City Life

The first Saturday we were here, we just happened to go to a nearby mall and find Minnie and Mickey dressed up and walking around to greet the children.  My kids are huge Minnie and Mickey fans and they were absolutely giddy to find the characters!  They’d never seen anything like that.  I found a sign in the mall and read that they were going to have a “special guest” around the mall each Saturday morning this month.  So I noted them and we’ve visited all of them.  The next week we found a Minion and last week we found Spiderman.

When I told them that it was going to be Spiderman, Kyle was absolutely beside himself.  Because all plans are sort of up in the air based on what Sadie girl may or may not do, I haven’t told them who it would be until Friday night.  Kyle was dressed and ready to meet Spiderman by before 7 on Saturday morning.  I then had to try to explain that Spiderman wasn’t coming to the mall until 11am.  So I told them Spiderman was lazy and sleeping in, then he was going to have to wake up and take his shower and eat his breakfast before coming to the mall.  They were okay with that, although we fielded questions all morning about how much longer until Spiderman was going to finish his breakfast.  

The entire time Kyle was in Spiderman’s presence, he was bouncing up and down uncontrollably.  Sheer delight.  The kids wanted to hug him and give him lots of high fives.  It was a banner day in the life of a four year old boy.

On Sunday we tried to go to church but were unable to get there.  Durban had a big bike marathon going on and they had closed down one of the main thoroughfares required for us to get to church.  We tried to figure out how to navigate without using that main highway but we didn’t get anywhere.  Durban reminds me a lot of Atlanta as it has so many suburbs but it’s all basically considered one place.  So imagine shutting down 285 and watching non-locals navigate without it.  Thus, after driving in circles for a while, we decided to change plans.  The kids were disappointed they weren’t going to get to attend Children’s church, as it’s been a novelty for them during our stay here.  Children’s church isn’t a thing in Mokhotlong.  

A friend had mentioned a local coffee shop called Piggly Wiggly and said we needed to check it out.  So we plugged that into the GPS and managed to find it without using the closed road.  I was glad it was open on a Sunday morning.  It was such a beautiful setting, we ate outside while the kids played on the big play gym under the trees.  Jonathan ordered a beef, egg and cheese toast meal and the kids and I split two scones with butter and strawberry jam.  I got an iced decaf coffee which was out of this world and I ordered the kids a freshly squeezed orange juice.  It was lovely, a real treat.  Then the kids saw that there was a small putt putt course nearby and upon inspection, we learned it was only $2 to play 9 holes.  So after we finished our late breakfast, we wandered over to the putt putt place and Kyle and Jonathan enjoyed a quick round.  Kyle had never done any such thing and he was pretty excited to be playing golf like his Pops.  Plus he was wearing a collared shirt for church and we told him it made him look just like a golfer.  He giggled.

My watching buddy

Waiting isn’t one of my strong points, and it sort of feels like we’ve been waiting forever and there is no end in sight.  It’s weird that Ellee came so early, leaving us no choice but to come out of Mokhotlong early just in case.  And now we’ve been waiting for three weeks with no signs of change.  These kids, they keep us guessing from the start!  At least it’s a nice place to wait and we can find special things to do to pass the time.  But I’m more than ready to have this baby and move on the the next phase of waiting….. paperwork.

If only I could sleep as soundly as this one, with the Christmas decoration she borrowed from the landlord's house.... (???) 

~Abby