Miles turns 8

The theme this year was snakes. (Not my idea.) We took our time getting the right terrarium with the custom made (heavy) wooden lid, and we were just in time for M's birthday.

We went to Lake Chivero Lion and Cheetah Park...which is next to Snake World...but then we realized that even better than Snake World was Steve's personal collection. He's the guy who gave us the snakes, too. So we all went there...(well, I ended up sitting in the car after a while)...and then it was roasting marshmallows over the fire back at our house. A long, perfect day.

1st - drive-through lion park

View from our car window 

Vaughn and Mikhael 

2nd - walk-around zoo and birthday cake

while the children played...

the older ones socialized

3rd - drive-around / climb-around park (no human-eating predators). [Parents looking for a way to bring pure bliss into the heart of your youngster without having to spend a penny? Let them hang their head out the window while driving on (safe) back roads. Seriously. The joy, you cannot imagine.]

Picnic tables Zimbabwe style

We're kings of the world!

Eliza, Panache, Mikhael and Miles

Heading back to the city

4th - Steve has in his personal collection more snakes than you'll ever dream of seeing in one place (even in your worst nightmare): rattlesnakes, copperheads, water moccasins, puff adders, gaboon vipers, green mambas, black mambas, lots of cobras, a 20-foot Burmese python, etc. The children held a rainbow boa constrictor and a rat snake. The man also has monitor lizards, leopard tortoises, two 10-foot-long crocodiles, and a huge Boerboel mastiff named Bart who greets you as you get out of the car. 

[I managed my anxiety of seeing the kids around that dog whose head was twice as big and eye-to-eye with them, and I managed the low-ceilinged, cramped, dark, snake house with wall to wall terrariums. I started losing it when I saw my children wrapped in heavy, huge snakes (albeit gleefully wrapped). But when I went to get a chair in another part of the snake house and had cobras spitting at me on one side and puff adders hissing and puffing on the other... I took my couple of photos and reluctantly handed over my children to these crazed lunatic men who for whatever reason are into that sort of thing.] 

Miles brought home two female brown house snakes, each around two feet long. He named the bigger one Peach and the smaller one Clea. They mostly sleep in their box (inside the heavy-lidded terrarium); however, my husband has made a (bad) habit of getting them out and playing with them with the children on the living room couch.

in the snake house...rainbow python?

Brave, curious, nauseating

Rat snake?

5th - s'mores by the campfire at home, harmonica and guitar playing...good ending to a long, exciting day brought to Miles and friends, in large part, by his Super Daddy.

Click link for slideshow of more photos:  Highlights in April