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

Vic Falls

Eliza's photos:

in lieu of proper fencing, children are deterred from the falling off the cliff's edge by brambles

What Eliza puts up with - boys not cooperating.

self-portrait

Much of the Vic Falls trip of October was documented in my other blog. But here's the rest of the story.

The kids and I had been to Vic Falls the year before at nearly the same time of year, so they knew what was coming and were looking forward to the trip. This time we stayed even longer since we were lucky to crash at Tracy's friend, Brent's place. First evening we crashed a party of Brent's friends in the final hours of a weekend family camping bash. Miles hit it off with Brent's son and they played all week together.

Next morning we went to the falls early as it gets hot fast and there's quite a bit of walking for the kids.

Can you see the people at the top of the falls? There's a natural pool that's safe to hang out in right on the edge.

attitude of exhaustion

We did a day trip to Chobe National Park across the border in Botswana, which we hadn't done before. It was AWESOME. The drive and border crossing were a piece of cake. We were taken to a nice hotel on the Zambezi River in Botswana where we took a boat for a morning safari cruise. Lots of animals were visible from the boat as it was the end of the dry season and they were flocking to the water. 

Legavon / Monitor Lizard

Fish Eagle

hippo pods

excellent photographer...a few of whose are here!

crocodile eating recently deceased elephant 

We had lunch and swimming at the pool at the hotel, then did an afternoon game drive in another area along the Zambezi. Driving down from the ridge, there was a fabulous view I haven't seen before in Zimbabwe where buffalo, elephants, hippos, warthogs, birds, crocodiles, and antelope were all within sight together. We also saw Spotted Wild Dogs for the first time. But it was the sheer number of elephants that was most impressive.

a glimpse of some of the loads of elephants we saw from the vehicle

Next day while I was rafting, Tracy took the kids to the croc farm. 

Zavion not ready to hold the baby crocodile.

Brave Eliza was first to hold the baby croc. See how excite Miles is :)

U. G. L. Y.

 We had dinner with Brent and family at the Vic Falls Safari Lodge that night, which I must say is somewhat less enjoyable with kids. Don't get me wrong: they had a great time. We arrived before sunset in hopes of seeing some animals come to the watering hole. The kids got bored, however, and found their own watering hole, and I had neglected to remember one of my first lessons in this country: never leave home without the kids' bathing suits. Eliza topped the night by vomiting during dinner, but it was one of my better mothering moments as I anticipated it in just enough time to pull her away from the table and catch it in a linen napkin. It was not handled so gracefully as to go unnoticed by the unfortunate onlookers, however.

Next day was the swing, swimming and the other Zambezi cruise covered in the other blog well enough. Brent's surprise detour to see the elephants on the morning we departed was much appreciated by the kids.

More photos of the Vic Falls trip at this link: