update, trip to Madikwe

It's now Sunday morning and things are stable with my mom. I think she had a bit of a setback yesterday morning, but according to family, this past evening things had gotten back to normal... She is still on a ventilator, but they have plans to get her off of that very soon...Out thoughts our always with her as we hope that she continues to get stronger and stronger each day.. We will be leaving in 2 weeks.

As for us, we returned from our trip to Madkiwe yesterday.. And even though our thoughts were at home, we promised the kids a trip to see some more of the African wild.. In order to stay close to home(in order to stay in contact with family), we chose to drive about 30 minutes outside the city to a beautiful game reserve in South Africa called Madikwe.. We stayed in a beautiful lodge called Tuningi and were treated like kings... The game viewing was scarce.. due to the rain that occurred all week long. But the highlight of the trip, for everyone, was seeing a leopard up close... That is Jacob and Kate wanted to see, so they got it. We really lucked out and had the rare experience of seeing it within 15 feet of our truck.. Jude and Franny were in the truck screaming while Michelle and I tried to stuff crackers in their face in order to keep them quiet.. but we were able to get a few good photos before it his away in the bush.. It was truly amazing.. Another highlight was getting even closer to a group of about 20 elephants.. they encircled our truck.. the guide said... "If I say scream, I mean it.. scream as loud as you possibly can." that was scary.. expecially when the people at the lodge were telling stories of some workers/guides getting crushed by elephants in the past years.. This ain't no zoo...It was awesome, and I think my favorite game viewing experiences here , have to be all the elephants we've encountered... I will have some video up in the next few days of both encounters..
I think that is all for today... we continue to sort through things and prepack bags.. And as beautiful and amazing as going to the African bush is, our thought are at home and getting there....