{"id":2927,"date":"2011-12-04T23:43:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T05:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/2011\/12\/04\/this-weeks-happenings-1128-124\/"},"modified":"2011-12-04T23:43:45","modified_gmt":"2011-12-05T05:43:45","slug":"this-weeks-happenings-1128-124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/2011\/12\/04\/this-weeks-happenings-1128-124\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week&#8217;s Happenings 11\/28-12\/4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We had a pretty uneventful week, but a wonderful weekend.&#160; This week we put up and decorated our Christmas tree.&#160; It was a little weird decorating for Christmas in shorts and a t-shirt, but oh well!&#160; The only thing missing now is a star or something on the top.&#160; I think Mikayla and I will make it this week.&#160;&#160; We also introduced Mikayla to the advent season by making a wreath and talking about it. <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"Mbabane and Mountains 049\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mbabane and Mountains 049\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Mbabane-and-Mountains-049.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"297\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"Mbabane and Mountains 084\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mbabane and Mountains 084\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Mbabane-and-Mountains-084.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"297\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We also had the staff Christmas party this week.&#160; It was more of a service and then cake and refreshments afterwards, but fun.&#160; Part of the service was each of the staff got up to put a star ornament on the tree.&#160; After putting on their ornament they were supposed to say what they were thankful for from the past year.&#160; Mikayla of course had to put an ornament on the tree.&#160; The thing she said she was thankful for was presents!&#160; Classic two year old moment.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"Mbabane and Mountains 007\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mbabane and Mountains 007\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Mbabane-and-Mountains-007.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"297\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Sr. Diane and Thandiwe (pronounced Tan-dee-way) at the Christmas party<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We discovered this week that we probably tell Mikayla she is cute too much.&#160; Our friend Joey was over for dinner and Mikayla was up walking around playing by herself.&#160; All the sudden she looks at Joey and says, &quot;I&#8217;m cute, people tell me that all the time&quot;!&#160; Hilarious.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">On Saturday we packed up and headed into town for the weekend.&#160; We started the day by doing some quick Christmas shopping and I am excited to say that we are almost completely finished!&#160; Just a couple of small things and we will be done.&#160; That evening we had some very gracious hosts \u2013 Peter, Callista and Aviva.&#160; Peter works with the Embassy and does some work with Cabrini and Callista works for the World Bank.&#160; Aviva is their one year old daughter.&#160; On Saturday night we had a wonderful braai, watched the children play and just hung out.&#160; It was great family time.&#160; <\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">On Sunday morning we woke up and headed to Malolotja Nature Reserve.&#160; It was completely different than any scenery we see in St. Phillips.&#160; Mountains, valleys, trees, rocks&#8230;absolutely beautiful&#8230;even if it was overcast and cold!&#160; Of course we were not prepared for the cold weather and forgot to bring jackets, Ben even forgot pants.&#160; Aviva was nice enough to loan Mikayla a sweatshirt and I used her blanket as mine.&#160; Ben just toughed it out!&#160; Our car took a little bit of a beating, we did a little mudding, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves.&#160;&#160; We hope to go back when it is clearer (and we are better prepared) and do some hiking.&#160; They also have a zip line canopy tour we would like to do at some point.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"Mbabane and Mountains 117\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mbabane and Mountains 117\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Mbabane-and-Mountains-117.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"297\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"Mbabane and Mountains 150\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mbabane and Mountains 150\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Mbabane-and-Mountains-150.jpg\" width=\"444\" height=\"297\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"Mbabane and Mountains 155\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mbabane and Mountains 155\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Mbabane-and-Mountains-155.jpg\" width=\"297\" height=\"444\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"Mbabane and Mountains 159\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mbabane and Mountains 159\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Mbabane-and-Mountains-159.jpg\" width=\"297\" height=\"444\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>Random flower we saw while walking around<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We had a pretty uneventful week, but a wonderful weekend.&#160; This week we put up and decorated our Christmas tree.&#160; It was a little weird decorating for Christmas in shorts and a t-shirt, but oh well!&#160; The only thing missing now is a star or something on the top.&#160; I think Mikayla and I will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[91,116],"class_list":["post-2927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-africa","tag-weeks-happenings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/beth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}