Christmas Vacay.

Apparently time keeps ticking even when we wish it would slow down....

The week before Christmas, Samuel and I both took some time off to visit places around where we live that we hadn't had a chance to go to yet. So we grabbed some friends, rented a car, and off we went!

Our first stop was the PheZulu Village, where we visited traditional Zulu huts and saw a dancing presentation of an engagement/marriage ceremony, learning about tribal customs.



Next we returned to the Midlands for some candle dipping and chocolate shopping, as well as a trip to the Natal Lion Park, where we touched elephants and hung out in a cage with lions!





We also took a trip to Crocodile Creek....unbeknownst to us, it is actually a meat and skin farm, which kind of took the fun out of the trip. However, we saw baby crocodiles being hatched (Miriam even hatched one!) and a feeding of the adult crocodiles, and ate some smoked crocodile to top off the day.

There were other fun things sprinkled in there, like McDonald's breakfasts, mini golf, movies, eating at our favorite spots, and Christmas shopping.

Christmas came and went. We had a lovely Greek Christmas Eve dinner here at Appelsbosch, complete with carols and candles and with eggnog and baklava for dessert. Christmas day we opened presents with the Farrells, Miriam, Tim, and Steph (our close friends that were here for Christmas) before heading off to the ship for some community time. We had a yummy brunch of pastries and fruit, a short Christmas service, and a large Christmas braai of beef, sausage, and fish - not your typical Christmas food, but good all the same. We spent the evening with friends, reminiscing about Christmas traditions in our home countries.

Now we are preparing for the next leg of our vacation. Samuel's family arrives today, and on Monday we are all off on a 2-week vacation which will include a safari game drive, a hippo boat tour, and lots of quality family time. At the end of those two weeks, my dad is coming for 5 days as well! We are quite excited by all of this and will probably be out of contact the entire time....so,

Happy 2011!! We hope you have a safe and blessed time celebrating with family - we know we will!!

Love,

The Slennetts

Christmas time is here.

Our first married Christmas!! :)

Has it really been over a month since our last post? First it seemed like there was nothing new to post about, then life was crazy busy and there was no time! But, school is now out for Christmas break and so I finally have the time to look back and see the things that have happened over the past month. Unfortunately, I've realized that I was too busy to remember to bring my camera most places, so I've had to rely on pictures from other people.

So. Where to begin?

School. On Thanksgiving we had our monthly spirit day, this time it was Holiday Day - dress as any holiday! We had some pretty creative costumes, from baby Emma being Cupid for Valentine's Day to Miss Angie wearing a box decorated with leaves for Arbor Day. I went traditional and dressed as an Indian for Thanksgiving - Mr. Calvert and Mr. Farrell went as pilgrims to complete the theme.



The next two weeks were extremely crazy busy. We were wrapping up units, taking tests, and quickly trying to fit in Christmas activities even though it was only the first week of December. Miss Angie and I took the kids to the ScienCenter and McDonald's for a field trip, and we had an Academy Sports Day as well, complete with a gymnastics demonstration - I was quite impressed. It was great to see them show what they've been learning outside of my classroom.


Photo by Carol Tanzola

The last week of school was dedicated to the school play, The Fear Not Factor. The children attended dancing, singing, and acting workshops, as well as participated in a backstage crew such as sets, costumes, or media. The little ones got a bit of a break by doing an activity with me each morning. On Friday night, the students performed the musical, and they did an amazing job. They were so cute! The finale was performed in sign language, with the high schoolers wearing all black with white gloves that were highlighted by black lights. The elementary school joined them half way through. It was incredible.




Saturday was spent packing up the whole Academy into a container to be loaded onto the ship in January. After two days of meetings this week, school is officially over until January 17! And it is a wonderful feeling :)

Galley. Samuel's cooking team has expanded greatly lately, letting him work with some friends, which has made his job much more enjoyable for him. They spend a lot of time together, both during work hours and on their off days. It's been great to see him so happy in his job :) He has also been doing a lot of work lately to officially take over the Sales Manager position in January. He will be in charge of ordering things for the Ship Shop and Snack Bar/Cafe - something I am very excited about!

Community. Things in general have been lively lately. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal prepared by our galley staff (Samuel happened to be working that day, his team did a fantastic job!) and decorated by one of our chaplains. It was a very intimate dinner with the crew and was a good time.

It is technically summer here (though the weather doesn't seem to be aware of that), but that hasn't stopped us from our normal Christmasy activities! There have been a Christmas craft night, cookie decorating (I'm still not sure why a fellow teacher and I agreed to bake cookies for the whole crew and organize crew cookie decorating in the middle of Academy Play/Report Card week, but looking back it was worth it though it drove me absolutely crazy at the time), and Christmas tree decorating complete with homemade eggnog and fudge (I admit, I did little to no decorating and mainly focused on consuming the eggnog). Next week we're making gingerbread houses and having a special Christmas eve dinner. It hardly seems like it could be Christmas time already, but I am glad to be celebrating with my Mercy Ships family.