untitled....too many emotions to put a title to

frustrated
that is what i am most of the time now.
my blood pressure is up and down.
anytime i am at the doctor or hospital it is not a concern
usually 4 hours later it is a concern...i wait another hour or two take it again and again not a concern
frustrating.
i explain this to my doctor she asked if my monitor is right and i explain how it was only a number off of what they got in the hospital.
she is now frustrated
but nothing that her or i can do but keep checking it.
she also knows that i am frustrated so therefore she says that if it goes high again i go to the hospital and we have a baby...not just monitoring
wwoooohoooo
my blood pressure hasn't been high in two days
oh the irony
well that leads to my other emotion.....acceptance
this baby isn't really due till January 5th, i technically have two weeks to go
God has a plan and i have to accept it
in both my other pregnancies once the blood pressure went high it never came back down
there must be a reason why this came down....i just wish i would know this reason.
and then there is the antsy feeling
i am done being huge
done not being comfortable
done not being able to do a lot of things cause this basket ball in front of me
just plain done
so i am antsy and am spending time on my ball and doing a lot of cleaning and laundry(this equals a lot of stairs).
i am carrying low...even my doctor says so
very rarely can i get up from sitting with out pain in my pelvic area
i have had some contractions also....i have had then before with my other kids but they have never moved while the contraction was going on....this one does so i asked the doctor if this was normal...she said yes
so ok i have a quite a few contractions
my doctor touched my belly after this question and said that the muscle that is my uterus is very 'responsive'.
it almost sounded like at the end of my appointment that she doubted i would make it to the 30th.....we will see.
then there is the excitement
i want to know the sex
i want to know the personality
i want to get into a routine
i want to know how elias and zandria will react
i am excited
i am trying to have patience but i am a fehr...if you know any fehrs they don't have patience
i get really grumpy by the end of the day
and i feel really bad that my kids get the short end of the stick when it involves my short patience and super grumpiness
i try my hardest to not be but the hormones are tooo much.....booo.
I NEED THIS BABY OUT
but oh aaaahhhhh yup
that sums up what goes through my mind in a loop about 4 billion times a day
God knows when they baby needs to come out and i have faith in Him.
i keep trying to tell myself that

oops

oops i got my info wrong....
the first number is not the one that gets the doctors worry so much...it is the second number
i went for my appointment this morning
before hand i took my bp and it was 150 over 90
i guess 90 is not good.
it is high and they don't like it.
but i am 37 weeks and as long as they keep a close eye on my and my pressure they don't want to take the baby ....another words my bp isn't that super high yet and the baby is fairly happy
how we know the baby is happy is that i spent a couple of hours in the hospital being monitored
not fun.
had to find someone to watch elias and had to make sure someone was going to pick up zandria from school.
thankfully i have awesome friends near by.
so for now the baby is staying put.
my blood pressure is being monitored by me at home thanks to my mom's bp monitor
i now know the number that is too high
i know the symptoms that i shouldn't have
on monday i was/am scheduled to go in to meet with the anaesthesiologist about the c section.
now i am also going in for another monitoring.
i know that my doctor will be there all weekend and on monday.
we have two christmas gatherings this weekend...three if we really wanted to.
but i will miss what i need to to get this baby out....sorry family
i am not purposefully making my bp go up
i am just going with the flow....i have been in this boat before.

Tomorrow....

tomorrow i have a doctors appointment.
this is the one where i tell her that my blood pressure has gone up.
i am not bothered by this
i have had high blood pressure with both of my other pregnancies
with Zandria it was really high at the end
i am hoping and praying that my blood pressure is high enough for the doctor to want to do the section early but not soo high that it turns out to be an emergency.
i have swelling and tired and a slight head ache but that is about it.
i have been using my mom's blood pressure monitor at home so i know where i am at.
for all you out there that know about bp's if i give you a number you would understand , but for all the rest of us i will explain.
optimal blood pressure is 120 over 75
normal blood pressure for normal people is under 138 over under 85
high is above 138 over above 85
on saturday i had a rough busy day and it checked it and it was 153 over 90
sunday 142 over 89
monday 144 over 90
tuesday 143 over 91
this afternoon 145 over 98
when i was in labour with Zandria it was 191 over 91
really really high. hence i was induced.
i know that i should really hope that my bp goes down but i don't
i just hope and pray it is high enough to get me bumped

the baby is active still
the unfortunate thing is that every time it moves i am in a bit of pain.
i have had some contractions since saturday, but have gotten a little confused or tricked if you will when it moves A LOT and it hurts similar to a contraction but then as soon as it stops moving then the pain goes away.
i think it wants out as much as i want it out.
IT IS TIME

so yeah that is where i am at right now.
i will update tomorrow afternoon hopefully.
my appointment is in the morning

On the way up.....

this past weekend was rough.
i decided that i was done doing hair.
i did 9 hair cuts on saturday.
but thursday at my ob appointment we noticed that my blood pressure has started its way up.
friday my pelvic and hips started to bug me A LOT
so on saturday i spent time on my ball in between hair cuts.
well that made the day rough.
pretty sure that saturday and sunday gave me at least 4 or 5 contractions.
in the 3 days since my dr appointment i have noticed also that i am swelling
swelling usually equals water retention or higher blood pressure.
i checked the blood pressure......sure enough it has gone higher.
talking to my cousin that is a nurse if it goes any higher a call to my dr will be in order.
today has been much better than saturday and sunday.
i also felt a urgent need to pack my bag on saturday.
i did laundry and am packed....but realized that i was lacking a proper nursing bra.
picked on up today.
have decided that i will spend tomorrow cleaning and sitting on my ball, and taking my blood pressure at least once or twice :]
i have an appointment on thursday, if my blood pressure is high in her opinion my c section will be pushed up to the week before christmas, unless i go into labour on my own which i will still have a c section.
so far i think it could still happen but we will see.
all i know now is that my bp is on the way up, not by my choice.
i will take it if it makes it happen early AND i have a healthy baby.
the swelling is on the way up to so yeah no comments on my puffy face.

Confirmation

got confirmation for my c section yesterday.

a little disappointed because it is not the 29th, not the 28th , but the 30th. I know that it is only a day past what we had agreed on, but it makes me disappointed and sad.

the time we have at home together before routine sets in will be very limited. chances are i will be in the hospital till the 2nd then and Zandria already goes back to school on the fourth.

i have to meet with all of the staff at the hospital on the 19th to figure everything out and then after that we are praying that either a space opens up early or i go into labour early...which would result in a kind of emergency c section. Just means that instead of trying to labour, i go in and have the c section right away. this would be ideal....so if you are the praying type please keep me in mind.

i am very immobile right now and this kids is fiercely active. mostly at 5 in the morning like clock work for the last 5 mornings....have a feeling this will stick once it is out in the world too. :( oh well it is pretty calm from like 11 till 5 so not too bad.

well i am nesting and getting ready...trying to trust God that his timing is perfect. really hard for me to do with this....

34 weeks

so i am 34 weeks

went to the doctor on friday knowing full well that we would be setting the date of the scheduled c section and fully prepared to beg for it to get done before Christmas

i did beg and may or may not have shed a few tears(i am hormonal)

but to no avail

we are scheduled for the 29th of December but i am still waiting confirmation from the hospital

there are a lot of reasons why it stayed on this date.....main reason is that my doctor has her reasons for what she does and i can't deny them, i trust her and she is one of the best doctors in Saskatoon. if you want to know more about what she said then i can let you know if you want to know just ask.

i must admit tho that she did give me a way to have it before Christmas and that is if i have an amnio(sp?)

NO there will be no big needles in my belly. i can wait if that is the case.

so now that i know the date and most of it is set i am nesting like crazy

hoping all the stairs will make it come early but highly unlikely.

well shall get more info on here as i know more.

30 weeks

i am 30 weeks today.
i had an ultra sound today because they were measuring me big and wanted to see if I was big
i am not
sometimes it is just the way the baby is positioned
i was breech until just recently
it has a big head so there for it was up near my ribs and causing the measurement to be bigger
i am a little disappointed, i knew that i wasn't having twins just a knowing inside of me, but was really hoping for an early date on this c section.
nope measuring where it is supposed to.
i am 30 weeks, measuring 31 cm, and baby is about 3 and a half pounds.
baby is head down and happy.
heart rate has been 150-160 ish every time.
and very very active

it is approximately 8 weeks ish to christmas.
so it is just over 8 ish weeks till this baby comes.
i feel like it is a long ways away when I look at my body and try to get off the couch easily, and walk up stairs often (we live in a 4 level split). seems like forever from now.
but then i think 8 weeks....yikes we have no place to put this kids crib, i don't have the new born clothes out yet, i am not done christmas shopping, or my fall cleaning and the basement reno.
i get overwhelmed easily sometimes....especially when the hormones aren't normal.... feel sorry for Jeremy when i go through menopause and have nothing to show for it in the end....at least now he gets a cute kid out of the misery.
i was hoping to have this kid before christmas so that i would have more time with Jeremy at home. doesn't look promising....oh well.

i got a really good picture of the babies face on the ultra sound....it is late and will put it on here tomorrow.
we are all sick here except for Zandria ....how did she get out of it...i don't know....lucky girl.


oh and just a heads up that Jer plans on high jacking the blog for a post so stay tuned for that...may have to do with Haiti .....not sure.

large and .....in charge???

large, yes that is me. i have been asked what my due date is and then i tell them and then they proceed to ask me if i am having twins. this happens about once every two weeks or so.

i thought wow i must be really big. oh well, i can still sort of bend down and pick something up. then jeremy took a picture of me with out my knowledge....wow am i large.

if i were every one else i would think i was about to pop and would not believe i had another 2 and a bit more months until my estimated time of c section. not even my due date.

i have been checked if having twins at 10 weeks. i had my routine ultra sound that said one baby that was extremely active.

well those of you who have been pregnant may know that they measure you, and in an average normal pregnancy the measurement from your pelvic bone to where they can feel the top of your uterus to be should equal the amount of weeks you are.

well last tuesday i was told i was 28 weeks....you see third baby means not keeping track....thank goodness the doctor does :). ok sorry back to 28 weeks, but i measured 33...yes most people will not stay to the average...but 5 above is crazy.

so i have an ultra sound next week. crazy thing too is that my ob wants to do it herself. never heard of that before. makes me wonder what is wrong with me.

i have just concluded that i am large and my dr is in charge.

both jeremy and i are hoping that it is miraculously healthy twins...but if that doesn't pan out then at least the c section will be moved up to before christmas.

so yeah i am here not super comfortable and large, but ok.

Ps....3 more sleeps. :D

funny boy

starting off with the funny boy that is my son.

friday and this afternoon i have gone to my friends house for a meal. the first time we were there elias told me he had to go pee, but i didn't fully hear him in time and he didn't know where to go so we had an accident. today again there we were there playing and he said he had to pee, well zandria was in the closest bathroom so as i ran him upstairs he peed....yikes. oh well kind of an excuse. then this afternoon, they were sitting at the table having some nuts for a snack. he turns and says mommy i have to pee, i tell him ok lets quickly go upstairs to the bathroom. he doesn't move and says he has to go pee, but doesn't move again and just keeps eating. i yell at him and he turns and looks at me as he pees on the chair. I ask him why and he tells me that he was eating....ggrrrr. well needless to say I think the 3 accidents could have been prevented, but the ones at my friends house was understandable....new toys friends and not knowing where the bathroom is. but at home with nut snack in had just ignoring it is not ok.

Funny boy

Today was a better day than yesterday was.

the morning was still pretty bad....we have somewhere to be every day of the week...it gets tiring for all of us.

this morning at church something was off with me....i didn't hear from jeremy at all yesterday, i didn't sleep well at all, and i am pregnant and hormonal. every time someone asked me how it was going or mentioned haiti i started bawling. like my friend jess said it is just funny and it was. i had no control over it. it was also hard....i don't cry often and for sure not in front of a lot of people. so yeah....i mostly blame it on the lack of sleep and hormones.....i usually have one really bad break down every pregnancy and it seems that today was the day for this pregnancy. jer will be glad he missed...lol

i am better now. i had a lot of fun at my friends for lunch so that helped relax me and jer sent me a message in the morning cause Internet was down last night. the message made me cry then it made me feel better.....emotions are fun right now :P :b

one of those days....made worse

alright i will start off by saying that today has been a rough day

since zandria has started school by friday she is tired. almost over tired by saturday
by friday elias is missing zandria and can't stop pestering her.
by friday i am ready for a morning of sleeping in and nothing to do out of the house
saturday rolls around
we have put our kids in swimming lessons on saturday mornings....what were we thinking...well i know exactly what we were thinking. elias has never taken swimming lessons before so we wanted him to be with a parent for the first time and since I don't look flattering in a swim suit and jer is just over all better with the kids in water we had to schedule it for a saturday to make sure he was there. no point in bringing the other child a different day so yeah spend an hour and a half every saturday morning at the pool till mid november.
again back to the rough day.....
so we are all a little edgy on saturday mornings and it is usually alright but today elias was whinier than ever and zandria was dwaddly(a word? not sure). and i was by myself when i am not used to.
we leave the house and the whining stops to the point that i even let them go to the library after for a bit, but then we come home....yikes.
at 11 am i suddenly start thinking about bed time. YUP bed time.
so after contemplating i decide no nap early bed time.
went out of the house to get some paint to paint my basement and the non listening boy and all of his whininess comes out at the store. I couldn't even get my head around what kind of paint samples i wanted to take home to check out. i was sooo cranky and soo was he.
got home ordered pizza cause that is what i wanted and the kids weren't giving me any other ideas . then elias brought out his i don't like that cry/whiny voice to everything including water. I said fine whatever.
then at 7 i said ok time for jammies and i will read books to calm everyone down. well elias wasn't having any of it. and fought all of it so he wasn't allowed to read books....so the tantrum ensued....yup worst one ever...surprised he still has a voice left.

we are all used to having jeremy here. I am glad he is where he is...but we missed him today and tomorrow is going to be no different. hopefully we all have a good sleep.

link to the haiti blog

so jer is giving me personal up dates but messenger on facebook

but I thought you guys would be interested in reading the church blog that our youth pastor(who is in Haiti with Jeremy) is updating.

really interesting

New Haiti Blog up: http://wp.me/pnPor-w5

woo hoo

well i put elias in waffle underwear for the night last night
bed was dry this morning
he was dry this morning
i even had to with hold cereal until he went to the bathroom....don't want his cereal to get soggy half way through
it was a fight but he went and he went good
soo proud of him
we are officially a diaper free house for the next 2 and a half months

WHAT 2 and a half months......yikes
wow not sure i am ready.

hearing more of me

over the next 10 days i am pretty sure you will be hearing a lot more from me

my husband is out of the country

jeremy and i have some what gotten used to out of town work for him

this past summer he was gone for 8 days straight at one point

this trip he is on is only 3 days longer

why will you hear more of me?

i have no real contact from him for the duration of the trip

when he is out of town for work we typically text each other once or twice during the day

and talk every night

he has no cell phone

limited internet

i didn't think it would be this hard when i told him i was ok with him going to Haiti

he is in Haiti right now

the plan is to build a wall

he has wanted to go ever since our church has chosen to partner with a mission organization there called Haiti Arise

it came up that they needed strong capable guys to come for a minimal cost to help build a wall

2 weeks before the dead line and 6 weeks before the trip he asked his boss for the time off

even tho busy the company couldn't let him pass up this opportunity

i was so excited for him....still am

i am soo used to winding down my day talking to him

i miss him and he just left yesterday.....lol

was thinking today when the last time i didn't talk to jeremy for more than a day or two was

the summer before we got married jer was on a camp ministry team called impact i was at the youth farm bible camp

we talked on the phone 3 times in 6 weeks that summer

exchanged some good old fashioned letters that summer

after that communication was intact from then on at least every day or every other day

that was just over 10 years ago

TEN years

so that is why you will be hearing more from me in the next 10 days

need an outlet to get out what i need to say

if you don't want to hear don't read lol

Ps on a different note elias is sleeping in underwear for the first night tonight so we will see

5 weeks is a long time

wow it has been 5 weeks already since i wrote about the hell that is potty training my son

well for some reason unlike most kids he would not let me completely give up for a time
he would suddenly start telling me when he had to pee
he would wake up dry
he would refuse to wear a diaper or pull up
sooo frustrating cause he didn't always tell me when he had to pee
and never, NEVER told me when he had to poop
thought i was going to loose my mind

then about a week and a half ago i went to toys r us to pick up some baby stuff that was on sale that i needed i went and picked up a pack of diapers also
his response was 'those mine??'
i said 'no those are for the baby. only babies wear diapers, big boys wear underwear and poop on the potty'
'oh' he says
i asked him if he was a big boy and he said yes so i told him he had to poop on the potty
so he did
only on the small potty for the first couple days
oh i should mention that i was still bribing him with hot wheels cars at this point
then this last saturday he decided that only the big potty would due
he has been dry for over a week now
dry about half of those nights
and i still here wondering why i didn't by baby stuff sooner.....like before his 3rd birthday
oh well i think this was just the right time

potty training

how i hate thee
zandria didn't catch on until a month before she turned 3
not by me not trying
i tried every couple of months since i thought she was ready shortly after she was 2
she just wouldn't tell me when she had to go, she would go when taken but would not tell us
soooo frustrating
then we decided that it was time to get her to poop on the potty, even if it took all day sitting on the potty.....well that is what it took
she pooped and then she was done, other than the very very rare accident
i thought she was difficult
NO.
elias is difficult
we have been trying off and on since he was 2....same as zandria
he refused.....most kids say no i can't or no i don't want to.....nope he says nnoooo i won't ....NO I WON'T.
what
kid seriously do you have to be sooo stubborn....honest but stubborn
again i tried every couple of months or so
nope no luck
then we decided no more diapers...pull ups or underwear.
after like 3 days of mess all over my house...mostly the bathroom we insisted he just wear the pull ups and we go on his cue.
side note about the bathroom thing.....for 3 days he wore underwear cause he wanted to most of the time but he wouldn't tell us soo i would send him to wash his hand for any reason and he would pee all over the stool and the floor....a little frustrating....it took me 2 days to realize that the running water was making him pee. so i had to convince him to go pee before he washed his hands at any point. hilarious.
anyway nothing clued in with him.
so we tried bribing him.....nope
so i tried what my aunt suggested.........i let him pick out underwear and buy it put it on him and if he poops in it he has to throw it out.
well he picked a pack of plain ones and a pack of mc queen and a pack of elmo ones.
the first time i threw away a mc queen one and he didn't clue in.
the second and third time was just plain ones soo it was whatever to him
then yesterday was the fourth time
he was wearing elmo
we spent the weekend with one of his friends that is a bit younger than him and this little boy peed on the potty all the time,
so elias decided he would do that too.
yesterday there were no pee messes, but he decided he needed to poop and didn't tell me.
yup cleaned him up with a shower(he hates showers)
got him to put elmo in the garbage
he came back inside and said he was very sad.
i proceeded to let him know that i was frustrated and that if he would poop on the potty instead of his underwear then he wouldn't be sad , i wouldn't be frustrated, i wouldn't have to give him a shower and he would get chocolate....the kids loves chocolate.
we put a pull up on for bed.
today he insisted on underwear
we went to a friends house, to the mall and home
no messes
bath time at 7 and still no messes and he told me when he had to go....but he didn't poop
bed time and he didn't want his pull up on....ummm it is bed time
ok
i pull out the water proof sheet and let him wear what he wants....just a little nervous to wake up to poop
he didn't do that today you know
he turns 3 on Thursday....i just wanted to get him trained before he turned 3
oh the humour
yeah
i still hate potty training
hope this third one isn't harder than the other 2

over half way

yup... half way there.

i had my just over 18 week ultra sound the other week

it was interesting seeing as the other 2 kids came and Jeremy

also this is the first ultra sound that i have had in a different clinic.....it was different

i didn't have to hold my bladder or worry about that at all...it was great

so i lay down and try not to lay flat cause that makes me want to puke

the technician complained about that but hey do you want me to puke all over your equipment

then she got me to half undress assuming that she would need the skin to move around on

well that wasn't needed

it made it worse that she spread the goop all over my abdomen too

she put the wand on my belly and didn't move it more than an inch in any other direction

she got a view of everything that she needed

heart, arms, legs, kidneys, lungs, brain, head....everything

she said to me at least 4 times...."can you not feel it move"

she couldn't believe i couldn't feel it, but i couldn't really feel it at all

oh well

she took a lot of pictures and a lot of them turned out better then the one she gave us

but her aim was to give us one that was the whole baby

not a great picture since in never stopped moving

i made a comment "reminds me of my first pregnancy"

she then asked "so i have always wondered are they that active when they come out?"

i just said "has she sat still for a minute while we have been here"

she said "ok that answers my question"

oh joy another one

So now it is just over two weeks later

i am just over 20 weeks

i am about a week over the half way mark seeing as i am having a planned c section at around 39 weeks(earlier if i can convince her)

that movement that i didn't feel at the ultra sound is getting to be a lot more...um......there

oh yeah and the ultra sound showed that it is also breech

so far i don't think it has turned

still feel most movement just above my pelvic bone

my bladder is feeling like a trampoline

i have to pee suddenly and often

at first Zandria said it was a girl and Elias said it was a boy

in the last week Zandria has changed her mind

it is now a boy

we will see

It's True....

so

if you are a friend of mine on facebook you know this already...

but i didn't fully believe it myself

almost a full six or more weeks ago i announced on facebook that i was expecting again

i was only 9 weeks

ONLY 9 WEEKS

if you know me i don't tell people until after 12 weeks or later

we had a family wedding

had a really really cute dress to wear that still looked good and fit pretty good(especially in the chest....lol...)

Jer had me try it on

he laughed

claimed it wasn't because i looked like a fat clown

but because he said there was no way anyone would not notice the belly

what I am only 9 weeks

so we had to tell people figured family should know before they just see me

a week after the wedding i had an ultra sound to see dates and if there was only one

there is only one and my dates are dead on

I was a little disappointed....i really wanted twins, but God has granted me with my 3rd miracle

I still didn't fully believe that some one really lived in my belly right then....she didn't let me hear the heart beat, just see it. that ultra sound was when i was 10 weeks.

this past friday i had my 15 week check up

i heard it!!!

it is true!!!

a heart beat of 155

i am pregnant and am having a baby

due jan. 5th but will have a c-section before the new year

zandria is very excited, but will only love it if it is a girl.....we are working on that

elias is excited and tells me my belly is chubby, and that there is a baby in there....oh and that it is a boy....

we will see.

but yes it is true next year we will be a family of 5. :)

Untiitled.........help.

so i have a lot of ideas in my head for what to title this post with

sooo hard to choose one soooo i am leaving it up to you

help me title this

so jer came home on thursday and says to me.....hey you want to go camping

i say hey sure...we have everything we need but the right food

so on friday while he is cutting down some of the branches off the trees in the front yard i am packing the van with all the supplies

while he brings the branches to compost i got grocery shopping

we have some great lunch of eggs and toast

after lunch we take off for a camp ground at a lake about an hour and half away

of course not leaving until my motion sickness child gets his meds

we get to the town just out side of the lake and notice some really dark(as in black) clouds

jer tells me to check weather on my phone

turns out calls for 70% chance of thunderstorms and a tornado warning

OK not camping there

now where to go

well away from the clouds

so we keep going in a different direction

we come along to this town and i am hey there is a camp site really close by here

so that is where we decided to go

but we turn down a wrong road for a while sooo that was more driving

finally we got on the right track

got to the campground

it was lightly raining but no black clouds and just a forecast of light rain

we got a really good site, close to the beach and bathrooms.....it was great to finally be there

we start set up....not a lot of stuff considering we were only staying for one night

we pull out chairs, BBQ, and tent

pick a spot for the tent

took a time out for bug spray

spread out the tent and got ready to put the poles in

one pole broken

POLE BROKEN

what do we do...even tape may not have worked

it took jer another 10 mins staring at it to come to the point of it was really broken

what we do?

look at each other

decide to go to the beach a bit(we promised the kids after all)

pack up

go to PA and try to go have supper and a movie in PA

the kids played at the beach and in the water for about an hour or more

they loved it

we packed up everything but the tent(it is in a garbage bin) and changed the kids and were off

oh but we took a shot at getting our camping fees back.....yup sure did but not park fees which makes sense

we snacked on the way(i went grocery shopping after all)

stopped to see if cars 2 was sold out and it was

stopped at mc donalds for a small snack/ supper

and to home we went.

friday we spent more time in the van then not almost.

it was a gong show, but at least we now know that our tent is shot and we need a new one

and at least we weren't with other people that we would have to ditch

i do have pictures but i misplaced my camera recently :(

they will come as soon as i find it

Travel in Africa

Ok Sorry it has taken so long to get this all done. I do have two small kids and a lot going on. I also miss Africa and sometimes that makes me not want to write about it....don't know if that makes sense.

This is a travel post. We did a lot of travelling in our van within 3 countries. Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

In our travels we came to a lot of different things. Like there are some VERY nice roads and then there are some VERY bad roads. We also found out that Zambia now has radar....who knew.

We saw a lot of things we expected to see but we also saw a lot that we didn't expect.

We saw a lot of people on bikes and walking. We saw a lot of road side stands.

This was one that we saw going from Lusaka to Ndola....we actually stopped here to pick up a watermelon. We gave it to a family that we visited...which we found out later that the lady of the house didn't like watermelon....lol. Opps.

This is a furniture store in Ndola. Yup outside. Some of them had tarps laying close by for the sudden rain.

In this pic you can see the sign to our guest house that we stayed at in Ndola....we drove by this lady and her roasted corn stand at least 2 or 3 times a day. I wanted to try it but found out that it is not sweet corn like we have here....sooo yeah no thanks.

As we were driving somewhere, can't even remember where, but we saw this truck. My dad moves houses and both Jeremy and I have driven a pilot truck with a wide load sign on it. I had to get this picture.

Can anyone guess what this is????

Yup you guessed right. A tire shop. Some have a sign, others just has a pile of tires. So look like they move location daily, others have half buried tires as a boundary around them.

I saw this truck full of people and by this time it had not been the first one, but this time they were all singing and making noise. Jer's parents said that it must be a funeral procession. Singing and wailing in morning.....wow they were loud....my feelings were very mixed.

Haha we saw a lot of women carrying stuff on their heads....sooo cool....but this is a picture of two guys that both have something on their heads....never thought I would see it but I did.

A full truck

Lots of fruit stand on the side.

Veggies too.

Jer got his drivers for emergency just in case...but he took up the offer to drive for a little bit anyway. It was a ridiculously bumpy pot holey road. I think I may have almost hit my head and Jers mom was sitting in the back just about getting car sick. Glad he did it tho.

Can you guess this one???

Sure you can, its a car wash. This was actually a pretty nice one. They can range from just a couple of buckets of water and soaps and some guys to a tin covered area to park with a nice wooden sign. This one is in the middle sign written on the cement and there is more than one guy.

This at a border crossing. Baboons are everywhere.

I used the bathroom once at a border crossing. The THEE most disgusting bathroom I have ever used.

Another furniture store....this time no tarps.

Ok so these goats had no one looking after them.....but they stayed in a pack and stayed off the road....it was soo crazy to see them.

A close up of a women with a HUGE basket on her head.

The main goal in this picture was to show you how they carry their kids until they are like 2. But it is really a pretty good picture of some of the huts that they live in in rural villages. Oh and do you see what the mom and baby are wearing ....it is like 20 C ....that is what it is right now and my kids are wearing tank tops and shorts.

These are charcoal bundles. They had them sitting here to sell. We saw people walking and riding bikes with them....we even saw a guy on his bike with like 4 or 5 bundles some how attached to his bike....it was crazy.

Cattle truck.

car wash

plowing the field.

Tallest building in Zambia.

Some other info that is interesting

-when stopped by the police you get out of the car to talk to them other wise you get in trouble.

-there are no emission standards.

-we would NEVER buy a used vehicle there.

- I thought it was rude to take a picture of the guys that sell things on the street....literally at a stop light walking between cars....we closed our windows then.

This is an experience I will never forget. I know that I have probably missed adding a bunch of stuff I wanted to add, but oh well.

Victoria Falls Part 2

***I accidentally put all these pictures in the opposite order than I wanted to....opps. ***

So this is a flat spot on the Zambia side of the falls where you can see where the water flows over the falls. Really cool to see. Love the mist coming up.

From where we were standing we had a good view of both bridges. The smaller on is called the knife edge bridge. The further on is the bigger one that Jer did bungi off of. The mist on the knife edge bridge was pretty moist. Jer said the last time he was here you walked off that bridge soaked all the way through. Sooo cool.

Soo many more rainbows on the Zambia side....Zandria loves the pictures of the rainbows. (We took lots.)

So big and beautiful

This is from the knife edge bridge...from the edge of it and my camera still got a little wet.

Love the guard rail hey....haha.

Knife edge bridge. I don't have picture to show it, but the rock under it kind of comes to a point kind of like a knife edge....hence the name.

These guys were on the path that was around the falls. They would not move. They were grooming each other, would look up and get a bit cranky that we were there, but would not move still. They were soo cute tho.

Chobe part 2

The next morning was our land safari. We hopped in the truck shortly before 6 am, after we had had some tea and muffins. On a side note all our video footage has Sask time on it...it was just after midnight at home...yep kind of funny to look at now.

These are impala. We asked our guide what animal was most plentiful here, she said didn't know but was between impala and elephants. The baby impala were supper cute...Jer got some good video of them.

These are dung beetles. I love dung beetles just cause of a funny story and they are fascinating. The story... a evening a couple of nights before we went to Chobe we were walking back to our room from supper, it was dark so there were lights on the path that were about 4 inches high. I was a head of Jer and suddenly I saw this bug that was a little smaller than a hot wheels car on it's back legs flailing in the air. I freaked out. Usually bugs don't bother me as long as I know what they can do to me. If I don't know what it is I get freaked. I had no idea, just about hyperventilated....it was bad.

So we are driving into Chobe and I see this same bug flying FLYING (remember small hot wheels car sized bug) around. I immediately asked what it was and what it could do to me. The guide said it was a dung beetle and that it didn't do anything to people but land on them. One landed on Kiera and then got flung to my feet. I still couldn't touch it to get rid of it...I got Jer to do it. They are gross they eat poop.

Ok so what they do it they fly around looking for fresh dung to feed on and make a ball out of. So the males make the dung balls with their hind legs. They try to make it as big as possible. The bigger the ball the sooner you attract a female and can mate. In the picture below is a male pushing his ball with the female that he attracted attached to the ball. She basically attaches her self and goes along for the ride until they find a good place to mate. She lays her eggs on the ball so that when the babies are ready they eat the ball. Sooo interesting. I can not remember the technical name of this bird, but the guide says that people call it the flying chili pepper. I love this picture....the beak stands out soo well.

Yup pink bird...can't remember the name either. They were long names.

Big male impala.

Baboons

Soo cute. This baby one was trying to figure out why she was sticking her in water, and how she was drinking.

Water monitor lizard....it was huge.

Yup we saw lions....and lion cubs.

Hahaha so this is a male and female as you can see. But I put my camera down for a bit after this picture cause they were...ah....mating. Yup we witnessed it in real life....didn't take long tho...plus I think she was sleeping the whole time....but whatever works.

There were 3 females a little further away that had 2 cubs. They were cute.

These birds were cool coloured. Jer got a video of them taking a bird bath in this puddle. It looked awesome in the sun.

This some kind of bustard bird. Can't remember what kind of bustard, but it is the biggest flying bird in the world. We have a video that shows it next to an impala. It was huge...just a little smaller than an emu.

Mmm wart hog.

So the last of the animals that we saw on our morning outing was the wart hog. We got back and were disappointed that we weren't able to see any elephants. We were soo sad.

We had the chance to go on another boat ride but decided to just chill by the pool and maybe have a nap instead. We had a couple that we had been going on everything with and they decided to go on the second boat ride....well they saw elephants getting a drink of water and playing in the mud and water. We were ticked. We asked if they would be willing to take us on the round about way out of the park so that we could maybe see some. They said no. we were sad.

Jer told me to have my camera ready just in case....we were with his parents after all, and things tend to work out for them the way they want.

So needless to say shortly before we got to the gate we saw a lone elephant. Then like 2 minutes later there where like 25 that walked in front of us on the road so we had to stop. It was incredible. In the picture below there was a little one walking the big one stopped and glared at us until they turned of the truck. Never had such a big animal look at me soo threateningly.

This is a series of one walking. It was awesome.

We have a lot more pictures than this. We have a lot of video also. Wish you could all see it but don't know how to edit and put it on here. so yeah

Thanks for reading ....only a couple more Africa posts to come.