20 July 2010 - Charlotte gets braces

Today was the day, Charlotte got braces. Thankfully her teeth are not too bad and the orthodontist estimates that she will only need them for 12-15 months. Poor thing, her mouth is very sore tonight. Doesn't she look great with her shiny new smile?

Love, Shannon

18 July 2010 - Mukuvisi Horse Safari

Today, Charlotte and I went on an hour long horse safari at our local conservation woodlands. The park is located less than 5 minutes drive from our house and we try to get there often as we can for a safari or to just a walk around the park. Occasionally the ZSPCA sponsors a fundraising dog walk and fun show at Mukivisi, Kodi and I always try to attend.

Love, Shannon

10 July 2010 - Kodi turns 1

Today is Kodi's first birthday, hard to believe we have had him for almost 9 months! He is such a part of our family. We love him!

Love, Shannon

4th of July in Vero -- Our holiday is almost over

We enjoyed the fireworks in Vero Beach for the 4th of July. Can't believe we head back to Africa in 2 days. Our holiday sure went by quickly.

Love, Shannon

My new favorite marine mammal - the Manatee

The back of our rental house in Vero Beach backed to a canal where one morning we had the amazing opportunity to see and interact with a couple of manatee. They were right off the dock and we gave them some fresh water from the hose. They seemed to really enjoy it. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them and we never did see them again that close. They would occasionally swim around the canal area but never came close again.

Love Shannon

Locks of Love

Charlotte decided to get her hair cut. After having long, curly hair for so long she was ready for a change and excited to learn that her hair was long enough to be donated to Lock of Love. Check out her new "middle school" 'do and the hair going off to make a wig for a cancer patient. She was so excited about the program, she plans to grow her hair out again just so she can donate it once more!

Love,

Shannon

To the Beach... Vero Beach that is.

What a great time! We LOVE LOVE LOVE the beach!

More Magic Kingdom and the end of the Disney Adventure

Our 8 days at Disney went by so fast. We saw everything we wanted to and had so much fun. Would we go back? Certainly not in the summertime. The heat was really quite unbearable. I think our next Disney adventure will be back to my beloved Disneyland in California.

Love,

Shannon

2nd Favorite Park - Disney Hollywood Studio

The Magic Kingdom was by far our favorite park, even though some of the best roller coasters were not there. Our 2nd favorite Disney park was the Disney Hollywood Studios park with the Rockin' Roller Coaster and the Tower of Terror! We finally did the Toy Story Mania ride that everyone raved about, we thought it was eh. The best part of the ride, IMO, was the wait with all the over sized classic toys. Nothing quite like a 12 foot tall tinker toy! Check out the giant "barrel of moneys." Overall, this park had the most Disney "feel" after the Magic Kingdom.

Love,

Shannon

Day 2 and exhaustion already sets in - 21 July 2010

Day 2 at Disney World and exhaustion has already set in. Had I mentioned before how unbelievably hot it is in Orlando? OMG... we had no idea. Check out Lucas, he picked up a pirate rifle last night after our turn on the Pirates of the Caribbean. He has not let it out of his sight since.

Love,

Shannon

Animal Kingdom 20 July 2010

Our first full day at Disney World, we found our way to the Animal Kingdom park were our favorite ride was hands down Everest Expedition with the Yeti! It was a great roller coaster with some surprises thrown in. Because we live in Africa, we skipped the safari and other animal related attractions, we stuck to the E ticket rides. While waiting for a fast pass (indispensable in my opinion) I spied the gibbon island and the beautiful golden mama with a baby latched on tight. I could have watched them for hours. Dinner was at the Contemporary resort at their highly rated California Grille. It was fantastic and the view was outstanding, looking directly out to the Magic Kingdom, which we explored for the first time after dinner. Now this is really Disney!

Love, Shannon

Our first glimpse of Disney World - Epcot - 19 July 2010

After showers and a bit of a rest, we all headed out to Epcot for our first taste of Disney World. Our entire trip was governed by our meal plan as we were required to make our dinner reservations 6 months, yes, 6 months in advance! Our first night dinner was at the Biergarten in German world at Epcot. It was fantastic! The polka band only made it that much better ;-) On our way back to the hotel we met with one of the infamous Florida thunderstorms and took refuge in Mexico World. We stayed their for about an hour, there was no end in sight to the torrential downpour. We finally gave up, bought very expensive Disney plastic ponchos, kicked off our flip flops and ran barefoot through ankle deep puddles to the monorail and back to our hotel. It was great!!! Everyone slept like the dead. Can't wait to explore the rest of the place.

Love,

Shannon

We made it!

We made it to Orlando, managed to negotiate the Disney Magical Express somehow as we were all in a bit of a fog. We met up with Jordan at the airport and all made it to the Polynesian resort. Our room was just great... thanks to Monique for giving us so much wonderful advise on managing our first Disney World vacation!

Back to the States - The Adventure begins - June 18, 2010

We are off on our first trip back to the States in nearly a year. Our itinerary is Harare (Zimbabwe) to Johannesburg (South Africa) (2 hours), 3 hour layover in Johannesburg, Johannesburg to Dakar (Senegal) (8 hours), 1 hour layover in Dakar, Dakar to Washington D.C. (8 hours), 2 hour layover in Washington D.C., Washington D.C to Orlando (2 hours). This is daunting, even to us and we are pretty well traveled folks. 26 hours of travel is never a good time, though we try to make it as painless as possible with every possible piece of electronic gear known to man. We had a total of 4 iPods, 3 Nintendo DS, 1 Kindle, 1 computer and 1 dvd player.

We arrived in South Africa right in the middle of the world cup. The airport was beautiful, renovations really went to plan. Our most important purchase while in Johannesburg were vuvuzelas, the South Africa noise makers. What is a soccer game without enough noise to deafen 20,000 people!

I will next surface on the blog in Orlando. Wish us luck!

Love, Shannon