First Day of School/Nicholas' Birthday/Naivasha - Crescent Island

Yeah!  School is in session!  Nicholas and Katie are very excited and thrilled to be back in school after a 7 month break...so is Mom!  They have both made some friends and are enjoying riding the school bus.  Nathan had to sit in the bus before it departed...

Saturday, we had a surprise for Nicholas' birthday.  We got up at 4:30 a.m. and soon departed for Crescent Island on Lake Naivasha.  It is a privately owned wildlife sanctuary.  There are wildebeest, zebras, giraffes and over 400 species of birds.  Apparently at night there are hyenas that come over and hunt but during the day they hide.  It was spectacular, our guide Mumo was wonderful and showed us around the sanctuary.  He even helped us find a 2-week old baby giraffe.

Hi Mom, I am fine they are not THAT much bigger than me!

Which one, which one?

Nicholas ran a good race against the baby giraffe...he was tired!

Katie chasing the giraffes.

I was a bit nervous with the kids chasing the animals but Mumo continued to calm me and say it was alright.  Can you imagine chasing giraffes and wildebeests?  The kids loved it!  After exploring the island, we took a boat ride on the lake and saw many hippos, fish eagles and a multitude of birds.  There are over 800 hippos in the lake!  It was wonderful and we all enjoyed getting outside and walking a bit.

This hippo died in the owners garden about 15 years ago...what a set of jaws!

Look at the Creator's paintbrush, this is a kingfisher, there were many varieties on the lake.

Fish Eagle getting lunch!

Monday, was Nicholas' 9th birthday.  He went to school...the first year he has celebrated his birthday at school.  I took cupcakes and the kids sang.  He shares his birthday with another boy in his class named Daniel...he is not the youngest anymore since children are still turning 9 through October.  He is very excited about this.  Last night we had a special dinner of macaroni and cheese (made with Velveeta...a very special treat) and oven fried chicken tenders which we dipped in Chick-Fil-A sauce!  Some very dear friends from Texas brought us these goodies a couple of weeks ago and we appreciate it very much.

This week, Nathan and I are home alone, which is very nice...after all I am an introvert and all of the togetherness has been, well a bit together.  :-)  Tim is heading to South Africa for a meeting later this week and we had to take the week off from language.  It is really nice to get some things organized around the house, I feel like we have just thrown things into closets to get them out of our way.  It feels really good to get back into the school routine and the kids are loving Rosslyn.