Me-ow!

One day when we went to Adventure City, there was surprise waiting at home. It was...CATS!!!

There were two black cats. The totally black one is mine and the one with a little white dot on his chest is Finny's. They came from Celia's house because they had 4 cats but now they have two and we have two. The cats are brothers. They are very playful but sometimes they start wrestling together. Their names are Ryon and Scorpius. Charles and Walter (Celia's oldest boys) picked the names but we liked the names so much that we decided to keep them.

Sometimes the kitties go out to hunt; they catch a lot of skinks. Once they caught a bird but it didn't die. A couple of days after the the day they caught the bird, my kitty tried to catch a skink. When a skink is trying to get away they can make their tail come off! If the tail comes off, the tail wiggles around and the skink can run away! The cat wasn't very interested in the tail wiggling around but we helped the skink get away by picking the cat up. WE were very interested in the tail wiggling around with no skink connected to it!

PS Mom just added the first photo...look closely at the background!

Owen channels ABBA

The other day I was busy doing something when I heard a familiar tune coming from the kids' room....they were singing ABBA's "Super Trouper" but these were their lyrics:

Supla-Fa, Supla-Fa

Likesy, pon-nee miney

Miney like the snow.

Hmmm mmmm, hmmmmm mmmmmm

Feeling like the 'nother one

but I just

Supla-Fa, Supla-fa

Likesy, pon-nee miney...

Here are the lyrics from ABBA -- I think I prefer owen's version, though not after he's repeated it a thousand times.

Tonight the 

super trouper lights are gonna find me

Shining like the sun

(sup-p-per troup-p-per)

Smiling having fun

(sup-p-per troup-p-per)

Feeling like a number one.

tonight the

super trouper lights are gonna find me....

The Rock Band Group

(note:  owen has taken up journalling again (real pen and paper!), likely because we started doing it with Finny.  this is one story he wrote recently.  The kids often pick their own stories for bedtime reading and always crack themselves up.  Now that Owen is reading well enough to read mom and dad's handwriting, he reads his entries from our happy days with Teacher Gloria in 2006.  Thanks TG for this inspiration.)  Here is the latest entry from Owen:  

The Rock Band Group

Michael Jackson was the leader of The Rock Band Group....and he was the singer.  Ted was the drummer and Chip was the guitar player.  There were some other singers:  Bif, Kipper, Wilma, Wilf and Finny and Owen!  They played lovely songs.  We played in America and in Africa.  Sometimes we played our songs in Australia.

The name of the band is "Super Rock Band!"  We sing about people.  We sing Michael Jackson songs even though all of us aren't Michael Jackson.

The night we came to Lusaka, the children that usually go to bed before they come were there.  The night we came to Lusaka, the children AND the grown-ups were there waiting to see Michael Jackson and the singers and players.  They all cheered and clapped when they started to play -the audience cheered. All the people loved the songs.

Suddenly some dancers came onto the stage to dance with them.  That made the audience feel even happier and MORE exciteder....no, just more excited.  When the people got so excited Michael Jackson had a present to give out to the children.  The children got DRUMS! ...like drums they had in the play....and Ted was very happy too because he was one of the drum players and he liked the children having the same thing he had.

When the band was over the children all went home but they didn't go straight to bed; they played on their drums!  They tried and tried to do what Ted was playing on the drums but they couldn't do it because the hadn't practiced a lot like Ted has.  Ted DID practice....he has practiced a lot.

In the morning they went to Livingstone.  They did another play in the morning.  All the children and grown ups came.  When the playing finished they went to America (only the band).  Before they did the play they were selling Michael Jackson pictures.  The children got them for free.  When Michael Jackson said that they got to have them for free they were very excited.

When the play started the children and parents come like every time but they played a different song!  It was about people.  They all played the right song.   The other singers didn't know the songs so they were dancing!  After the play, the dancers told Michael Jackson taht they know the song but they thought they didn't know the song.

(whew!)

Welcome to Livingstone

It took 7 hours to get to Livingstone.  The last bit was very very bumpy. There were BIG potholes and we had to drive on the side of the road which was bumpy too and it was sand.      When we got to Livingstone it was very fun because there were monkeys and zebras and giraffes (but this trip we didn't get to see the giraffes).  We saw guinea fowl.  Nana saw a monitor lizard.  We saw them all at the Zambezi Sun - it is a hotel IN the Mosi-y-tunia national park.

  The specialest thing we saw was Victoria Falls.  In the rainy season there is lots of water but in the summer there is not a lot of water.  It is summer here right now.  In Livingstone it was one hundred degrees.

  Me and Papa and Finny went for a walk one morning.  Finny wanted to use my camera so I let him take pictures.  There was a vervet monkey on the path and me and Papa were looking at some guinea fowl and the monkey walked behind us and Finny took a picture of it!

   We also all went for a sunset cruise.  It was on the Zambezi River, above the Falls.  The boat was called the Lady Livingstone.  The boat had three motors; Finny had to go see the motors because he is three!  On the boat we saw elephants crossing the river and elephants on the shore, buffalo, impala, lots of birds, hippos and at the end when we were going back to the dock I saw a crocodile in the wake.

Welcome Back!

A lot has happened since I last wrote on my blog:

• School started.  Now my teacher is Mrs Anderson and I am in Year 2 - we are already at our half-term holiday.  
• I had my birthday - I got walkie talkies and a BMX ramp!
  
• Finny had a birthday - Nana was here for Finny's birthday!
  
• We moved houses!  We used to be at 24 but now we are at 23B - it used to be our friend Dayo's house.
  
• ALL the grandparents arrived!
  
• We have been to Livingstone TWICE.
  
• I am going underwater and swimming without a life jacket or anything (except goggles)
  

Happy Birthday Owen!

Who Cooks For You?

Barn owls like coming into the yard at night. They come at around 18 hours – it is just starting to get dark…that’s six o’clock! Here, when the hour hand goes around, the second time it goes around it’s 12, 13, 14….up to 24, then it starts all over again in the morning at 1!

We think the Owls just come after our dinner because we go outside and look for them and we listen for them and …we see them! The wings are totally quiet but their call is noisy. They are supposed to say “who cooks for you….who cooks for you all” but we haven’t heard that yet! (This is probably because it's actually the barred owl not the barn owl that 'says' this!)

Our neighbors, Janice, Hans and Dayo, brought us an owl pellet from their yard because they know we like to think these are 'our' owls. An owl pellet is something that the owl eats then it takes all the left over stuff it has eaten and it makes it into a ball inside its body and….it spits it out, then your neighbor finds it in the garden! We have found one in our parking space – and it looks like the same but it looks like someone has driven over it.

The owl pellet that Dayo brought over. It was a broken ball

shape a little bigger than a quarter around. It was dry and light.

Down our street is someone named Nikki - remember Nikki at Number 34? She showed us how to soak the owl pellet in water and take it apart gently with sticks.

We took it apart and it seemed that one of the bones inside the owl pellet was kind of like a mouse because it didn’t look like a bird and it was as small as your fingernail on your thumb if you are a five year old.

We found a skull (above) , some leg bones, back bones (vertebrae), ribs, lots of fur and a few feathers. And we think there was something else in there that came from the feathers…OR the mouse was bringing the feathers home to make a nest and instead... the owl ate it! A mouse can’t have a feather sticking out of it!

The bones we found - some were so tiny!