Happy Birthday Ella!

My little friend Ella turned 2 years old today!  Can you believe it?  How did we all grow up so fast?  I remember going to her first birthday part just a month or two ago??  Wow...the time flies. 

This birthday party was sooo fun!  There were a TON of people there to celebrate and so so many kids to play with.  Ella lives at Onsea House which is a bed and breakfast here in Arusha that her Dad runs.  So, she has a really great pool and grass area.  Her Uncle is the chef at their restaurant and he made all the yummy food and the cake....so it was really fantastic.  They even found a bounce house to rent!  All my favorite friends were there to play and it was great.  It may be the last time that we are all together.  In just a week or so, Aiden and Ella will be on the plane home to Belgium and Canada so they can meet their new littl siblings (their Mommy's are getting ready to have new babies).  Then, we will leave....and in a few more months after that Sophia will leave with her parents to move to a new adventure.  So, Ella's party was a great opportunity for everyone to be together and enjoy this hot hot sun! Happy Birthday Ella and thank you for being one of my very first friends.  I'm going to miss you!

Brotherly Love

Swimming with David and Arnold

Today was quite a day.  I really didn't feel like behaving today and I knew that my Mommy would give me a bit more leeway than usual.  This is because Arnold and David came for a visit today.  I really have such fun with them and already I look up to them and idolize them.  I think they are just sooo cool.  It's nice that they also get along with each other very well.  Even though we are 8, 6, and 2 we all can spend a fun afternoon handing out together without any problems at all. 

Today we picked them up and headed to Kigongoni Lodge for lunch and swimming. It's very close to their house....so it was easy.  We ate some lunch and then got right to the swimming.  Arnold and David really want to swim and are learning, but they are still a little afraid of the water and the deep end.  They really spent a lot of their day lurking around the edges of the pool, but they really wanted to be there and try!  There was a nice Dutch group of tourists staying there and they played with us.  There was a Winnie the Pooh Beach Ball that we all spent an hour or so batting around in the pool.  David made good friends with the Dutch David and the Dutch David helped him with swimming, even taking him into the deep end.  It was nice to see David being brave and to see this very nice group of people taking such interest in us kids. 

David and Arnold had brought along a lot of tools to help them swim like floaties and the intertube.  I have floaties but they have a big shark painted on them with teeth and I'm kinda scared to put my arm into the sharks mouth.  But, I LOVED the intertube.  I was almost comfortable enough in it, to swim completely on my own (almost but not quite).  After a very busy and loooonnnnnggggg afternoon swimming, we wer all tired out.  Mommy asked the boys if they wanted to go home but they were having fun.  I'm so glad!  So, we went back to our house to watch 101 Dalmations together.  My brothers REALLY like Disney movies.  I get kinda bored watching it, but they were enthralled by all those puppies.  Uncle Gogo made us popcorn and peanut butter sandwiches and milk to snack on while we watched.  How fun!  I can't wait for our next outing with Arnold and David.  I'm so glad that they are MY big brothers!

Pray and Akira - mischevious monkeys at work

Today my friend Pray came over for a playdate and some pizza lunch.  Yummy!  We played inside, and outside, and all around.  And, we were both mischevious monkeys today.  But, boy did we have fun! I love to play with Pray....so glad we found a friend in him! 

Scenes from the day:

A Friends Getaway!

While we are all excited to move back to the States, there will be many things about our East African life that we will miss.  Things that top out that list are our good friends, the amazing view of our twin mountains, Meru and Kilimanjaro that keep us in awe every day, and the fact that all that must be done is to drive out of town (and sometimes in town) to see spectacular wildlife that the rest of the world must view in zoos behind fences.  To celebrate all these things, Mommy and Linda and Aiden and I took a short safari to Ndarakwai.  This is Mommy's MOST favorite place in the whole world probably...and pretty high up on my list too (though I haven't visited Disneyland yet.  However, I'm the kinda kid who won't eat the dessert but begs for more salad at today's lunch table....so who knows??)

Aiden and I had sooo much fun playing the drums, seeing the animals and generally getting ourselves into trouble.  When we are together, we are double trouble and our mommies get a bit desperate to figure out a way to make us behave!  On our night drive safari we saw bushbabies and zebra and bushbacks and impala and wildabeest.  During the day today we saw all that  plus so much more.  My favorites were the baboons.  Aiden's favorites were the elephants (I call them elalals and Aiden calls them etas).  We also got to go to a tree house where we climbed up to view the animals (or aminals as I like to say) come to the watering hole.  All day long I told everyone, "I climbed a tree, I climbed a tree". 

In the morning, as the sun was coming up and Mommy was still sound asleep, I woke up and looked out of our tent and right there next to me was a beautiful impala.  I said, "mommy, see that deer, see that deer"  over and over again.  It took Mommy a few minutes to open her eyes.  She was probably thinking something like this, "OH MY @#@#$!  If I open my eyes and fully wake myself from this lovely dream I am having, there is sure to be no deer there and my son will see that I'm awake and that will be the end of it all, and I will want to pummel him on site."  Luckily....for me, she took the chance and opened her eyes and low and behold, there was a deer staring right at us.  What a nice way to wake up. 

Mommy spent some time with Peter the owner of the property.  It's 11,000 acres and he is doing GREAT things with it.  You could see Mommy light up when Peter started talking about how the key to it all is to protect the grass.  She knew he must have read the Omnivore's Dilemma and be a follower of these sorts of philisophies and sure enough....they seemed to be kindred spirits.  Peter knows the land out in west Kili soooo well and he knows all the owners, which crops are currently being grown, which are needed, which grow and which don't grow, where there are water sources and where the land is too dry, and on and on....

In fact, the rest of us got very bored listening to those two drone on....so Aiden and I decided to play bartender why Mommy talked to Peter and poor Linda was left to try to get us out from behind the bar.  Haha! 

What a fun weekend we had with Aiden and Linda.  Thank you to them for such a wonderful gift to go to Ndarakwai together and have those special times and memories.  When Aiden and I first began to play together a year and a half ago, we were friends, but now....we really love to play together and we really love each other, even when we fight over toys.  Still at the end of the day we desperately want to be around each other and when we have to say goodbye we are so sad.  I will miss Aiden so very much when we leave this place and I know how much Mommy will miss Linda.  Friends like that are not easy to come by.  Don't worry though....even if we don't live right down the street from each other, we'll always be friends!