Sneaky Monkeys

We rang in the New Year with a last-minute party which included about 20 of our friends here in SA.  We decided to let Miranda stay up as long as she wanted for the first time ever.  She made it past 1am when everyone decided it was time to go home.  Needless to say the next day was a bit of a challenge.

We've managed to stay pretty healthy except for a few short-lived colds and a stubborn sinus infection.  The weather is beautiful and rarely reaches above 85F.  The clouds tend to roll in mid-afternoon with an evening rain shower.

I had a lot of troubles shopping the first week of January as everyone was still on holiday.  The grocery stores and malls were all open, but specialty shops and some restaurants shut down for a few weeks since so many people head to Durban and Cape Town.

Miranda headed back to school mid-January and is enjoying her new teacher.  She has about 16 kids in her class with mostly girls, including her best friends from her class last year.  She is continuing her swimming lessons but has yet to make it through one without crying.  She has also begun ballet lessons at her preschool on Thursdays and she really likes walking on her tippy-toes.

Rusty's parents arrived about 12 days ago and we've been busy showing them all the sights.  We spent 3 days this week at the Madikwe Game Reserve which is located just south of the Botswana border, about a 5-hour drive from Jourg.  We stayed at the Tau lodge which was a beautiful fully-catered all-inclusive resort with individual cabins and wonderful scenery.  We went on 4 game rides which took place at 5am and 5pm for three hours each.  The goal is to spot the "Big 5" which includes the elephant, lion, cape buffalo, rhino, and leopard.  We were able to see herds of all of these except the leopard who apparently didn't want to be seen.  The park is estimated to be about 75,000 hectare (apx. 290 square miles) and contains about 35-40 leopards of which only 14 have been photographed and identified, so I didn't have my hopes up too high of spotting one.  The grounds also contained a lot of sneaky monkeys.  We were told to keep our doors and windows closed whenever we left our cabin, but a certain Papa wasn't listening and had his complimentary ginger cookies stolen in a matter of seconds.  I have gone through about 2,500 pictures taken between 3 cameras and have it narrowed down to about 160.  I will post them soon when I get it down to under 50.