Happy New Year---may it be the best ever!

We are so happy today and wanted to share a few new things we have seen in Africa. I posted some pictures of the Langa Christmas Party on Face Book today too. We have had some sweet experiences with the sweet people who live in Langa these last few weeks. Yesterday we visited a little couple we have been working with. They have a new baby and it is so fun to see new babies, I was so thrilled to visit. They had been having some arguments and things and the Elders asked us to visit alone and talk to them about their relationship. They aren't married and you can guess most of our thinking was that they need to be married. He is a member of the church and she is not, so the Elders have been teaching her the gospel. They are so sweet and trying so hard to understand what life is all about. Then his mother came into the room from outside and saw us. She rushed to me and hugged me and said she was so glad to see us and she was crying and we realized the troubles were much worse than we thought. We were so glad we took a few minutes to go and talk with them. We hope it helped them. It is always like that---the people are so glad to see you and cling to you. They so much want to better their lives.

This is a sunset on our way home from an evening church meeting in Langa. You'll probably see some more of these because the sunsets are often beautiful. That's Table Mountain in the background.

The trees here have been flowering so beautifully all spring. They also grow in fantastically strange ways. We have taken so many pictures that it is hard to pick between them! Here are a few of our favorites.

This is little purple and big blue who grow in front of a cute little white cottage that looks like it came from a storybook. I wish you could see the Dutch influence in many of the homes here. Don't you just want to move in?

As we walk every day at 5:30 we often see these weird, scary-forest trees that make you want to stop and look at them. This one is especially fun. It reminds me of the trees that reached out and grabbed Snow White in that scary part of her movie!

We usually walk in the road because the sidewalks are so narrow and there is no traffic at that time. When you're not quite awake you tend to wander all over the road. I can't believe we had the good sense to take this picure!

Here is our favorite little sticker bush right outside the gate to our office. Those are not toothpicks---those are the thorns on the bush. I would not want to wander into this on a dark night.

I think I took this through the car window, but I like it too much to throw it away. This is Joe Fish---a restaurant right across the street from our flat. On warm nights they open their wall and you eat out on the patio. They make great garlic shrimp -yes, they have heads and are unpeeled. They eat the shells here -crunchy! They also have crumbed mushrooms and chips (french fries) which make a great snack once in awhile!

This is Joe Fish in the daytime. You can see how close we are to them because that is our gate as we are pulling out of our complex. The columns on the side lead to the mall we go to that has a grocery store, a department store, a video rental place (we haven't tried it yet) a pharmacy where we can get our prescriptions (they call it a chemist). It is great having everything so handy. I took the pic because of the tree, but we enjoy this little place so much that it has become a favorite. We have a special waitress that we always try to get. She always picks on Vic---she came by the table one day and he had some water spilled. She wiped it up and said, "Stop being so messy!" Since then she and Vic are always having fun picking on each other.

We can't decide why the trees grow this way. It must have something to do with the wind, or maybe the climate, or maybe that's just the way God wanted them to be---fascinating.

This one takes the gnarly prize so far. Be sure and let us know your favorite and we will go and climb up in it and take a better pic. Or maybe we will go and post an award next to it.

This is our street! About halfway down that road is our building and our little flat inside. This tree guides us home! She is an amazing sight from any side.

On the right is a handy service station with a McDonalds inside. Don't hope for a quick meal---seems to take at least 20 minutes or maybe it was just a bad day. We never eat there!! Who would go here when we have Joe Fish?

This is actually the first tree we saw that was full of flowers. A huge blue tree! It surprised us so much that Vic actually stopped the car and we took a picture---that is really rare as you can tell from my pictures. Well, it looks blue to me. Vic says it is probably purple, but it's pretty amazing either way.

There is still a red tree that I can't seem to find right now, but you get the idea---the trees are amazing. I'll put it in somewhere else. We have a lovely place to live with lots to do every day. I am going to end this blog before I delete any more pictures accidentally. I try to delete the spaces and end up deleting pictures. I always end up with huge spaces between and I don't really see why. If you know, email me or leave a comment! I will just leave them and hope you understand---maybe it wasn't too bad!!