From Cairo to Kentucky

There's no better to celebrate New Year's Eve than with a weenie-roast, right? Especially if you made the grill yourself? You've never done that before? Well, Richard and Derek made the grill you see here from an old water heater. And, the first chance we had to test it was New Year's Eve. OK...real meat may have been grilled, but we also had veggie kabobs! YUM! You could have your hot dogs grilled or you could roast them yourself. We bought this clay oven in town and had already roasted marshmallows in it before. Here are Lari and Alexander warming up their dogs. These boys are such posers! Once more, Caleb and Kyle being silly.

The Nairobi National Park also has an animal orphanage, except these animals are not reintroduced into the wild. We'd heard you could go in and pet the cheetahs, so we headed there first. These are three of four cubs they currently have. We were allowed in with them for a short time. They really liked Richard! He could make them purr like kittens! Aren't they beautiful? Our guide told us that they are quite docile, even in the wild. They're not as soft and cuddly as they look, though. Their fur is rough, but one interesting thing is that their spots are raised. Check it out: They have their tales linked!

Even though we didn't venture into any other cages, I really enjoyed seeing the rest of the animals at the orphanage. Here are a few of my favorites: I prefer to see this one through the cage. The ostrich really liked the sunflower seeds our guide kept in his pocket. He's not posing...just grabbing one off the top of the fence. Meet Talek. We stuck around to watch feeding time, and this poor fellow was the last to get fed. He paced back and forth, back and forth. The monkeys are always fun to watch. This one is a Vervet monkey. They would put their hands through the fence and actually take the sunflower seeds right from our guide's hand.