Maritius Vacation

Mauritius!

We just got back from a week vacation in Maritius (rhymes with delicious!)- an island on the East Coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean (to the East of Madagascar).

just hanging out around the hotel

We had a great time doing beachy things like playing in the beautiful ocean, finding coral (no seashells on the beach!), and searching for the best "skipping rocks" to throw. We also went out in the middle of the oceon on a glass-bottom boat to look for fish. Our favorite activities from the week were playing in the hotel pool (where Zach learned how to do a back flip into the water!) ... ...and going down to the bottom of the ocean floor in a REAL submarine!

Oh, and we enjoyed all the delicious (Indian and seafood) meals and the beautiful sunsets everyday!

Whale Watching

Ay-yi-yi! We’ve been back from summer break for a little over a month now and I haven’t updated our blog. We had such a great trip home for the summer! It went by fast but we sure crammed in a lot of fun- lots of visits with friends and family, lots of trips to yummy restaurants, and lots of running around to get ready to come back here!

So, by the time we got back to Africa we were all ready to take a breather and slip back into the “simpler life” we have here. The big highlights since we’ve been back are; we’ve made some new friends with some really nice families that moved in, Zach lost two teeth in two days so we had our first visit from the African tooth fairy, Colby started kindergarten and is super excited about learning to read, and Nolan learned to ride his bike and wear big-boy underwear (which he likes to do at the same time!) Today we did something else new that we’ve all never done before- we went whale watching! We went out on the boat with some of our new friends, The Gants, who also have a household full of little boys. So there we are on a little boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa surrounded by new friends, good food, and big, huge whales! They were so big, so loud and so close to our boat! It was amazing! Zach said, “This is awesome!”, Colby didn’t like the sound they make when they blow water from their blowholes, and Nolan got excited to see “tall, tall fish” so close up! Pictures definitely don’t do it justice, but here’s a collection of some of our favorites!

check out the waterfall behind his tail!

look how close they are... that railing is the side of our boat

his bumpy head and tail

three of them together

4 of the 6 little whale watching fans

more tail...so cool

flipping over to wave goodbye :)

A short video of our whale watching trip