Crooks Family, A bakers Dozen :)

Our African Adventure

We have had quite a whirlwind month around here,  On December 17 the entire Crooks Family, Mike and I and all 9 kids, set off on what was to be the best trip of our lives! Mike and I, along with Catherine, Ciara, Hunter, Ruby, Kai, Sophie and Holly flew from Spokane to Seattle where we met up with Lauren and Sean. We then all flew on the red eye to Paris where we hit the ground running! We mastered the Paris metro and spent the day at the Louvre (which Lauren swears I mis-pronounce every time I say it.....) before falling into bed. The next morning we flew another 10 hours to Johannesburg where we met up with my Mom (Granny "O") and her wonderful sister Anne-Marie. We arrived at the hotel just after midnight and after a few hours of sleep we boarded the Blue Train at 8:00am the following morning. The Blue Train is an amazing and elegant train that runs from Pretoria (near Jo'burg)  to Cape Town giving its passengers 24 hours of amazing luxury en route, which after 3+ days of travel we REALLY appreciated! We all then spent 3 days in Cape Town (S. Africa)and took in wonderful sights like the Cape of Good Hope, Seal Island, and the amazing African Penguins. We even got robbed, all such an adventure! We then flew on to Nairobi, where the highlight of our trip began.

After spending a night at the Karen Blixen Hotel outside Nairobi we flew on a small 14 passenger plane to the Masai Mara where we were met at the airstrip by the most amazing group of guides, who soon became very good friends. Our guides were Maria and Anthony (who are wonderful people), and their two kids George and Challa (who our children adored)came along as they were on Christmas Holiday. Our third guide was our very own Crocodile Dundee, a retired school teacher Dave who the kids grew to adore. We drove on to our first camp which was amazing! Our tents were on a river, right in the bush, right in the middle of all the local wildlife. While we were tent camping for sure, we were still spoiled rotten by the camp staff lead by the amazing native man Arthur. Nobody knows how old he is for sure (even him!), but he was truly amazing! From the wonderful food, to the terrific company, to the lions roaring at dinner time, to the local drink Amarhula, the the showers that were heated to a perfect temperature in a huge cauldron and had the most wonderful smokey smell, camp life was unforgettable! We miss it every day! We started each day at 5:45 when we were brought local coffee in our tents, and piled into the three Landrovers to begin the morning Safari. We soon had the Landrovers labeled, we had the "Education Car" driven by Anthony, and Granny O and Lauren were fixtures in this car. The second car, driven by Maria was the "Discussion Car", where Ciara, Mike, and I were fixtures. The third car was Dave's "Party Car", and that it was! Holly, Hunter, Ruby, and Kai were the fixtures of that rig, and believe it or not they all drove at one time or another! Catherine, Sean, Sophie, and Auntie Anne Maria were floaters, choosing to experience a different car every day, depending on their mood :-) We drove around and saw the most amazing and beautiful wildlife, got very up close and personal with everything from lions to elephants, and ended up back at camp by about 10:00ish for camp breakfasts. It was either due to the cooking, or the fact that we were starving by then, that camp breakfasts were always delicious! We then spent the days hanging about camp, hiking, fishing, napping, talking, etc until evening when we took off for another 3+ hour "game drive". Home in time for a scrumptious dinner at 7:30ish, some great wine, and lots of fun conversations, we were all sound asleep by 10:00.

One of the highlights of our time on the Masai Mara was our visit to a local Masai Village. The village was made entirely of cow dung, so the aroma was a bit hard to take for those of us not used to it, but the rest of it was beautiful. The men and women were friendly and absolutely beautiful. The children were smiling and happy. It was life changing to see people with so little, so incredibly content and happy. A truly different world, one that is for sure hard at times, but is very special.

After a brief 48 hours at Loldia House at Lake Naivasha (ask Lauren about that that trip:-), we were back on our little plane flying to our next camp in Shaba which is on North Cental Kenya. This camp was on a big river (home to many crocodiles) and in a much more desert climate. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Here we spent the days in a similar fashion to our days on the Mara, but add in some real fun in the local river, a water hike to a beautiful water fall,and the building of the most wonderful sand castle I've ever seen! Here is where we spent New Years Eve, and brought in 2009. What a fun night that was, and one Hunter and his friend George will likely not forget for quite a while! To wake up to 2009 in our tent in Africa was something I will never forget!

We were all sad to leave Africa, but hit the ground running again in Paris where we had a 24 hour lay over again. We were able to visit Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower before boarding our flight back to Seattle. Our whole gang is VERY grateful to Granny "O" for this trip of a lifetime. We have all fallen in love with Africa, and we are all trying to figure out how quickly we will get back there! For Mike and I to be able to share this 2 1/2 weeks with all 9 of our children, to watch them interact with such love given the different ways they have all joined our family, was such an incredible gift to us at parents, Thank you Granny O for that!

Here are some pic's of our great adventures: