Nearly two weeks ago we went with the Strydom family (Lance, Cathy, Daniel and their new baby boy Ethan) to the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens in Roodepoort for a picnic. The intention was to take some family photographs of them and at the same time have a picnic and catch up a bit as we haven’t seen each other in such a long time.
It’s crazy how time flies and it was a wonderful day to spend in the park under the trees with the birds singing and the children laughing. When we arrived there, there was a bitter wind blowing and I thought we were in for a miserable day but once we had wandered around to the back of the park to the picnic spots on the grass we were very sheltered and it was extremely pleasant.
Ethan Strydom
We had all brought much to much food to eat and while I was too busy taking photographs of the children (both Lance and Cathy’s and my own of course) no-one seemed to eat very much either. Even the children were more interested running around and playing than actually sitting down and eating something. Daniel was playing with his golf club (3-Iron I think?) and balls and showing great skill in swinging the club and whacking the ball off into the distance. Clearly the time spent by Lance at the driving range with Daniel is paying off. I wonder if he will be able to support the family when he gets older as a professional golfer! 
My two girls Michelle and Laura-Ashley were having a lovely time as well but were mostly besotted with Ethan, Cathy’s new baby boy. He is a very cute baby and the girls thought he was simply adorable and a doll that just had to be held. I have some lovely photographs of Michelle holding Ethan which I will get to processing at some point (hopefully in the not so distant future).
Daniel Strydom
Anyway, as I say; the primary intention really was to get some group family photo’s of the Strydoms; but unfortunately Lance is a bit of a stick in the mud and declared after a few photo’s that he really didn’t want to be in front of the camera anymore and plonked himself down on the blanket. Can’t say that I blame him though as I hate having my photograph taken as well. Anyway, we at least managed to get one or two nice shots of him before he scuttled off and I was then able to spend the rest of the time focusing on the children and their antics. I did get a nice picture of Lance’s hand with little Ethan – it’s quite sweet.
Michelle Weatherburn
Later on that morning everyone decided that they wanted to go and see the waterfall (except Lance – are you sensing a trend here!). I was also thinking of just sitting and chilling as well as I had been up and down on my knees taking pictures but a moment at the waterfall is definitely a Kodak moment so off we went. Unfortunately while at the waterfall Michelle deciced that climbing a rock in her dress was a good idea and she promptly slid down the rock onto her hands and knees in the mud. Now if you know Michelle you know this was a disaster. Mud all on her hands and arms and legs and most importantly her dress. She was devastated! Luckily we had brought a change of clothes for her; into something more practical like shorts and a t-shirt; which was a bit of shame because she looked gorgeous in the dress that my sister Beverly had given us (that she had originally made for her first daughter Elizabeth). The dress and Michelle’s ego survived (barely).
It was a wonderful day out in the fresh air and by 13h00 everyone was very tired and the children were getting irritable so we decided to call it a day. The rest of the afternoon wa s quite difficult with not much energy left to do anything else – but what a pleasant time. We really need to do it again.
Lance and Ethan
Click on these photographs here to see the full-size versions that I have just finished processing for Cathy and Lance of Ethan and Daniel. I hope they like them? I think they came out really nicely but I better get cracking with some more! These are all full-frame shots coming out of my 22 mega-pixel Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III camera so the quality is superb and they should print really nicely.
Looking forward to the next picnic. Until next time.
Ian
Wow that sounded like a lovely day. We so forget to just sit back and smell the roses as one would say> life is so short and we just seem to charge from one crisis to another when all we need is a day relaxing> Looking forward to more photos.