Summer is in FULL SWING in Cape Town. We’ve been sweating for days (and nights), but we relish in forced trips to the beach and pool together.

Seasons have a way of shifting us when we wouldn’t do it on our own. We get less done, linger later, and master cannonballs in this heat that we wouldn’t have chosen if it was up to us. There just might be something for us on every season!

When summer is simmering so hard, we don’t go camping… We go to the air-conditioned camping store and jump around in the “Cold Chamber”. Follow me for more tips on camping in the summer heat!

After six straight days of Benjamin’s persistent begging to go back to the bunnies… He won! (We all won.) A scorching summer morning was well-spent watching my little boys in their elements… Benjamin with animals and Wyatt with chicken and chips.

Sunday Funday at Boeretroos_koffiewinkel . Benjamin sat with that bunny for 45 minutes. I had to pull him away!

Presenting the first ever Kirstenbosch Library Book Crawl! We loaded up library books and PBJ roll ups for a last minute; pre-bedtime adventure. We read the first book at the jumping rock, the next book on a bench by a riveting frisbee game, and then marched uphill for a rugby book by the duck pond. This (obviously) led to spontaneous rugby training. It was such a fun way to mix reading, active play AND get dinner taken care of.

If you know Benjamin, you know he loves anything that involves soldiers. He was THRILLED to find out there is a castle right in the center of Cape Town because, “Mom, everyone knows soldiers live in castles.”

We only scratched the surface this morning, but Benjamin gave us a riveting tour of the castle with his very own historical details while Wyatt free-loaded on my hip. Another grand adventure in the books. 🏰

Brothers. Beach. Balls.

The best. The Lord has blessed us tremendously.

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Proverbs 27:17

These two boys (and the tagalong little brother) excavate the edges of their creativity, bravery, strengths and weaknesses in the security of an unbreakable friendship. That’s how God designed it. You become the fullest version of yourself and experience the fullest version of Him in the context of accepting, loving relationships.

Today was a perfect, unplanned Tuesday afternoon. We stayed in town at the park until bedtime, and then came home and jumped in the pool for “summer baths”. There is nothing better than having all three boys out exploring together. This is Lifa’s last summer in high school, and we all cherish time with him. And he’s so fun!

“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.” -Charles Schaefer

The Ladd family adults have had a heavy week. I haven’t been showing up for my kids the way I want to. So today, we play. Sunshine, peanut butter sandwiches, bodies in action. I don’t need to wait until it feels better.

Benjamin has been BEGGING to build at the Cape Town Science Centre. We had an exciting morning building, breaking, learning and sliding!

Parenting strategy at the end of a tricky week: Sit down in the soft green grass of one of the most beautiful places on earth and create challenges that involve your children sprinting to a timer and doing their own occupational therapy. 👏Everybody👏Wins👏

Just when you start to think you’ve done it all… you take your son in a crop top Spider-Man suit to see ostrich organs in jars! Another adventure in the books! I love watching the boys learn and explore. Let it be known that Benjamin very brave and sat on an ostrich, and he intends to never do that ever again. But the ostrich burger got two thumbs up! 👍👍

We’ve got a formula. We go to the best places at the worst times. It was cold and windy at Green Point Park this morning. We all had wet bottoms from the slide, and I bought Benjamin TWO steamed milks to keep him sitting still long enough to get dry. We’ve found our way to win in a big, busy city when one of us can’t do crowds. We had the park to ourselves, and the kids felt like kings - with milk moustaches instead of crowns!

A morning at Anna Beulah Farm with the little guys was a beautiful breath of fresh air. We all needed the car ride, peace and donkeys!

Spring is blooming in South Africa! It’s the perfect time of the year to put all fives senses to work in God’s glorious creation. You can’t help but encounter the Creator in the midst of it. I relished in watching and cheering the littlest Ladds on as they did exactly what they were meant to do - found the perfect walking sticks, dug in the dirt, studied footprints and tracks, threw rocks that were way too big, climbed, jumped, balanced, and rolled.

Earlier this week, I asked Wyatt if he wanted to run to the soccer field like his “baba” (Benjamin). He kept his pudgy little hand gripped firmly on mine and told me, “No, Mama. Baba’s five. I’m two. Hold my hand.” And that was the most sensible thing I’ve heard all week.

Time is our most precious commodity. It’s the only thing we don’t get back or earn on a success ladder. It’s in the very human concept of time that God creates space for the rhythm of relationships.

You’ll never believe this. We saved Two Oceans Aquarium last night. And it didn’t even know it needed saving. We held down the floors with mighty muscles, uncovered evidence of the Joker in the eel tank, secured a yellow submarine, and climbed unspeakable heights to summit Superhero Tower. It wasn’t easy, but somebody had to do it.

And then we ate crackers and muffins and took bubble baths. Top night! 🎩

We had an extraordinary experience this week at soccer camp. It was Benjamin's most unsheltered, "mainstream" kind of experience with boys of all different ages. It was an awkward, yet completely natural, hokey-pokey kind of experience. We were all the way in, all the way out, and then we did a lot of playing right beside them.

The kids were feeling artistic on this oh-so-rainy Cape Town day, so I took a chance and took them for a walk through a “grown up art museum”. My aim was simply a change of scenery and perhaps an opportunity expose Benjamin to the idea that anything can be art.

Some of my favorite Benjamin quotes were…