MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM SOUTH AFRICA!!!
Today was a Christmas that we will always remember. Everyone was in a festive mood, and we wore our Santa hats to morning coffee. As we were bouncing along in the jeep at 6:00am, watching the sunrise, we were all thinking of our family back home and wishing we could pick up the phone and call. Much to the embarassment of the kids, I sang just about every Christmas song I know (and I know a LOT of Christmas songs!). I'd like to think that the animals appreciated my singing, even if my family did not. :) Today Lucky was determined to find buffalo for us to see. On safari, the goal is to see what they call "The Big Five" - elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, and rhino. We were told not to expect to see a leopard, although one had been sighted the day before, because there were only a couple of leopards in the entire 76,000 hectares Madikwe Game Reserve. When one ranger makes a sighting, he radios it in to all the other rangers and shares the location. This morning we were on a mission to see buffalo and drove for four hours over very rocky and hilly terrain, bouncing around like bobble-head dolls until I really didn't care if we saw a buffalo or not! We went to every watering hole we could find, followed tracks, but never found a buffalo. We did, however, drive up to a scenic overlook and had our morning coffee looking out over the beautiful valley below. The mountain range reminded Shelby and I of the Ozark mountains in Arkansas. Shelby did his famous Tarzan yell, which don't ask me how that got started but he feels compelled to do his Tarzan yell in every place we visit! We finally gave up on the buffalo and headed back to camp for breakfast. I had a wonderful massage in my tent, Kasey took a nap, and Shelby and Wes went to the swimming pool. Christmas lunch was a huge spread consisting of ham, beef and turkey, salads and vegies and a Christmas pudding.
This afternoon we saw rhinos and actually got quite close to them! Double click on this photo and you can see a little bird on the rhino's neck. The rhino's ears are so big, the little bird flew inside! 
We must have sat there watching these three rhinos for over an hour, waiting to see if the mama rhino was going to allow the male rhino to get close to her daughter. She was very protective and huffed and puffed at the male every time he tried to get close to them.
Horny male rhino
Protective mom and daughter
Off we go on our morning game drive.
Santa Shelby early on Christmas morning. This year Santa brought us an amazing trip to South Africa for Christmas!!!
At the scenic overlook
Christmas Buffet Lunch!(no wild game, thank goodness!)
Open air dining room
A wildebeest came up very close to our jeep
Lucky loves all kinds of birds, and would stop the jeep and look in his bird watchers manual to find the different species of birds that we encountered. We did see the bird from "Lion King", remember Zazu? :)
Merry Christmas everybody!