Must I go back?

Every time Selah asks me a question about if she can do something, she always asks in the form of "Must I do ......"  It's quite cute.  It's not her, it's just how the culture is down here.  Here are a few other things that are different down here as well.  Every petrol station,(yes petrol, not gas), is full service.  No self service stations here. You stay right in your car then tip the man when he's done, and your off.  I haven't seen one of those in America since Braafharts Amaco in Pella.  There are more sit down restuants here than fast food. You could also sit here for hours after you are done eating, and not receive a check yet.  You must ask for it if you want to go.  Every place you park there are guys there helping you find a spot, and helping you back out.  After that, you kindly tip them for waving their arms to guide you, then a big thumbs up, and off you go.  

The last few days have been alright.  Friday we went back to Cape Town to visit the doctor, and make sure everything was good for Selah to travel.  It was. Now he sent the papers off to embassy, and one hurdle done.  In the afternoon we went to the home affairs office to apply for her passport.  We were not expecting to do this till Monday, so this was a good thing for us, getting in earlier.  Until we found they weren't sure how to do things.  So we actually had to wait till today,Monday, to go back.  It wasn't good for Sarah on the emotional side.  The great news though is, we got it done today, in a relatively quick time frame.👍. Tommorow we will try and note the adoption, then Wednesday I am scheduled to head back to the States.😥

Saturday and Sunday we had some down time.  So we spent it driving around and site seeing.

Saturday we went to kirstenbosch gardens.  It was pretty cool.  A big botanical garden at the foot of table mountain with hiking trails up the mountain, and a big snake bridge winding through the tops of the trees.

Taylor really wanted to go to this place when she flies down next week, so I wanted to show Sarah how easy it was to drive there.  She is not a big fan of driving in a big city with all the traffic.

After the garden we found an Ethiopian resturant to go eat at.  We were pretty excited, but I don't think it was as good as the one back home. Then we started to drive to the cable car that brings you up to the top of table mountain.   We were almost there when Sarah started panicking.  I stopped the car, and took pictures from where we were.  Here is the closest we got to it.

You can barely see the two cars against the mountain.

We did get a good view of Cape Town and the bay.

Sunday we drove along the coast for an hour and a half.  We drove all the way down to cape point, and went up to the light house.  Yes, all THREE of us were up there.  I was surprised.

Then we drove down to the cape of good hope.  This is probably the farthest south I will ever be in my life.

On the way back we stopped at boulders beach to view some wild penguins.  You can probably guess from the picture why it's called Boulder beach.  They are huge.

Here is a sign that we don't see on the road back home.  We saw one wild baboon the first night we came in to Cape Town, and it freaked me out just a bit when I was driving.

After all that we drove back home, and went to a little church plant here, at 4:30.  We wanted to try and connect with some people.

Tommorow will be pretty much a beach walking day.  Spending the day with the family before I pack up a head home.  Wednesday will pretty much suck even though I'm heading back home to the other kids. I will be relieving Grandpa and Grandmas of the little Hartson terrors, and relieving the terrors of Grandpa and Grandmas, but  I will be leaving two back in SA.  I will miss this country.  It is a very beutiful place God created.  I have taken away so much from being here for a month.  I pray that the same happens for Sarah.  That she can just enjoy the time here.  Enjoy what God has created.  Enjoy her new daughter in the country of her birth.  

Thank you all reading and praying.  I will see you all back in states soon.

Rock on 

J