Brent's 40th birthday

Yep that's an elephant

On March 21, Brent celebrated his 40th birthday. We are so thankful for this guy and had so much fun celebrating him. On the day of his birthday, we had a volunteer team here and we had already planned to take them on a safari on that date so we just tagged along.
The weekend after Brent's birthday, I had planned a getaway for just the two of us (this is Amanda writing). In my mind I had planned this super relaxing weekend in a air conditioned place, maybe getting our toes done or a massage...but in Brent's mind he wanted to go camping. So since it was his birthday, I conceded and he took me camping in Khutse for 2 nights which is at the bottom of the Kalahari desert. Brent has been to this campground with volunteers before but I have never wanted to go as there are no real showers or flushing toilets. In the past he has seen all the antelope and elephants but never any cats. The first night there, we saw a male and female lion mating about 1km from our campsite. At 4am, a loud roar made both Brent and I sit up in bed...we never saw him but he sure was close.
The next day we searched and searched for the lions, not finding them anywhere. We went back to the water hole that was only 1km from our campsite and at 6pm another male lion came roaring out of the bush. He was looking for the other male and female. We watched him until dark and then went back to our campsite to cook dinner.  About an hour later we hear the roar getting closer and we jump in the truck, ok I jumped and Brent walked slowly despite my pleading. Not long after, we heard the roars coming from the other side of our camp, the lion had passed by. He was certainly not looking to hurt us but was trying to find what we found out the next day was his brother who took off with one of the females.
Oh the joys of nature and being in the wild. Camping with lions would never fly in America, right? We had such a wonderful time together and thankful we didn't get eaten :)
Many thanks to our teammates Coye and Sherra Still who kept our kids for the weekend! We are blessed with wonderful teammates!

On safari with the volunteer team

Happy 40th!

Ice cream cake with just the family

 Camping trip to Khutse

Where the pavement ends, the adventure begins

Female lion in the water

Male and female lion...look closely for the male

Driving around looking for our lions

My amazing spotter

Giraffe

The brother from night 2 

The bucket shower stall and pit latrine enclosures...not
luxury camping.