Bramley Famli

This past long weekend, we headed down to Kasouga for Jude and Gav’s wedding. Carli and I went ahead, as Jordi and Leish has a Gauteng Gymnastics tournament to attend (more of that in the next post). They joined us on Sunday morning.

Kasouga is in the Eastern Cape, somewhere between Port Alfred and Kenton. It’s beautiful. If you’ve not been, you need to rent yourself a house and get there. It was awesome and amazing and every great adjective under the sun.

For Carli it was fantastic. Kasouga is one of those rare spots in South Africa where you feel like it’s a safe spot in which kids are free to roam and explore with little adult intervention and control. It didn’t feel easy ‘letting go’ but it was wonderful watching Carli find her own confidence to do things on her own that aren’t easily encouraged in the bussling city of Jozi that is our home.

She hooked onto one of Jude’s mates named Curly. Her hair is a dead give-away. And she spent the weekend trailing Curly around. She danced with Curly, went to the beach with Curly, watched Curly from a distance, and from time to time checked in with her dad. Normally around feeding and sleeping time : )

The beach was stunning, and we sand-boarded as often as we could. It was a real Xtreme thrill for all of us.

The wedding was beautiful. Carli found her way, as usual, to the main table and inserted herself firmly in with the ‘main dudes and dudettes’.

As I said Jordi and Leish joined us on Sunday and I headed into East London (3 hours driving) to pick them up. We had a wonderful family time and adventure together.

Thanks Jude and Gav for a wonderful weekend, and for making our children feel so welcome and involved.

Go here for pics

This long weekend is Jude and Gav’s wedding in the Eastern Cape at Kasouga.

Carli and have gone down today. Leish and Jordi have a Central Gauteng Gymnastics comp to attend. They’ll be joining us on Sunday morning.

I’m following the example of my mate Neville (@nevilledunn) who’s in China currently, by recording the trip on Twitter. I’m using more pics than he is : )

If you’d like to follow you can go to my Twitter account. If you’re on Twitter you can follow me on @barriebramley

Have a great weekend

On Sunday we headed off to Wits Uni for a Thrass Family Sing-A-Long that Jordi was a part of.

Carli tagged along as always. With Jordi’s weekend school schedule hotting up, we’re starting to feel a little for Carli. She doesn’t moan or resist or wish she could be somewhere else, but I imagine there is a time coming soon where she will. We made a special effort this time to get Jordi to thank Carli for coming and supporting her. Still we all had heaps of fun.

I wasn’t sure what we were going to, but it was a really well run event. Enjoyed the morning completely.

I’ve attached a truck load of pics of the event. I went up onto stage and all the kids from Jordi’s school wanted a photo taken, hence the volume that you see. Click here to see them.

Last weekend Jordi competed in the Central Gauteng under 9 Gymnastics trials (mouthful right).

It was a Saturday morning, and the entire family was there to support.

How’d she do? Amazing. Wow! Out of around 70 girls in her age group and level she ended up joint 5th overall. Meaning she’s made the squad to represent Central Gauteng.

Of course the timing of this was decided on by officials who clearly don’t make use of long weekends, and so it’s smack in the middle on the June 16 long weekend where we’re due to attend a wedding in the Eastern Cape. So we’re changing flights and Carli and I will probably go down early and pick Leish and Jordi up later. But it’s not clever planning by my book.

Enough ranting. This is about Jordi. First year of gym, second competition and she’s shining. What a girl. What a human. She’s amazing. She lives in our house. Boy are we lucky!

Go here for more pics

This is a story that should be a live recording, but you know, you never have a device to record in the moment. So writing it is going to have to do.

As you know Carli has taken up football (soccer for the North Americans who read this). For our sins, our ancestry comes from Nottingham Forest. So to stay true to family tradition, that’s also our team. Not great if you live in 2009. Great in history, in fact one of the best. But today, it’s a little embarrassing. I think the only place you can buy a Notts Forest shirt, is off of their website or in their store. In London, some of the salespeople didn’t even know who I was talking about : (

The alternate team for Forrest supporters is Arsenal. So with Carli picking up footie as an interest I’m working hard to expose her to these two teams. Arsenal is a far easier sell than Forest (at the moment)

Keith Coats, my colleague and good friend is a rabid Liverpool supporter (who are they I hear you asking). He’s sworn to convert her, and it started tonight.

I phoned him by accident and in the process he asked to speak to Carli. To begin his brain-washing. But before he got her, I told her to shout into the phone, “Go Arsenal!”

You guessed it. All I heard was, “Go Arsehole!”

Don’t know where she learned that, but I almost fell onto the floor laughing. It was innocent, beautiful, and very appropriate for a Liverpool Supporter. She’s a far faster learner than I ever imagined : )

Go Arsehole ineed.

I spoke at a BATSA conference last Saturday morning. Flew down the night before. Leish joined me. We had a whirlwind blast of a time.

Meetings in the afternoon. Dinner at Cape to Cuba and ended it off with Salsa at the Cape Quarter.

Worked in the morning and caught the mid-day flight back to Jozi.

Did I say we stayed at the Westin Grand? Very Grand. Very kewl. Michael Mol was MCing, so it as great to catch up with him, and have Sushi for breakfast after the event with him.

On Saturday night, our friends Warren and Sonia, had a combined 40th. The theme was 80′s (40+40=80s). What a blast. Leish really went to town finding us outfits. Started a week before searching the net, and then the cobbling together of bits and pieces to get the right look.

There were a ton of people, the weather behaved, and there were lots and lots of heaters and fires outside. A stunning event.

Leish and I danced from 21:30 till we left at 02:00. Non-Stop! Was luverleee : )

Happy Birthday Warren and Sonia!

Photies found here

Technorati Tags: 80′s, Espinoza, Party, Dance, 40th

If you’ve been following the recent events of this Bramley Famli, then you’ll know we were in Cape Town at the begining of May for Caide and Tracy’s wedding. They only went on honeymoon (to Mauritius) a week later, as Caide had some work to finish.

So you can imagine our (the Scooter Girls and I) shock when we walked into the local bottle store last Friday night, here in Jozi, and saw someone who looked exactly like Tracy. And then turned out to be exactly Tracy : )

My first thoughts (sadly) were that she and Caide had fought and she was running away (shame on me), only to discover they were spending a night in Jozi before heading off to Mauritius. Jordi and Carli loved seeing her, and were as shocked as me. Their thoughts were not as pathetic as mine as they processed an explanation for her appearance : )

The reason for our Cape Town trip was the wedding of Caide and Tracy. It was a wonderful day.

A small wedding. Very intimate. Great vibe and lots and lots of emotion.

I was asked to MC the reception and Leish and I prepared a speech together. As I said in an earlier post, Tracy has been a part of our world for a fair amount of time, and it was very very special for us to share her wedding with her.

For Carli and Jordi it was their first wedding and they loved it. Carli fell in love with the bride and once the reception started, she never left Tracy’s side. It was too cute.

God bless their marriage. God bless all of our marriages.

Click her for the album with the Cape Town shots. Somewhere in there are some from the wedding.

Carli hosted a party for her 6th birthday on Sunday (the day after her birth day). She invited some friends and their families over to the house for a late Sunday afternoon braai and party fun. It was a really fun day that stretched into the night and the last family left around 21:00.

There were rope games, dancing games, riding stuff with wheels on the tennis court, trampoline jumping and sensibly no swimming.

Leish and Carli decorated her cake with much finesse and pride going into it. They also mixed some ice-cream with condensed milk. Yummy yummy.

I think the photos tell a better version of the day than I can, so go here to see them