Moving

I moved out of my house in Gaborone this morning. There was never much furniture there; the largest items were the beds, the sofas and the fridge. Such a large house was waisted on us because it has been over a year since Marisa and the children were able to be there, and I myself only slept in it for 3 to 4 nights a month, at most. So everything is moving to our home in South Africa and I'll stay in hotels and/or guest houses when in Gaborone in the future.

Wide-angle short of the now-deserted sitting room, kitchen and dining area

Miekie and Pieter's old room (a wide-angle shot... all walls are actually straight!)

One last photo from the outside before I left for the final time

A new pram and Neil eating some apple

After years of use our old pram has reached retirement age. We went off to buy a new one yesterday.

Recharging through coffee (x2), milkshake (x1), hot chocolate (x1) and being tickled (x1)

Tentative approval given

Neil likes eating. This morning he had some apple (in squished-up form). Marisa says it only takes one to two teaspoons before he's full.

Pieter's new camera

Pieter decided to use his birthday money (plus tooth fairy money and savings from his pocket money) to buy his own camera. It's something he's wanted for a very long time. We scoured the Internet and found a good looking Canon which suited his budget. We ordered it on-line and it arrived 24 hours later.

Unfortunately Pieter is quite sick today, with an upper airway infection and a high fever. The camera's arrival lifted his mood.

Un-boxing

Additional gadgets that we bought include a smart card, a smart card reader and a nice camera bag

Pieter, who is looking forward to spending more time on the other side of the lens than he has in the past

Miekie and Pieter introducing their cameras to each other

Five photos at once: the cheesy inset was taken simultaneously by my front-facing camera

Starting to sit

Neil is becoming good at sitting. He was spotted happily sitting in his cot the other day.

Evidently proud of his achievement

On Sunday we had Marisa's parents over for a Father's Day braai.

A quick hot swap ensured that others' poses could be more-or-less maintained

Last Bulletjie Rugby of the season

Yesterday Pieter played his final two Bulletjie Rugby matches of this season. The venue was the Centurion Rugby Club.

Pieter and his team

Miekie with Willemien the rabbit (dressed in Midstream supporters gear) and Neil

They all received end-of-season trophies

Pieter, the tophy, me (and the Gautrain)

Neil and the crocodile

Neil looked quite cute when spending time with his crocodile yesterday morning...

Weekend visitors

Madelize, Jacobus and Paul came to stay on Friday night. (Hannes was away in the DRC, so couldn't be here too unfortunately.)

Miekie and Pieter joined Madelize and her children at Marisa's parents on Saturday, and they spent that night there and Sunday night too. Marisa, Neil and I joined them all, and Kobie, Anelle and Petronel, for a Sunday braai.

In her defence it was a light beer and the bottle was (mostly) empty (before she got hold of it)

Some spontaneous, semi-posed, group photos materialised during the course of the afternoon...

Pieter's (early) birthday party

As Pieter's birthday falls in the school holiday's, an early party was held for him at his Teddiebere school on Wednesday. Migal, one of his friends from the school, happened to turn 4 so a joint party was held.

There was ample opportunity to bounce

The impressive cake created by Migal's parents caused some party-goers to wonder if they were the predators or the prey

The cold day called for suitable headgear for Neil

Breaths of fresh air

Contented approval

Neil in his baby walker

I took a few videos of Neil in his baby walker last night. He's starting to get the hang of it and makes quite an effort trying to move, as one can see in the video below.

Pieter had an early birthday party at his school this morning because his actual birthday will be in school holidays. I was there for a short while and will post some photos tomorrow.

Start of the hockey season

Having completed the netball season, Miekie and her fellow pupils have switched to hockey. Today was their first practice session.

A nice clear (but cold) afternoon

Marisa and I watched from the sidelines; Pieter brought along his hockey stick and played around with a friend (in the background of the picture)

gu.pe

I often use gupe as a username on the Internet. It's from Gustav Peter. So a few weeks ago, for no real reason besides for my own amusement / hobby, I purchased the domain name gu.pe (thanks to Peru for making its second level domains available for general registration). It's now running my own link manager, which I wrote in Python. The bare domain (i.e. gu.pe/) currently just links to this blog and my link manager gives me the ability to rapidly create short links to other URLs (addresses on the Internet). I think it's really handy and very cool (but hardly anyone I've encountered thus far shares my enthusiasm). An example link is gu.pe/mutti which I've set up to link to my mother's blog; it's easier for me to type in that than the long link that it redirects to. In that sense I'm using my link manager as a sort-of bookmarking system.

I thought I'd check if gupe means something in another language. The closest I could find is guêpe in French, which means wasp. This morning I created a little logo for my link manager. As a link manager's job is transparent, the logo is only visible to the manager (me) when doing admin functions on it.

Neil's weight at 19 weeks

Neil was weighed and vaccinated again on Monday. He's still growing well (he's now slightly over double his birth weight) and was able to handle the vaccinations without getting too upset, says Marisa.

My logarithmic model (the green line) still works well with the actual data (the blue line)

Offroad cycling and tooth cleaning

There's some landscaping working in progress close to our house. The ditch is a good area for some cycling, as demonstrated here by Pieter:

Last night Pieter and Miekie went to a lot of effort to try to clean his tooth. The hope was that its cleanliness would suitably impress the tandemuis and that this would increase its value.

Miekie created a map to the tooth which was stuck on Pieter's door:

So this morning it transpired that the tandemuis had taken possession of the tooth during the night and had left this little note of thanks:

Haasbek

This morning, at the age of 2160 days, Pieter lost* his first** deciduous tooth. (Miekie was 2168 days old when she lost her first one, so they're quite close comparatively.)

Ante

Post

* By lost I mean it is no longer in his mouth, but we still have it;
** By first I mean it's the first one to be lost, not necessarily the first one he got as a baby (but probably).

Pieter proudly took our "marsupial" tandmuis, bearing The Tooth in her pouch, to his Teddiebere playschool this morning (click on the image for a larger version)

Sliding around

We had a lazy Sunday. It involved a braai, an afternoon nap and coffee at Mugg and Bean later in the afternoon.

Ready for a late afternoon tea and coffee

Yet again Google Photos has not been bad at all at creating quick videos from the numerous clips I take:

Clean boys almost ready for bed

Neil is become quite dexterous and is now able to grab items of interest and manoeuvre them to his mouth:

I'm eager to spot potential development into a fellow sinistral (I think you can use that term as a noun...)