Overheard (II)

Aden (sadly, to Daddy and Mommy):  I know you guys really want to go on the airplane, but the airplane and airports are just for kids and teenagers.  So if you guys want to go, you'll have to go on a real plane. 

Wiley (sick, but wanting cheese):  I'm hungry.
Mommy:  For (more) crackers?
Wiley:  For something that starts with a "chee."

Noah (pointing to a patch of color he had made on his paper):  I found God!  God is right there.

Aden:  I would have gotten more done, but I was so distracted by all the things I had to say.

Noah (on finding the King Grasshopper's leg):  We can't eat it.  

Aden:  Aunt Linda told me that when you get older, you start to lose your memory, so I think that is what is starting to happen to me.  I'm starting to forget things.

I guess we've been out of the bush for a while. Wiley remembers enough to remind us that cockroaches come out of the drains. But when I asked him to come upstairs and get dressed, he said, "I want to stay downstairs and watch the bug." It was an over-sized fly.

Aden (while eating his third tortilla that he just couldn't quite finish):  There is my stopper.  A stopper is what tells me that I am full.  (We've had numerous conversations about Aden's stopper, which seems to be quite active in helping him determine when to stop eating.)

Wiley:  Mama, we're not visitors to South Africa.  We're livers in South Africa.

Wiley (driving his toy cars, who came across some of his plastic animals):  Polar bear crossing?!?  Oh, bother!

Wiley (brushing a feather on his face, apparently disappointed in the tickle-factor):  Hmmm.  I'm not laughing.
. . . Later . . .
Wiley:  Mommy, what does tickle mean? 
Mommy:  Well, . . . it makes you giggle, . . . sort of a light touch. 
Wiley giggled a couple seconds later.  Then,
Wiley:  Where is that thing I found that makes me giggle? 

Aden (repeating a conversation from the playground):
    His friend - Hurry, they steal hats!  Hide your hat!
    Aden -  Nope.  Because I can run faster than anybody. 

Aden (during a lull in the conversation, but obviously with a few lingering questions about the topic at hand):  Daddy, are you still . . . Is this conversation over? 

Mommy (reading Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog children's book):  "May I help you?" 
Noah:  No!

Wiley (in a puddle):  Mommy, does rain sometimes rain in the same place?

Hide-and-seek instructions from Wiley to Noah:  First you have to look in all the places where I'm not.

Aden: I like McDonald's french fries because they have so much salt!

Noah after Wiley got sick in the car:  I throw upped!  Later, closely watching Wiley throw up a second time:  That's sick!

Aden had a 'super hero' mask that he was playing with. Someone asked him who his favorite superhero was and he said Batman. Wiley responded with Spiderman. When Noah was prompted, he responded, "I like Cookie Monster." 

If you haven't figured out by now, we like going to game parks.  While Kruger Park is our favorite, it is a little far away to do too often.  Although it didn't stop us from visiting three times in a six month period.  One of our favorite parks to visit is Pilanesburg Game Reserve.  You may remember it from Aden's birthday back in February.  It is not as big as Kruger, nor does it have as many animals.  So what is the big attraction?  Location, location, location!  They are only two and a half hours from our house, making a day trip very manageable. 

Recently, one of daddy's friends from his college days was in South Africa with his son and we had a chance to spend the weekend with them.  What better excuse to make a road trip to a game park.  We saw elephants having a bath in the river, fifteen rhino, and another elephant that refused to share the road with us for awhile and chased us for close to a mile before finally giving way.  It was lots of fun to see the animals and hear old stories from college days.  Since I am sure you do not want to hear the stories, here are a few pictures to capture the day.  

 

Kruger National Park (Part Three)

The week we saw the dentist only got better as we left the next morning for The Kruger National Park.  This was our third visit to the park, but the anticipation was still just as strong as the first time.  It really is a special place.

Our first night would be outside of the park, so we did not feel the need to leave before sunrise this time.  It was about a five hour drive to where we would be staying for the night, so a mid morning departure seemed appropriate.  After a hectic morning of trying to finish up the packing and preparation, while trying to keep three over anxious boys from taking a trip to the ER instead, pulling them straight out of bed to the car didn't seem like such a bad idea after all.   We finally made it though and of course the boys always love it when we get on the "big highway" as they call it.  There is a slight fascination, although some may call it an obsession, with Land Rovers and Mini Coopers and these boys (even Noah at two years old) can spot them a mile away.  It is quite impressive.  We made our first stop at one of the 'petrol ports' along the highway.  It was time for lunch, which meant time for some 'tailgating.'

We found a place to stay on the internet, which can sometimes be a little scary.  You never know what you are going to get, but this place turned out to be just right for us.  Nothing too fancy, but clean and spacious enough for all of us.  Situated in White River, it had some beautiful views of the mountains around us.  After a little nature walk around the grounds, looking for the advertised resident peacocks and wildlife, we had a nice meal and played a travel board game to end the day.  It was difficult to go to sleep, knowing that the next morning would be an early departure for the gates of Kruger. 

Our first and only leopard sighting

The main objective of this trip was the same as every trip and of every visitor to Kruger, or any other game park for that matter -- to complete our Big Five (elephant rhino, lion, leopard, and buffalo).  Up until this trip, we had seen four of these, with only the leopard eluding us.  This is the most common of the Big Five to miss, but we wanted to change that for us.  We didn't have to wait long.  Within twenty minutes of entering the park, an oncoming car signaled for us to stop.  He asked if we had seen anything from the direction we had just come.  Just an elephant.  Don't get me wrong.  Elephants are one of our favorites to see and we never get tired of seeing them.  However, Kruger is somewhat overpopulated with them, so seeing them is never an issue.  In return, the other driver told me that about 5 Kms up the road there is a leopard.  We thanked him, and raced away at top speed, which is only 50 Km/h (or about 30 mph) inside the park.  There were a few cars already there and everyone was using binoculars.  After searching high and low (mostly high), we finally spotted him on top of some rocks.  We never did see his whole body, but his spots were unmistakable.  Fortunately, we had a zoom lens that allowed us to get some shots of what we could see.  It was not the best leopard sighting, but a sighting nonetheless.  Our quest to see the Big Five was over within the first hour of being in the park.  That didn't matter though.  There is always more to see when you are in Kruger.

We were staying at Satara Rest Camp this time.  It is situated in the middle of the park, and in an area known as "Cat Country."  The landscape is much more flat with lots of golden savannah grass, perfect for lions and cheetahs as they stalk the unsuspecting zebra or wildebeest.  The rest camp itself was nice, but we didn't stay long enough to enjoy all of its amenities.  Too many animals to see, and after hearing of a possible cheetah sighting not too far from the rest camp, we did not waste any more time lounging around.  Well, even though the cheetah sighting did not pan out, Cat Country did not disappoint. We ended up seeing four lions in all while in this part of the park.  It is always amazing to see these kings of the jungle, even when they are just lying around.  It is always hard to drive away from a sight like this, but you never know what might be around the next curve in the road. 


One of the popular stories that the boys like to tell from this particular trip to Kruger is about our lunch break in the park.  We had found a place that you could pull into and get out of your vehicle.  There was a fenced in area that you could normally enter where they sold food and drinks and had tables for you to use.  There were also nice restroom facilities.  However, due to the recent floods that caused much damage to the park, this area had been closed.  You could still park, but the restroom facilities had been replaced by port-a-potties.  Getting out of your vehicle seemed to be at your own risk because there were no fences around this area.  We chose to stop and have lunch, only getting out of our vehicle long enough to get the food out of the back.  We ate inside the vehicle, mostly at the boys' request.  There were harmless vervet monkeys hanging around the area, and we even got some pictures of them in the trees.  The boys were getting nervous after our experience in Cape Town with the baboon.  We assured them that we were safe.  Right about then, as Mommy was spreading the peanut butter and jelly on some bread in the front seat, a vervet monkey came out of nowhere and was sitting on the side mirror.  He was watching each stroke of the knife, hoping that it was his.  We let him stay long enough for some pictures, but the boys were ready to go by then.  In fear that he may do some damage to the vehicle, we slowly pulled away so that he could jump off and go pester the new car that had just pulled in.   

Back to that curve in the road we mentioned...  We decided to take a road less traveled in heading back south to where we would need to exit the park later that day.  It was a dirt road that ran parallel with the Mozambique border.  It was the farthest east you could go in the park.  It was a risky move because you may not see anything and there is nowhere to go once you get on that road.  There were no crossroads that would allow you to go back to the middle of the park and to the main roads.  We had been traveling for awhile without seeing anything.  The boys were getting bored, and quite frankly, so were Mommy and
Daddy.  We had passed the point of no turning back so we had no choice but to keep going.  After about an hour of this, we came around a curve in the road and hit the brakes.  Standing there, staring back at us, were two black-backed jackals.  Ironically, this was the one animal that Wiley had always wanted to see ever since we started going to Kruger.  We are not sure what it was about this animal that made him so appealing to Wiley, but he could not quit talking about them.  Thinking that we would never see one without being on a night or early morning drive, we had given up on thinking we would ever see one.  There were high fives all through the vehicle.  Not a Big Five animal, but easily the best spot on the whole trip considering our view of the leopard and Wiley's excitement to finally see this elusive jackal.  It made the long trip down that back road well worth it. 


Our trip didn't end there, but that was definitely a highlight.  We also saw lots of our favorite animals, like the zebras and giraffes.  And of course, what trip to Kruger would not be complete for us without a run in with a herd of elephants.  It is never easy to leave Kruger, but we finally did a few minutes before the gate closed.  Unlike our previous trips, we had booked a place close by to stay the night so we didn't have to make the five hour drive in the dark this time.  This worked out well.  The next morning, we realized we were still only 2-3 Kms from the gate.  As Wild Card holders, we knew we could get in the park for free.  So, why not spend a few more hours driving around the park before heading back home.  And that is exactly what we did.

The Dentist - A First Time for Everyting

We recently decided that Mommy and Daddy were due for a dentist check-up.  Not having ever had the boys at the dentist, this seemed like a great time to include them.  We were able to get an appointment that included all five of us.  From the time we told him, Aden was nervous.
When the day finally came, Aden was the most noticeably uncomfortable about this.  The tension eased a little bit when they discovered that there were car magazines in the waiting room that they could look at, and take in when we saw the dentist.  We were allowed to all go into the exam room together.  The boys were immediately impressed by the television on the ceiling. 
Mommy went first to show the boys how it was done.  For much of her exam, Noah was lying on her chest--a new experience for her.  Up next was Noah, who basically just had his teeth counted since two years old is a little early for a dentist visit.  Daddy was next to show the older boys again that there was nothing to be afraid of.  The fears were beginning to ease, but the car magazines were still being tightly gripped.  Wiley decided he wasn't afraid, and so he jumped up into the chair.  He was a real champ, and loved the fact that the television on the ceiling had videos of animals for him to watch.  Finally, Aden decided that it must not be too bad if everyone else had done it and survived.  He took his turn and was surprised at how painless it was.  The dentist even offered him his favorite flavor when it was time to polish--mint.  She flossed his teeth and was telling him how it was important to floss every night.  After leaving the dentist office, Aden announced that this had been "the best day of my life!" He is ready to go back in six months, and insists each night that we floss his teeth. Who would have thought a trip to the dentist would have been one of the highlights of Aden's school break?