Camping at Hairy Lemon

Hairy Lemon is a great little island in the middle of the Nile.  To get to it, you park on the mainland and then ferry across in a wooden canoe.  That means that ALL of our camping gear and people had to be loaded into the wooden canoe and then carried to the top of the island where we set up camp.  We had great intentions of packing light because of this, but, well...let's just say that they remained as great intentions and never quite became reality.

It poured rain during our last day at Murchison, so no laundry was done that day.  Add to that two travel days and by the time we got to Hairy Lemon and did laundry...I think the picture speaks for itself!  Normally during vacation, laundry was a daily task that the kids did by hand, but on this day, we hired a few of the workers to help.

Sadly, I didn't take out my camera too much at Hairy Lemon.  Rebecca and I ended up getting super sick for the last few days.  By the time we got home, Eric, Timothy and Benaiah were also sick.  But here are the few that I did take.  

The island is actually one of many little islands with little creeks running in between them all.  We had to watch the kids quite closely, especially the little ones, to make sure they didn't get in currents that were too strong, but the big kids had a lot of fun with Eric exploring all the creeks and other islands.

And there was a really nice beach area that we spent quite a bit of time at too.

After we left Hairy Lemon, we drove to Kampala to drop Christi, our MA, off at the airport and to get the Land Rover fixed.  The Land Rover managed to have plenty of issues by the time we hobbled it over to the shop.  While it was being fixed, the girls and I went to the mall to celebrate Rebecca's birthday.  The girls have been wanting to get their ears pierced for quite a long time, so that's what we did...add to that lunch, shopping and haircut for me, and the day was quite nice!

We would appreciate continued prayers for health and strength.  William and Talitha both came down with Malaria when we got home (can we say "camping for two weeks in Uganda??") and none of us are completely over whatever stomach issue we had.  And in fact tonight, we had a little birthday party for Matthew and Rebecca and already, the cake is not staying in/threatening to return from multiple tummies.  Thank you for your prayers for this!  

Around Camp at Murchison Falls

Just a few more pictures from Murchison Falls.  (This blog serves as our scrap book too, so thanks for bearing with me.  :)  )

The first week of vacation, Eric was struggling with, what we are pretty sure was, a spider bite.  The wound went from being two little pin pricks to a nasty large wound and the whole time he was feeling quite yuck.  He and Talitha enjoyed a nap together under the shade of a shelter.

Sleeping babies are so sweet!

The lodge also had a swimming pool that we took advantage of daily...especially since we were in one of the hottest parts of Uganda.

The monkeys would sometimes sit and watch us playing.  They were probably thinking to themselves, "That crazy family makes as much ruckus as we do!"  And as a side note...this is the only pool in Uganda that I've ever seen with a fence around it...one might think, "how nice of them to care about the safety of children."  But no...it was actually meant to keep the hippos from going skinny dipping at midnight... haha! :)

Our tent city.

Our last night at the lodge the staff, whom we had gotten to know a little bit, surprised us with this cake.  They were so sweet!

And what happens when it's past 8 pm and you feed a one year old a slice of chocolate cake?

Drama, laughter, silliness and funny faces abound...

And on that same evening the Lord blessed us with a beautiful sunset!

If I had written the story of what my life would look like, I don't think that I ever would have written it in such as way as to include a line about me photographing our 8 precious children while they watch the sun set over the Nile... I'm so thankful that God did...His lines have indeed fallen in pleasant places...what a beautiful inheritance...

Murchison Falls

The national park is named after Murchison Falls.  Murchison Falls is where the mighty Nile gets squeezed through a 7 meter gap in the rocks, tumbles 43 meters down, and pushes through a 10 meter wide gorge before flowing back to it's normal width and eventually into Lake Albert. 

The local tribe had a legend that if a man were to successfully jump across it then he could be king.  For many years it was a yearly tradition for a man to try and obviously fail.

The worship in heaven will be like the sound of many rushing waters...and even more beautiful. 

Not the best picture, but here we are! :)

Elephants, giraffes, warthogs and more

Elephants...

On our game drive we never got super close to these magnificent beasts, but they sure were fun to watch.

Our best peek of them came during lunches at the lodge where we camped.  The eating pavilion was right across the Nile from the park and we enjoyed watching them then...mostly because we were looking down on them now, not just across the high grass at them.

Giraffes...

are truly glorious animals.  To watch their graceful walking is quite surreal.  We also thought the colors of the giraffes here were so much more vibrant than the ones in the zoo.

Time for tea?

Warthogs...

have to be one of the most ugly and hilariously funny looking animal ever...

...especially when they run with their tails up...

Deer...

so many varieties...so strong and beautiful...

Water buffalo...

Not quite sure how many times we sang, "Everybody's got a water buffalo..."

That's all for now.  :)

In Anticipation of the New Earth...

The game park made us imagine what the new earth will look like.  There were so many animals in the area and so many large animals!  It also was not hard to imagine what the earth was like with dinosaurs roaming around...it must have been so beautiful.  

This post is mainly a some-what feeble attempt to show the expanse and beauty of the park.  Tomorrow, I'll post some more animal pictures.