Walks at Rhodes Memorial

We live about 5 minutes' drive from Rhodes Memorial, a tribute to Cecil John Rhodes. I've long avoided it because I'm on my anti-colonial high horse, but one day I decided to visit (there's no cost), and found it incredibly beautiful. It's at the foot of Devil's Peak, and offers some amazing walks (we walked about 500m with Noah highlighting each and every pine cone) and a restaurant with a play ground. Cappuccino is R15. Babycinos are R8 though, so I'd recommend getting a latte and slipping some of your milk to your toddler that way. It's a great place to visit with Noah, and even to get tiny pine trees for bonsai, since Pines are being cut down and are not left to grow to maturity (I think because they're an alien species and people are concerned about the amount of water they draw from the water table?)

We always get babycinos (steamed milk) for Noah, since juice is expensive and pretty sugary. I'm trying to remember to always have his Kleen Kanteen for water, also, since he's actually equally happy with water. Noah feels part of our coffee breaks this way. The key is figuring out the coffee shops that will do the babycino for free, or who separate their lattes into milk and expresso (so you can share some milk before adding the expresso). We've found filter coffee in SA really unpredictable- we never know if we'll get something super strong or super weak. 

Leah, Eli is wearing your hat!

I loved that this article mentioned a woman who put on the microwave for 1:11, 2:22, and 3:33 to save time (Eug's response: doesn't her microwave have a minute button??) It seems so absurd, but I can relate to this need to find extra moments, even as I don't own a microwave and waste a lot of time doing random stuff. This morning, forced awake by Noah, I tried to cook enough for the whole week to save time- and almost succeeded. I'm also going into another "no checking email" phase. But I'm giving myself some leeway on the blog. 

I was crushed to hear this news about one of my favorite blog families- one of the few blogs I read and comment fairly regularly. Seems strange to tuck this in at the end of the post-- this doesn't seem the time or place to discuss why this happened, but I didn't want it to go by without saying anything. I am so sorry for the loss of Elijah Rainbow Fisher- God bless the Fisher family. [update: Leah over at The Squibix Family Blog has written about this in a way that I couldn't- thanks]