Looking Up

One of my most favorite things to take pictures of is the SKY. It's always changing and always beautiful. So when we go on these outings and on safaris my eyes are not only on the land to find the animals but looking upward at the beauty that is there.

Here is my compilation of sky pictures from our trip.

Love the variety of clouds in this picture.

Rainbows were out a lot during our trip.

Some of these are not straight because I was taking most of them while moving in a vehicle or boat.

My most favorite picture.

This was a double rainbow after a bad rainstorm we were caught in. And amazingly it was a full double rainbow, where we could see both from beginning to end go across the sky, sadly though I could not get it all into one frame. :)

Jake, Jumbo, Emily, Na Lady and Sylvester

Todd, Jeanne and Ally all wanted to go on the elephant back safari, so we booked one at a different place and it was great! Well, I should say that Jeanne wasn't looking forward to it very much, but she did it! There were about 5 other people that went with us.

Tyler and I on Jumbo. He was a big boy and gave us some frights, because he liked to wiggle!! So he would be walking along and then we'd have to stop for the people in front of us, and he would just start going off on his own little path (next to ravines and rivers), the guide would then tell him to get back on the right path and he would just shake his head and wiggle. I don't know about Tyler, but I was holding on REALLY tightly.

Ally and Jeanne on Emily. She was a new mom, and her baby Na Lady would walk behind Emily and in front of Jumbo in the line of elephants. She was a cute little baby.

Todd and Spencer on Jake (at least that's what I remember his name being). They were ahead of Emily in the line. He was a big elephant too. Todd said that Spencer talked a lot of the time while on the safari.

After we got done with riding the elephants, they showed their tricks to us, which was really cute to see the baby Na Lady pick up her leg like the rest of the elephants, and then we were able to feed them all.

I love this picture of Todd and the elephants because I think Todd had this smile on his face the entire trip. He was loving life!

So then after we feed the elephants and washed our hands, they told us that a cheetah named Sylvester was going to come and meet us with his trainers. Sylvester is only 8 months old and is not wild nor tame, but does live around humans. To me, I thought at first glance that this cheetah was an adult, nope, just 8 months old....which means Cheetahs are big!

The thing that scared me most about Sylvester was that when we were walking over to see him for the first time, he was watching everyone walk over, and then when Spencer walked over, Sylvester locked his eyes straight on him and did not waver. You could tell that he thought Spencer would either 1-be fun to play with or 2-be fun to hunt.

The guide who was with the cheetah told us they didn't know kids would be here, and when we came to pet Sylvester that an adult would have to hold Spencer. Let's just say I always made sure something or someone was between Spencer and Sylvester.

We then had the chance to pet him!

This picture was taken after Sylvester had already turned around and bared his teeth at Spencer. umm...yeah a tad scary.

Do I look a little uneasy?? I was.

And yes Sylvester is licking one of the trainers arms because of the salt that is on it from sweating.

Sylvester played while we listened to facts about cheetahs. Um, they are strong.

Pretty kitty.

Vulture Feeding

We stayed again at the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge and again we went down to see the Vulture Feeding they do everyday at 1pm. Sadly there were not as many vultures that came to the feeding like last time, BUT there was a little family of warthogs that came to check things out, and got REALLY close to us. They came up from behind us, and we didn't even realize it until Jeanne (who was above us on the deck) called to Todd to let him know.

Here they are right next to us. I believe it was the mom and three babies.

The warthogs went down to enjoy the meal with the vultures. Turns out that the warthogs eat the BONES to get calcium in their diets! It was weird hearing them crunching on the bones.

Up in the Air

While in Victoria Falls, Todd and Ally wanted to go and do the helicopter flight that we did last time. So, Tyler and Spencer joined them for the ride. Here are some pictures Tyler got while sitting up front.

Poppa Todd and Spencer ready to go!

Ally looking forward to the ride.

Again here are some comparison photos. This photo was taken in October during the dry season.

And here are the Falls in January during the rainy season. Such a difference!

A side view of Victoria Falls.

The mist from the Falls during the dry season.

The mist from the Falls during the rainy season! This is the reason we got soaked while walking by it.

Fun facts about Victoria Falls and the Zambezi River:

• The total length of the Zambezi River is 2700km or 1678 miles.
• The Victoria Falls are 1708 meters wide or 1 mile wide.
• The average height of the Falls is 92 meters or 302 feet.
• The approximate volume of the water in full flood is 1000 meters cubed per second or 264,172 gallons.
• The average volume of water over Victoria Falls per season is 550 meters cubed per second or 145,295 gallons.
• The Victoria Falls spray under the right conditions can be seen from as far as 100km away or 62 miles!

Family visiting

Yes, we are still here, but it's just been very busy, and I haven't been able to post everything that I've wanted to. So, to start off we'll just do our most recent trip and then backtrack to things that happened around Christmastime.

We were lucky enough to have Tyler's parents come out and visit us for 19 days! It was his mom, dad and his little sister (who Spencer adores!). We were so excited for their visit, and planned a trip to Victoria Falls, Chobe (in Botswana) and Hwange to show them all the fun stuff there is in Zimbabwe. I didn't take many pictures of them at the house, because mostly you would be seeing Tyler's mom reading, Tyler's dad and I playing Settler's of Catan Cities & Knights, and his sister playing video games while Tyler went to work and Spencer went to school, or we would be watching movies. So nothing too interesting to miss there.

We did though take MANY (over 800) pictures of our trip. No, I won't show all pictures, but you now have to understand how hard it is to cut it down to 10 pictures a post!!! We'll just start with when we got to Victoria Falls and how the falls looked in this post.

To start off, you remember how our own family took the trip to Victoria Falls in October the dry season, well here is a picture to remind you of what we saw then.

And here it is when we went in January, the middle of the rainy season! Such a difference and so beautiful still!

Getting ready to go and see the Falls. Amazingly enough, we were getting misted on by the Falls at this point already.

Here is a picture of the Falls during October the dry season.

This is mid-rainy season in January. Green on the rock and a lot more mist! The mist grows even more later on in the rainy season (Nov.-April/May).

A monkey we saw on the pathway. There were many, and some little babies too! Springtime just ended here, because we are in summer now and so I forgot that we'd see so many babies going on safaris this time, it was great!

Strong overflow from the Falls.

Our family in front of the Falls. The wind shifted so we could get this picture without much mist.

It was so powerful.

Todd being Indiana Jones getting through the jungles of Africa.

Our family picture during the dry season in October.

This is in the same spot as the above picture. I couldn't even go where Tyler and his mom were because there was too much mist and water, and it would damage my camera. It felt sometimes like it was just raining right there on us.

Looking down at the rest of the Falls...oh wait, you can't even see it because of the mist!!!!

Breathtaking.

Little dew drops on the grass around the Falls.

Remember how we looked over the ledge at the very end of the Falls, and there is no water anywhere to be seen in October.

This is that same ledge, in which they couldn't even get close to the edge because it was very slippery and so rainy.

It was incredible to see the difference 3 months makes here at Victoria Falls! One time we were stopping because it felt like it was raining, then we realized it was raining but from the Falls, not from weather. Like Tyler's dad said, it's like it's own weather system. The mist would evaporate, make clouds and then it would rain right there by the Falls. We did get soaked but it was lots of fun still!

2011 Goals

Every year we all come up with resolutions we would like to pursue during the new year. Oftentimes they go strong in the first few months and then crash and burn. Last year, we posted some of our goals, and yesterday we went through them to see how successful we were at what we did.

Tyler's goals for 2010:

He accomplished a few, and a few dwindled out over the year. Although, having 20 goals in one year was quite a bit, he did do a little of each goal for part of the year.

Becca and Spencer's goals for 2010:

My goals were mostly just until we left Zimbabwe, and now I see that I didn't have time for half of my goals because of going to school. So, I'm deleting some of my goals from there and working on finishing the rest in the next 6 months.

Spencer's goals he did well with. He didn't really remember everything that he was suppose to be doing, and we didn't do a good job of reminding him, but he did accomplish some things.

This year though, we have shortened our goal list, mostly because it'll be a busy year moving, and we want to definitely accomplish these goals and not overlook them.

Tyler's Goals:

1- Get healthy and exercise. (after playing flag football this weekend with the missionaries and them saying "you did pretty good for what an old guy you are." Tyler is wanting to keep in shape and not feel like this 'old guy')

2-Go to the temple every month when we move to New York.

3- Read the Book of Mormon before May 31st. (it's a competition also with his Young Men, if they can do it then they will get a party here at the house before we leave)

Becca's Goals (for this year and before leaving Zim):

1- Graduate College with my Bachelor's Degree (it's set for Dec. 19th)

2- Exercise!!

3- Put a book together of all of my favorite photographs I've taken here, so then it can be our coffee table book.

4- Finish reading the Book of Mormon

5- Read all of my new books I've gotten so I can be caught up before moving to New York.

Spencer's Goals:

1- Read 2 books every week.

2- Play with Mommy once or twice a day.

3- Play with Daddy once or twice a day.

4- Play catch with Daddy three times a week.

5- Learn how to ride his scooter really well.

6- Try to be more considerate and less demanding.

7- Color one picture a week.

8- Exercise everyday, besides Sunday.

Those are our goals and we hope we can get them all accomplished!! We have a big year coming up with the move and so we are looking forward to the new adventures we will have.

What goals are you planning on accomplishing this year??