Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Remembering Our {Adoption} Adventure - part 9

For the next few weeks, I will be blogging about our adoption journey to Uganda & beyond!  The Lord took us on a sweet adventure to become a family of 3.  We were in Uganda adopting Walker for about 3 weeks.  There were ups & downs.  Highs & lows.  Joys & triumphs.

My husband & I chronicled our adventures on a private Facebook group we created to keep friends & family up to date on all the latest happenings.

This is a re-cap & remembering of our journey ONE YEAR ago!!!!

***I AM PLAYING CATCH-UP RIGHT NOW, SO THERE WILL BE SEVERAL POSTS UNTIL I GET CAUGHT UP.  ONE OF MY SISTERS IS IN THE HOSPITAL, SO I'VE BEEN SPENDING LOTS OF TIME IN THE CAR & THE HOSPITAL ROOM.***




May 27, 2012
The safari today was EXCELLENT! We loved it & got lots of pictures! We woke up bright & early to see the animals active & awake before it got too hot in the day. We first went driving through the savannah, & we were told to be on the lookout for the Big Four: elephants, hippos, lions, & leopards. I’d say our day was a huge success b/c we saw 3 out of the 4. I wish we had seen a leopard, but our up close experience with the elephant, hippos, & lions far outweighed not seeing a leopard. 

We saw lots & lots & lots of elephants. WJ got very good at saying “ele-fant.” I think these were his favorite animal b/c he perked up the most with them. There were elephants everywhere. When we were on the boat, we got very close to one who was taking a drink from his trunk. It was so cool. At one point, I thought he was going to spray us; he sprayed a cautionary stream of water our way, but he never did more than that. I was hoping for a little shower from the elephant. Later on, we got up close to an elephant (still on the boat) & he stomped his foot & let out a very loud elephant noise (don’t know the technical term for it.) It was amazing! While driving, we saw elephants fighting, & we could hear their tusks hitting each other. It was awesome!


We saw 3 lions while our guide was driving around with us. The first 2 were at a LONG distance off, & we had to use binoculars to see them. A little later on, we got to see a female lion almost snag a Ugandan kob (type of antelope) for a mid-morning snack. She was crouched & ready to pounce, but I think we threw her off her game. I guess we’ll just have to rely on National Geographic to see that kind of action! Safari etiquette dictates that you should NOT go off the trail. In fact, if you do & you are caught, you must pay a fine of $150. Fortunately for us, our guide was brave enough to try it AND we didn’t get caught. He directed our driver to drive right up to the 2 lions we had seen earlier. We got within about 10 feet of the massive, beautiful creatures. They just laid there & looked at us. One lion actually even growled at us! How cool is that?


We also LOVED the hippos! We saw some of them while we were driving, but we saw most of them in the water & on the shore while we were on the boat. It was amazing! We saw probably 3 or 4 sets of mommas & their babies. We were told that there are thousands of hippos in that area, & that the hippo is the #1 killer of people in Uganda……….. I believed the guide, but they sure didn’t look like killers yesterday. :) The water was so green where we were, & Julie (the other adoptive mom) mentioned it to the guide. We were then told that the water was so green b/c of all the hippo poop! Um, grodie!

It was a GREAT day! Apparently, it was very over stimulating for WJ b/c we had quite an obedience problem when we got back to the guest house where we are currently staying. I think Scott nipped in the bud the best he could, & WJ has been quite obedient today. In fact, this morning he actually asked for us to read books to him! Book reading is a part of his bedtime routine, but we haven’t done much of it at other times, so it was really sweet to see him pick his books & bring them to us. He wanted to be read to from The Jesus Storybook Bible, The Big Red Tractor, & A Mother for Choco. He is snoring in the bed beside us. We have court tomorrow morning, & we are praying that we get our ruling the very same day with no errors in spelling or anything else, & that we are able to leave for Kampala on Tuesday morning with absolutely no problems. Praying, praying, praying!





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