{"id":440,"date":"2023-09-26T12:33:48","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T12:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wilde-diaries.org\/?p=440"},"modified":"2023-09-26T12:33:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T12:33:48","slug":"december-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/2023\/09\/26\/december-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2005"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I didn’t know it at the time, but when I started my journey as a mom (this time of two human beings), I never thought they would have such an impact on my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing can prepare you for being a parent. No amount of book reading and listening to other parents can tell you that you will light a match in your heart at their birth, and it will burn continuously like roaring flame until the day you kick the bucket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know what happens after you die, but if love can be so strong in life, surely it cannot diminish after death. There has to be more. You watch these beautiful human beings grow and become the people you always wanted to be, and that is enough motivation for you. You have done good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, of course, take the credit for them being so awesome. On the other hand, they get their good teeth and great hair from their dad, oh, and also their great swimming abilities. Mother can’t swim. She doggy paddles and looks like a little frog princess in the water. Dad, on the other hand, has that lean swanky look that allowed him to wear Speedos in his youth… say no more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, our children are adults, and they are moving on with their own lives. The hard thing is recognizing that they are now in charge of their own destiny and allowing them to pursue chosen avenues while we sit on the sidelines and watch. The nice thing is that they allow us to be part of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to ask, why did I collect so many antique cups and saucers, and why didn’t I rather take that money and spend it on more family holidays? The cups and saucers sit looking at me accusingly as I type this, but it is true. If I could give anybody any life lessons, it would be to buy fewer worldly goods and do more holiday things that would fill your memory coffers with family fun times. It is nice to have things, but in the end, your time spent with your loved ones is far more precious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every holiday in this family has been an adventure. When we leave our driveway, the adventure starts, right there in the street. It doesn’t end until we stop in front of our gate again. We must be the only family that stops at every Engen garage on the way to and back from our local destinations. We fall in and out of the Wimpy like it is our second home. We love visiting every shopping center in the vicinity of our holiday home and do our best to break the Bank of Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overseas holidays have also added to our enjoyment. Our first family holiday overseas was in 2005 when we went to visit our family friends in Holland. Chris and Sam are the godparents to our children, and we were bequeathed with the same honour by being made godparents when they had their two boys. Keagen calls Brogan and Arron his God Brothers\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Robinson family gave us a Christmas present that year that started a movement. The movement is called Disney. Their gift to us was a 2-night stay at Euro Disney in Paris, which included a luxury train ride from Holland to Paris with one platform change. Quite a thing for a family of four and that over the Christmas to New Year period. What an adventure that was!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We arrived at Euro Disney on the 27th of December 2005, checked into our hotel, and immediately made our way to where we could see the Disney castle peeking through the buildings and trees. As we entered the park, the most amazing sight greeted us and it started to snow. Snowflakes slowly made their way to the ground, some got stuck on our faces, clothes, and hair, and we squealed with delight. Coming from South Africa, we seldom have the chance to be enveloped by such splendor as Christmas time is part of our summer and usually so hot you can cook an egg on the pavement. It was as if all the Christmas fairies came together and decided that they would make sure this entrance would not be forgotten, for the best was yet to come. The Disney Christmas parade was slowly making its way up Main Street, and we got to brush shoulders with all the beloved Disney princesses and characters as they danced past us, singing the same Disney songs we had memorized throughout our youth and now sang to our kids. Life just couldn’t have handed us a better gift than the memory of that day. I caught it all on video, and in the background, you can hear me sobbing because that’s who I am. I cry when I am happy, I cry when I am sad, I cry when I am mad. Crying is my thing, and my family acts as if it isn’t happening; they simply look the other way. The next three days went by in a blur as we immersed ourselves in soaking up as much of the park and festivities as was humanly possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to admit that the entire experience has motivated our family to visit Disney on many more occasions, and it has never left us disappointed with the experience or the thousands of dollars that we spent there. Worth every cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We checked out of our hotel on the morning of the 30th of December, laden with mementos, full of hot chocolate and huge biscuits, and waved our sad last goodbye. We boarded the train, which would take us through France, back to Belgium, where we would change trains and then make our way back to Holland, just in time for the New Year’s festivities, which we would be celebrating with our friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The snow had increased in intensity, and we could hardly see out of the windows as we covered the miles back to Holland. The family was exhausted, and we took this time to catch up on the hours of sleep that we had lost during our exciting visit to Euro Disney. It therefore came as a shock when our train came to a halt in the middle of nowhere and ‘nerens’ (Afrikaans for nowhere). An announcement came over the train system, informing us that due to heavy snowfall, the train would not be going any further. Most of the information was given in French, with a little halted English added at the end. Chaos broke out. People were swearing and complaining, and the four South Africans just watched in bemusement as the French lost their composure. I think we are quite used to problems manifesting themselves at inopportune moments in our country, so we also have the ability to take things in our stride and stay quite calm. Unfortunately, the French are not accustomed to breakdowns and problems occurring, as they have a great transport system that seldom let their citizens down, so they are not equipped to work through calamities, especially in snow on the last hours of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found ourselves being swept up in the turmoil of the usually composed and often downright rude Frenchies shouting “MERDE!” and “SORTEE,” while gathering their belongings hastily to make their way to the waiting buses. This spectacle was exaggerated by the heavy snowfall and the fact that the buses had parked quite far from the train; it was a free-for-all. Everybody wanted to board first, scared of being left behind in the event of the buses filling up too quickly. The Wilde family watched and waited, and we were literally the last people to board, laden with the loot we brought from our Disney stay. The buses started moving, and our not-so-charming bus driver quickly barked out his rules for our unwelcome stay in his bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No drinking, no smoking,” is what we understood. All went well until one man standing not too far from us suddenly said, “Stop the bus, I want to pee.” This was met with a stony silence from the driver, and rather aggravated, the passenger repeated his request \u2013 a little louder and more insistent. The driver replied that there would be no pee time and resolutely drove without even looking in the rearview mirror. I must admit we could feel the tension in the air and knew that this situation was not going to resolve itself in an amicable manner. While standing watching all of this transpire, we suddenly got a whiff of smoke coming from the back. Terrified, we turned around to see who could be so brave as to light up a smoke in Mr. Congeniality’s bus when we saw that the smoke was coming from the bottom of the bus. It curled its way to the front in no time, and within seconds, the popular bus driver picked up the smell too. Without thought for the standing passengers or the mounds of luggage everywhere, he stood on the brakes and brought the bus to an abrupt halt. We all tottered forward, bumping into each other, and hardly found our footing when he let out an almighty bellow: ‘WHO IS SMOKING IN MY BUS?’ in French… Even I was scared, and I knew it wasn’t a person smoking, but rather the bus breaking the rule all by itself. Once again, chaos broke out. Everybody in the front was looking for the culprit in the back, and everybody in the back was starting to panic because the bus was on fire. The Wildes just stood there, mouths agape, as we witnessed the exchanges going on. Somebody said “FIRE,” and that caused a lot of chaos. People were gathering up their luggage, trying to open the automatic doors, the bus driver was trying to get to the back to see the fire for himself, and the snow was pelting down relentlessly. Finally, he opened the doors, and now it was screech and sandwich time as everybody crammed through the doors, wanting to get away from the fire. Fire my ass. It was smoke from something that had been rubbing on another thing, causing the smoke to invade our space, but nothing life-threatening. Christopher looked at me and calmly said:’ It is the brakes…” We were the last to leave the bus, trailing our luggage behind us, looking rather lackadaisical in all the chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What greeted us was even more comical. No passengers to be seen, and this is quite a feat as the bus had been full. Then, through the sleet of snow, we hear voices calling us… The passengers were all crammed behind the road railing, which was obscured by mounds of snow. Only a few heads attached to hats and eyes peeked over railings covered with snow. Hands were gesturing frantically, calling us away from the offending, smoking bus. Their distaste in the English forgotten,I think they were all scared of seeing the foreigners go up in smoke. The bus driver was still hovering around his bus, checking to see if he could save the bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We stayed in the snow so long, I think we all turned a little blue. There was nothing to be seen except snow and more snow. We were trapped somewhere in France with a busload of strangers, all speaking anything but English, and a bus driver from hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While everybody around us was concerned, the South Africans were in a merry mood, laughing and giggling. This did not go down well with our fellow passengers, and maybe they thought we should have perished in the smoke because then they all steered clear of us. The cavalry finally arrived in the form of another bus, and everybody quickly made their way to the warmth and safety, while our bus driver remained behind, looking rather sorrowful and desolate as we left him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were carted off to another station situated in some town, got off in knee-deep snow and melted water, got back on another train, and that night, at about 24:00, we finally arrived at Schiphol airport. This adventure was not over yet, as we then had to struggle with trying to phone our friends so we could be collected. The entire procedure took so long that Keagen fell asleep with his face in the suitcase, and luckily I took a photo and immortalized the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know our life at home has given us the equipment to face many challenges, we are quite accustomed to the derailments of our everyday lives. This has made bounce back very quickly and see the humour in most situations. If this had not happened we would not have the memory of little Keagen asleep , on his knees face in his suitcase. I giggle when I think about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This adventure set the tone for many more Disney holidays, each one be speckled with adventures and memorable. I am so happy to put all these memories to ‘paper,’ making them part of our forever Wilde history. I even love reading my stories and reliving the moments. This blog is going to keep me busy for many more years to come and then when I am too old to write I am going to read them all and enjoy the experiences again. It just a win win situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I didn’t know it at the time, but when I started my journey as a mom (this time of two human beings), I never thought they would have such an impact on my life. Nothing can prepare you for being a parent. No amount of book reading and listening to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yesterdays"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildediaries.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}