The excitement was great as we drove to the airport that morning. When we arrived, it showed that the plane was actually a bit early, so we were ready and waiting to take photos when we first saw them, but customs took longer than we thought. I counted 10 groups of airline pilots and flight attendants, but still no Ryan. We sat down awhile and then stood up awhile and finally, Elder Kyle spotted Ryan.
They were finally here! Ryan and his dad shared a moment as we saw Ryan for the first time in over a year.
Then Liz's family arrived and Liz shared a moment with her Mom as well. There were plenty of hugs all around and so great to finally have them all here. Liz has a great family. How fun to expand our family so quickly!
We were worried that everyone would be so tired, but they were surprisingly awake and ready to go. Liz was very sweet and her brother and sister-in-law were a riot. Mom and dad Wootton were surprisingly alert and very nice. I was probably more tired than anyone, because I had trouble sleeping with all there was to do and all the excitement of the wedding.
We loaded up the luggage and drove the gang over to the house Ryan had rented (upstairs at least). Everyone got settled while Elder Kyle and I went out on the back patio to enjoy the lovely day. Doug actually fell asleep and got a power nap. The ladies took showers and felt so much better. After everyone was clean and feeling perky again, we loaded back up and took everyone to lunch. We went to Moyos, which is an authentic African place with African music, food and gift shops...very cool place.
Adri got her face painted by one of the native ladies. This face painting is traditional for certain African tribes and we've actually seen ladies in Durban with this style of paint on their faces. Of course Adri looked beautiful with her face paint and wondered if it would last until the next day. "Only if you don't wash your face," I said, in hopes that she wouldn't, but the next day the paint was gone...sigh.
We all chose the buffet and it was pretty good, but even though Ryan piled his plate pretty high, he didn't like much of it...no surprise there, but at least he tried several different things. After lunch, we checked out the gift shop and then walked around Moyos to take in the African architecture. Moyos was interesting enough to warrant some photos.Doug and Walt were digging this native lady~!
Ryan liked the rock rope decor on the outside too.
We then strolled through the park, where it seemed everyone was enjoying the beautiful sunny day. The area is called Zoo Lake, because there is a lake there and maybe even a zoo as well, though we've never been there. Who would go to a zoo when you have game in the wild?
People had fired up their Braais (BBQs), had coolers of drinks and were even dancing and singing some African songs. There was a fountain in the lake and ducks and geese walking around looking for people to feed them. It was quite pretty.
All of a sudden the group came upon this darling little girl sitting all by herself on a large park bench.
I asked her to smile while I took her photo and she finally did. Very cute little girl, but no worries, her family was close by. For whatever reason she just wanted to sit on the park bench by herself.
This pretty much ended our Saturday. We went back to the house and dropped everyone off so they could get a good night's sleep and be ready to go to Church bright and early the next day (they all groaned when we told them they had to be ready to be picked up by 7:15AM. What a great day we had...first day in Africa for six people. We were like proud parents...with Africa as our child.
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