Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

We headed out first thing this morning, well it was actually 9:30 but that’s about as close to first thing as we can manage with Charlie. How am I going to get this child to school in the fall? Anyway, we were cashing in the second of the kids Christmas tickets to take them to the Drakenstein Lion Park. We arrived at around 10:15. Nora napped in the car on the way there. We thought we had executed this fairly well. Wrong. So wrong.

If you ever need a big brother this is the one you want. This boy takes care of both of his sisters in the backseat without us asking. He makes sure they get their food, water and blankies. He entertains Nora and always makes sure everyone is quiet when she falls asleep.

The kids whined from the minute we got out of the car until we finally gave in and left. Madeline couldn’t have cared less about these lions. Charlie pretended he cared twice just to try and please us and Nora just wanted to spray Cheerios everywhere.

Here’s the thing, they were essentially melting. There was a gorgeous breeze, we were in the shade and I love heat so I honestly thought they were just being difficult. Turns out it was 39 degrees out. Oops. This was not our finest parenting moment as we scolded them for not appreciating the lions. The pictures look really nice though!

We left the lion park after a very painful hour and headed to the Spice Route. We visited this place the last time we were here and loved it. Thankfully there was a nice breeze and it clouded over later in the day so we made quite an afternoon out of it. We had some lunch, sampled some wine on tap, had a coffee, played at the park, went to the chocolate factory and ended with a beer. Essentially we gained five pounds and redeemed the day.