I’ve mentioned before that special family outings are one of Kakasii’s and my top priorities for our children. Because the older kids are often away at school, we are intentional to spend time as an entire family when they are home with us.

Ombeni and Godson are both back living at home with us now that they have finished their university programs. So when Brenda was home on school holiday we packed up the family for a day trip to Tarangire National Park.

Just minutes after arriving we spotted this mama and baby giraffe (twiga in Swahili).

Elly is an excellent spotter. She’s almost as good as Daddy at spotting the animals from a distance.

And Max worked on his driver guide skills with Kakasii (creeping along at a snail’s pace, of course).

Tarangire is known for its large populations of elephants (tembo in Swahili). It’s not unusual to see dozens or even hundreds of them in a day depending on the time of year.

Because of the large elephant population it’s pretty likely that you’ll get very close to them, in which case it’s important to be quiet so you don’t spook them. Every time we saw elephants, no matter from what distance, Elly would whisper, “Shhhhh. Be quiet for the elephants.” (Some days at home when things just get a little too loud I play “let’s pretend we’re watching elephants” with Max and Elly to quiet things down.)

Kakasii has really taught me to appreciate the smallest animals in the game parks as much as the big ones. He’s great at spotting and identifying all kinds of birds and Tarangire is a great park for bird watching. One of my favorites is the lilac-breasted roller.

At our picnic spot we enjoyed the view of elephants and wildebeest crossing the river below.

But the highlight of the day may have been the leopard Kakasii’s eagle eyes spotted hiding in the tree.

Scratch that. The highlight of the day was having the whole family together.