African Lion Safari

On Saturday we took the kids to African Lion Safari.

The wild animals walk wherever and are not bothered by the cars full of gawkers. Occassionally a safari truck will have to steer one of them off the road to get the cars moving. That's what happened after I took the picture below. The lion was walking along when, all of a sudden, a zebra striped pickup truck came barrelling toward her and ran her off the road.

The monkeys were the most fun to watch. They are crazy! We were laughing at them the entire ride through this area. I wish I had of taped what the kids were saying because they were just as funny as the monkeys.

I was always told not to drive your own vehicle through the park because the animals can do a lot of damage to it, especially the monkeys. Imagine my surprise when Mike, who is neurotic fondly attached to his car, dared to drive it through. I was seriously prepared for the rest of the day to be spent cheering him up. We ended up having only had one rider who sat on the mirror and occassionally peeked in to check us out. At one point a monkey jumped off of the van behind us and onto our trunk. The thump it made was soooo loud I thought there was going to be a dent for sure...the only evidence was some monkey footprints. *whew*

He stayed with us right until the end of the monkey section. I still wonder how he knew it was time to get off! Bye, bye monkey....

All of these zebras, rhinos and giraffes came right at us! The safari truck had delivered some food for them and they walked right in front of our car to get to it. We were all amazed. It really was something to see.



This giraffe was looking right in windows. He looked at us a little sideways and then walked on. Why?!?!

This guy (below) came the closest to doing damage to the car. After he left a slimey residue on the windshield from his nose he opened his mouth and started gnawing on the mirror....like a dog with a bone. I told Mike he better step on it and get out! Again *whew*

The Safari has 3 neat shows to watch. After the elephant show the audience had the chance to touch the elephants. I am told they are hairy!

More Pictures

Can you believe that people actually lived here?

The following 3 pictures are the only existing pictures of Canada Day! Kaitlyn took the ones of Mark while we were at the fireworks.

Toronto Trip 2 of 3

Mike and I were back in Toronto this past weekend but this time with the kids for a little family vacation. We were true tourists and joined the throngs of people who were also enjoying the sights of this truly beautiful city. On Saturday we did a tour of Casa Loma. Just as we were starting the tour Jade said "I think I just saw Emily." I told her she didn't see Emily but probably somebody who looks like her. A few minutes later we were standing behind Emily and her family watching a demonstration and didn't realize it was them right in front of us. Pam turned around and saw Jade and was thinking to herself how much that little girl looked like Jade. (We really are intellegent people!) They were in Toronto because their daughter Kaitlyn, who plays for Ontario, was at a basketball camp. I still can't believe we went to the same tourist attraction at the same time on the same day. It was a lot of fun being with them for the tour and then out for a late lunch later.

There were people dressed in costume this weekend for the Renaissance Festival.

Here we all are in a turret in the castle. We climbed a ton of stairs during this tour. Comparable to the Great Wall! Well, it seemed like it anyway.

After lunch we went our separate ways and our family headed to the Rogers Centre for a tour. Next week we are here again for a game against the Yankees. Here is Mark is in the press box.

This is a picture of the wedding Jade created. Using her imagination (and you may need yours to see this) she created this scene: the bride is the ketchup (see the veil) the groom is the Tabasco sauce (see the hat) The flower girl is the salt, the ring bearer is the pepper, the preacher is the glass of crayons, the napkin is the aisle and the ripped pieces of paper is the confetti.

On Sunday we spent the afternoon at the Science Centre. This place is amazing, I just love it there. Mark did an aging experiment. He programmed the machine to show what he will look like 50 years from now at age 60. He was a little freaked out by it!

Now at age 10:

How he may look at age 60:

Some More Vacation Pictures

• The Atrium: What we saw when we first boarded.

• The Caribbean Princess docked at St. Thomas US Virgin Islands.
  

• Our cozy little room! The bunks were folded up on the wall during the day and down like this at night. Those ladders were a little in the way!!
  

This big screen showed movies and concerts during the day. At night they had Movies Under the Stars and supplied blankets and popcorn for your viewing pleasure!

• Jade eating the berries from my daiquiri!
  

• Mark ate pizza numerous times each day. Jade's dining choice was hot dogs. It was great that we could individually choose what we wanted to eat every day. I wish we had a buffet in my kitchen!

It looks like we have the ship to ourselves in this picture.

• Playing mini golf.
  

• Making a wish.
  
  The kids went to the kid's club a lot. They were so excited about all the fun things that were planned for them to do. They were in different clubs and both made some new friends. One day they got to colour t-shirts. Jade is modelling hers.

Like all good things the vacation had to come to an end. We were ready to come home and see Toonces. He must have missed us because all Sunday night he was meowing soooooo loud and it sounded like he was loosing his voice. He even jumped on my bed twice in the middle of the night and he has never done that in all his 17 years.

The Ports

The first port of call was St. Maarten's. We spent lots of time wandering and looking through shops. The jewelry stores were a magnet to Jade. She tried to pull Mike into each and every one of them. The streets were narrow and made of stone, it was so pretty. We found some shelter outside some shops during a rainshower and did some people watching.

• Mark playing a different kind of drum outside one of the many, many shops. The atmosphere reminded us of Silk Alley in Beijing.

• The kids were collecting shells along the beach in St. Maartens. They got some fantastic shells to bring home. The sand was gorgeous...soft and white and warm. Notice the palms blowing. During the rain they were bending over at the tops. The sky is so blue in this picture that it's hard to believe it even rained.
  

• The next port we stopped at was St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. This place is where you need to go if you are in the market for gems. There is 400 shops downtown and my guess is 300 fo them are diamond/jewelry stores and 100 are T-shirt/souvenier shops. We shopped but didn't buy anything. Mike found a watch he liked but the $37,000 price tag on it made him quickly change his mind!
  

• Before we boarded the ship Mike and the kids found a bunch of iguanas sunbathing on the rocks. They started throwing bits of granola bars at them and got a kick out of watching them walk over each other trying to get the food.
  

• Mark, with the Virgin Islands behind him.
  

• The final port was Princess Cays. It is the cruise lines private beach in the Bahamas. The water was so gorgeous. Sometimes it was tropical green, sometimes it was bright, bright blue. We snorkelled here and it was amazing. We took pictures underwater but we have to send the film to be developed. It was difficult to see through the viewfinder so I'm not even sure if they will turn out.
  Jade is all geared up to go snorkelling but this is as far as she got! She was much happier feeding the fish in the shallow water with grandpa right beside her!

Mark loved snorkelling! He caught onto to it so fast and was so excited with all the different fish he saw. Look how clear the water is at Mark's feet.

• Mark and I heading out into the reefs to see what we can see! That's our ship in the distance.

• Jade loved feeding the schools of little fish that were swimming all around her.
  

Sunkissed.

The cruise is over and we are back home shovelling and chipping ice off the driveway. Although we were in the Caribbean the weather at the start of the trip was not perfect. We had rain (Which was advantageous to getting a lounge chair by the pool. Showers last less than 5 minutes but everyone runs to shelter to stay dry.) Jade and I got the best spot for tanning during one of these showers! We had strong gale winds. While we were in St. Maarten's it rained and the wind was soooo strong that I had a hard time believing that a hurricane would bring even stronger winds. You could see the palms bending over and hear stuff clattering as it was blown down the street.

We took over 200 good pictures. I'll post more but for now here are just a few of the kids.

• Jade and Mark love being in hot tubs. Why anyone would want to sit in one while it's 77 degrees outside is hard for me to understand, but people do it.

• Melchor, our room attendant, left us chocolates on our pillows every night. Mike and I never got to taste the chocolates.....
  

• Mocktail hour! Strawberry Daiquiri's sure are delicious. Jade fell asleep before she was finished her's so Mike got the bartender to put some vodka in it for me!
  

• Mike took this video the first night during the strong winds. You could feel the boat rocking the wind was so strong. I had horrible dreams about the kids being blown off into the ocean...like how a piece of paper gets blown away. I couldn't catch them.