Katelyn's Birthday: Horse Back Riding On the Nile....

 

This past Saturday was Katelyn's 10th birthday.  To celebrate we took her on a horseback ride along the Nile River.  Oh the sufferings of living overseas! 

 

Every year, we get our blog printed off in book form as a sort of scrap book for our family...so for that purpose (and perhaps because you might enjoy it too...) here is a huge photo dump from our day. :) 

 

 

 

 

 Katelyn, Timothy, Tessa and I went for a one hour ride.  But before we left for our ride, the younger kids...Matthew, Rebecca, Jimmy and William all got to do a half hour ride.

 

While they were gone, we got on our helmets...

...and played in the grass...

 Tess and I have mostly used a Western style saddle before...we had a good laugh at ourselves when we realized that in our minds we were expecting a Western saddle, but that it makes more sense that a former English colony would have English saddles, not Western saddles... :)

The owner gave a brief riding lesson to the kids, but also sent some guys to walk along side...just in case.  We were impressed with how professional and well kept this place was.

Then we were off!

Riding under the power lines almost made me forget we were in Africa...

But the monkeys in the trees, remind us quickly, that we are still in Africa. Yay!! :) 

There was a group of monkeys jumping all around the trees where we started; this one had paused to eat a jackfruit (and to let me take his picture :)

After our ride, we went to a Mzungu hang-out in Jinja (Keep Cafe).  We quickly realized why so many Mzungus hang out there...they have an amazing assortment of Mzungu food.  Katelyn used her birthday money from Grandma to buy a Mint Chocolate Chip Milkshake.  And I, not having any birthday money to spend, decided to consider a Mint Chocolate Chip Milkshake absolutely necessary to my survival in Africa and bought one too. YUM!!  Since we have nothing of the sort here in Mbale, we might just have to stop in Jinja more often... :)