Charlie's Three Moms

My friends from the Coast Guard, Megan-my classmate and Erica, who was two years behind us (but recently retired) came to see South Africa.   Greg had to be in the US for much of their visit, so when we traveled it was the six of us, the night before they left Charlie said it was going to be weird without Auntie Megan and Auntie Erica, because it was like he had three Moms, he went on to say  "The nice one, the fun one, and the mean one".  Here we are left to right Megan=Fun One, Erica=Nice one me=Mean One????

We all loved having them especially Kelly and Katie who love all visitors but especially ones that inspire them, after their visit they both want to go to the Coast Guard Academy! (Kelly always wanted to but this is big for Katie)

Our highlights were visiting the elephants at Bela Bela.

There was a new baby elephant born who is disrupting their entire show!  They do an elephant interaction where they go down the line and have each elephant show you something cool.  However, little Bella was a crazy girl and was going up and down the rows, causing trouble! However- she was ADORABLE!

 So cute, but such a handful!

Little Bella walking down the line and stirring up trouble!

Megan is brave enough to go for the kiss from the elephant...Kelly captured this!  I'm not clever enough to come up with a really good comment...I'll save that for my readers!

Then we headed to Ukutula to stay over night and see all the lions. The lions were fun but Kelly and Katie were our entertainment at the campfire!

 Baby hyena and lion that are friends now, but would never be in the wild.

Charlie patting the baby hyena..

 Enjoying the fire waiting for the teenagers to entertain us!

 Erica and the baby lion.

Megan and the cheetah.

In the morning Megan and Erica did a walk with the lions, they even got to see the lions go up in trees!

Our next adventure (after a few days of school for the kids) was meeting up in Cape Town for a weekend with our friends who let us all come to stay.  The kids were happy to have their buddies and we got to see the penguins....

We also checked out one winery that is famous because it has ducks that do a parade as they go to and from the fields every day as they go to eat the snails off the grape vines.

  I still don't know how you pronounce the name of this place...i

 So much to do, we opted for the tasting room..

 Interrupted our tastings to go see the adorable, hard working ducks coming back for a break...

 Loving the tasting room, very South African you get to sit down and relax and try all the wines.  In our Sonoma trip you just stand at the bar and taste and move on to the next winery...

The tasting room in the old farm house, this is classic "Cape Dutch" Architecture, which we always point out to Katie now, she got it wrong on a test when we first came, how was she to know what Cape Dutch Architecture was?

We enjoyed having the tide pools steps from our friends house and beautiful ocean views from every room in the house-even the shower in the guest bedroom has a view of the ocean-you can't go wrong!

 Kids and I checking out the tide pools we found starfish, sea anemone and a few other treasures.

View from the deck- amazing!

Sadly we all had to leave Cape Town, Charlie cried the entire ride to the airport and the whole plane ride back to Pretoria.  The only way I could get him to stop was to make his Christmas list for Santa and also to make a list of all the things we want to do when we go back.

Megan and Erica hit Vic Falls and Chobe then made their way back for a final night in Pretoria...we were all bummed to see them go...but were so happy that they came!

Hopping Halloween

Such a whirlwind these last few weeks, we did a big Halloween since it will be our last one in SA and we try to show all of our South African friends what a wonderful holiday it is. (it really isn't celebrated in South Africa) Kids got to wear three costumes, one to trick or treat at my office, one for our giant Halloween party and one for actual trick or treating on the night.

 Office trick or treat.Katie=Green M&M, Charlie=Captain Hook Kelly=Girl from Justin Beiber Sorry Video

 From our Haunted House...Charlie was in the morph suit and would come off the wall, look closely, I only got this with flash on the camera, otherwise you really couldn't see him!!

Greg was David S. Pumpkins for all you Saturday Night Live fans, luckily two skeletons rolled in to the party to be his partners!

 Best costume of the night, she came as her 3rd grade teacher!!!!

 Our friend Liz came to work in our haunted house, she carried a doll and walked behind people with her creepy hair...very scary!

Before we set off trick or treating, here are bunch of Charlie's pals, this time he is MacGyver! 

(he even got a red swiss army knife for his birthday)

For trick or treating I organized a loop in our neighborhood, it was a beautiful night and so fun to see lots of people out!

My good friends Megan and Erica from our Coast Guard days rolled into town the morning after Halloween, so it was hectic...we went on many adventures with them, more to follow!