A Barrel Full of Baboons

On Saturday afternoon we loaded up the family van with Ben, Christine, Dash, Aunt Boo, Uncle Luke, Amber and Mike and headed to the very exciting African Lion Safari. We all had a great time and saw a pride of lazy lions....
A very Stoic Rhino...A zeal of playful zebras..A tower of gorgeous giraffes..And a culture of very curious baboons. The baboons definitely stole the show by jumping on the car repeatedly - climbing all around and sitting on the side mirrors like this cool fellow above. Christine was very impressed and had a giant giggle attack - and of course it's still the favourite topic of conversation around our house today. If anybody wants to see some baboon prints on the car, she'll happily point them out to you.We also had the opportunity in the park to pet some goats, feed some deer, watch some birds of prey and bats and ride some animals. Above you'll see Christine and her pal Desparado the pony, somehow in the 2 minutes she was on him she managed to tame the wild beast inside him - look at how docile he is in this picture.

Ben, Christine and I also had the chance to ride an elephant! This is Jenny the Indian Elephant with all of us on her back (Dash was having a cat nap, and is still a little young) - we were all impressed by the ride and I think that it is now Christine's favoured choice of transportation - maybe we can hire one to take her back and forth to school when the time comes.

And finally since there is such a bereft of Dash pictures and it was an important first for our little guy here's a shot of the Dash Man getting his first haircut. As you can tell he wasn't the biggest fan of the procedure but with Sal's (Grandpa and Ben's barber) skilled hands he ended up with an adorable haircut and looks less and less like a little baby every day.

A Day at the Races

Saturday afternoon we headed off to Uncle Geof and Aunt Brenda's house (also home to Bear, the dog) for a family BBQ. While we were there Geof challenged Christine and Dash to race - here's how it went down.
It began by Geof clearly cheating as seen by his headstart at the starting line above. Then there was some confusion as to the direction the racers should go next, there was also a late entry of Molly Brown.

Dash was obviously excited about his chances of winning...
While Christine's strategy was keep her eyes on the prize and the finish line...
At the end it was (of course) a photo finish - who will be the winner of this prestigious race?

And here's a shot of our winner - Little Lady Christine sitting in her winner's garden bed of ivy with the current president of the Backyard Games - Bear. In her hands were her prizes of elusive garden rocks and stolen flowers.
Second place went to the aptly named Dash and Geof came in last, Molly was disqualified after her urine testing showed increased levels of cheese, a known canine stimulant.