Kings Dominion

Dave and I both love amusement parks and both grew up going to this one (King's Dominion). He went because he lived in the area; I went because my Aunt and Uncle lived in Virginia and we used to come out here for summer vacation to visit them. Anyway, it's probably been 20 years since either of us have been here, so it was fun to come back and see what we remembered. And it was fun for us to take our kids to an amusement park for their very first time.

Jeep Tours

Road Rally

Scrambler

Unfortunately, we both forgot to bring a camera, so we snapped a couple shots on our phone, but didn't get nearly as many pictures as we would have taken with a camera. So, for the record for my kids to remember and know, Tanner was 40 inches (so he got the blue bracelet) and Lacey was 42 inches (red bracelet). All the rides are rated 1-5. For the most part, they were able to do all the 1 and 2 rides and they obviously weren't able to do any 5's, but they were able to do two 4's (the Log Flume and Triple Spin)! I stayed with Riley and Dave took them on the Log Flume (the only water ride we did). The Waterworks area was opened and so was Snoopy's Splash Dance, but it was in the 60's, so we opted out of both of those. The rides we did do, aside from the above, were Boulder Bumpers (Tanner's favorite), Carousel (Riley even got to do this one!), Snoopy's Moon Bounce, Boo Blasters on Boo Hill (this scared both Lacey and Tanner), the Red Baron, Space Port, Treasure Cave (another one Riley got to do!) and the Avalanche. Obviously with three little kids, Dave and I didn't get to hit up any of the big roller coasters, but we had so much fun with the kids and it was a great day!

Ragnar: Team Jake

These are our dear friends, Pete and Kim and their sweet little Jake. Jake was born with a rare heart condition and ended up requiring a heart and lung transplant at the age of 18 months. This picture was taken last summer right before Jake went in for his transplant.

Jake did amazingly well. He recovered beautifully and came home! Here is a picture of this smiling, spirited little boy just a month or so after his transplant.

Unfortunately, just a few months after his transplant, Jake got sick. He passed away last November. His parents, our wonderful friends Pete and Kim, decided to put their grief and energy toward something positive in Jake's memory. They put together a running team and we all participated in a 200 mile relay race. Twelve of us piled in to our "Team Jake" vans and ran for 30 consecutive hours across the entire state of Maryland in to DC.

Here is Kim about to run her first leg. (We each ran three legs of varying lengths). "For Jake" is written on her arm.

We survived! Here we are at National Harbor after crossing the finish line.

Unfortunately, two of our team members had to head home before we took this picture, but here are 10 of the 12 of us. We started at 7:30am on Friday morning and ran all through the (rainy) night and in to the next day. I had the last leg, and crossed the finish line about 3:15pm on Saturday afternoon. I have never done a long distance relay before and have never run in the middle of the night before, so it was a new experience! But I loved being a part of a team, especially part of Team Jake.

After finishing the race, several of us headed over to Arlington to visit Jake's grave. And after passing the baton (a slap bracelet) to each other for 200 miles...

We made one final pass of the baton.

We love and miss you, Jake! And for all of you who have donated to CHOP (Children's Hospital Of Philadelphia), thank you SO much. Kim and Pete turned this race in to a fundraiser as they both feel that with more research, kids like Jake will be able to live longer post-transplant. They are donating 100% of the funds to CHOP toward pediatric transplant research. Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping them give back to CHOP. If anyone reading this feels inclined to donate or just wants to know more about Jake's story, please visit: http://www.giftofchildhood.org/goto/JakeDay

African Safari

I have wanted to do an African Safari for years. Alas, the stars aligned and thanks to an amazing Travelzoo deal and my Mom and Aunt being willing to take care of the kids, we were able to do it! So, after spending 3 fun-filled days in Cape Town, we flew North to Nespruit Airport in Mpumalanga, a two-hour drive from Kruger National Park.

We did not Safari in Kruger. We did a 3-day Safari in a Private Game Reserve, Sabi Sands, which is connected to Kruger. The benefit of this is that, being a private reserve, our guide, Jono, and our tracker, Juice, were able to take our vehicle off-road and the vehicle did not have to have a cover on it. It didn't have any doors, windows or roof, so nothing blocked our views (in Kruger, you have to stay on designated paths and your vehicle must have a roof.)

A day in the life of a Safari went something like this:

5:30am Wake up call

6:00am Start morning Safari drive

9:30 am Return to lodge and have a DELICIOUS breakfast in this restaurant overlooking wildlife

10:30 - 3:30: Relax, swim, read, eat lunch, etc

3:30: Evening Safari Drive

7:00 Dinner

Start all over again the next day....

Cape Buffalo

At Sunset, our driver would pull over and give us drinks and snacks while we watched the sun set. So beautiful and so fun.

We came across this pride of 18 lions...

There were 8 adult females and 10 cubs.

And we saw Warthog,

Kudu,

Elephants,

Giraffe,

And Leopards! This was the coolest because it was on a night drive. We never saw any tracks, but our guide and tracker could hear the leopard, so we would drive toward the sound, stop and listen some more, drive closer, etc. until we happened upon this beautiful female leopard...

That night, instead of taking us back to the lodge, Jono took us in the middle of the Bush where they had set up a bonfire and dinner tables for the lodge guests. It was beautiful!

The following day, we were lucky enough to come across a Black Rhino! There are very few Black Rhino left in the world as, sadly, they are heavily poached for their horns. Our tracker, Juice, has lived in the Bush for 25 years and he took out his camera to take a picture of this because he said he had never in his life been this close to a Black Rhino. It was so incredible! Sadly, on the day we left, we saw a dead rhino lying by the side of the road. It's horns had been torn from it's head. It was like going from one extreme of enjoying seeing these creatures in their natural habitat in the wild to the other extreme of complete disgust and sadness. But that aside, we feel so lucky we had this sighting!

And Mindy, this one's for you! The famous Tree House (of Bachelor fame).

At the top of the Tree House

And none of this would have been possible without these two incredible women.... my mom and my Aunt JoEllen! Thank you so much for coming to Maryland for a week and taking care of my 3 little kidlets! We are so grateful we had this opportunity! But, it was so fun to come back to these sweet little faces :)

Double Digits

I still have another post or two to do on South Africa, but I want to make sure I document on my baby girl as she hit the double digits while we were on our trip. I can't believe my little Riley Jane is 10 months old. She is looking more and more like a little girl and less and less of a baby and I can't stand it!! She has developed more in the past month than she has in any other month, I think. When we left on our trip, she had started crawling but wasn't very proficient and certainly couldn't climb up a stair or anything else in her way. When we returned 9 days later, she was crawling like a champ, crawling up stairs, crawling on to shelves, in to cupboards and pulling herself to a stand. She even learned her first two words. Her first word was "uh-oh" which she will use appropriately and her second was "Dada" which she will repeat, but I'm not sure she really knows what it means yet. Nice. She'll say Uh-oh and Dada, but not Mama. What's up with that? :) She isn't as easy as she used to be in her perfectly immobile state, but it is so much fun to see her little personality develop and we are all absolutely crazy about her!

Day 3: Robben Island and Table Mountain

On our final day in Cape Town, we boarded the 9am ferry to Robben Island.

Thirty minutes later we arrived and then boarded a bus that took us all around the island. Here is a view of Table Mountain (where we went later in the day) from RI. It's amazing to see the beauty from a place with such an ugly history.

After exploring the island by bus, we entered the prison.

The next 45 minutes we spent with our guide, a former political prisoner who was sentenced here for 25 years for his political beliefs and actions. Fortunately, Nelson Mandela was able to free all political prisoners six years in to his sentence. He now lives and works here on the island, where he was once a prisoner. I found that fascinating.

Nelson Mandela spent 17 years in this prison cell.

After an interesting, yet sobering morning touring Robben Island, we headed over to Table Mountain.

And here is the view of Robben Island from Table Mountain. It was fun to visit both in one day and see the view of the other from where we were.

The sight of last year's World Cup

We loved Table Mountain. We had perfect weather, so we had lunch at the top and then walked around to enjoy views like this.

The whole group enjoying an aerial view of Cape Town.

On our way home from Table Mountain, we drove out to the beautiful Constantia Wine Region (in 1000 Places to See Before You Die book) and walked the grounds of Cellars-Hohenort.

And then we capped off the day by eating at Mama Africa's, famous for it's Wild Game. And we figured, when in Africa......

eat accordingly! We ordered crocodile kebabs, ostrich steak.....

and "Hunter's game Potjie" (the waitress recommended this one). It was like a stew with Kudu and Springbok (two animals I had never heard of prior to this trip, but that now I am intimitely familiar!) Cape Town was absolutely fabulous. We loved every second of our 3-day, 4-night stay there and I would go back in a heart beat!

Diving with Great Whites

On our first day in Cape Town, we went diving with Great White Sharks. We were very fortunate to go diving with Brian McFarland. He has spent his entire life around Great Whites and is frequently featured on shark documentaries on the Discovery Channel and such. We were very UNfortunate, however, to go diving on a day when the swells were as big as our boat and the rocking was intense. We had three friends (Rachel, Emily and Erin) who did this trip as well, but they flew out a few days earlier and came home a few days earlier, so there was only one day where we overlapped and we all decided to dive with the Great Whites on that day. Gansbaai is approximately a 2 hour drive east of Cape Town. From there, we hopped on a speed boat and in about 15-20 minutes, we were in "Shark Alley." The boat was anchored and the swells started rocking us pretty good. Rachel started throwing up. Next was Erin. But we were all determined to do what we had come there to do! We spent about 40 minutes in the cage and saw 9 sharks. It was AMAZING! But as soon as we got out of the cage, it hit Dave and then me. We all got so sick that they sent for a hospital boat to come rescue us and take us back to shore. And therefore, we didn't get any pictures! urgh! But, a special thank you to Emily (the only one in our group who wasn't in the cage with us) for taking video even while she was sick and a special thank you to Rachel for sending me this file as my only documentation of what we did. And, my hats off to Rita, who not only braved the cage diving, but was the sole hold-out in our group to not get sick!

Cape Town

Dave and I just returned from an amazing trip to South Africa. We both love to travel and have been fortunate to do quite a bit of it, but we both agreed that, while we have loved many places we have been for different reasons, if we had to pick one favorite, this trip would probably be the one. The people were friendly, the food was fantastic, the views were beautiful, the wildlife was incredible and there was just so much to do, see and experience. We spent 3 days in Cape Town and this post covers our second day (I will post on Day 1 later when I have some more pictures I'm waiting to get). This is beautiful Camps Bay.

Next, we went to Hout Bay and took a little boat ride out to Seal Island. On our way there, we came across this school of dolphins. There were dozens of them!

Seal Island

We then continued our drive toward the Cape of Good Hope, but stopped along the way for scenic views like this.

Cape of Good Hope

There were wild baboons....

and Ostrich. (I call this Dave's National Geographic shot)

Next, we stopped at Cape Point. We did this trip with Dave's parents, Larry and Rita since doing an African Safari (more on that later) was on Larry's "Bucket List" and Dave wanted to do it with him. Here is Rita starting out the hike to the top of Cape Point.

And was that climb ever worth it! We enjoyed views like this....

And this....

And this.

Our next stop was at Boulders Beach. Boulders Beach is no ordinary beach.

It's a beach full of wild African Penguins! African Penguins are an endangered species as the uncontrolled harvesting of penguin eggs (as a source of food) nearly drove the species to extinction by the end of the 20th century. Fortunately, they are doing better now. Very fun to see all of them and very cute!

We decided to cap off the day with high tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel (in the 1000 Places to See Before You Die book).....

where we enjoyed this spread.....

and this view. What a day!