March Break around Kruger National Park

Our school had its spring break this past we, so we packed up the car and traveled to Kruger National Park and the surrounding area. The trip started in Hazyview, South Africa where we spent three nights at a great African bungalow hut. The kids especially loved this place because it had two swimming pools (one just for kids with a small waterfall), a playground, and a trampoline.

While in Hazyview, we took advantage of some amazing drives. One day, we drove from waterfall to waterfall and got out of the car to see each one. Our favorite was the Mac Mac Pools where we got to swim in the waterfall and the pools that formed from it. Justin and I even jumped off a small waterfall and landed in to the pool below. The girls also LOVED this spot because most of the pools were shallow enough for them to splash around and play on the large rocks.

We also visited a reptile park in Hazyview. As soon as we walked in, the girls got a chance to pet a snake. They both loved it! Taelyn didn't even want to wait her turn and ran right up to it as someone else was petting it and said that she wanted to hold the snake. She also wanted to walk around in the snake pen until we told her that it probably wasn't a good idea. Once we came across the crocodiles, however, she did not ask to jump in with them.

After our time in Hazyview, we spent one night in Kruger National Park - one of the most well-known game parks in the country. During the first afternoon, we encountered a family of warthogs and mongoose from the front porch of our chalet. Then when we left to swim in the pool, some baboons got in to our fridge (which is ironically on the front porch of the chalets) and took most of our food. For the rest of the trip, the girls kept reminding us that the monkeys took our apples.

During the game drive, we saw the usual zebras, giraffes, antelope, and elephants. Then our last find was a group of three cheetahs, crossing the road. That is a pretty rare find for us, so we were happy with our drive and headed home from there.

The girls favorite part of the trip was swimming with us every day. They spent each day in a pool in addition to the encounters with nature. We had a wonderful time and are now getting ready for our next small trip over Easter weekend.

Scrapbook generated with Smilebox

Irish Dancer

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Justin tried to teach the girls a little Irish dancing. Taelyn actually did fairly well with it. She put her hands on her hips and swung her legs around just like Justin was showing her. Then she started rolling around on the ground to put her own spin on the dance! We tried to encourage Kaelia to kick her legs too, but she quickly lost interest.

Kaelia - 18-21 Months

Kaelia has grown so much during the last few months. She is now 23.5 lbs. and 32 inches tall, and she has two new teeth (the bottom two canines) The only new teeth she has left to get are her two-year molars. Kaelia's motor development has also been increasing. She can now climb just about any playground equipment and sit in a big kid swing. She loves to imitate anything that hops - especially frogs as she leaps around the house saying "ribbit" and "hop." And Kaelia is now at the point where she is ready for a big girl bed. We will give more updates when her bed arrives!

Energetic is the best word to describe Kaelia's personality now. She loves to run around, sing, dance, and spin in circles. She is quite the talker these days and can keep up with conversations very well. When we walk across the street to go to the playground, our security guard will say hi, and she always says "hello." Then he will ask "how are you" and she will say "fine." When he asks where she's going, she will say "to the playground." She also can easily communicate things that she wants. "Come on, mama. Play cars in the playroom," is not an uncommon request these days.

Kaelia also has a comical angry side to her. Randomly, she will enter a room with a scowl on her face and say "meow." We ask her who she is and she says an angry cat. Then when she does something she's not supposed to do and needs to take a time out, she has a huge pouty face and puts her head down feeling sorry for herself. It's actually really cute and hard to keep a straight face when we see it.

Cognitively, Kaelia is putting things together more and more each day. She likes to read books with people and by herself, and will often spend some quiet time by herself while she looks through several different books, puts puzzles together, or works on snapping together buttons and clasps.

See the Smilebox below for a better idea of Kaelia's current personality.

A photo album by Smilebox

The Walkers Dominate the AISJ 5K

Our school had its annual 5K run yesterday where students, teachers, staff, and parents enter to either walk the 2.5K or run the 5K. Justin won the race last year in 18:50 while I came in third behind him and a high school freshman boy (but first female) with a time of 21:08. I lost to the boy by only 15 seconds. This year, who knew how much he had improved and if there were others like him. The pressure was on to keep our titles.

The gun went off and immediately, many middle and high school students took off like they were running the 100m dash. Once their sprinter legs wore off after about 200m, Justin quickly moved up to first place and started to pull further and further away from then on. He was in better shape than last year and unchallenged once again. I had my eye on last year's #2 finishers right away. He was ahead of me with one other high school boy, but not by too much. So on I went. With about 1 mile to go, I finally caught up to the two boys; they quickly put in a surge so I couldn't pass them, but that only lasted a few seconds, and there I went right past them. I opened up as much as I could for the remainder of the race, which was mostly downhill, hoping that fresh high school legs would not kick down my "one pace fits all" legs. It was enough, though. I darted to the finish without a fight and crossed #2 in 19:59!

Justin, of course, won the race without any problems. He even took it fairly easy and finished in 18:30. He is pretty happy with the time considering the effort level that he put in, and now he is off for the weekend, completing another bike race. I am extremely excited about my time because it is a huge PPPR (post-partum personal record) for me!

Music Night

The girls had a little rock out session tonight that I thought was worth posting. Kaelia is on lead vocals and Taelyn is a back-up dancer. Kaelia also gets a little dancing in as she says "dancing, dancing, dancing" during the instrumental section of the song.