Not much to talk about today. Nothing earthshattering today. No visits from monkeys, huge spiders or shongololos. The girls picture appeared in one of the local newspapers this week. We were at the Hillcrest Family Fun Day a couple of weeks ago and a photographer asked to take their picture and asked their names. Sure enough, when I opened the edition on Tuesday, there were Sienna and Sofia smiling. I was able to get 3 copies to keep.

I heard on the news last night that during the World Cup (only 14 days away), residents here in SA will be asked to keep only one light and one t.v. (to watch the world cup matches, of course) on during the 4 week period of the World Cup. SA has very common power outages and so as not to disrupt the World Cup matches for the fans, they want us to use only one light!!! That should be interesting. Over 2 1/2 million tickets for the games have been sold.

The pictures on this blog are of a rural house and a little toy car. They will make one reflect on how fortunate we tend to be and sometimes take it for granted. Especially the picture of the little car. This toy is probably the only toy this child has. The family doesn't have a t.v., a computer, a car and even electricity. And they are struggling to provide food for their family. Many times it is not their fault. They were born in poverty and haven't been given a little lift to help them get out. Many of the families I meet are so hard working and so willing to do anything to provide for their family, send their children to school. And some eventually are able to do this with the help of development organizations and government. We don't realize sometimes how fortunate we are. And there is a very fine line to allowing our children to benefit from what we have to spoiling them with an abundance of the latest toys, mp3 players, etc. Since arriving here in SA, I haven't bought the girls any new toys. They do get what family sends them from the US. There are days that we only read books and color- no t.v., no dolls strewn about the house. And they really enjoy it. In fact, all their toys they keep in the spare bedroom and they RARELY even go to them and play with them. They might get one thing out and play with it but then they put it up. I think this is one of the reasons why they have started to use their imagination much more lately. Even in our daily drives to/from school, because we have no radio (or DVD players), the girls and I sing, play games and tell stories. I am not advocating to take children's toys away. I am just appreciating what I have and trying to ensure the girls appreciate it too and understand that others do not have an abundance of clothes and toys.