Lake Kariba- Spurwing Island

We have LOTS of pictures to share with you about our trip to Spurwing Island, so let's get started. These are the pictures that we thought would show you the whole trip and how it was. Which was fantastic (besides the part where Spencer got REALLY sick on the way home and our car was not smelling so pleasant for 3 hours)!!

This is one of the many scenes we saw of this, people selling worms on the side of the road leading out of Harare, because there are LOTS of fishing outside of Harare. They had NICE worms, ANACONDA worms, and just worms, worms, worms! 

Spencer smiling away in the back seat on the way to Kariba. He had everything he needed, and he was happy. I love this picture.
Yep, that is a Shell station on the road we were taking!!!
Had to take this picture for my dad. "Watch out there's a choo-choo train ahead."
Once there it was nice of them to inform you that the "Flash Lights not working". We did see one train, and it wasn't too big.
Interesting tree along the way...look at that trunk!!
Once we were an hour out of Kariba we come across this lovely sign.
And we did hear a story about a guy getting out to pee on the side of the road, and he was eaten by a lion. We didn't get out of the car. No worries!

Once we got there, we started right off with a Game drive. Saw this while driving around, umm...a hippo skull, yep.
There are these red berries on this tree, which Spencer got one off, and they make you high. Yep, they are like cocaine and make the animals a little loopy...heehee, would have been funny to see an animal after they ate a bunch of those. Spencer didn't eat one.
Baboons running away from us.

Water bucks.

Hippo out of the water. They only get out of the water during dawn and dusk. Whenever we got too close they would waddle their way back into the water.
Elephants hugging each other's trunks...is that like kissing? :) They were playing and it was fun to watch.
Getting close to this herd of elephants, I was a bit nervous, but Tyler and Spencer were loving it. Spencer kept talking loudly around them, and waving at them.

Waving good-bye.
Family of three. That baby was only 2 months old, and the cutest thing ever!
Yep, that is a crocodile with an impala in his jaws. If we had come there just 5 minutes before we'd probably seen him get it.
This was Spencer by the end of the game drive, tired boy.
There were beautiful sunsets there on the island and I loved them!
Waiting for our boat the next morning. Cute boys I have!

Croc we saw on the Game Cruise we took Saturday morning. He wasn't too big.
Hippo peeking up at us. It was funny because whenever we came across a pod of them, they would all duck down under the water. Since they can only be under water at most for 5 minutes, they kept popping back up. Once we scared one of them because we were still there and they weren't expecting us to be, so they came up and then jumped right back under. It was funny.
Elephant posing. His back leg is crossed with his other back leg.
And this was Spencer by mid-morning, not caring what we saw. He was done with seeing the animals. Tyler and I couldn't get enough.
So Saturday afternoon we take a trip into gorge that is close by. We asked our guide if there was a chance of seeing any animals. He said yeah, you'll see crocs, baboons, maybe some hippos and elephants. Wait...what?? Elephants?!?! But there are cliffs on both sides of this gorge, and pretty steep cliffs. 

We ride two minutes into the gorge and  Tyler spots an elephant!! Yep, up on the cliff. It was amazing to see how they climbed around and not fall. I asked the guide if they had lots of elephants that would fall, he said he's only heard of one in 5 years. Amazing! Oh and one more thing, they are hard to spot...can you see it?

Baboons in the gorge.
A monster of a croc we saw! He got into the water by the time we got close, but that didn't make me feel any better, since now I couldn't see him. The boat we were in wasn't very big, or high above the water. To say the least I was a little nervous when we saw the crocs.
Our guide thought it would be great to get really, REALLY close to this 6 foot crocodile. I was in the front of the boat, while Tyler and Spencer were in the back. I was really nervous as we just sat there, and didn't know if the crocodile was going to turn on us, because if he did he could easily get into our boat and I'd be the first one to munch on. Spencer kept also being loud and trying to get the crocodile to move, and I kept completely still and tried to keep telling Spencer to be quiet. Luckily we were fine, and the croc just sat there, thankfully!
Elephant we saw on the way out. Notice his trunk and how it is shorter. There are poachers on this side of the gorge and he had gotten his trunk caught in one of their snares. Poor thing.
We came back across this elephant going out and he was not happy at all that we were there. He kept trumpeting and trying to find his mom, who was just up on the cliff. But he would show those ears off and trumpet so loud. I have some video that I'll try to put up soon.
Tyler and Spencer when we were coming out of the gorge.
The sunset that night. BEAUTIFUL!!
Like fire.
The water reflected it so clearly.
Okay so this is a hard picture to see, but it's right outside of our cabin we had. In the background to the right of the white wall is an adult elephant! Like the sign? It says: "DANGER! WILD ANIMALS Do not leave fenced or terraced area of camp after dark." Huh, wonder why? :)

My Birthday Wish

I know you aren't suppose to tell what you wish for, but I'm going to tell anyway, because it involves ALL of you!!!

My wish for my 29th birthday this year (which is on Wednesday) would be that everyone celebrates with me!!!

Here's what you have to do (and you have to do one of these if you want to help me have a fabulous birthday!):

1.Dance a little dance sometime during the day, and do I mean just wiggle your hips a little?? NO! I mean turn UP the music and DANCE!!!!

2.Sing out loud in the car on the way to work, even if you get strange looks from others, then you know you are doing it right. :)

3.Help someone out. Plan on holding the door open for anyone ahead or behind during the day whenever you walk through a door. If someone drops something pick it up for them. Just be on the lookout for things you can help them with.

4.GIVE! Give out hugs, give out money, give someone a listening ear, do something where you aren't thinking of yourself.

5.LAUGH!!!!!! Tell funny jokes, or have someone tell you their funniest joke.

That's it! Pick one or more of the 5 things I put up here, and that can be your way of saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY BECCA!!

Comment and let me know what you did! :) REMEMBER: WEDNESDAY!

First Animal Park - Imiri

We were invited to go along with some friends of ours to an animal park on Halloween. We decided to go, since there weren't any Halloween festivities that day, and we had a fabulous time! The pictures will show you how close the animals were to the trailer we were on, which pretty much they were almost right in there with us.

This animal park is only an hour and a half away so we left at 8am and got there for the 10am ride. It was a tractor pulling this long trailer with rows of seats on it. I joked with my friend that we were actually doing a hay ride on Halloween just like we would do in the States! When we got into the park they let us know that we would see 4 of the BIG 5 (elephant, lion, water buffalo, rhino and leopard), there were no leopards on this trip.

The first stop were the lions and hyneas. It was incredible the size of the lions, up close you could see how massive their paws were, and also when they fed them how powerful their jaws were. They are magnificent creatures, and could become my favorite very soon. When they brought the food out for them to eat we did get to hear a little growl from the lion and a little laugh fromt he hyneas, which was funny.

Next we saw some rhinos. No not this rhino....

This rhino!!

Grant it at this park there were not very many animals just a few of each so they had some guides (guys with guns who yelled at them) to bring them to us wherever we were driving. Which is kinda sad, but if they didn't do that I doubt we would have seen anything, because it was on 4500 acres. So back to the rhinos, they were great. A baby one came up to the trailer and our friend was getting a picture of Spencer with it when the baby rhino went to the front of the trailer, so he would be in the background. And then while I'm watching her tell him to "lean out farther" I see the other rhino coming right at Spencer's head!!! I should've taken a picture, Tyler says, but I was trying to save my baby!! :) The rhino got about 3-5 feet from Spencer's head before I pulled him back in. It was kinda funny.
Next we saw some elephants and a little baby one, all I could keep thinking of was Dumbo. Baby elephants are just TOO CUTE!

Then we kept going and saw some impala, a huge python, warthogs, giraffes, crocodiles, huge lizards and zebras. The zebras were gorgeous too.




Can you spot the giraffe?

Can you see the three impala?

When we stopped for lunch they had the rhinos come eat in front of us too, and then the elephants walked right through camp and sat in front of us while we finished. Then we got to FEED THE ELEPHANTS!!! YES!!!! Actually put food into their trunks or mouths. Of course, the one I went to go and feed wanted it placed right on their tongue, I wasn't too happy to do that so I just threw it in and continued taking pictures of Spencer and Tyler. Whom both LOVED this!
Last thing we did was go see some water buffalo, and as we start seeing some coming over this hill, we see something else with them. An elephant?

Our guide told us that this elephant since the age of 2 months or 2 years has thought she was a water buffalo. She has hung out with them and has become the leader. Since in elephant herds the matriarch is the leader she thought she should be, but with buffalos it's the patriarch who is the leader. Well, to fix that she killed off any dominant males who were trying to get that position! Crazy, huh? She has changed the way she communicates so then not to attract other elephants, because she doesn't like them, she really believes she's a water buffalo! And she understands what the buffalo moo and they understand what she grunts. It was amazing.

End of the day we got back to the lodge and started home. We haven't had much rain yet, but we saw this bad boy on it's way. Beautiful!

Oh and right outside of Harare there are these rock formations. Now how do you suppose that happened???

Spencer and school

I just received the BEST note from Spencer's teacher, but it needs a little back story to really show you how great this note means to me.

Spencer just turned 5 the end of August, so he BARELY made the cut off date for going to Kindergarten. Also, here school started the first week of August, and we didn't get here until the end of September. Since Spencer never had any schooling at all and since he wasn't used to being around kids all the time. I was quite nervous to let him go to school, plus I would miss him oh so much!

First day of school for him went okay. It was all new, but soon he jumped right in. And for the first three weeks we kept getting notes home saying "Spencer hit this girl because she said something." "Spencer did not use his words today." "Spencer hit one kid and bit anyone today. Please remind him to use his words." Can I tell you how worried I was that Spencer was going to be the bully at school (he is taller than most of the kids in his class, and they are all a year older than him!).

So we kept reminding him to use your words, and not hit. He did better, we were thrilled then the next day he would hit again. But finally things seemed to calm down a bit. Which is great! Oh, and another one of my worries was that I often heard that if you put a boy into school too early it's SO NOT good for them. Because they mature slower than girls do, it would just be hard on them. Well, great! I have my little boy who hasn't been around kids often, and has no prior schooling, going to school in which he would be too immature to handle the social aspect of it all, and might just not get the hang of the academic side of it either!!! AAHHH!!! That's pretty much what I did while decided if he should go to Kindergarten or not.

Back to the story, so he was doing better, which is great, and then today I get this awesome note from the teacher:

"Spencer's doing so well in all areas- socially, academically! He has a lot of fun and is getting along well."

WHAT?!?! MY BOY!!! I gave him HUGE hugs and was so proud of him. I have to say Spencer is one of my MOST favorite people ever. I love him so much, and am so proud to be his mom.