African Vacation Pictures - Part two

Out of Africa

It took 34 hours from first plane ride to pulling up in the drive-way to get home, but I am home. What a fabulous trip. It will take several months to realize just all that we saw. A once in a life time, amazing kind of trip.

We've been home for a few days and I have had some time to go through the photos and I'm still not sure just how I am going to share them all with you, there are only 3,487 of them and I am an amateur.

So for this morning I thought I would start with day one. We arrived at the first camp, Camp Mala Mala in South Africa, just in case any of you were thinking about taking a trip like this, it was AMAZING. The accommodations were first rate, the people lovable and the animals plentiful. I didn't get it together enough to get pictures of the room here, but I did get some of the grounds.

From here on the pictures get a little graphic, we saw a monkey running by itself, which was unsual and then we were startled by a herd of male Kudo's running and then we heard a troop of monkey's screaming.



And then we discovered just what all the commotion was about. This young female leopard has just killed one of the monkeys. Our guide/tracker pulled us up right beside here as she ate. As long as we stayed sitting down and in the vehicle she seemed to not mind that we were there.

Oh my goodness she was beautiful. This just may be my new favorite animal and funny when I got home one of the first things I saw in the fashion mags was that leopard print is in this year. How 'bout that.

Next up was two lioness and their cubs. They had made a kill earlier in the day and so we were able to watch them munch on a Kudo.

Later that evening on our way back to the camp we used the spot light to see some of the animals that come out at night and found this hyena and a male leopard.

And that was the first day.

Blog Break

We're going on a vacation.

It's true.

A bit of an extened vaca. One thing I can tell you for sure, when I get back I am going to bore you to death with my vacation pictures. That's a promise. Because your my friends and that's what friends do.

See ya.

Summer Pics

Landscaping Court Yard - Reveal! Finally

Girls it's been three years in the waiting but the waiting paid off, it is more beautiful than I ever imagined and exactly what I had hoped for.

Welcome, come on in.

I still can't believe it myself. I can pick out paint colors, decide what the floors will be, pick the granite from thousands, choose tile for the kitchen and bathrooms, even make decisions on hinges, door knobs, cabinet styles, and how high the light switches should be or how low a chandelier should hang. I can even look through isle after isle of fabric and make a decision but one step into the realm of landscaping and I go dumb.

A before pic after the weeds had been dug out.

This is Melissa, she is the genius behind the landscape design. I felt so sorry for her and her crew, it was hot hot hot!

Even the plants were suffering.

This is Scott, the other half of the genius and Melissa's honey.

This . . . well this is a good looking guy, I forgot his name but he's pretty.