Autumn in South Africa

At some point you have to make peace with the fact that you will never be able to capture ALL of the beauty of a specific place with your digital camera. You will pass by incredible, flowering trees, vines with leaves that have turned a rich hue of red, huge bushes of yellow flowers, flowering aloe plants, mountains in a misty haze, and you will wish that you could stop for everything... to allow you to commit it to more than your fading memory.

But two things becomes apparent to you:
1. That the camera can never fully capture the beauty of these things, and
2. Even if it could, living behind a camera makes it impossible to really savor the moment

I find that I'm in a sort of panic mode now, as a means of coping with the our move to another continent. As a result, I've decided that it's very important for us to cherish both our South African friendships, and the incredible sites of the surrounding area in our remaining weeks here.

One of my favorite drives is along the road from Mossel Bay to George. You pass by huge Brack-water rivers and grazing pastures, with the mountains as a backdrop and the ocean to keep you company for the duration. I like it so much, that yesterday I decided to take a picture from the driver's seat, so I can remember the exact way I felt for every drive.

We drove to George a couple times this week. The purposes of our trips there were to finally visit the Botanical Gardens and to go to our "Top Tots" class. Lukas also managed to spend a lot of time with his little friend Rebecca this week (and I with her Mama, Deoni). On Wednesday we even managed to to a bit of scrapbooking at a friend, Antoinette's house in Klein Braak. Lukas really enjoyed playing with the kids (Deoni & her little ones were there, as well). He got lots of practice on the stairs (gulp!).

It's hard to imagine how different things are going to be for us in a couple months. Even though Lukas is so young, I'm not happy about him having to leave the people and places that he's just begun to feel comfortable with. Not to mention poor Felix (our doggy)! He'll be staying with Tobi's parents for a couple months (for which we're very thankful for) until we have the new place and are all settled in The Netherlands.

Wish us luck!