Happy Halloween!

Alright, alright, I know it's a few days early, but there was a halloween party at the Embassy tonight, and aside from watching a ridiculous amount of Halloween themed movies, it was my celebration for this year. Since they don't celebrate Halloween here, we had to make Jack and Clare's costumes: Jack went as a zombie, wearing a cut up version of one of my undershirts and covered with paint, and Clare dressed as static cling with socks and wash cloths pinned all over her clothes and her hair done up in one of my wonderful experiments.

I do actually have a decent picture of them, but I thought this represented their personalities more accurately.

I opted out of dressing up this year, but I did make some pretty cute cookies! They turned out pretty well, thank goodness, considering they took the better part of two days.

The party included trick-or-treating, a costume contest, magic tricks, and of course, bobbing for apples.

This is Alex. She and her parents moved here a few weeks ago, and she'll be in first grade at Jack's school, starting Monday.

I'm off to watch Halloween Town now, so happy Halloween everyone! 

Kruger National Park

This weekend Clare and Jack had a short break from school, so we took the opportunity to head up to Kruger Park in South Africa from Friday to Monday. Kruger has the most diverse range of wildlife of all the parks throughout Africa: from the Big Five to the Small Five and everything in between. We were able to catch a glimpse of four of the big five animals, including the lion, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhino. Unfortunately the leopard eluded us, but hopefully we'll be able to see one during another visit.

By going to Kruger we got the chance to see many animals in their natural habitat as opposed to seeing them fenced up in a zoo. We saw giraffes grazing just feet from our car, a whole herd of elephants crossing the road in front of us on their way to the watering hole, and even a lion slinking through the long bush grass. This trip was an amazing experience. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to visit again, and I'm not the only one- Clare asked as soon as we were leaving the park if we could come back next weekend.

For more information on Kruger visit the Park's website.