Pretoria Zoo

I know we are in the middle of Africa and that we should be able to see these animals everyday.  Unfortunately in the city we don't get to see them that often.  We've made a few trips to some of the national parks here hoping to see the elephants and the giraffes.  You'd think for their size they wouldn't be so elusive!

The best part of the whole trip was that we got to rent a golf cart while we were there.  It was nice to be able to zip from exhibit to exhibit.

The seals would swim right up to the window and look at us with their big eyes.  The kids got a kick getting to see them so close.

The hippos were HUGE!  Even the babies were big!

This guy was my favorite!  They are so sleepy and quiet!

We had a fun day at the zoo and here is our view out of the Gondola rides at the end of the day!

Fun in the dirt!

Last weekend we went on a quad ride through the bush!  There was a of fun to be had by all!

We didn't see any animals this time but we did take a break on the Jukskei river. 

Everything is so dry right now we had dirt all over!

Here's the group that we went with.

World Cup Kick Off!!!

Friday was the FIFA World Cup kick-off here in Johannesburg and it is almost impossible to describe to you the excitement here!  The people are so proud of their city and their country! 

The boys and I joined up with one of the "veteran" wives whose been here for about a year and she showed up around to a few places that we haven't seen on  Friday.  We stopped at a store called MAKRO which is like Sam's club or Costco.  It was packed!  Then we went into the Flower Spot, which had flowers, of course, and party decor.  It reminded me of the day after Thanksgiving shopping in the city!  All the shops were closing at 1:00 so the locals could get home to see the opening ceremonies.

Since Tyler's birthday was on Tuesday he decided he wanted to have a good steak dinner!  Doug get's home kind of late so we waited until Friday to go.  We went to Sandton City to Nelson Mandela Square.  This is a popular shopping spot and they have lots of tasty places to eat. 

He chose Trumps.  We went into the restaurant and it was packed wall to wall with people trying to see the TV and the final minutes of the South Africa versus Mexico game.  There were no more tables left to see the TV so we sat in a corner booth, but we could get up and walk across the isle to check out the score. 

When the game was over the people flooded out into the square and the atmosphere was just electric!  People were singing and dancing.  The floor was just vibrating from all the people stomping and cheering!  What an amazing experience it was!  Tyler's not going to forget this birthday for a while.

Precious Faces

So here are some of the pictures from the work day

and New Jerusalem Children's Home!

Here we are kicking off the morning.  Unfortunately we got really lost and missed the safety talk!

There were so many sweet little kids there! They were all so happy!  They were so excited to see all the new people and play with all the little kids.  There was a giant pile of sand out behind the building we were working on and the kids got soooo dirty and had so much fun!  It was great to see the kids interacting with each other even though they could understand very little English and our children could not speak Zulu, their native language.

Here are some pictures of the building they were working on.  We were on the trash collection crew!  There was lots of old building debris and trash.

They had plenty for us to do.  Tyler had fun with the wheel barrow.

Clayton even helped out!

Here's a couple shots of their preschool!  It's very nice and they have a lot of help from volunteers to keep it up and help make improvements!  It was a wonderful experience to meet all the precious children and to help make their lives a little better!

Crossing the globe!!!

We made it here to South Africa on Monday and wow was it a trip!  The boys did absolutely amazing on the plane!  The flight attendants were so patient and the little TV's in the boys' cubes were a Godsend!  They were in total heaven that they did not have to watch the same movie!

The trip to Atlanta was short and sweet!  When we got off the plane we planned to head over to the first class lounge and as we were about to hop on the tram Clayton ran on before us and the doors started to close.  Then Tyler hopped on and recorded voice kept yelling that something was blocking the doors.  Well it was my body!  I thought for sure we were going to loose them and we hadn't even made it out of the country yet!!!   I finally jammed on the door hard enough that it popped back open and let us in!  Whew!

Here are the boys in their first class seats with their TV's and "real" glass glasses of orange juice that they got as soon as we got on.  They continued to feed us supper, a mid-flight snack, and lunch the next day before we got off the plane.  Tyler crashed and slept for 7 hours straight.  I think that boy could sleep through a hurricane.  Clayton slept for about 4 hours, got up and ate and watched a movie, and then crashed out for about 2 more hours.

The airport is an exciting place when you have 14 large bags to retrieve from the baggage carousel.  I didn't get any pictures of that excitement, but here is a picture of us at Kansas City while we were checking in.

We made it to the guest house in Carlswald.  This is where we'll be staying until our house is ready on June 24.  It seems like so long but we've already been here for a week.  I'm sure the rest of the year will fly by just was fast!

The boys are enjoying sharing a room while we are here.  They like chatting at night and I think it makes everything a little less scary when they get to be so close.  They have been getting along so well this week!  Playing with the dogs here at the guest house and playing Wii.

Thursday we got brave and had our hostess here, Vanessa, take us up to the shopping center.  So we were out on our own and we did pretty good.  We had lunch at the coffee shop and then did some shopping.  Poor Doug has had a cold this week, I think all the traveling has caught up with him, so we bought fixings for beef stew.  Yumm!

Saturday we went to one of the New Jerusalem Children's Home and did some clean-up work at the property.  They had a beautiful school and housing area.  A HUGE garden!  Lots of room for the kids to run and play.  These children are so very blessed to have a wonderful group of ladies taking care of them.  They were all soooo sweet and so well taken care of!  They wanted to see your sunglasses and their pictures on our digital cameras.  It was such a sweet sound to hear their laughing!

Sunday I drove around town!  WOW!  The whole wrong side of the road driving thing...  so intimidating!  Not to mention all the people in the intersections trying to sell you junk, I'm so afraid that I am going to hit someone.  I feel 16 again!  The only problem is, instead of learning from my mom, who was a well seasoned driver, I'm learning from my not so seasoned husband.  So it's like a 16 year old learning from a.. 16 1/2  year old.  I'm glad we have insurance!

We don't have a home address yet but if you need to talk to us call us on the magic jack at 816-600-8100 and leave a message if we don't answer.

So that's it for now! Hopefully I can keep it updated since we have the Internet back!  Love you all and talk to you soon!

One car family

We are officially a one car family.  Well I guess we actually have two but the second is in pieces in the garage! 

Poor Doug was sad to see it go!  He has been such a good sport!  Plust he got to eat at Chipotle afterwards!

Happy Early Birthday to My Boys!

Happy early birthday boys! They got to celebrate early since we are leaving so soon! Clayton's birthday is not until September so he was a little confused!

Happy Birthday to Tyler too! He'll be 12 this year!