first batch of paddlers leave at 5:30am and the winner finished in a tine of 3hr41m! A tradition at the club is that all the Junior Lifeguard girls get given a Fenn bikini and meet the paddlers as they cross the finish line and carry their boats for them! The eldest gannet was a Fenn girl this year!!

The eldest gannet in the middle with the pink bikini!

The youngest gannet was the juice girl...handing out juice to the paddlers as they finished.

 

I'm also taking a blog break until after Christmas and possibly New Year and would like to thank everyone who has visited and inspired me throughout the year! I will be continuing with my 365 days of creativity...I'm almost halfway there now!!

Merry Christmas and a wonderful festive season to everyone
PennyB xx

Prizegivings and holidays!

Schools out!! Summer holidays have begun and the weather is playing along magnificently. The last week of term was quite hectic with 3 prizegivings in 2 days! Monday night was the Sports Awards, Tuesday morning was the Grade 4-6  Acknowledgement Ceremony and Tuesday night was the Grade 7 Farewell and prizegiving.   I was the photographer for all 3...so I've been busy editing pics before posting them on the school's Facebook page! I'm soooo proud of the youngest gannet!! She won 3 certificates at Gr 4-6 Academic Prizegiving: All-round excellence, Excellence in Music and Drama, 2 certificates at the Sport certificate assembly-for enthusiasm in hockey and leadership in netball, and then a whopping 5 awards at the Sports Awards!

Youngest gannet 4th from right at Gr 4-6 awards

3 team certificates and the trophies for Most Improved Player for Athletics and Player of the Season for Cross Country! Not sure whose smile is the biggest!

On Wednesday after the kids had all left, the staff went for our Christmas lunch. I couldn't resist taking photos - as usual...!

I've been frantically busy the last 2 weeks making  Prayer Shawl for a very dear friend at school. She's had a really rough year with health issues, a couple of falls, her son was in a car accident and her daughter's getting married in the holidays. I found the pattern in a fellow crocheter's book. It's a lattice shawl pattern - the lattice is for structure and strength and offers protection. I managed to finish it for the staff's last day, which was Friday!

The wool changes colours as you crochet and it's over 1.5m long! 

I finished the challenge quite quickly this week...I had inspiration of some sort! LOL!

Challenge #147 done using string 081: L-R...keeko, pots-n-pans, tink, boo-kee, twile, cubine

   We also have a new member to our family. It's been nearly 5 years since our other pooch passed on and my hubby didn't want to get another dog. But...he's been looking for about a month now and on Friday I went to fetch him!

Meet Bandit! He's 8 weeks old and a real mixture....mom is an Australian border collie (brown and white not black and white) and dad is a german shepherd/Labrador!

Bandit meeting Jessie!

And then sadly on Thursday evening our beloved Madiba passed away. South Africa and the world are a better place having known him. May he rest in peace xx

Holiday countdown...

3 days of school left! Where has the year gone? My eldest gannet has completed her first year of high school and the youngest only has 2 years of primary school to go...oh my hat!

Last weekend we had the  first Nipper Carnival of the new season and Fish Hoek came 2nd by only 7 points! It was so great to see all our kids performing so well. We are going to whip the other clubs at Champs in April...watch this space! 

The eldest gannet(in the middle) and friends who were all safety officers at the competition...cheering on the nippers.

Youngest gannet and U11 friends/team mates

She came 5th in the flags event!

 
Yesterday, we had an interschool athletics competition with 3 schools and the youngest gannet did really well! She came 3rd in the 1200m, 2nd in the Long jump and her team won the 4x100 relay. Monday we have Sports Awards (and we have an invitiation so she's winning something, and on Tuesday is the Academic Prizegiving and we have an invite to that too!  This afternoon, the eldest gannet takes part in her first Junior/Senior Lifesaving competition as she is now a qualified Lifeguard.

With an awesome jump of 3,27m!

 I've been quite busy crocheting a Prayer shawl for a very good friend of mine...it's growing nicely and almost finished. 
On the tangle side of things...I started #145 but never finished it in time (just for a change!) Challenge #146 was with 2 tangles that I don't like much. I persevered, however, and produced a fairly decent tile...well I think so! (I'll post the finished #145 when it's finished - LOL)

Challenge #146

Have a good weekend everyone

PennyB

Weatherery weekend!

What a weekend!!
We had 84mm of rain from midday Friday until 10ish am on Saturday morning!! We usually get the South easter blowing in the summer (and boy can it blow!) and the north wester in winter with all the rain. This weekend was a Black South Easter as we had the wind and the rain in torrents. Lots of places flooded in and around Cape Town...

Chapman's Peak Drive (Our very famous mountain road) with major mudslides and the rain washing away the road in places

Main Road shops all with sand bags in the doorways as the water just wouldn't drain away fast enough!

Saturday afternoon, the surfers were out in full force at Fish Hoek beach...look at those waves! Fish Hoek NEVER has waves like this!

Saturday was also quite a milestone for the eldest gannet...she had her first duty day as a qualified lifeguard!

Caitlin on the left and best friend Nosipho in the same squad!

Creatively, I've had a major bout of inspiration!

Step 1...drawing around the sticker

Step 2...echoing the border

Step 3...more ink

Step 4...more ink and more border

Step 5...colour to match the sticker

The final product with filled in backgrounds and little bities of colour!

Then I needed to paint something with my watercolours....

Voila!

I reeeaaalllyy wanted to take part in the Diva's challenge last week, but, alas, I never made it in time. I did however, finish my intended entry yesterday!

And last but by no means least, a crocheted owl beanie for a 3 year old! Too cute!

Happy creating

PennyB

Doodle every day!

It's been one of those weeks...I don't post anything for over 2 weeks and now 3 times in one week!
 While browsing around my FLickr contacts, I came across   SkinnyStrayCat. ...her stuff is stunning and right up my alley - if you'll pardon the pun! Her sad looking owls and Christmas mandala's are so gorgeous!

This one is entitled Christmas Owl...isn't he too cute?!

I've spent the whole week working on one piece...! I decided to do something totally different and I'm quite chuffed with myself.



A close up of the bottom left corner...

...and a close up of the top left corner

 
 Now, for all those lovers of chocolate and sweet things that do not take ages to make....I found a recipe for chocolate brownies that is to die for! I'm not the greatest fan of brownies, but these are simply divine! They also make excellent Bottle Gifts - you know the ones where you put all the dry ingredients in a bottle and on the label are the wet ingredients that need to be added.



Chocolate Brownies
1 cup sugar,
half cup flour
third cup cocoa
quarter tsp salt and BP

Add: 2 eggs, half cup oil, 1tsp vanilla
Bake at 180 C/350 F for 20-25 mins







Enjoy the week

PennyB

Challenge #143

After what seemed like a never ending week, I managed to sit for an hour and do the weekly challenge! I had good fun with the new tangle! 

Short and sweet this time
PennyB

Time warp!

It's been too long, I know! Every time I thought it was time to catch up on the blog, something else came along and blogging ended up at the end of the queue! SO much has happened in the last 2 weeks, that I feel like I'm in a different time zone....or as a very good friend of mine once said: I feel like I'm in the washing machine on the spin cycle and instead of opening the door when the cycle is finished, they just turn the machine on again!!

My youngest gannet is now 11 - and we had her birthday party last weekend, she did her Nipper exam for her upgrade and swum in 2 gala's...and competed in Sports Day at school! Sports Day was awesome - she did sooooo well: 2nd in the 100m, 2nd in the Long Jump and her relay team came 1st in the 4X100m and she came first in the 1200m!

Long jump champ

Sprint placing

Last lap of 1200m

Cheering for the tug-of-war

  Super chuffed little person with her 2 gold ribbons and 2 silver ribbons!

For her birthday, (which she's been planning since March!!)-we had a Shipwrecked on Treasure Island Party! (My creative make for this day was the cake!) All her friends dressed up brilliantly, we played some cool games and then they spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool! The weather played along brilliantly - hot, no wind -it was an wonderful day.

Walking the plank-blindfolded!

Crossing the crocodile infested swamp as quietly as possible...it's bubblewrap!

Hopping on their peg-legs for 1 minute

Arrr me hearties - let's eat cake!

Pin the flag on the Treasure map - blindfolded of course!

Fun in the pool.

As  an early birthday present, hubby bought tickets to the Currie Cup final (our inter provincial rugby competition) which just happened to be between the 2 teams that the family supports...the youngest gannet being the odd one out! She dressed up in her supporters gear and cheered and screamed like a crazy person the whole game...especially when her team won!!

 

Happy creating

PennyB