Pinch me, did it REALLY happen????? - All wrapped up, and yes, it DID happen!

[TruBlu]

Originally Posted by ACDSNY

Davids are awesome!

DS13's two best friends have Davids for dads & they are awesome, too!

Sent from Tracey's iPhone using DISBoards

[franandaj]

Originally Posted by Leshaface

Wow what a day! Look at all those bookcases.

Hope you are still enjoying your wine.

BTW, we're really starting to get into Malbec's and we picked up a bottle of Manos Negras Malbec Select and boy is it smooth I also so the Fra Niente Chardonnay that you suggested but DH hates spending money on white wine I need to try it someday.

Tell me about it! And that wasn't even the end of it! I haven't had much Malbec. My new "house wine" is Meridian Chardonnay. But I like the reds too.

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

Congrats!!

Looks like everyone deserved their pizza today. What does the room look like now???

#4 is still a mess. There were lots of papers and non music stuff on top of the bookcases. I guess we start on the random crap Monday.

Originally Posted by mvf-m11c

The caramel marshmallow treats are very nice to look at and eat (even though I never have one). I remember the ones during the Holiday season where they decorated them as snowmen. The one store you are talking about at BVS is Trolley Treats. Maybe the DLR will bring back your favorite treats one day at the stores.

That is nice to hear that you will be back at the DLR in two weeks. I can't wait till we get to August for the D23 Expo.

Congrats.

We were hoping to go tomorrow as well, but not gonna happen. We need to go out there to get Fran on RSR. She also wants to get the cheese and regular Monte Cristo sandwiches side by side for comparison.

Originally Posted by Linda67

Wow, that is a lot of sheet music!

Must have been a great feeling to finally see everything boxed up

I'm not quite at the feeling good phase yet. Once the bookcases are all dealt with and the floor is empty upstairs. Then it will be good!

Originally Posted by dgbg100106

My David does all the cleaning also... So we have three...

Sounds like the David's are quite the catch!

Originally Posted by dgbg100106

The marshmallow sound Devine...

Wow, you all made a nice dent in the sheet music, it has to be a great feeling to have it all packed up...

I will be on the west coast in April...

Where on the West Coast will you be? It's a big Coast!

Originally Posted by Pinkocto

What a day! Just thinking of all that moving is exhausting! Hope you had a fabulous dinner

It did the trick. I'm looking forward to some good ones this week.

Originally Posted by ACDSNY

Davids are awesome!

Originally Posted by TruBlu

DS13's two best friends have Davids for dads & they are awesome, too!

Sent from Tracey's iPhone using DISBoards

[franandaj]

So yesterday we had to get all 35 bookcases out of our carport before someone decided to liberate them. Three bookcases at a time fit in the back of the SUV.We started around 11AM since we had other tasks to accomplish before we could start the chore of the day.

It took about 40 minutes round trip to storage and back, including loading and unloading the bookcases. All in all we made seven trips to storage. Before the last one we had to squeeze 14 bookcases into the garage so they weren't just sitting out for the rest of the weekend.

When we were loading the last set of bookcases, our pace had moved to vary slow and both Darcy and I had barely the strength to even shove the bookcases in the car. Here is the storage locker now. Nine bookcases fit across the width of the unit and there are now two full rows. The three in front make up the third row. Needless to say I was SUPER exhausted. We ate the leftover pizza for dinner and I fell asleep after my bath, leaving Fran to feed the cats.



Today I plan on doing nothing physical.

[dgbg100106]

Originally Posted by franandaj

Where on the West Coast will you be? It's a big Coast!

San Diego....

[dgbg100106]

Originally Posted by franandaj

Today I plan on doing nothing physical.

Awesome!

[franandaj]

Originally Posted by dgbg100106

San Diego....

That's not far. When?

[dgbg100106]

Originally Posted by franandaj

That's not far. When?

April, 7th - 11th.

[rentayenta]

Nothing physical sounds perfect! That's a lot of work. And part of the reason I won't move inside of Utah. Well done ladies.

[franandaj]

Originally Posted by dgbg100106

April, 7th - 11th.

We'll have to see what's up then. I know you're always tired after your long days. It's about three hours away with good traffic.

Originally Posted by rentayenta

Nothing physical sounds perfect! That's a lot of work. And part of the reason I won't move inside of Utah. Well done ladies.

We were in bed watching old NCIS episodes in the marathon until 1PM. I made some cinnamon rolls just before noon and we had those with orange juice, sausage and coffee in bed.

Now we're watching TIVO'd shows from November on our DVR. We're that far behind.

[franandaj]

After the culinary tour, it was back to the room. Fran had already gone over there, so I hopped on the trail back to Kidani. I was almost safely back to the resort, I approached the bus stop. Notice the uphill grade.



After the final bus stop, there is an even more intense grade, I almost got to the top of that grade, when my scooter just died. We had this problem before when we were at Disneyland for our band weekend. We replaced the batteries in one scooter the week before we left. While the scooter did make it around pretty well that day, clearly, this one was coming up on a battery replacement too. Just as long as it can make it through the whole trip.

We had the Nighttime savannah booked for 10PM, by this time it was close to 5PM. As expected I found Fran asleep. That was good, she did quite a bit today, four rides, a huge lunch, shopping at multiple locations and out from 8:30AM until 4PM without a break.

It’s no wonder that she slept up until our time to go to the safari. Neither of us was hungry at our planned 7PM dinner time, but I prepped everything just in case we would be hungry. But first I took these shots on the Savannah before the sun went down.



















In true “What’s for Dinner thread” style I documented my ingredients. Cut meat into bite sized pieces



And my cooking process. Saute the onions and mushrooms on very low heat covered for about 20-30 minutes. I always do it for 30 minutes as they are not substantially wilted after 20.





At this point I halted the cooking process. Since neither of us were hungry enough to eat, I was less than 15 minutes away from freshly cooked stroganoff. We each had left half a potato half from our dinner the other night, so if we had been hungry enough, I had prepared us each a potato skin with bacon (from the breakfast) and some grated cheddar. Those did not end up getting heated later this night and they followed us to BLT.

I got some voluminous work done on the TR while Fran slept and it was too dark to see the animals and since we weren’t going to be eating dinner before the safari, she caught up on sleep and I caught up online. We had made an agreement that to maximize our “together” time. I would only be online either if she was or if she was asleep.

[Continued in Next Post]

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

So around 9PM, I decided it was time to wake her up and head down to Kidani for our meet up with the Safari. We were supposed to meet at Sanaa at 9:45PM, we showed up a little early and were the only folks sitting there. The whole time. When our guide came to fetch us, it turned out that there were only four people signed up for this evening’s safari and the other two didn’t show up. Cool! We had the whole truck to ourselves!

We didn’t bring the big camera because we figured that there really wouldn’t be much opportunity for picture taking. I always have my P&S on me so that’s what we ended up having for pictures. None of them came out very well, but I’ll share them anyways since they are all that I have.

Our guides were two very nice ladies who work the evening shift in the barn. One drove the truck while the other sat in back and told us about the animals. Evidently their jobs are less than glamorous. Besides having to clean up the poop in the barn area, one of their main jobs in the night shift is to measure out all the food for the morning shift to give the animals when they arrive. They had just completed this portion of their jobs before coming to fetch us for the safari.

If you have taken the Wanyama Safari our course was very similar. We drove around to the back entrance behind the barn and drove past the Pembe Savannah. There wasn’t much to see here. Okapi are from the equatorial regions and prefer a warm climate. It was much too cold for them to be out on the Savannah tonight, they were hunkered down back in the barn.

We proceeded to the Sunset Savannah where the remainder of our trip took place. I inquired about the Antelope (I think it was) that Kathy on the AKL thread told us about. Seems they had to put some sort of fence up around Sanaa about a week before we arrived because he was having a problem. Turns out they had taken in five males of his species. Normally males are not desired by zoos and other animal habitats, as you really only need one to keep a good population going. Their ill tempers and other habits make them less than ideal subjects. But in the spirit of ‘Ohana, Disney gave them a chance and took in the lot.

It seems that this one fellow, had a slight problem seeing his image in the windows of Sanaa. We did not see any barriers when we dined there, so I had guessed they resolved the problem. Well the long and short of it was that the poor guy was moved to the barn and is going to have to sold or traded to another facility. They moved him off the Savannah, but he just isn’t going to cut it here at AKL or AK and needs a new home.

So back to our tour. The animals are not at all afraid of the truck and shortly after coming onto the savannah, we found these two (a mother and daughter) sharing a late night snack.











I did not use any kind of zoom on these photos we were literally THAT close up to these giraffes. I could see the muscles in their cheeks move as they were chewing the leaves. I was in awe of these beautiful animals and the fact that we were so close up to them.

Then we drove over near the lobby where these vultures were hanging out.





Now there was a whole backstory about these zebras. They are females and evidently the older one has taken the younger one as a companion. Normally the male dominates the group of zebras, but for some reason these two have sort of broken off from the rest of them and they hang out together. I know that there was more to the story, but it was late and it has been about three weeks since the tour, so I’m lucky I remember this much!





As we drove around the savannah, we passed the wildebeasts. There wasn’t much of a story about them, or none that I remember.



We headed over to the savannah area near our room. This is a shot of it, the one on the lowest floor where you can see the suitcase that is open and leaning up against the sliding glass door.



The Ankole Cattle were over here. Evidently the all brown ones are much more valuable in Africa than the ones with white and brown. Our brown cattle were a male and a female. The one who was poking at the giraffe food with his antler was the male. He is pretty hard to live with. They tried several different females on this savannah. The one who is currently on the Pembe Savannah was the latest refugee from him. They switched the two cows and moved the one that is now on the Sunset Savannah from the Pembe. She wasn’t thrilled to be placed with the guy on the Sunset, but evidently the one who was moved out was sooooo happy to be away from the steer on the Sunset Savannah, they let her stay on the Pembe and the current Sunset cow learned to live with the steer. Our guide says that she just ignores him and they do fine.

I didn’t get any decent pictures of them at night, they were all just too blurry. We were out for about an hour and it was just after 11PM. It was very cold out, so we headed back to the lodge. This is Fran trying to keep warm.



And our guide. I wish I was better with names, I’ve completely forgotten it!



And this is the two of us with the truck.



By this time, we were VERY hungry. Thankfully dinner was less than 15 minutes away. Even though it was very late, it’s not unusual for us to be eating at this hour even at home so we headed back to the room and I finished up dinner. I had planned to serve this with potato skins and green beans, but I was too tired and lazy. Back to the cooking process, if you remember I had sautéed the onions and mushrooms until they were wilted. Then you cook the beef.



This is a mixture of ground mustard seed, sugar and a little (too much) water.



Return the mushrooms and onions back to the pan.



Add the mustard mixture



Some sour cream



And mix



Voila! Beef Stroganoff!



After this I enjoyed one of my zebra domes and I think I went to bed, reserving the tub for 4AM or some such hour like that when I woke up as opposed to before crawling into bed tonight.

Another big day tomorrow!

[PrincessInOz]

Love your "zebra" shots!



The giraffe pictures are amazing. Seems like you lucked out with the safari tour. And now I'm hungry for stroganoff!

[ACDSNY]

The night safari looks fun and you have some great pics.

[mvf-m11c]

When was the last time that Fran rode RSR? I never had the 3 Cheese Monte Cristo but I have tried the Monte Cristo Sandwich is very good to eat.

Very nice pictures of the animals and to do the tour at night must be fun.

[franandaj]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

Love your "zebra" shots!



The giraffe pictures are amazing. Seems like you lucked out with the safari tour. And now I'm hungry for stroganoff!

It was really good as always!

Originally Posted by ACDSNY

The night safari looks fun and you have some great pics.

Thanks. They're a little blurry, but I think they came out pretty cool. The memories are the bust!

Originally Posted by mvf-m11c

When was the last time that Fran rode RSR? I have never had the 3 Cheese Monte Cristo but I have tried the Monte Cristo Sandwich is very good to eat.

Very nice pictures of the animals and to do the tour at night must be fun.

Fran has never rode RSR, but since she got on Test Track we figured that she can get on RSR. I can't wait to get her out there to ride it! She wants to try the two. I don't know what we will do with the leftevoers since two of can't even finish the one. Ordering two.