Safari

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I went on a safari after church last weekend! We got to go into the Wildlife Safari village for free thanks to some cool kids' event going on there, and I thought you'd want to know all about it. Right? Of course...

So first we went in and saw a cheetah by the entry gate. No photo, though - they wouldn't let me in to pet the nice kitty, so all we have is a photo with the fence in focus. Blurry cheetah...

Then I made a hippo mask at a tent. I gave it to Mommy to carry in her purse so I could run around better.

Right across from the hippo mask tent were these flamigos! Mommy says it kind of felt like we were in a retirement area in Florida - they looked so fake! But they woke up later and started fighting. And this counts as my official bird watching for "B" school...
Then I saw an awesome slide play area! I climbed up and went down the slide LOTS of times! Some of the bigger kids wanted to help me, but when they did I lost my favorite cool purple dress shoes. Mommy found them for me, but only after crawling around in the bark in her church clothes...

Then I made a handprint on a mural with blue paint, which I also got all over my church clothes. But I got a Tootsie Pop in exchange, so it was definitely worth it.

Oh yeah - the animals... Right. I got sidetracked by the slide. Then and now.

We walked and saw some camels. All of a sudden this week I have been seeing camels everywhere, now that I know what they are!
And we walked some more and saw monkeys. I LOVE monkeys!
Then we met up with Auntie Delia and Rachel and baby Eleanor. And we slowly made our way back to the SLIDE! I wanted to go on the slide!

But I was still sucking on my Tootsie Pop. Mommy gave me choices. She said I could go on the slide OR have my Tootsie Pop. But not both at the same time. I DON'T LIKE those choices. CHOICES are NO FUN! Someone, please come up with a better option than CHOICES, like having it ALL, or I will cry my heart out for the rest of my life.

Fortunately Auntie Delia came up with another OPTION! I got to make a bracelet from fruit loops. I forgot all about my Tootsie Pop - can you believe it? So we covered a couple more Bs - bracelet, and Toucan Sam who eats fruit loops, and toucans live in Brazil (and eat tropical fruit, in case you were wondering), which we studied for B week...
Then we went to see some tiny monkeys. They are so cute!
Here's a closeup...
We saw bunches of other animals, too. Finally we got to the barn animals! Here I am pretending to be a cow. Don't we look like twins?
This donkey made a really loud braying sound that was totally awesome! I wish I could do that.
Here is one of the goats I fed. Except Mommy had to help me feed them - it was scary - so we didn't get any photos of me feeding them.

Don't I make an innocent-looking lamb?

Speaking of innocent - then we headed back to the entrance to leave, cuz it was getting kinda cold. But I saw some wagons there! And I insisted that I needed to ride in the wagon. Innocent and insistent are pretty much the same thing, right? They sound alike to me! So Mommy pulled me around the park again in the wagon.

And then we headed back to the entrance, and Mommy drug me out of the wagon to leave again. But this time I saw a push car. And I was my innocent insistent self again. And so Mommy pushed me through the park again in my car.

This time we went by the train that carries people through the park. I WANTED to GET ON THAT TRAIN! So I jumped out of my car and beelined to the train barrier to run after the train! Mommy had to run and grab me kicking and screaming so we could go back to the entrance and leave.

All that was such a blast that I fell asleep in the car on the way back to town. Bet you would have loved it, too!

Have a blessed weekend!

Woof and Moo

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Grandpa and Grandma had to go to the border to renew their visas, so we made a day of it and drove through Kruger National Park - the Crocodile gate is about 15 minutes from the border. Wow - all those animals were cool! Plus I got to eat potato chips and drink guava juice from a snap up bottle. Oh, and I swiped the lemon cream out of the lemon cream cookies.

So here are some of the animals we saw:

Cape Buffalo. We saw LOTS of Cape buffalo - one of the big five. On our way back just before sunset, we ran into a HUGE herd of them and stayed a respectful distance away while they ALL crossed the road. I called them "cow" and "moo."

Rhinoceroses. We also saw rhinoceroses twice - two each time - and two plus two equals four. Yes, we worked on math on this trip.

Elephants. Lots and lots and lots of elephants. At one rest stop, there was an elephant walking right by the parking area. If my arms were just a little longer I could have touched it. I can say "eleph," or something like that.

Lions. We got stuck in a traffic grid, so we knew there was something major everyone was looking at. Sure enough, lounging right by the main road were a bunch of female lions and a few young ones. Mommy says she doesn't like posting animal photos since there are so many better ones available by professional photographers online, but we have to post this one just to prove that we saw them. Later on we saw a male lion by himself on a less-beaten path. I'm not so sure what the excitement is. They just sit around and don't do anything.

Leopard. To complete the big five, we got to see a big kitty in a tree. This is the hardest of the five to find, Mommy says, but I don't see what was so exciting. It wasn't very close, and it hardly moved. Grandpa says it could have been a stuffed cat with a mechanical tail, like my Hakuna Matata lion.

Giraffes. "Raffs" were one of my favorite animals! They are so tall and you have to look up so high to see them, plus they have very funny long tongues.

Monkeys. I LOVE monkeys! I kept saying "mon-kee, mon-kee, mon-kee" when they were playing around the car.

Baboons. We saw a baboon tree. The tree was filled with baboons in the branches. I think that's where they grow.

Warthogs. I called these "dogs" and "woofs." They do look a lot like ugly dogs, don't they? Don't you see it? (Maybe Groban needs to work on his image a little.)

Hippopotamuses. We saw lots of hippos lounging around or in the water. I seem to have lost my ability to say "hippo." Now it is just "po." Mommy got the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" stuck in her head, so I had to listen to that all day . . .

Impalas, Kudu, Waterbuck, Duikers. We saw lots of antelope - zillions of impalas. As far as I'm concerned, they are "dogs" and "woofs," too. Here's a photo of my favorite, the duiker. We saw about four of these. They are so cute and little, just my size, and I like to visit them at the mini-zoo by my house.

Birds. There were tons of birds: brilliantly-colored rollers, stunning starlings, comical hornbills. And a bunch of weavers helping themselves to breakfast at Lower Sabie.

Crocodiles. There were a couple of crocs hanging out with the "pos" near the river. They were too far away for me to see very well, and Mommy didn't want to take me any closer. That thing about them being the biggest cause of wild animal deaths in Mozambique or something like that. I don't get it - my croc shoes don't seem very dangerous.

Zebras. We were lamenting how we had seen no zebras all day, when we came across two in the final 20 minutes or so in the park. So we got them all!

Me. Now this was the best sighting of the day! Me - in my "raff" shirt, right next to where the elephants walk.

So that's the story of my day. What did you do on Sunday?

Slippers and Wine

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We went to Nelspruit on Sunday: Mommy, Daddy, and me. Mommy had a doctor's appointment and Daddy needed to buy some things for work (that postponed trip from last week). So I had to tag along – this is me riding in the car again. Did I mention I am still sick?


Animals. We went down Sunday so we could get a few things done at the border and get an early start on Monday, and we took a 1½ hour detour through Krueger Park. I actually looked at some animals this time – always before I was much more interested in what was inside the car. The first animl that caught my eye was a giraffe. It was REAALLLLY tall – I had to look up a long ways. It was right next to the car eating branches. There were some cute little baby monkeys playing on the ground – I had to look WAAAY down to see them. And there were lots of impala and some elephants and a hippo, too. We didn't see any zebra until we were on our way back home and there was one by the side of the road, not in the park.

Sleep. The places we stayed didn't have air conditioning, so we were blown away with fans. I had fun exploring new places, though Mommy moved all the breakable stuff out of my way – bummer. It was fun to sleep between Mommy and Daddy again, and now I don't like my crib anymore.

Clinic. I was golden when at Mommy's doctor, but we had to wait for Daddy a while in the clinic downstairs. So I read up on Osteoporosis and then ripped the brochure and dumped it in the trash can. Rubbish. Then I browsed the Wine magazine and learned all about "Blending Bordeaux Wine." I'm an expert now – ask me anything! Then I made the rounds visiting all the sick people in the clinic and passing my flu germs on. Then I made the rounds of all four trash cans in the clinic, inspecting the contents, though Mommy wouldn't let me play with them. I did tear up a couple of magazines.

Mall. Mommy and I went around and around and around and around the shopping mall while waiting for Daddy. I like people, so didn't mind too much. I walked some when I wasn't navigating from the cart.

Mail. There was a package in the mail (we get that at the mall in Nelspruit) from Grandma! It had slippers for me! Plus a cat puppet and a calendar and some chapstick, which felt really good on my chapped nose.

11 Months. I celebrated my 11-month birthday. I am 24 lbs and 74 cms tall, maybe. You'd think I'd be growing from month to month, but the scale and tape measure are kinda funny.

Boy Chasing. I really like little boys. We stopped at Steers for supper on the way down, and I walked up to two little boys (maybe 3 and 5) and gave them BIG hugs. They thought I was very cute. At the clinic a little boy (4?) was hiding under the chairs and I said hi and touched him, too. Then there were lots of little boys to chase while I was shopping. Two of them were riding in a cart car down the hall, and I followed them into and all around a store. They also thought I was very cute. There was a 2-year-old boy in a stroller that I went to visit several times, and a boy at the Spur who I chased around the tables. Boys are lots of fun, but I don't understand why grownups laugh at me.

Then I had to leave all the boys and come back home. And here we are, back at school again.