We miss you Will!

I remember hearing my mother say she wished sometimes she could go back again as a young mother. And I never really understood her feelings until now! I miss Will so much even though I wouldn't want to relive all of it again I would like to cradle him in my arms and know that he was safe and well feed and content.

I miss watching him physically and mentally and spiritually grow.

I miss watching him become himself and developing his talents.

Even though I'm so homesick for him, I know that he is at the right place for him right now. Even though I can't see him I so much enjoy his emails and our phone calls. I can tell that he has grown in his independence and that he is really a great human being all by himself.
We love you Will and miss you so much!

Beautiful Cape Town

Cape Town was so much fun! We could have stayed there easily another week and still not skimmed the surface. Cape Town's most notable landmark is Table Mountain. We stayed at an apartment on the Waterfront.

Another landmark the Lion's Rump.

We hiked up to the top of Table Mountain one day. It was very steep and it was quite warm. Jay, Jana and Maren buzzed up the hill while John, Gwen and I went as fast as Gwen's little legs could carry her. All the people that we passed would comment on Gwen and how well she was doing. (she did better the more then a few adults!) It took us about 2 hours to finish. When we were about 100 yards from the top Gwen turned to me with up held arms and said "Carry me"

A wonderful view from the top! It was worth the hike. Needless to say we took the cable car on our way down!

Beyond Cape Town

The weather was so perfect! South Africa is just going into winter so everyday was about 70-75 degrees and I have to admit it was a bit nippy for me at night. It was crazy shopping at the mall because they have all of their winter clothing out. It was quite hard finding some summer things. We drove down to Cape Point, it was glorious!

On the way back we stopped by to visit the penguins. We had fun watching them waddle about.

Here are the kids in the van that they named the "hippopotabus" It was a huge white utility looking van and the girls would always tease that we better remember where we parked because there was no way we would ever find it!

John was a wonderful GPS.+

Our Big Adventure

You will have to go down a few post to get the start of our big adventure because I don't know how to post more then 4 photos at a time. We saw lots of zebras.

And we got super lucky to see one of three cheetahs that they have on this reserve. They are hard to spot because they like to lay down in the grass and you can't see them. This one happened to be on the road we were on.

We had a real nice ranger, he was with us a lot so it was nice to have a real knowledgeable one with a sense of humor. We would love for anyone to come to South Africa to give us an excuse to do this again!

Our Big Adventure

One morning we spotted this momma hippo and her baby. We didn't get to close because hippo's can be aggressive especially when they have young ones. I guess they aren't like the nice ballerina hippos you see on Fantasia.

John and the girls went on horseback on afternoon. Don't worry they had a guide with them.

We saw baboons and some monkeys. We all loved watching them. They are so silly.

Rino's are one of the big 5 and we now know why. They are huge and have very long horns.

Our Big Adventure

The giraffes were wonderful to watch. I just can't express how awesome it was to be so close to these animals in their natural habitat.
The scenery was breath taking also.

We would have to wake up at 5:30 am for early morning drives. Before we left we would have hot chocolate. We would be on the drive for 3 hours and then back to the lodge for a very delicious breakfast. The weather was chilly in the morning but gorgeous during the day.

After our evening drive that met us with hot chocolate and then we had dinner. One night these guys performed for us, we loved it.

Jana, Maren and Gwen getting ready to dance. We were also very lucky to be there at a time when there was just one other family at the lodge we were staying in.

Our Big Adventure

We were so excited to go on our first safari, it was private reserve about 3 hours north of Johannesburg. The very first thing we saw were wart hogs. And we took about 100 pictures thinking that was real neat.

Then we saw a pack of elephants and we took about 100 more pictures. We saw lots of different kinds of antelopes everywhere and lots of wilder beasts.

We got lucky we think to see the lions on 2 different days. We took lots of pictures of them to but we were so excited that most of them turned out blurry.