Our African Safari

Yesterday, my wonderful husband surprised me and our kids with a safari!!! I have wanted to do this since we got here, but we hadn't made time for it yet. But, for my birthday Shelby planned it all and surprised us.

It was an awesome day!!! We saw all sorts of cool animals, almost saw the big 5. The animals we saw were Lions, elephants, rhinos, hippos, wildebeests, kudu, antelope, spring dear, warthogs, ostrich, monitor lizards. What an amazing day!





 Look the rhinos are looking at us! We called these birthday rhinos because we didn't see them all day and then we prayed we could see some for my birthday. They were the birthday rhinos because they showed up right after we prayed :) What a great present.








We were so close to this giraffe, it walked in front of our car and then stopped next to us.






 

This picture is of a hippo and her baby. She wouldn't come any closer to us, and really that was fine with us. What we have heard is that the hippo is super dangerous... so hi mama hippo from a distance :)

Spring bucks, they were EVERYWHERE!!! Super cute!

We didn't see Zebra all day and then all of a sudden we saw a whole herd. They really are pretty.

This is another spring buck but it's a male... see the horns.









Now come the really exciting animals!

 Here are some elephants. Shelby got out of the car to pet one and the whole troop came right up and I thought they would step on him. Then they walked so close to the car one almost stepped on the front. Shelby had to reverse to get out of the way.

 2 Lions, it was so cool being this close. Also, a little intimidating!!!

 This was after the lions above got tired of us being there next to them. The female one started to come after us and then the male started to run toward us... we MOVED! The male tried to bite our back tires while the female just tried to get the back of our car. This is when they finally finished chasing us and he went over there to mark his territory. We decided NOT to challenge him and let him be king of the "territory".

Just look at those teeth. These were two white lions the one with the teeth is a male and that is his woman next to him.

Drew with Pumba his new warthog friend!

Brie, Gabe and the zebra!

Me and Shelby! I really like this picture of us!

All my lovies!

A more natural picture for us... crazy!

This tree was huge and we found all these really cute monkeys in it :)









It was an amazing birthday present. I dont know how many people can say they get to go on an African safari for their birthday, but I can. Thanks honey and I love you so much for making my birthday week so special. You ROCK!!!