New Year's Update....

Bren's 40th

Welcome to the Groeneveld family news blog!

The New Year is already 20 hours old (in South Africa), and we'd like to begin it by wishing our family and friends all over the world a blessed 2011!! As Theo expressed last night in his sms to the congregation, 2011 holds no surprises for God although we may not know what awaits us. May we all walk through the year close to Him and in His grace, strength and purpose!

Here's a brief catch-up of what we've been up to in 2010... (We'd love to hear what's been going on in your lives too, so drop us a message!)

Blue belt Taekwondo!

2010 has been a year of lots of busy-ness and work (if one can call what one loves doing so much 'work') at the church and in the community. Our church leadership team's vision for 2010 and the next tree (spelling intended!) years is one of growth – closer to God and to one another. Various courses, events and our church fête have left us feeling like we are certainly well on our way to the hoped-for growth, and we're looking forward to moving forward more in 2011! If you wish to, you can visit our church blog (click here) / facebook page (click here)

We were given a heli-flight for Theo's bday!

While 2009 was a year of lots of family traveling around our beautiful country, 2010 was more of an at-home year as we enjoyed the excitement of the build-up of World Cup fever in Pretoria. During the last part of the World Cup, though, we headed down to Ramsgate for a wonderful group holiday with a whole lot of friends. You can see all the details on previous blog-entries if you wish to. It was a really fun time of relaxing and catching up.

Treasure hunt for Cabey's bday!

Caleb entered double figures when he turned 10 in July. He has blossomed in Grade 4 this year, and has done really well adjusting to life in senior primary, with all the new pressures and expectations that are placed on the Grade 4's. We've enjoyed every stage of his development, but we really think that 10 year-olds are fantastic! It's been such fun watching him develop opinions and a sense of humour and his own identity. At this point of the holidays, we have to admit, though, that bored 10 year-olds are not without their challenges!! :-) I'm sure he feels the same way about his parents who keep on telling him 'only boring people get bored!' One of the things he is really enjoying this holiday is learning some computer programming with Theo.

Wonderful Grandparents

Our extended families are all well. Theo's Mom and Dad are members of our church, and we enjoy being part of the same church community. Theo's brother and his family, Marinus, Joan and young Jemma (3) and Noel (1), still live in Jo'burg and we enjoy seeing them from time to time. Brenda's parents are also still living in Jo'burg - in the same warm family home that Brenda grew up in and many of you will remember! We love visiting them and boisterous Hagar-the-horse (actually just a large Airdale Terrier). Brenda's sister, Janet, has resigned and finished work yesterday, to go on a year-long round-the-world adventure starting in April this year. She's full of excitement and plans for her big adventure, and we're looking forward to seeing parts of the world through her eyes! Some of you may be seeing her on her travels this year or next...

That's the Groeneveld "News-in-a-Nutshell"! Wishing you all a wonderful year.

Lots of love to you all,
from Theo, Brenda and Caleb