Presenting....Cheese!!!

There is a funny thing that happens when a three-year-old knows his name and can say it. Even funnier when it is unpronounceable in English.
This is not "ha, ha" funny...more like "what on earth are we going to do?" funny.

Kagiso ("Ka-hee-so") had his first U.S. physical exam and now we have to traipse him around town for the myriad of specialists who need to check his heart (a murmur), his throat (snoring), his ears (he is so loud...do they even work?), and the  lab (which checks his poop--which of course he thinks is quite normal due to the fact that Oskar and I both now are sporting parasites and other "abnormalities").

At any rate, the office managers and receptionists from these various medical specialists have been phoning the house this week and when I answer there is a chipper greeting followed by a line like, "I am looking for the parents of....." I normally help them along and volunteer the name of my youngest.
Today, however, she boldly went forward and asked for the parent of "Queso."

Seriously, I have a line. For the record, I would not let my son keep a name if it was "cheese."Nope. Never. 

Welcome home little man.
Kagiso carries this sign around the house. Oh, excuse me "HIS house."

It looks like my health troubles can ow be attributed to a lovely parasite that has traveled throughout South Africa and back the US of A with me. Goody. Hopefully after a week of treatment I will be good as new...and ready to chase a 3-year old. 

We made it home!! This just all feels so unreal.

Before we left on Wednesday we took photos with our South African "family"...

Herman, Corlia, Mannie (holding peanut) and the Olsson "five."

Jeanetta, Gert and Gary.

I cried like a baby saying goodbye to such precious friends.
I also likely cried out of disbelief that our long and sometimes arduous journey was coming to a close.
Or I cried simply because taking a lively three year old on an 18 hour flight will bring anyone to tears!

Amazingly enough, the trip was smooth (or "too smooth"due to a lingering illness of the stomach variety that had Oskar and I both in the doctor's office today...) and it was incredible to be greeted by such a boisterous and beautiful host of friends and family at the Grand Rapids airport.

Uncle Jon and Aunt Lyndi captured our arrival on film and if I was clever I would know how to post that here...as of now it is on my facebook page ;)

Whew. We start the long trek home today. Our bags are open and we are attempting to squish all of our things back into them.

We just said good bye to Andi. Kahee has such a crush on her--it is darling.
I am not sure if this is simply a photo of Mannie and Andi or an ad for Michigan Awesome?

Wild Africa!

Traffic...

Our fabulous hosts Sollie and Elise...

Happy faces...

Aha! We have a solid internet connection again!
Our weekend was amazing--a true African experience.
We traveled with Jeanetta and Gary (a very full and noisy car!) sightseeing along the way to Naboomspruit (2 hours without all of our stops). This is an African "small town"...from there we drove about half an hour into the Bush. We found a gate announcing the game farm, then drove further into what seemed like the end of the earth. (Gert met us later in the evening.)
Then...like a vision sat one of the homes of Elise and Sollie. They welcomed us with open arms and were incredibly generous the whole weekend. We lived in luxury, ate like royalty and spent Saturday driving across their beautiful property looking for sightings of the exotic African animals they breed.We saw so many animals it is hard to remember all of their names!
The kids swam in a dam with a waterfall--the highlight of the whole trip for them!

Unfortunately for Kahee he fell out of bed Friday night and did a face plant on the floor. This meant a fat lip, bloody nose and a fair bit of drama. Good heavens! Now his nose and lip match his funky eye!

We had a successful visit to the U.S. Consulate yesterday and it feels incredibly good to be done with all of our paperwork.

Today we pack and relax...tomorrow we head to the airport. Hard to believe we are going to be coming home--and that it will be five of us! We can't wait!!!

More photos to come...

We are trilled to announce our paperwork here is over! The US consulate granted Kagiso a travel visa. So we should be all set to fly home on Wednesday! We find ourselves at the bittersweet crossroad of being so excited to finally return home and so sad to leave our south african "family." We are experiencing some internet issues and as soon as those are resolved we will upload all of our fabulous pictures of our wonderful weekend with exotic African animals! Stay tuned! :)