Lesson: When you invite non USA families to a Halloween party- explain more and don’t have on election day

We decided to celebrate a good old American tradition- Halloween.  We ordered kids costumes from America, and David and Lisa collected them.  Cole was green lantern and luckily Birch was a Viking from How to Train your Dragon.  We ordered Birch’s costume 2 months ahead but it didn’t make it to David’s office so we had to reorder, but it was out-  ughhhh but then back in so we reordered and luckily Lisa came back one day before Halloween.  Internet is so great but then can cause quite a lot of problems if you order and then don’t get because its not like you can just reorder and get a month later unless someone is travelling.

Back to the party.  Many other expats were very nervous about this whole costume plan.  Everyone thought it had to be a scary costume and they were nervous for their kids.  No shops in town with costumes for the season.  So after lots of explaining at school that it was not all scary and that any costume would work people decided to come.  But… it was election night for the president and so people on the other side of town got nervous about driving through town on an African election day.  Turns out that night was calm and no rallies were until the  next day and really nothing worse than the US. 

About 15 families came.  We had a tent of terror with a home made coffin and guts and stuff to feel.  I made eyeballs for our bloody Mary's and blood vodka punch out of Lychee that I injected jam into.  We did apple bobbing and balloon piñatas ( which David sat up on top of our lava rock driveway- no worries there about kids diving into candy on the lava rock) and a trick or treat treasure hunt.  Too much sugar for everyone and Cole had quite a tummy ache, but survived to ask for more candy the next morning. 

Now we are settling into November, hoping the rains come soon.  everyday it threatens but no luck.  David is in the USA for two weeks.  We started the morning off with both kids running to the toilet for diarrhea, but they seem fine now.  I hope that darn giardia parasite has not made it into their little intestines again.  We will go swimming today and watch an “ali baba” movie we bought in town on the street tonight.  We can get kids movies even earlier than release date in US sometimes but sometimes on those movies you hear coughing or the screen loses the tops of the heads of the actors or it gets dark and then light- but it feels like a movie and we love movie nights when David is gone. Peace

 

 

 

 

Travel: Kenya with the Foley family

We decided to go to Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks with few nights of camping in the middle.  Camping in Africa is hard because it is so dusty, it takes hours to get anywhere, there are no real campsites, and you run out of anything cold day one-  not like Alaska where your beer sits outside your tent.  But we braved it for a night and then were told the rich safari travelers needed our one spot so we moved to a guest house of a colleague David works with.  We still did our camp food outside because there was no kitchen but slept on beds and had a shower!!!! Dust was in every crevice by then.   Overall the trip was a success.  Lots of beautiful scenery.  The family we traveled with have become good friends and are so easy going that the whole trip stayed positive despite camping setbacks.  I have a lot more trouble with the staying positive part…No not you Joey  .Matt and Lisa and gang were with family living the life on a real safari and Zanzibar trip. 

 

Just so you remember this is our car- now named Lola- a P rado that wiggles and bounces like it has no shocks.  Lots of random down time in the car and on safari when no animals around. 

 

The boys have been into Avatar the airbender cartoon and they like to meditate in random places in order to attain the power of the four elements. 

 

These whistling thorn trees have lots of tiny balls that ants make to live in.  The ants then come out and sting any animal that tries to eat the tree.  The field and land is filled with millions of these.  I truly think ants will take over the world some day. whistling thorns

   

Lots of sundowner time.  The kids start to ask around 4 where the sundowner will be…

     

 

animals in a row-  Elands, elephants and oh oh oh oh  cows…Elands info

 

    

Places we stayed and fun we had. 

    

 

Went to Mizma springs in Tsavo west.  There were 50 hippos but a drought last year lowered the number to 13.  See how they have signs posted everywhere about the crocs and see how David passes the sign with the kids to get better pics.  Really they were far away.  And of course while David is taking the pics of the underground warnings, I am taking a pic of cute Cole hanging his hands out the window.  Ughhh  if the kids come back in once piece it will be because I super-glued them together.  Yes that is our hippo ranger guard with a gun walking with our kids. 

     

Cool Lava cave we all forgot to bring our torches for.  Isn’t there an app for that- the torch on David’s  I phone did not cut it.  We kept seeing lots of bats flying out of the cave as the kids went in, but no one was scared.  We kept expecting one kid ot notice and freak and then yell and then 100s of bats would fly out with 4 screaming kids- but nope- everyone loved the bats flying by.

Women selling us stuff. 

Travel: Safari mom does it alone

I was a safari mom and drove thru Tarangire without David. I did not get stuck, I fought off tsetse flies biting kids in the back, I sited animals (kind of), and packed a great picnic lunch all on my own. Lisa decided to help in my car just as we drove into the park, so actually I had lots of help with the kids. Not sure if we helped or confused each other as we named animals and spurted out animal facts to the kids. Birch the Birder only rolled his eyes a few times. “Mom that is the exact same hornbill we see all the time it is just the female” roll eye, disgusted sigh..

Here are some of my favorite pics.

It is a stampede of…….. safari cars to watch the one lion lay in the grass.

elephants up close

Ground hornbill and secretary bird and 1 million ostriches.

Inside the giant baobab hunter’s hideout.

A hug for safari mom Lisa and the campsite gang-

Even on safari kids get bored. This is Birch reading while on safari. He is even in the front seat and giraffes are crossing the road. ughhh

Lesson: School plays are fun

 Outside the kids classrooms bats hang around.  Really- just outside. 

But otherwise school is normal for the boys.  If you can stand it look below for great Cole in action videos.  It takes lots of lip motion to really make the words come out well.  No matter what language you sing in French, Spanish, or Swahili.