Weekend Fun with Mama Kalibu & Olivia

Saturday marked 11 weeks since our arrival.  This week, we set a return date and bought tickets to come home, leaving June 3 and arriving June 5 (with some short stopovers in Europe).  That means we're past the halfway mark, with just under 10 weeks to go.  Still trying to stay present and keep doing what we're doing here, so we're going to try to resist the urge to do a countdown.  But interesting to mark this moment and look at where we are in the timeline of this adventure.

And the excitement continues!  On Friday night, our family went to a Rwanda Festival at Green Hills...

and then popped over to the airport to pick up Nana and Olivia!  Such a joyful reunion.

(This is Nana seeing Mazie in the flesh for the first time since Mazie's near-death experience.)

On Saturday we did just a little exploring near home, and then drove west back to the volcanoes region, one of the places we visited while Ahya was here.  Rainy season has definitely started and there was a big downpour while we were stopped for lunch, but it let up in the afternoon and was lovely by the time we made it to the boat launch for the trip to My Hill EcoLodge.  Got there around 5 and were able to enjoy a nice, relaxed evening soaking in the fabulous views (including a rainbow!) on Lake Ruhondo.  Fabulous dinner of tilapia and chicken brochettes as well.  The sunset didn't quite live up to the one we got during our earlier trip, but that was a high bar and it was still quite gorgeous.  Really nice spending time catching up and seeing Mazie especially happy to have her bestie-cousin here.

On Sunday, we took a little boat back to our car and drove up to Lake Burera, the "twin" to Lake Ruhondo.

We did a great little hike from the red dot on the map above up to the top of a hill where we could see both lakes, and hear church music from the valley below.  

Then we hiked back down and went for another boat ride around Lake Burera.  The rain held off again - it was overcast & we couldn't see the volcanoes but otherwise it was really lovely.  

A gray heron! IRL Wingpan continues...

We stopped for lunch at a great little cafe in Ruhengeri and then drove home.  

Nana spent some time sitting outside The Gate with Caleb & Lexi & all the neighbor kids, who were very excited to meet "Mama Kalibu."  Lots of hugs and smiles and singing and dancing.  I came down for a bit too and got to hold little Dianne on my lap for a bit - she's a fun one, probably close to 3 with a mischievous smile.  After a little bit, we headed out for a great Italian dinner at Brachetto to close out the weekend. 

This morning we all walked to school - Olivia gets to shadow Mazie for a day and check out Green Hills, and Nana got to see the big campus and drop Lexi off at her classroom.  Caleb, Nana, and I are home now and resting/working a bit, and then we'll head out to explore some art galleries and the big Kimironko market.  We've got some other plans to explore Kigali over the next few days, and then we'll head back to Akagera for another safari Thurs-Saturday before Nana & Liv head home Sunday night.