Saturday, February 20 (Our 6th anniversary!)

We woke up excited for today! We had fun plans arranged with our friends, the Saarela family. We got ready quickly and headed to one of our favorite restaurants—Tasha’s! We had a delicious meal with our friends. The fancy juice drinks were my favorite. I had an iced tea/juice combo drink which made me feel like I was on a beach in the Bahamas. It was fun to hang with the our friends again, as the last time we had seen them was one week ago in Somerset West.

Tisetso wanted his picture taking with this Mini Cooper.

After a delicious breakfast, we headed to the Montecasino Bird Gardens. We had been there the last time we were in the area (about a month ago) and loved it! We made our way there including a scenic detour of sorts. After finally finding the place again, we parked and walked through the indoor city to the bird gardens.

Tisetso was NOT excited to see his old friend, the friendly goose.

It was quite a hot day, so a lot of the birds were hiding in the shade.

We had such a good time! The girls and Tisetso loved feeding the ducks, I enjoyed feeding some of the birds nectar, and we all enjoyed not going into the enclosure with the screaming lemur that sounded like its fondest ambition was to rip someone’s face off. We saw a lot of birds, (thankfully) didn’t see as many rats, and had a great time on the playground! It was definitely more crowded than when we came, so we had to work on our sharing skills.

Look at these beautiful girls and their smiles! Love them! Tisetso (not smiling) was spinning them around and around, prompting the smiles.

One hilarious time during the visit was watching two birds trying to break into the water feature that was in their enclosure. They would grab a rock, hop on top of the plastic box covering the mechanics, then start beating the top of the box. One was even using its beak to push the nozzle to the "off" position. They were very, very smart birds. And very big.

The last time we were here, these two were fighting each other. This time they were working together to break into the water feature.

Getting to hang out with Lexi, Pete, and the girls was so nice. We knew we wouldn’t see them again for a while and that the next time we hung out, it would be back in the United States! We said our goodbyes and headed back to the flat.

Because of our big, hot morning, we decided it would be good to get some rest. After lunch, we got real naps! It was magical. To add to the afternoon fun, we also played Ben 10, Tisetso played with his Legos, and I wrote.

Playing with his Legos and new Transformer.

We have been taking turns choosing restaurants and, seemingly unfortunately, it was Tisetso’s turn to pick out the place we would celebrate our 6th anniversary. His choice? Pizza. Due to quick thinking on Brian’s part, he offered to research restaurants and find a good place that served pizza. Tisetso chose a place called Walnut Grove, so we got ready and set off.

The restaurant was in the Sandton City mall. We got seated at a good table—right next to the dessert cases. To show solidarity in his choice, Brian and I both ordered pizza, too. I ended up with the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life! It was a really thin crust with shredded cheeses (mozzarella and parmesan), garlic, rosemary, and sea salt. The only downside was that their salt grinder seemed to be on the fritz and I kept finding massive pieces of salt the hard way—chewing into them. After a few times, I got smart and scanned the pizza and picked out big pieces. It was so good. Brian even agreed, which was a big deal. He typically has better luck than I do when ordering delicious food.

With pizzas consumed, we ordered celebratory dessert. I got a piece of Ferrero Rocher cake (bits of the candies in the cake and a full one on top). It was perfect. Too rich for me to finish, but perfect. While we ate, we told Tisetso about our wedding day. It was pretty great to share with him. He seemed to fixate on the fact that my sister started crying while I was walking down the aisle, which caused me to cry. Brian was able to film Tisetso shouting, “You had one job!” to send to Auntie Erin to celebrate the anniversary of crying and leaving my brother-in-law to sing by himself.

I loved having dinner with my two favorite guys. It was a little surreal to be sharing our wedding story with our son. After dreaming of such things for two years, it was such a moment of grace to have that time.

Our evening concluded with watching Robin Hood, reading our Bible story, then heading to bed.