Sunday Walk

 Tony and I took a nice, long walk on Sunday afternoon.  Avi loved playing at the dog park and walking with us.

This is the skeleton army that has formed down the street from us.

Deb's London and Paris Trip

 These are just a smidgen of the pics.  The quality is so bad compared to now.  The Eiffel Tower pic doesn't even look real, haha.

After Janet and I finished our touring in South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe, we had a stop over in London planned instead of a lay over.  We flew to London, toured and then took the Eurostar to Paris for 4 days.  Here are some pics of Paris.  We even got to go to church.  Because it was December, I got to sing the French Christmas hymns just a year after I'd sung them on my mission.  I arrived home from my mission on December 22nd, 1999 and flew back from my study abroad in December 2000.  It was an amazing experience.

South African Adventure

 The kids and I were nostalgic on Sunday morning and looked through my photos of my internship/travel in South Africa.  I have so many more photos but I was able to scan a few so I'll start with these.

In August 2000, I moved to South Africa through the BYU international studies program.  I had to take a class during the summer quarter to study Xhosa culture as I'd be living with a Xhosa family.  We read about Nelson Mandela, studied Apartheid.  My dream of going to Africa was going to come true.  I lived there for four months.  I took a few courses independently and also did a social work internship with the Child Welfare Agency.  I'm so happy to have had this experience.  I met incredible people.  I need to dig through my journal to put names with pictures, but my heart is happy because of every person I met.

We rode to town on taxis or these mini buses.  People would squish inside.  We were the only white people I remember riding the taxis.  We would point which direction we wanted to go.  One person self designated to be the money collector for the driver.  We would pass our Rands up to the money collector who would give them to the driver.  I met so many fun people.  I even got to practice wrapping a baby like all of the beautiful mamas there.

Here is my sweet family that I stayed with.  One memory I have of this living room is watching the Bold and the Beautiful.  American soap operas were a big deal.  They were also years behind in their episodes.  I never caught up when I returned to America, but I have that fun memory.

We got to attend church with some amazing people.

We even got to go on a temple trip with our ward family.

One adventure was riding horses at a wildlife refuge.  All of the animals here were animals it was safe to see in the wild.  We rode through fields and saw giraffes, zebras, water buffalo, gazelles, springbok and others.  I even got to gallop for the first time here.  During my BYU horse riding P.E. course, we cantered but we couldn't gallop in the arena.

At the end of our ride, a giraffe got into the horse corral so we got to be Annie Oakley and ride around and shepherd the giraffe out of the horse corral.

In East London, South Africa, we lived near the Indian Ocean and got to visit it regularly and enjoy the beauty.

Our Xhosa family took us to the rural lands to meet their extended family.  They slaughtered a cow and gave the heart and lungs to the elders and the liver to us because we were guests.  The kids got the entrails.

In this picture we are gathered around and they are showing us how they squeeze the contents out of the entrails before they cook it.

At the end of our time, we traveled.  Janet and I took a safari through Krueger National Park.  I have so many pictures but here is a baboon, elephant and ostrich were were all over and super dangerous.

This is the cell where Nelson Mandela stayed on Robben Island.

I really need to get all of my pictures and my journal scanned.

Avi's Sleepover

 Ensign Ranch doesn't allow pets so we had to figure out something for Avi.  Meesa, Tom and Carley were kind and let Avi come over.  First she escaped from their house and got away.  They called us on the way and we turned around.  We said a prayer and started driving back.  Tom called us back and they had Avi again.  So now she can open round doorknobs as well.  Silly dog!  But they barricaded the doorway and the rest of the weekend was great.  She even got to go on a hike with Meesa, Carley and Carol Ahlfors, Duba and Peaches.

Camping at Ensign Ranch

 We stayed in a cabin at Ensign ranch this weekend.  It was fun.  It was snowy and then rainy but a lot of fun memories were made.  First Jase showed us some cool dance moves during lunch and Max was a goof ball.  

Look at Jase's Autumn snow man, lol.

Then the Hanes came and we had more adventures!

Matt told some scary stories and we played Mafia!

We played outside when it wasn't rainy.  We even explored the haunted bus and found some more interesting mushrooms.  It was a really good time and we love camping with the Hanes.