Vacation! Sun City

We just got back from our first African Vacation! We took lots of great pictures, so I'll try to squeeze as many of them in here as possible!

It was so nice to get out and see a different part of Africa. We went to South Africa (just two countries south of here) for a week. We spent 5 days at Sun City (a resort) and 2 days at Bakubung Bush Lodge (a lodge in the middle of a safari park). It is amazing how different South Africa is from Angola. Angola is so run down, poor and dirty and South Africa reminded me a lot of the Midwest (but with the addition of mountains in the background!). And they speak English there- yippee! Sun City was a perfect spot for us- it’s a very family-friendly resort with lots of fun things to do, especially for boys!

They had mini-golf, bumper boats, mini-cars, an arcade area, a playground with a huge slide, a small petting zoo, a camp for kids and much more. There were a lot of swimming pools and even a water park, but it was just a little bit too chilly to get in the water (although we did try them out!)

The boys all dressed and ready for a dip in the (freezing) pool!

The scenery out the car window during the drive from the airport to Sun City and the scenery out of our hotel room window was just beautiful and refreshing.

The view from the car window

The view from our hotel window

We had plenty of time to just monkey around as a family...with real monkeys even! The first day as we were unpacking our suitcase, Will looked out the window and said, “Look! There’s a bunch of monkeys out there!” And sure enough there were monkeys running around all over the place. It was unreal! They were fun to just sit and watch- they would chase each other, swing from the trees, tackle each other, pick through each other’s fur- all while you were standing right there! One time Will and Zach were bent over looking for four leaf clovers in the grass and when they looked up Nolan was face to face (with about one foot of space between them) with a huge baboon! Will said that when he looked up in total shock the big ol’ baboon just walked away!

Colby and Nolan checking out the little monkeys (they would let you get close, but they would scurry off if you tried to touch them)

The "big ol' baboon" that was checking Nolan out (and that's our hotel room right behind him)!

The monkeys were a huge hit, and so was all the good food!! The first night we ate a place with all African Fare and it was really, really good! It was a buffet and they had tons of different things to try, but it was hard to get super adventurous since none of the dishes were labeled! I would love to tell you all the wonderful African food we tried, but I have no idea what the dishes were called or even what was in them! But the food was great and the dessert table (with at least 25 different types of desserts) was over the top yummy! The next night we found a little pizza place that had all kinds of odd pizzas on the menu so we were a little leary, but the pizza was some of the best we’ve ever had! (It may just be that our taste buds are a little out of whack since we haven’t really had pizza in 3 months, but it was really good!) The pizza place had ice cream too, which we all indilgued in, since you can’t really get that here either! So, as pathetic as this sounds, we ate there three out of our 5 nights!! Oh, and a typical breakfast buffet had so many different choices, you would never believe it- on top of all the traditional breakfast foods, they had stews and casseroles as well as roasts and sushi! For breakfast! The fresh fruit and fresh squeezed fruit juices were a great treat too! Okay, enough about eating, although it was a highlight…

This is the breakfast of champions...in Africa! The boys thought they were in heaven eating pancakes with chocolate syrup, honey, whip cream and sprinkles for breakfast every morning! Yum!

One of our favorite things that we did in Sun City was go to the Crocodile Sanctuary. It was so cool. There were crocodiles everywhere and we even got to feed the baby crocodiles. Zach was the only brave kid to feed them, the other two didn't want to touch the food- frozen chicken feet!

They are just really neat animals and it was cool to be able to watch them up close (well, not too close). We saw one crocodile with half of the bottom of his mouth missing!

Zach feeding the baby crocodiles (below)

Will and Colby watching the crocodile "smile" for us

And on our last day we took a family photo...

Then we loaded up and went to the safari lodge...