Thursday, December 20th

We decided that we wanted to find a good bakery for breakfast. Lewis and I loved the chocolate croissants that we found in New Zealand and were hoping to find something similar here. We walked up the street in Knysna and found nothing. We ended up at the mall- and ate at a little French Restaurant there. The service was amazingly slow- typical of South Africa. The food was good, though. Andy and Sami wanted waffles- which are considered a dessert here. They asked if we wanted ice cream with them!
Matthew had somehow run out of t-shirts, so while we were waiting for the food, He and Lewis ran and found a fun surfing shirt for him. Matt & Megan had both out-grown their sandals from the summer, so after breakfast we got them some new crocs. Megan's are the pink "Mary-Jane" style like mine and Matthew's are the traditional style in a khaki brown. They both love them- and they were much needed for our trip to the BEACH!
So we headed to Keurboomstrand to play at the beach and to have lunch at Ristorante Enrico with President & Sister Mason. (Dad's 1st Counselor- and good friend).

The kids absolutely loved it. Andy just giggled and giggled everytime the waves came to him. Samantha was very hesitant (thankfully) and after being surprised by one wave up past her chest, she steered clear of the water. The waves were pretty big coming in, so we stayed real close to the big kids. They really enjoyed body surfing in the real shallow areas, and building quick sand castles to be eaten when the waves crashed in.

After playing for about 35 minutes, it was time for the Mason's to meet us for lunch. We wrangled the kids up and wrapped them in towels and tromped up the beach for some pizza and kingklip. Dad has been ranting and raving about the kingklip fish dished for 2 1/2 years now. Lewis couldn't wait to try it. He LOVED it- absolutely loved it- never had anything like it before. Matthew tried it and was hooked, too!

The pizza here has no tomato sauce. We were a little worried about the kids liking it, but they were just fine- WHEW! Ros Mason and I both ordered a double layered pizza with bacon (more like ham here) and avocado- it was divine! Dad always includes in his journal pages what they eat, so it was fun to be here and experience the cuisine with them. He usually describes all that he gets and then says, and Mom got a salad. Which she did at Enrico, too!
After our great lunch and wonderful chat with the Mason's we headed back for the beach. From the time we walked up to Enrico, Andy was saying, "can we just have one bite and then go back to the beach?" He could care less about eating when there was a whole beach complete with sand and water waiting just for him right in front of him!

Shortly after returning to the beach, Megan came running up the beach a little panicked asking what was on her leg. It was a BRIGHT blue and gooey-looking thing about the size of a strand of spaghetti. President Mason came to the rescue and first asked me, "Does she suffer from anaphylactic shock?" Uhhhh- No. I had no clue where he was going with it- turns out she was stung by a blue bottle jelly fish (a Portuguese Man o' War). It had wrapped its tenticles around her ankle. She'd grabbed the body of the jellyfish, not knowing what it was and tossed it back into the ocean. There was one tenticle remaining on her leg when she came up the beach to find us. There was a sweet lady on the beach that saw what we were doing and came with lotion with medication for the stinging to put on Megan's leg. She was VERY upset, and hurting, but was VERY brave, too. Lewis took her up by the showers and helped her calm down and relax. I found a jellyfish on the beach and stepped on it- with my shoes on- and it *Popped* really loud. It completely surprised me! After about 35 minutes, the pain was subsiding and we decided to head for home.

We said our good-byes to the Masons and hit the road for Knysna. On our way we saw more than a dozen baboons by the side of the road. It was amazing to me that they were just right there. They are LARGE and quite frightening to me. I didn't like them looking at me. It's hard to imagine that people get used to just seeing baboons by the side of the road. Lewis compared it to all the deer we see at home- I guess it's similar, but the deer don't sit there and eerily stare at US!

We got back to the condo and were exhausted! The kids showered and cleaned up and we found a KFC for dinner. It wasn't exactly like at home, but close. We can't decide if it's better to get something totally new, or to try something that should taste like home, but doesn't.