Bringing old garden benches back to life

We inherited two lovely wooden garden benches with our house. A few years ago we sanded and varnished one, but never got around to doing the other and since then one bench's seat had also broken. They were close to being discarded by Andre but I was still clinging to them, not really sure how to save them.

Then Andre's dad and stepmom came to visit a few months ago and within days these two benches were looking brand new and standing much prouder!

Sanding the benches in preparation for painting.

The first bench was painted red and now lives next to our front door. A lovely sunny spot in the afternoons for Isabella and I to sit and wait for Andre to come home.

Oupa Chris inspecting the base coats.

Isabella approves!

We love it!

Andre's dad repaired the seat of the other bench and it was painted a colour I think is called seagrass and describes it pretty well- a light greeny-turqoois. A very calm colour. This one is currently in our back garden next to the BBQ.

Testing the new seat.

Thank you so much for the help Chris & Marietjie! We can now enjoy sitting on our benches again and they look so much better!

An aloe and a yukka plant was also given a bigger home in the process. Both were originally indoors, and I hadn't even noticed that they were outgrowing their pots. The yukka now has a lovely big pot next to the red bench and the aloe is also in a much larger pot than it was. For the aloe Marietjie used an old brown plastic pot found in our greenhouse which she painted with the grey undercoat we used on the benches and it looks great next to the seagrass bench.

We have plans to turn Isabella's old sandpit into shelves for flower/ herb pots and also into a bench, but that is still on the to-do list.

I'm back!

Wow it's been very nearly two years since my last post. I wish I had kept the blogging up the past two years, but I just didn't get the time in between playing duplo and dolls. And after Isabella's bed time I just did not feel creative at all to be writing anything.

But now I feel better! And inspired after we have started our vlog- take a look here, this link will take you to our channel.

The vlogging started after we recently started watching and subscribing to a few other vlogs on youtube which we watch most evenings instead of tv shows. We find it relaxing to switch off from our own life and watch someone else's instead and at 10-20 min each it's nice and short so we can watch one or two and then get on with other things like this, instead of getting hooked on a tv show and trying to watch the entire series in a night.

I decided what I post here might not be in any specific order. It will just be what I feel like writing about or showing you on a specific evening and depend on how much time I have. 

We've just gotten back from an amazing two weeks in Mexico. We travelled to Puerto Vallarta for my sister's wedding which was absolutely amazingly beautiful and perfect. More on that at a later date. There are way too many wedding photos to sort through and I want to try not get to bed too late. I feel like I might have a cold coming on. Anyway, there will also be a vlog about the wedding soon. That will be our very next vlog actually! I'm excited to start on that and show you.

After four amazing days at the wedding venue (and I'll show you more of that later too) the three of us moved to a different hotel to stay an extra week. I'll also give you a tour of that, probably in a vlog too I think. But what I wanted to show you tonight was this animal show we watched at our hotel. If I understood it correctly it was some rescued animals and they showed them and gave some information about each. It was a quick little show but perfect for the kids. There weren't too many people/ kids watching either. They took pictures (we weren't allowed to) which they then sell afterwards to raise money for the care of the animals. At the end the kids could hold either a small crocodile or a python and Isabella was brave enough to hold the python!! 

And I was excited to show you those photos! But then I just realised Isabella wasn't wearing a top... And while she's still little it's fine but one day she might not like having such a photo of herself online. So if you're family or a friend, let me know if I haven't sent it then I will send it to you to show, but I'm sorry only after writing all the way to the previous paragraph I realised she wasn't wearing much. We were in the pool when they came to tell us about the show about to start so we didn't have any clothes for her with us.

But we did also get this one of Andre the crocodile hunter! Or rather gecko hunter. (No geckos were hunted or hurt in any way!)

I promise to have more photos next time, but at least I'm back!

And if you haven't checked out our vlog yet, go take a look and subscribe. I'll be back here again soon!

Oh, did you spot the gecko on Andre's hat? (Click to enlarge.)

Swimming with armbands

Isabella has been in the pool with her armbands quite a few times before although she never keeps them on all that long. Last week however she started 'swimming' around with them for the first time. Before she would just float or hold my hands, but all of a sudden she realised she can kick and actually get somewhere. It was very cute to see. Ouma Etta joined us in the pool and we met another friend  there too. The two little girls had a great time in the pool as usual.

Jumped  and dived underwater.

And again! Ready, steady, go!

kick, kick, kick!

And off she goes!

I'm coming to get you mom!

The Vyne

We had another lovely summers picnic at another National Trust site, The Vyne, this time while Andre's mum is visiting us. Andre once again got some great pictures of the girls.

She loves going up and down stairs or 'kappe' (trappe) as she calls it.

Sharing grapes.

"Kom Mamma"

My favourite!