BelliSafari

Warning! This is a long one. April has been a particularly busy month....

We started the month with a camping sleepover in our garden with Gio's dear friend Juliet...

Jagger joined in the fun.

Soccer time. Shoes are never required here in SA!

Playdate with Guide Dog puppy Oslo. Puppy playdates usually include a few naps.

Gio's first piano recital.

End of the recital...
when Maria snuck on stage to receive her own rose.

Monday dog walk with Guide Dog puppies and their best friends.

Nicola got a full Guide Dog greeting when she arrived from Jade, Jedi, Jagger & Quip.

Shopping at Makro with Jagger. He got lots of cuddles from the employees and the other shoppers. It is now his favorite store!

Maria sings the alphabet...

Pepper often sits on the table with us at dinner. He loves vegetables and this night's asparagus turned out to be a real winner. He ate about 20 stalks of it!

My boys always supervise my showers. There is no such thing as privacy when you have dogs.

Gio receiving his certificate for the swim team.

I think Pepper was mad I did not serve asparagus again the next day, so he took over my laptop.

Jagger takes his duty as bath time supervisor very seriously....

Jagger showing off his latest trick!

After 6 months of disharmony I actually caught these two in the same room. Tension was high but maybe an inch of progress??

Another weekend, another slumber party. Time for "Boss Baby"!

And then burgers at Gio's favorite spot, Ed's Diner.

Sibling love.

No one enjoys pasta more than Maria....

Cat in a colander.

A few weeks ago a group of us drove into Johannesburg to do a tour of the Hillbrow neighborhood and Ponte City. Ponte City is a giant apartment building (tallest residential building in Africa) that has had a storied history from a luxury apartment building, to a gang-infested squatters' den and now to middle class building.

Views from an upper-floor apartment.

The building is a giant cylinder with windows inside facing a giant open space.

During the late 80s and early 90s the building was taken over by gangs. This space was literally filled with trash up many stories. When they finally cleaned it out (early 2000s) many dead bodies were discovered, probably from gang violence and suicides.

The neighborhood surrounding Ponte City is very active and filled with many brothels including this one. I found walking around here quite unsettling.

Ponte City.

Back home to celebrate dear Nomsa's birthday!

Pepper joined us, of course.

Jagger was scheduled for surgery on his elbows (for displasia) on April 20th. We decided to take the furry boys away for Easter so that J could have a special weekend before he is confined in a crate for 6 weeks. We went to Stone Hill in Magaliesberg.

An early morning walk.

Candle dipping! Gio, of course, chose a giant skull.

After a swim in the river.

Early evening stroll while we wait for Paolo and Gio to return from a zip-line adventure.

Maria's favorite part of the daily walks were the giant anthills.

Magna-tiles for the win.

3 more days of freedom before surgery.

Stone Hill has 4 ponies who made regular visits to our cabin in hopes of some apples and carrots. We ran out by our final day but fed them well before that!

We fly to the USA tomorrow so Gio finally agreed to a haircut!

At the start of our 30 hour trip to Washington, DC.

First flight down. Relaxing in Frankfurt before flight #2. Good thing Paolo can get us into the fancy lounge!

Photos from GDA.
Here is Jagger pre-surgery with his roommate Gastone.

Miss you already, big guy.

On American soil at last!

It's close to mid-night for our body clocks. Trying to keep them awake with a stroll around Georgetown.

First morning in DC. Red velvet cake is an instant cure for jet lag.

What else would I do on the first day in DC but go visit a new Golden puppy?!

Meet Hopkins, a 2-month-old English Golden who belongs to our dear friends Nancy & Dave Roll.

Busy busy!

Second night in DC and a fun outing with my parents to Politics & Prose for some books and then Comet Ping-Pong for pizza.

Maria has not seen my parents for nearly 18 months.

She cannot get enough of my mother!

More photos from South Africa. Here is Jagger at the vet post-surgery. He was lucky to get to bunk next to his brother Jedi (who was in the hospital for a paw injury).

Love his "socks"!

Jagger and I are lucky to have many wonderful friends in SA. Here is Nicola and her family (along with Jagger's bestie Isaac) who came to visit him.

Sunday brunch with cousins. We always have so much fun with the Shorey clan!

Jagger left the vet after a few days and was moved back to GDA. He will now spend about 6 weeks in this crate. His crate is in the middle of the kennel manager and puppy supervisors' office so he gets lots of attention.

I really know how to make a holiday in the USA fun. First stop, the dentist. Hee hee.

Luckily my kids love Dr. Kuwabara.

Jagger is not always stuck in that crate. Here he is out on a walk with our puppy supervisor.

Dinner out with Gio's best DC friend Caden (pink and green) and his brother Ben. Gio ate about a pound of edamame tonight!

Meet Oscar! He is a 5-month-old Guide Dog in training who will be joining our family when we return to South Africa. His original puppy raising family was unable to keep him so we are taking over. Jagger and Bruno will be such good big brothers. And since Jagger will not enter formal training until he is 18 months old (to give him time to fully recover from his surgery), Oscar will actually go into training before Jagger!

To fully embrace being in the USA we decided to take in an NBA playoff game- Washington Wizards vs. Atlanta Falcons. It was a nail biter but our team pulled off the win!

Maria loved all of the gear.

Our Wizards girl.

Best part of the game?

....the fries!

More cousin time!

A hat party at Great Aunt Joan's house!

Jagger continues to get lots of love from friends. Here is my dear friend Nicola who Jagger absolutely adores.

Pestering Papa at work.

Gio in the butterfly room at the Museum of Natural History.

We have 6 more days in the USA before the kids and I return to South Africa. Paolo will stay an additional week for more meetings. More soon from Pretoria!

xoxo. Clara

March was a very busy month for the Bellis. With no further ado...

As always there were a few visits to Bounce, this one in pjs.

I started a new role at Guide Dogs as a puppy block volunteer. This means I get to snuggle with pups (ages 2-7 weeks) for a few hours each week. HEAVEN.

Maria loves her time at the salon!

We visited a radio station in Pretoria.

We actually have 6 other dog beds in the house...all bigger than this one!

Girl's table during a Friday night dinner out.

More puppy block volunteer time! Trying out the training jacket.

Another weekend, another fun birthday party, this one for Gio's good friend Jasper.

Here he is at the party trying out wakeboarding....

Most Mondays a group of us meet for a big dog walk.

My two babies.

Color Run Day at Gio's school.

Grade 2 ready for the run!

Guide dog puppy brunch outing at Afro-Boer.

Paolo and I FINALLY celebrated our 9th anniversary five months late at Mosaic. What a meal!

Post-dessert sweets! My kind place.

Isaac moved in for a week. Here the 3 of them are trying to figure out how to fit into the favorite (remember, also the smallest!) dog bed.

Off to the park.

Jasper and Gio leading the gang down to the lake.

Kennel time! I had 4 puppies (Jagger, Isaac, Jedi & Jade) in the car here on the way to GDA for a 3 night stay.

Off Jagger goes to kennels.

Jedi, Jagger & Isaac in their kennel.

As a bonus we finally got to meet Jagger, Jedi & Jade's mother Brenna who happened to also be in kennels.

Goodbye to Jade (here with another female pup)!

Bye, boys! See you in a few days!

Since we were nearby after the puppy drop off we decided to check out the newest Bounce in Fourways.

Maria's big BIG jump....

Gio had a week off from school so I decided to do a mother-son trip to Sun City for a few days. We were pretty excited about our fun rental car (99.99% of the cars in SA seem to be white).

Here we go!

First stop in Sun City- the MAZE!

Once we conquered the maze we hit the water park.

After hours in the water we strolled back to our hotel. On the way we bought Gio a new pair of flip-flops and I was shocked to discover that Gio and I now have the same shoe size!

Photo from kennels assured me that the boys were doing just fine.

On our second day at Sun City Gio's best buddy Nico came for the day. What fun to have him there!

Only casualty of the day? Gio chipped both front teeth. Luckily no pain and our dentist assured us she could fix him up as soon as we got back to town.