Our Vacation of Awesomeness

Vacation September 14-19th

Day 1 of 5 - Long two hour car ride. The roads here in Madagascar are not good in any sense of the word but the roads here to Manambato where worse, and in some places it was very scary, especially  since the car weighed SO much, and we had seven people in the car. But it passed quickly and the hotel is beautiful and its like being at the beach but its not as smelly and fresh water not salt :). Also the food is pretty darn good. After putting our stuff in our bungalows we went swimming then ate dinner, and went to bed. However there was a lack of sleep because the people in the village ACROSS the lake had borrowed speakers and a generator. They were celebrating a soccer game of something, and played the music so loud we could hear it all NIGHT LONG, and I mean all night. The music didn't stop till about 5:30am. So we were ALL cranky the next day.  

Day 2 of 5 - TIME MOVES SO SLOWLY HERE. We swim A LOT. From the time we have coffee in the morning till lunch and then from lunch till dinner again. The boys also kayak on this little kayaks that the hotel has, Rafily is actually really good at paddling even though he is so small. But the best part is all the swimming and kayaking is the boys ARE SO TIRED that they just go right to sleep. However we have Angelo our resident "teenager", he hates being stuck with his brothers, but he is a very good big brother and can be sweet when he needs to be. I am sharing a bungalow with Andi/Andrea we switch often between her name and her nickname (FYI) We have seen bunch of lizards which is good because they eat the evil misquotes and a mouse. Aunt Kim, Uncle Colin, Kitika, and Rafily take a "dodo" which means nap every after noon. Andi is enjoying reading catching fire on my iPad. Angelo and I play uno and watch movies on either my computer or iPad. The boys LOVE despicable me. The coolest part about my bungalow is that it has french doors that we can open up the french doors that look right out side on to the beach and it lets in a nice breeze. 

Day 3 of 5 - The day we planned to go to the lemur place. The day started of great, I ate breakfast with Aunt Kim and Andi. Then we headed to meet the boat a little ways down the beach. We beat our driver to the boat :). Our drives name was Antonio. We all finally got in the boat and we headed directly across the lake to the village there so Antonio could deliver a message to someone there. While he did this he made one decision that later would cause our major "adventure" of the day. Antonio left the motor running, so we would know he was coming right back or something like that. But more about that later. After Antonio delivered the message we left on our merry way to the lemur park. It was about a hour ride to the park, it was a seamless ride there. Except it RAINED I was at the front of the boat and when it started to rain I took out the umbrella and Rafily sat in my lap and he became so warm he fell asleep. When we got to the park it was AWESOME/AMAZING. We were standing there and suddenly Kitika had a lemur on his head. :) Then Andi got to hold it. Then we met Romeo our guide for the afternoon. He was very nice and very informed about the local plants. Romeo also showed us all the plants that were medicinal. Then we headed into the forest,  shortly after another group. We take a few steps into the forest and Romeo started making these LOUD weird noises. Turns out he was calling the lemurs. Despite Romeo's efforts to call them, the rain had scared them off. Also despite Romeo's best effort we did run into the other group but we ran into them because they had found some lemurs. I didn't mind because they had found my favorite kind of lemur which is what I call Zaboomafo lemurs because this kind of lemur used to host my favorite tv show Zaboomafo :). We hung out with these lemurs long enough for the other group to get ahead. Then suddenly it started raining and we got rather cold. We then walked for a while again and again met up with the other group for the same reason. The lemurs that they found this time were the biggest lemurs out there. They look like giant teddy bears to me. There were 5 lemurs in this one family group and two other lemurs showed up because people = Banana's. There was a mom, a dad, 2 1/2 year old, 1 1/2 year old, and a 1 1/2 month old. They were VERY VERY sweet but the dad did not like us going near the baby. Then since we had time before lunch we went to see more cool plants down by the beach. Then we went and ate lunch, they had really good sauté potatoes. Then it was time to get on the boat and head home. We got on the boat and Rafily and I quickyly fell asleep. When suddenly we were both awaken, the boat had stopped and it was silent. The motor wasn't running and I figured maybe we just ran out of gas which I knew we had plenty of because I watched him put extra in the hold of the boat. But then we were told it was the battery. This didn't sound good at all expecially since we were in the middleish of the lake because it was deep, but what made it worse was we could see the point near our beach/hotel. But what made it funny was all the different reactions. Angelo's was to start joking around and then to pick up the paddle and to start paddling. Uncle Colin and Antonino's reaction was very similar in that they both started trying to see if maybe they could fix the motor, which they couldn't so then they started making phone calls and sending texts depending on what the signal would allow. The little boys of corse wanted to do anything and everything everyone else was doing. But by far my favorite reactions were Andrea's and Aunt Kim's. They started devising different ways we could signal for help, such as spelling out help or S.O.S with panty liners, then Andi tried signaling for help with Aunt Kim's make-up mirror which could have worked BUT there was no one on the beach. Then Aunt Kim suggested we all write our last will and testiment on panty liners incase we die. I looked at Angelo and said "Fish food we are going to be fish food". Then Angelo, Aunt Kim, and Andi got started talking about Mr.Bean and when I said I had never seen it suddenly they started singing some weird song.  By this time between Uncle Colin and Antonio's paddling we were getting very close to shore, when suddenly there were two boys on the beach, but something had gone wrong in translation and they had brought us gasoline not a new battery. Right as I was about to just walk over to the shore another boat came. This boat was from our hotel not the hotel we had rented the previous boat from. Well we all got into the second boat and the motor on it sounded a little funny, but he got it started and we were off and we had to go farther away from the beach to get to deep enough water that the boat "would run right" well we get to the deep water and silence again. The motor had stopped on the second boat, this time it was water in the fuel line, 10-15 mins later they rigged the motor and we did finally make it "home" to our bungalows. The rain was gone, but it was still cloudy so we of corse went swimming but it was COLD and I couldn't handle it so Angelo and I went and played uno some more.Then we went and got changed and ate dinner and had an amazing night sleep. 

Day 4 of 5 - It was the uglest day. No sun at all it was dreary and all you wanted to do was sleep. Angelo and Andrea went on a kayak ride down a canal. Kitika, Rafily and I went to my bungalow where Kitika played on the Ipad on some of the education apps and Rifily and I played with uno card matching. Then we played in the water some and ate lunch then it was nap time for the two little boys. Andi decided to wash some of her cloths in the lake and then Angelo and I decided to go swimming again. Shortly after the little boys woke up and we all went swimming and we even washed our hair in the lake, Aunt Kim, Andi, the boys and I. We also spent a lot of the time looking for cool rocks and then playing shark with Rafily :). Then it got VERY cold and I started writting all this down. Kit and I started singing songs, he LOVES "It's America" he has been singing it since I played it a week ago. Then we made some videos, feed some sweet dogs, took some photos, and then went to dinner. Then we found the owl that has been driving me crazy since the night we got here then Andi and I headed to "bed". In the sense that we are in our beds. Tomorrow we head home. There are 11 baby turkeys waiting for us when we get home :).

Day 5 of 5 - Best night sleep I had had the whole time, of corse it would be the last night. Andi wanted to shoot some kids who sounded like they were all playing on our front porch. Then we went and ate breakfast which was yummy like always. It was the prettest morning yet which kind of sucked since we were leaving. It was nice and hot out side of the water but the water when we finally went in was so COLD. Then we went to go back the car up and realised the car keys were missing. So we all frantically started looking all over the beach but we couldn't find the keys. After about 15-20 mins of searching Aunt Kim found them in the pocket of her purse, it remains a mistery as to how they got there. We packed up the car, the manager tried to give us a puppy that the boy had been playing with. Then we left on of merry way, about 45 mins into the ride I fell asleep so the ride is kind of a blur. I woke up right as we got to Tamatave (the town in which The Radfords live in). It was lunch time and we had planned to go to the darafy, the favorite and closest resturant to the house :). It was very very yummy but while we were waiting for the check Andi whispers "I think the guy over there just snorted coke." We look over and sure enough he was snorting something. Just shows you never know what you are going to see here in Madagascar :P. While we were gone the baby turkeys hatched and we all took a guess at how many of them there would be. Andi said 19, Angelo said 17, I said 18 and Aunt Kim said 20. I was right as of right now there are 18 baby chicks running around and they are VERY cute. 6 eggs have yet to hatch and may never hatch but now its time to unpack and stuff. So I hope you all enjoy my stories of our trip, as Uncle Colin kept saying "Just think of it as an adventure" and that is exactly what it is. The next three months are the biggest adventure of my life so far.