Lions, Rhinos, Hippos and SNAKES!

We had a busy, fun time showing our friends all the things we like in South Africa.  We were sad to see them head back to China, Charlie most of all because he loved having his big buddy Noah.  Noah besides being cool because he is a nine year old boy also was a master weapons builder, he looked for sticks and rocks at every place we visited and made some amazing things.

 We saw the lions at our local nature reserve, Reitvlei.  Glad we were up high and looking down into their enclosure!

When we first got to the coffee shop on the reserve it was high drama because the rangers were in the middle of catching a very poisonous snake (which was by the playground).  It was a "Rinkhal" which is basically a spitting cobra, it did spit at the ranger but luckily he was wearing sunglasses the venom went on the glasses instead of his eyes...

Here are highlights of what Wikipedia has to say about this type of snake....

Rinkhals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rinkhals

The rinkhals (Hemachatus haemachatus), also called the ringhals or ring-necked spitting cobra, is a venomous elapid species found in parts of southern Africa. It is not a true cobra in that it does not belong to the genus Naja, but instead belongs to the monotypic genusHemachatus. It is closely related to the true cobras.^[3]

Venom[edit]

The venom of the rinkhals is neurotoxic and partially cytotoxic, and is less viscous than that of other African elapids.^[3] When confronting a human, it generally aims its venom at the face. If the venom enters the eyes, it causes great pain.^[6]

When we first got to the coffee shop on the reserve it was high drama because the rangers were in the middle of catching a very poisonous snake (which was by the playground).  It was a "Rinkhal" which is basically a spitting cobra, it did spit at the ranger but luckily he was wearing sunglasses the venom went on the glasses instead of his eyes...

Here are highlights of what Wikipedia has to say about this type of snake....

Rinkhals

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't have a photo of the snake- although Noah did ask the ranger if he could take one!  Luckily the ranger did not oblige and got the snake into a plastic trash can and drove it to another part of the park!

Over the weekend we went on a game drive to Pilanesberg National Park, Tiffany and I should get an award for having 5 kids in the car by 4:30 AM so we could make it to the early morning drive!

We saw a whole group of rhino, pretty amazing because every day in the paper I read about more rhino that are poached.  (3 more reported yesterday down towards Cape Town)

Our game drive was amazing we saw lots of giraffe, rhino, and had the best last...two elephants playing in the water (Katie took a ton of video), a bunch of hippo and finally a Mom & Baby Hippo out of the water!

Our game drive was out of Sun City Resort, we got them to drop us off at the Palace which had many scenes in the movie blended, here is the main dining room... 

Katie & Maddie in the zebra seats!

Boys attempting to reenact the elephant scene!

We spent the afternoon at the Sun City waterpark, everyone loved cooling off in the wave pool.  Charlie and I took a little snooze in the kids area.

On our return trip to Pretoria we stopped at the snake park at Hartbeesport Dam, it was a true African experience...they were moving very dangerous snakes into their cages (with visitors in the room!).  Katie hated it there, tons of spiders everywhere, she couldn't get out fast enough.  We managed to convince her to stay for the "Snake & Seal" show.  The workers carried around some pretty bad snakes for the audience to see...the seals were very cute!

Here we are after the seal show-waiting for the guys to carry out the plastic bins with the bad snakes in them-you guessed it---they carried them through the crowd!

We are so happy that Tiffany and the kids came, we look forward to more visitors, so keep saving! 

Valentines Day- SA kids miss out on this holiday too!

Valentine's Day is always such a big deal in elementary school in America.  Here there are no class parties and no Valentines for every kid in the class.

We brought in a Valentine's book to read in Charlie's class, in the story the cat makes Valentine's for all his friends, Charlie's teacher had never heard of that! Charlie brought in Spiderman Valentines for his entire class today.  (thanks Nana O'Brien for mailing them)

The kids are all very excited because my friend Tiffany, from the Coast Guard, who now lives in China arrives Saturday morning.  The best part is she is bringing her kids Madison (11) & Noah (8).  We can't wait to show them all our favorite kid places!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Saturday Morning (not so nice) Surprise....

Greg and Charlie went to Saturday morning cricket at Charlie's school...they wear all white outfits...that don't come back white after a five year old boy wears them...

They had a great morning and then went to leave...however our car was no longer there!  They got a ride home with another family, then we started on lots of paperwork...police reports, calling the SA "LoJack" equivalent and trying to remember all the stuff we had in the car that we'd have to replace.

What we learned is although our insurance requires us to have a tracker installed, that is the first thing that the thieves do, they rip it out and throw it on the ground...sure enough the tracking company sent someone to locate the tracker and it was laying right next to where the car was parked.

We also learned that Toyota Fortuners are the #1 stolen vehicle here as everyone shares our opinion that Toyotas are reliable and will run for a long time.  Also in other parts of Africa the roads are terrible and a 4x4 is a necessity.  Most stolen Fortuners get driven out of SA and into other places in Africa like Mozambique, Angola.  We were sure that by the time our police report was completed that our car was already a good distance North!

We are not excited about the long process ahead to replace the car but we are happy that no one was hurt and that we didn't have any hard to replace items inside (like school backpacks, sentimental toys).  We did lose our good Garmin GPS that we had programmed all the Africa maps into, however we had also followed the Embassy advice and programmed home as the Embassy, so at least the thieves weren't going to come pay us a visit at our house too.

What I am most mad about is that Friday night I filled the gas tank completely so I ended up paying for the bad guys to get all the way to the border crossing!  The only good news is one tire had a slow leak so maybe that will fail them along the way!

Tomorrow morning we'll begin our paperwork nightmare with the insurance company, what fun!

Warm Patriots Fans!

In classic American style we bought a new TV for the big game, we had not planned on replacing our TV but Charlie decided to wash it one day and we never could get rid of the huge white stripe down the middle. Here is Greg enjoying his new TV, note the size of the old one on the floor!

We cheered on the Pats here even with the 1:30 AM kickoff...Greg made it through the entire game and was thrilled with the result. The girls have been sad about all of the snow they are missing and especially the snow days from school!  Greg is delighted to not have to shovel...here we are having dinner in our yard...enjoying a beautiful summer evening.

We are lucky to live in a beautiful neighborhood, we have some nice walks and bike rides.  There are incredible flowers, trees, and birds that you see here.  Here are some neighborhood photos...

Charlie on the trail-a-bike, he loves that Dad helps him pedal up the big hills!

This is a giant blooming cactus, note how tall it is next to Kelly, the top was filled with bees!

Here is the house around the corner from us that I most want to see the inside of...

We have been keeping busy with various parties...here we are heading off to Charlie's friends birthday where we were encouraged to dress up...we are from Guardians of the Galaxy...

Greg=Rocket, Charlie=StarLord, Me="I am Groot"

Our other round of party hopping has been the back to school cocktail parties at each of the schools- so strange to be sipping wine and having snacks all dressed up at your child's school...not something that we do at home!  I am helping out with the Parent's Association here and its so odd to see beer and wine in the annual budget...not something we had to budget for at the old schools!