photo booth and a rainy sunday run

yesterday was a fun crazy day. since friday night it has been fairly humid. i'd say CRAZY humid but not like summers in PA get. but for here, it was CRAZY humid. it was gross. it seemed like at any moment it would start to pour. i felt this all day friday, all day saturday and sunday morning. apparently it did rain in town, but not here. all get back to the rain in a moment.

anyway saturday night was such a good night. i drove into town and spent the evening in town playing games at richard's house with friends. i taught everyone how to play "7 up," which is my favorite card game hands down. i ended up getting home, uh...very late. ha! o well, it was the first time seeing everyone since being back so it was worth it. sunette and i just chuckled at the boys cheating* and playing. it was a nice night.

sunday i went to the afrikaans service with the van brommels. it was both interesting and frustrating. i was able to pick up more words than i expected but if not for the scripture references i'd have had no idea what was going on. i think i'm gonna start going every sunday with them bc i really need/want to improve my afrikaans. i stayed after to go look at cars with the boys from town.

did i mention i'm buying a car?!?! i AM!!!

thank you to PALCS for the year end bonus you gave me over Christmas for teaching in your school 2 years ago. Thank you, Father God for providing this "surprise" money for me!

in the afternoon i was dropped off by johan and shawn on their way back to their homes in joburg and rustenburg, respectfully. the thing of it is that we now have electrical fences here on the farm to get in and out. we have a call box where you either can punch a code in to open the door or click a button if you have the proper keychain, or push a button to call the office and have them click you in.

and now back to the earlier mentioned rain...
however, as we left town to come to the farm it started pouring. when we got to the farm, we realized all electricity was out. that meant the cell tower and the phone system too (as well as internet). anyway, i had a clicker that worked so we got in fine, but then there would have been no way for them to get back out again, so after arriving at my lapa and discovering all this, i ran back to the car with them, leapt in, and drove to the gate. i clicked it open for them, gave johan a high five and slapped shawn on the shoulder and hopped out of the car. i ran back to my room. it was pouring. within 20 seconds i was completely soaked.
fully soaked.
drenched.
it was no lancaster spritzin, it was a full on
monsoon.

and it was glorious. if it hadn't been lightening i would have stayed out and kept running, but i promised those two boys i would go straight back to my lapa and get out of the storm (at least till the lightening passed), and so to my lapa i went.

a few moments later lucky and simba walked over after it finished raining and we headed to the restaurant lapa to play some games. i taught them Dutch Blitz. it was great. however, for the 4th time i locked myself out of my lapa! ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

by the time i realized it everyone with a car on this side was gone. the office was locked. we still had no phones, and no cell service. my only option was to wait till either Van Tonder's got home (not for about 5 hours or so), or climb up and over the fence to get to the other side. that would involve climbing two fences, one of which was electric and shocked me before.

(here is a photo of the one fence)

and the other gate/fence. you can see the wires on the top of it)

i decided to climb the fence as i didn't want to wait forever and ever. i knew van brommel kids would be at home, and i knew jacques or nicole could fit in a window of mine. i got to the house and lizzy had a clicker so we drove the ranger back to my side. jacques got in the window so easily. i told roelene this morning that we NEED to make a copy of my key. my key is the only one on the farm that has no duplicate and i am the only one that locks herself out of her house ALL THE TIME! hahahaha

all that to say, yesterday was delightful. full of running in the rain (fun bc our rains are "warm" rains...not cold cold rains like back in PA), figuring out how to get into my house, looking for a car, playing games, and being with friends. it was good.

ps: i am SO behind on emailing. if you sent me one in the past week...i'm working on responding! sorry
....................................................
last thursday evening i finally got around to playing with the "photo booth" application on my macbook.
i have NO idea why it took me SO long. but i think it was good that it did...because every since i discovered it, i've become obsessed! ha!

the very first photo i ever took with it.

and the following two:

(this above photo is such a classic "strangarity" face. all of us have perfected it...its even

been passed onto little Seana Jane!)

as i took photos...i realized i can take 4 at a time! but i thought it would just take the one photo and multiple it, by splitting it up in a college. So i was NOT prepared for 4 flashes. hahahaha

i love this....i just love sepia.

and this one...hahaha i was bracing myself up trying to "time" the timer. i just never quite seemed to "catch" the right moment to do the poses i wanted. hehehe so this is what happened instead. hilarious.

you can shoot in all these cool colors...

(did you notice a trend?!? by the 3rd photo in each set i was cracking myself up to to much to even have my eyes open!)

then i found an "art" style to shoot with:
i call this the "ellen" shot because my college roomie makes this face all the time and i got it from her.

thats all...i still have 3 posts from last week saved in my drafts that i'll get around to posting as i have time. it just wasn't the time last week for them to go 'live."
...............................

*normally when anyone cheats when playing any game with me it drives me nuts and i hate it. call me a purist but i love competitive playing and winning. but their cheating did not help them win. at all. so it simply amused me and made me giggle.