Goodluck for 2014

These pics are just of me and mates at my best mate – Ryan’s birthday in December last year. Our South Coast crew – just wanting to wish all of them the best for this year in all their crazy adventures!!!

Have fun and be blessed! As well as to all the other people who keep up to dated with my blog and life, from the ocean side and all places to where I travel – I wish you the best for this year too!!!

Lotsa love xx

Me – just thinking too hard and listening to all the stories at the party!

Me and one of my mates – Stubbs!!! It is our mate Ryan who turned 22!

okay – well the whole crew! too many to name but all interesting people!

Destiny and I having drinks!

Magical celebrations of marriage

I just wanted to take the time to congratulate two amazing couples!

About two or so weekends ago, one of my friends, Marcell Coetzee got engaged to Chanelle. Our moms used to work together at Trustbank, before it became absa and for a long while after that. They stayed and still do stay, on a sugarcane farm and we used to visit there a lot, playing games and rugby while our parents still worked together and had braais. We later lost touch and then I got in touch with his mom again just over a year ago. Marcell and I are the same age and he has been playing for the sharks and South African rugby team for the last couple of years. They’re awesome people and it is great to see that Marcell and Chanelle are finally engaged! May God just bless the road ahead for you both and indulge you in His amazing love and grace.

Chanelle and Marcell celebrating their engagement

The engagement ring!

Then, I want to say a big congrats to Ben and Tanja who got married this weekend in Heidelberg. I wasn’t there, and I’m too far to give hugs but I am so happy that it turned out to be such a magical day! It rained on their day but that didn’t get this couple down. It rained and that is just a blessing by God Himself, something I hope for on my day too! They have been a tremendously awesome couple who shared much of their testimony with me and are dear friends. Ben has survived cancer after having Tanja stand by him through each moment. I remember helping Tanja and her sharing much of her troubles and her heart with me, as she tried to support Ben. An intense time that God turned to their good as they got closer to one another and became so much stronger, not letting the enemy of sickness defeat them and their relationship. They just have such a beautiful heart wrenching story and so much thanks in their hearts, they truly are wacky and loving and joyful and you can’t help but feel better after any moment with them. And to be able to see their beautiful wedding photos and the way they just love and adore one another and worshipped our almighty Father in the rain, bought me to tears…it truly is absolutely beautiful. So to them, may Jesus just continue to bless their walk and worship through everything that happens in life and may they continue to be blessed and covered by grace and love in every moment together! You both are such an inspiration! Sending love and hugs from afar! Xx

Ben giving Tanja a kiss on the forehead – such love

Ben and Tanja worshipping our Dad in the rain – amazing worship, so magical

P.S – Photos of Tanja and Ben’s wedding was taken by Garick van Staden Emotive Art Photographer. Great photography!!!!

A Weekend Immersed in Love

This past weekend felt like one truly magical one, not only because we attended the most stunning wedding orchestrated by God but Sunday was also incredibly special. At the wedding you could just feel the love and joy fill the entire farm/plot and you could really feel the Spirit moving in the whole place as God’s anointing just poured from everywhere. It was intense and magical and so much fun with all our friends. The whole wedding and evening surpassed so many expectations, and it was amazing to see how everyone had pitched in and how amazing the wedding was. Bianca was overwhelmed as she was being prepared for the big moment. Stephen was also pretty excited and nervous the whole time.  But he looked handsome and she looked stunning. It was amazing to witness how special both felt and how cherished. God was preparing a table before them, in the presence of the enemy and anointing their relationship/marriage in front of the world. The chosen couple who would inherit His Kingdom were being immersed in His love.  And we all got to partake in the beautiful banquet. We were there to celebrate their love and destiny in Christ.

Beforehand I got to deliver some word for Bianca about the wedding…and it was amazing to see during the ceremony how all the words spoken, had come alive. Yep, prophetic word. It was amazing. Testimonies were shared around the tables, jokes and laughter echoed from all corners, fairy lights and candles just set such a romantic mood and the dancing bought even more fun! A beautiful evening of evident love everywhere. The wedding really was the fragrance of God’s love for us to have experienced!*

Then Sunday morning we all went to church and Shayne, who married Bianca and Stephen, delivered such a beautiful message that I ended up being in tears for most of it. Just so amazing that God loves us so much and wants to continuously bless us, never-ending, no conditions! It is such a deep love that just overwhelms every part of my being…

After that, Jean and I headed out for Sunday lunch….I just thought he got lost in Hatfield and was just driving in circles…luckily I didn’t mind because there were flowers blooming everywhere so I didn’t mind the feeling of being lost (I mean, lost with flowers everywhere – who could be bummed by that?!). Anyway, he stopped under a tree and took me over to Catemba Restaurant, it’s Portuguese by the way! My favourite! I love Italian restaurants but I really REALLY do love Portuguese ones and their food. I mean, my favourite coffee shop is run by Rael who is Portuguese…they really know their stuff.  It felt as if God had literally whisked me away to Portugal, a place my heart has always longed to go! We sat outside as it was a lovely hot day, under the most beautiful trees and just behind our table was a brazillian looking guy with dreads, busy braaiing some chicken with amazing Portuguese spices. Every time a light breeze passed through, that tantalizing spicy chicken smell would come through, and smoke would go into the air and then you could see the sun rays filtering through the leaves of the trees…plus they had amazing music playing in the background that makes you want to salsa.. The vibe was amazing, so relaxed and the people so friendly…plus the food was gorgeous and the whole place made you feel like you were far away and completely in a different exotic town where you should be wearing amazing dresses and flowers in your hair while sipping on cocktails and enjoying backyard dances like they have in Latin America…it was beautiful…totally gorgeous It definitely is my new favourite place!!! I am so sincerely blessed by the experience. I don’t think I could ever get enough of that place. I have fallen in love with it. **

*I will add some photos from the wedding as soon as we have them. 

**The Catemba Restaurant is owned by Paulo & Josephine Frazao

Cell: +27790485829

Tel: +27 (012)-4307778 

Their trading hours: Tues-Sat -11H00 till late, Mon&Sun -11H00 till 20H00, Public Holidays: Always Open!

Address: 235 Hilda Str (off Church Street), Hatfield, Pretoria

Taking time to coast…

Late nights.

bikinis.

short shorts.

flip flops.

sunglasses.

sunshine.

loud music.

beaches.

road trips. 

SUMMER AND FREEDOM…

I guess these are the words that pop into my head when Spring and Summer come rolling around!!

It has been such an intense few months that have been overloaded with millions of things. Winter this year wasn’t bland at all. There were so many new friendships and opportunities and it really was awesome but it was just as intense with many new truths and principles and a lot of change.

But I don’t know, I get excited and super pumped up when the new season starts and we get to enjoy a whole different kind of warmth again. I guess it is also because I grew up at the coast with the beach basically in our backyard and when you move to a city with none of that, the seasons definitely affect you more. Just not used to Winter and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.

So with Spring here, I’m excited that I’ll be going home in just over a week from now! I really need the time at home to just settle a few things in my heart…just get some peace. Usually I run home when I need to just escape from all the craziness and get some peace, I don’t know what it is, but I just have such magical moments and experiences with God when I’m home…

Anyway, apart from that I’m keen for the road trip home as well as fun adventures and experiencing amazing things. And I’m keen to see some friends..

So times with my boys and then think I’ll wana spend some time with one of my girlfriends! Would be great to catch up and do some fun summer girly things. Try new recipes, sip cocktails and just share some love and so on and I have the perfect friend in mind. Keen to see Kerry-Lee Greco!!!

But that’s the fun thing about Spring and Summer, there are endless things to do! New recipes, wine and dine evenings, parties, night swims at the beach, tanning, getting up early for the sunrise, watching sunsets, taking pretty photos, going on little exploring adventures and just spending quality time with people!!! I don’t know what more a girl could want to keep her heart happy! I truly am blessed in every way possible with all these amazing treasures just waiting to be discovered!

Then, this weekend my mom flies up to visit from the coast, my one very close friend marries her prince and then next week it’s just coffee and fun and then the great road trip home!!! I think I’m too excited to sleep or think about anything else!

My lovely Em – crazy but totally loveable

Then today, is a very special friend’s birthday. My lovely Em is celebrating it today and it sucks that I can’t be there to celebrate with her. She’s the lucky girl who gets to live in Mozambique and just have fun in the sun all the time! Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go see her in Mozam this past July holiday, so I’m totally bummed. Having separation anxiety as my sister would call it. But will definitely make a plan to go see her SOON!!! Anyway, this lovely lady is actually the younger sister of a friend of my sister and once dated my best mate Ryan. I love her to bits and pieces and she’s very chilled and I guess we both love making a good thing of situations, we kinda always hope for the best in people. Anyway, she can be outrageous and fun, she’s always fun… and laughs a lot. I don’t know how but she found such a special place in my heart although we haven’t seen each other in ages, we always have good talks! So I dearly love this crazy child!!!! And I am so happy to see her modelling a little for Rip Curl in Mozam! It has been something I have prayed for her, as she is just amazing and deserves such beautiful opportunities!!!

Em’s pose for the Rip Curl shoot

So happy birthday my gorgeous friend!!!! Hope you have one super blessed day and that your heart will continue to shine with love and light. May all your opportunities be blessed and may you have the greatest moments. Cherish each one! Have a fun-filled day, enjoy the partying, love, laughter and all the crazy cake moments!!!! You’re always loving and inspiring! Enjoy it! Miss and love you lots Em xx

And with that, I want to say, enjoy this Spring and Summer and may all of you be blessed. Get ready for sun, fun, sandy hair and salty air!!! Just live it up and enjoy all of it! It really is a blessed time…

Daddy’s Heartbeat

My friend Leani’s daughter Lanelle… Just fits this topic so perfectly.

Over the weekend in the midst of yet another spiritual attack and manifestation, I felt the need to closer my ears…firstly whatever had appeared in my room had walked pretty loudly…heavy footsteps…once again Satan had me scared, feeling vulnerable and fearful…this hadn’t been his first attack in the last couple of days so I knew what was going on…

For me, I get pretty scared by what I hear and see…I know I’m not supposed to because I am chosen, I am perfect, I am a princess, I  inherit God’s kingdom, I am His daughter, I am HIS… but I still feel a little vulnerable and scared and my Daddy seems to know that…. So this weekend when the devil was trying to attack me once again, God made me close my ears..so I pulled the covers over my ears, I don’t know why but this has always made me feel safe… but I started to close my eyes and ears and tried singing in my head so I could concentrate on something else…the singing wasn’t helping..

But I am blessed to have a Dad, a King who pursues me, His daughter, even when I’m scared and feeling like I’ve failed yet again to be brave… He then told me to focus on Him and listen for Him, using the covers as a safety net and as something to help me block out what was going on around me..helping me to forget about my carnal senses and focus my senses on Him and what can be heard and seen in the Spirit…As I focused on Him and listened for Him, I slowly began hearing a soft murmuring…but not just any kind, rather that of a heartbeat… The more I focused the louder it got until all I could hear is this heartbeat. It was a very calm and relaxed heartbeat which seemed to calm my Spirit and my Soul and body…it calmed my emotions…I felt God tell me that is His heartbeat and that as long as I always remember to focus on Him and His heartbeat, I won’t ever have to feel afraid… I can do it at any time that I am feeling a little less brave or courageous and He will help me through… It was honestly the most precious moment ever… After that I was awake the rest of the night but I felt calm and at peace and scared no longer. A beautiful gift and something I will practice and remember…something I cherish.

Listening to The Spirit

Looking out over the pool area of Zimbali Hotel, Ballito.

A long weekend getaway is pretty much bliss… We were away for a couple of days and I was totally blessed by it. Amazing friends and time away with them means relaxing and fun moments filled with love and laughter… The weather turned out to be cold and rainy most of the time with small spurts of sunlight breaking through the clouds in only certain moments…it was also windy but it gave us more time to relax instead of only being busy doing stuff all the time…

We definitely enjoyed making food together and eating out, listening to music, watching movies and series, playing games indoors, making jokes and laughing but most of all getting to talk and catch up and just spending quality chill time together.

But apart from the bliss, Satan was definitely at work this past weekend..trying to steal the joy, trying to condemn, attacking constantly through thoughts, nightmares, keeping us awake and out of sleep, trying to make us sick, bringing us to tears, attacking our identity in Christ, bringing up my past and using it as cheap shots to scare me and make me feel unworthy, trying to cause accidents..

But even so, God somehow turns it all to our good and blessed us even more over this weekend making Satan’s attempts look poor and like epic fails… It really was a blessing as every  time the devil attacked, God would bring Jean and I even closer to one another and draw us close to Him…but it does take practise trying to listen to the Holy Spirit instead of what I am experiencing in the flesh, in the carnal due to the devil… It took a while to learn how to focus what God does in the Spirit rather than what I am seeing with my eyes and hearing with my ears and feeling with my emotions..over the weekend God really helped and came to my rescue over and over using His Holy Spirit to show me how to see and hear in the Spirit instead of the carnal…

You really need to listen to the Spirit and trust what He tells you and what He shows you and makes you feel and be obedient towards that as the weekend I saw how that can be the difference between life and death in a very real way.

Sunday we travelled back from Ballito and finally stopped at Eliné’s house. She offered that we sleepover at her place instead of driving home that time of the night..home being Pretoria. Jean said he felt he needed to be at work early and thought I wanted to be home so decided we’d drive home. Meanwhile I felt something terribly wrong and felt we should sleepover at Eliné’s. But I didn’t say anything as I had developed a headache and thought maybe I was just being weird or imagining it.. Jean and I then left her house heading back to Pretoria but the further we went the more unsettled I felt and the more the headache started going away…feeling this was Satan’s plan I started closing my eyes and trying to block my ears so that I would not get distracted by what I see and hear around me but would rather focus on trying to hear God’s heart again(something I’ll explain later). At the same time Jean suddenly started praying in tongues because he felt he wanted to. God slowly showed me how Satan was trying to take something Eliné had said earlier and prove it wrong by causing an accident and using her two friends(that being Jean and I) and how Satan now wanted us dead…as he hadn’t been very successful at his other attempts to break our spirits earlier this weekend… As God showed me that picture and Jean started to relax while praying and driving, I decided to open my eyes and as I did, this huge white rabbit came sprinting toward our car from absolutely no where…Jean got a fright and so did I but the rabbit just missed the wheel and car by less than a split second…If Jean hadn’t relaxed in God’s presence while praying and I hadn’t closed my eyes I would possibly have made a scene and Jean could easily have panicked and swerved out causing a huge and possible fatal accident…If he didn’t swerve, even then the rabbit would have caused a lot of damage…. I burst into tears closing my eyes as I realised just how close that was and that God had warned me through the Spirit earlier but I had said nothing. I then told Jean about that feeling and for a while we couldn’t decide what to do….We drove on towards Pretoria for a while and I felt even more uneasy…so I made a choice and asked Jean if we could rather turn back to Eliné’s house. As we did that, Jean and I both started getting headaches but I suddenly felt a lot calmer….Satan was going to try again as he had just failed with the rabbit, so now he made a poor attempt using a headache to try confuse us, so that maybe we’d just want to get home and he could have another go at trying to cause an accident…but we headed back to Eliné despite it all. Accident free and slept peacefully that night at Eliné’s. The next morning we both felt at peace and headed safely towards Pretoria. Arriving safely too.

Us girls at the beach – windy day though.

Cooking – time for fun in the kitchen

Meintjies braaing the steak – yum!!

Meintjies and Estee

Cornu and Eliné

So after an amazing weekend, God has definitely blessed me, and taken what Satan intended to harm us and turned it into good and has helped me in trusting the Holy Spirit and shown me how to look beyond what we see and hear in the carnal, focusing only on Him.

He turns 21

So he was a little poser…

Today I have the privilege of announcing that one of my favorites has turned the BIG 21!!!!! This little man is now legal all over the world…and a whole lot older!

Wishing we could be home to celebrate with him but it’s all good. We will see him soon… Can’t believe how time has flown. Now this little yet very big man of ours will be leaving back to the U.S soon and then he has also decided to study Criminal Psychology and Forensics while he is there. Something I too am interested in. All I can say is that I am soooo proud about how far he has come and the kind of man he has become and still is growing into. No matter what he does we will stand behind him and support him in any way possible.

He is the coolest person we could have ever asked for and so supportive of us. We love him to bits and cherish him so much. Although we don’t get to see each other as often anymore, our bond continues to grow stronger and the times we do spend together are always fun and deeply cherished. I don’t think he always realizes exactly how much we love and miss him….how proud he does make us… He’s always scared of disappointing us but without a doubt I can say, he never has!!!

So a BIG happy birthday to one of the most special guys in my life!!! We love you lots Kelly!!!!!

When he was still very little

Such a cutie

MC at my matric dance

Kelly and my sister out one night with mates

Kelly & I!!! Love you lots lil man….

Kelly chilling out with us…sharing stories

He enjoys sharing his stories but also his scars…needing a little TLC from us

Loving having some attention from us… can’t believe he’s already 21

Lucky..or rather really blessed…to have someone special like Kelly 🙂

Blessed Beyond Compare

Tonight I found myself feeling sorry for myself as I have been sitting at home alone while my sister was out…but now I’m feeling more blessed than I could have imagined and appreciating a lot more than usual…I guess sometimes we take our everyday things as well as relationships with people for granted. And it is in times of huge loss or disappointment that I find myself reminded just how blessed I am. Never have I been more thankful and appreciative of friends God has blessed me with than right at this very moment. And the fact that technology can help us keep in touch even in the moments that great distance stands between us.

Earlier in the week I had emailed my dear friend Kerry-Lee about doing the make-up of another friend(Bianca) of mine for her wedding. Kerry didn’t reply immediately, and I took it she was busy, as this week was pretty chaotic for myself, so I can just imagine for her as a mum, wife, friend, daughter and someone who works too. But tonight she replied, and in it she included her own sad news which was reason for her ‘late'(which I seem to think is more than ON TIME) reply.

A few words into her reply and she had me bawling my eyes out as I could just imagine a tiny bit of what she may be going through. After that, we communicated back and forth…she ended up having me between tears of immense sadness, and laughter and tears of extreme joy and love… It has been the weirdest feelings but it has been great as we both shared our current situations with one another, praying and just being there for each other… It truly has been such a blessing and I have been bursting into tears every few seconds since we started chatting as God has just filled me with an immense intensity of love for my dear friend!!! She has been such a role model, friend and mentor in my life for so long and I cherish her deeply. And being able to share with her and witness again in her life tonight, has been so special. It is just beautiful how God works and how He turns all things to our good no matter how awful our situations might seem.

Kerry-Lee is such a special person that the shortest of moments of communicating between us, are often just as full of impact as those that last hours…if not more… God really shines through her and does the most amazing things in our times of communication and sharing. God has blessed us with great friendship and it is a blessing not going through situations alone, knowing that there is someone else who is listening and praying with you…someone else navigating through situations by your side… Being able to support someone else in the Body of Christ and that person supporting you, is such a blessing and should never be taken for granted.

Kerry-Lee and her son, Reece

Thanks so much my dear friend! You always seem to inspire me. And your love and support, your grace and strength are incredible. Your character never fails to amaze me. I am truly blessed by your friendship. Loads of love xx