Monday, December 14, 2009
SAFARI TIME . . .
AND THE ALL CLEAR FOR OPAL

My friend Kurt Noonan let me borrow a book entitled, “Quiet Time For Fathers”. The back cover says, “Fathers often find themselves running short of many things – money, patience and energy to name a few. Two others would have to be time and quietness. There’s never enough time to be divided among wife, children, jobs, church – and quietness is equally scarce in the world of television, traffic, and talk. Inner quietness can be the rarest of all”. Yeah, ok…………. I’m feeling that. I started reading it this morning. It was ironic to be reading this book while Amalie and Sophie took turns poking me and saying, “Daddy look” and then crashing into me while they danced. I managed to finish the first chapter……….. I’m not sure how.

After breakfast our group headed out on a tour bus to see the Safari Park. When we arrived I had to try and tell the bus driver when the group would be back. It was difficult because he didn’t speak English and Kelly was busy at the clinic trying to help Robyn and Todd Williams get their paperwork done in time. After trying to tell him to meet us at 3:30 p.m. for about 10 minutes, I grabbed a pen and wrote a time on my hand. He took the pen and wrote 3 more times on my hand and circled the one in the middle. Ok I thought. I think we’ve got it. We headed out to meet the safari train. It really is an amazing adventure. They have just about every kind of animal you can imagine. I took 415 photos today. Most of them were of all the amazing animals at the park. I think that may be a new record, even for the babarazzi.

We got to do some very cool things at the park. All of us got to feed the giraffes. Opal was grinning from ear to ear after her turn. We also got to feed a baby elephant. Brandy, Amalie and Sophie got to take an elephant ride. We couldn’t talk Opal into it. I stayed on the ground to take pictures.

The girls got a close up look at a baby zebra. I didn’t realize it at the time but I even snuck myself into the photo (in the reflection right above Sophie’s head). We saw too many animals to even try and name them all. Pandas, Pygmy Hippos, Lions, Tigers, Bears………… you name it, we probably saw it.

The great news of the day is that Opal passed the TB test. We are now all lined up to go to the U.S. Consulate and finish our paperwork. She was very tired on the way to the clinic. We had just returned from the Safari Park and she was falling asleep in my arms. I carried her the whole way. She awoke just as we arrived. Kelly was able to convince her that she wasn’t getting any more shots. I think she was happy to get in and out of there as fast as we did.

Enjoy the pictures,
Opal, Ted, Amalie, Brandy and Sophie