I forgot to mention this in last week’s post, but Mikayla has truly embraced the African way of life.  If we are out on a home visit and she has to use the restroom we go in the bush.  We have had to do this several times and she doesn’t seem to mind.  The other day I was at the hostel helping out with the after school programming and Mikayla came up to me asking to go to the bathroom.  There was only five minutes left so I told her I would take her in just a minute.  Next thing I know I look over and she is standing in the middle of the play yard, pulling down her pants and popping a squat.  When I rushed over to her to take her to the bathroom (they tend to frown on peeing outside at the hostel) she said, "What mom, I was just peeing in the bush!".  I then had to explain that the hostel was not the bush and thoroughly confuse her I think!  I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was slightly embarrassing. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday Ben had an overnight meeting in Ezulwini.  Mikayla and I thought it would be fun to tag along and do some touristy things while he was in meetings.  The rain slightly changed some of those plans, but we still had a lot of fun.  The hotel room had a bath tub so we took full advantage of it!  On Tuesday Mikayla had three baths (one being a "pool" with daddy) and I had one too.  On Wednesday she had another bath.  Needless to say she was a very clean and very happy girl!  She misses baths in a big bathtub.  On Tuesday it was really too rainy to do anything outside so we walked around one of the shopping centers, grabbed lunch and hung out at the hotel.  On Wednesday it was wet, but not raining.  So after we packed up the room we headed to one of the game parks and bought a Wild Card.  A Wild Card will allow us to get into a lot of game parks for free or discounted prices.  It was about $100 for the whole family and it will last us a year.  I say money well spent.  While in the park Mikayla and I drove around for a bit, almost got stuck in the mud several times and saw lots of animals.  Since it is a smaller park they were mostly in the antelope family.  Afterwards we hit up a little café for lunch and then headed to pick Ben up.  It was a relaxing two days and I think we all had fun.

Mikayla enjoying her bath time!  Shot is blurry, but you get the picture!

We saw lots of beautiful birds, but had our old camera with us so didn’t get any great shots. 

We saw a lot of these guys, but they are so fast it was hard to get a decent shot.

By far the coolest thing we saw at the game park.  When we got back to Ben he asked us what we did and Mikayla promptly responded, "We saw a baby zebra eating from its mommy."  Clearly it made an impression on her too.

Doesn’t he just look relaxed?

Afterwards we went to pick up our car.  Unfortunately, a couple things weren’t fixed on it yet so we are still waiting.  The mechanic had to order some parts so who knows when it will be finished.

In the last few weeks the power outages have been ridiculous!  We have lost power about 20-25% of the time.  Most of the time it hasn’t been a big deal because it is at night.  It just makes things a little stuffy and hotter.  Yesterday the power was off and on for most of the afternoon.  It would be off for 30 minutes and come back on for 2 and then go off again.  I am not sure how much more of these outages our poor fridge/freezer food can handle! 

On Wednesday both of the Sisters returned from the US. Sister Barbara had been gone for six weeks and Sister Diane for two.  It was great to see them both and I think Mikayla was even excited.  They came back and got right to work on Thursday.  While in the states they got to visit with Katie who was a volunteer here when we arrived.  She sent some fun stuff for us back with the sisters (thanks Katie)!  Mikayla was really excited about some new stickers, and of course all the candy is pretty much gone.

Mikayla opening her stickers from Katie!

Sunset over the river on our return trip home Wednesday.

On Saturday morning we took another walk in the bush.  If you didn’t read Ben’s post on it, you should.  It looked much different than it did two months ago when we went.  Mikayla has grown so much since the last bush walk that we were able to go further without her tiring down.  This time we made it all the way to the river and got to see some wonderful views of cattle egrets. 

And for all of you Toddler School followers, I just wanted to let you know that due to interruptions we will continue on with the Letter F next week so I will not be making a post this week.  We only had two days of school, so I will combine those two days with next week for our Letter F week!