The Zekveld LA exit, First Christmas in Cali and poinssettias on my doorstep!

Well... The Zekveld's have departed! They are busy road-tripping across the USA and are on their way back to South Africa. Andrew has been posting pictures on Facebook which has been great to keep up with all that they have been seeing whilst  being on the road.

Here are some pictures of the Bookstore's farewell for Andrew:

  Here Obed had everyone laughing because he wanted to sing out "For he's a jolly good fellow!" which is strictly more British it would appear judging from the uniformed American response! Hehe! Obed's comical response was along the lines of: "What? I love that song!" Which just caused even more erupting laughter! The conversation then led to envisioning Obed jogging along, listening to "For he's a jolly good fellow" on his ipod! I love how we can enjoy the blend of cultures in rich friendships like we do here.

 Izak and I worked hard at making our little home more festive for the Christmas season!
We didn't have a great deal of space to work with... But we got some help from the Humansdorp Bakkes'! They sent us a Christmas package (Which I opened ahead of time! Eeeek! Sorry about that! Izak reckons he will try to hide them from me in the future!) We got this cute hand-made Christmas card... (Heleen's sketches are phenomenal.)
Here is the outside of the card:

 Here is the inside of the card: (with a sketch of the Humansdorp Bakkes'! So creative!)

 We also got these little South African flags in our Christmas parcel, and I came into the room, and Izak had put them up on the curtains! I just LOVED that he had done that! It just made our place feel that little bit more like home. :)

Then, we picked up some fairy lights:

 And Izak "Light Engineer" worked his magic: (Notice the South African flags! I would  not have allowed the messy'ish bed into the picture otherwise!)

 Then, to add to the festivities... We got some unusually (by South African standards...) scented candles: (They really make one hungry with yummy Banana nut bread and sugar cookie scents- mmmm!)

 For our Christmas breakfast, we had WAFFLES with raspberries, ice cream and hot chocolate fudge: (This was after chatting to our family- which helped work up the appetite!)

 Needless to say, we didn't need lunch til about 4 that afternoon! 

 We made the Ina Paarman "Chicken Breast Rolls with Olives, Mozzarella and Tomato" dish. I would definitely recommend the recipe! (I made it back home and for olive pesto, you can simply blend some olives (green and black ones if you have some) and basil, parsley and olive oil... Not sure if it meets the 'true pesto' standard- but it works for this recipe!
Here is a link to the recipe:
http://www.paarman.co.za/recipe_search/chicken_breast_rolls.asp

The Grace Church Christmas concert was on for four days (Wow! I wish you could have been a part of it! What an exceptional experience!) Well, they had a great number of these poinsettias up on the stage and Izak got given some and brought them home! (He knew it would truly make my day!) So without further ado, meet our joyous, festive poinsettias:

 Doesn't it look so welcoming?!? I love the impact that plants can have!

Well, so this has been our first Christmas in California and it has been a blessing to lay-low. Izak and I both had colds and it was actually good for us to stay home and do very little! 

 We are flying off to San Jose to visit the Gillies tomorrow. We are really looking forward to it. They got us tickets to come and see them, and we are so grateful to not have to spend a great deal of time on the wet roads (It has been raining so much here! Apparently, we have had the highest rainfall in LA in ten years.)


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