my new favorite hobby is chasing giraffes...

WOW...what a fun weekend we had. The staff at WNS went to Lukenya to a resort to have a little retreat. Normally I don't like waking up early in the morning but when the option came up to go out to look for animals at 6 am I knew I would be sad to pass it up. So all of the new students went out on a bus over the Kenyan countryside. We rode around a bit and didn't really see much...a couple zebras, a wilda beast, and some other random animals; but they were pretty far off. My roommates and I kept asking if we could get off the bus and walk/run and we did for most of them time. Then after about a hour we finally saw some giraffes but they were way off and the road did not go near them. So off we went "huffing it" as Trevor (the prinicpal says). We walked and walked and could not find them. Then when we almost gave up hope we finally saw them on the next hillside. So off we went again further into the "wild". We tried sneaking up but lets face it four girls looking for giraffes are not so quiet. Then finally we found them. We started taking pictures and they started running. We could see three of them at that point. So then we decided to follow them. Yea...long giraffe legs and short Kayla legs are very different. They are so cool when they run though, so graceful. So we just kept chasing them and would hind behind hills and stuff like that. Then we saw 8 giraffes and we got so excited...but they saw us and took off again. So off we went again....running and running...yea you get the point. Then they stopped so we tried to sneak up again so we went around this little hill and there were 13 giraffes of all sizes and ages. THEY WERE SO AMAZING. They were right buy a HUGe herd of zebra, wild a beast, and some monkeys too. The monkeys really didn't like us though they were like barking at us. I was scared of them! We got within probably 50 feet of all the animals. IT WAS SO AMAZING. Now I see why people chase animals on National Geographic and all. Later the whole staff went up this mountain and we hung out and some of then did repelling. I took pictures :) Then on our way back down we found another giraffe so of course we had to chase it. Daylan and I took off running at it and it just stood there looking at us. We got within 20 feet of it and it wasn't moving. We started screaming..."Why aren't you running! MOVE!!!" And then finally it turned and ran (gracefully of course). My friend Steve took video of us chasing it so I will try and get it from him. IT WAS SO INCREDIBLE! Jen and I also decided to jump rope with the repelling rope on the side of a huge cliff... enjoy the video of me falling. I thought I was going to die! A little more adrenaline for the fun day! :) So yea...overall it was such a fun weekend. I finally really felt like I was in Africa. Hope all is well! I love hearing from you all so please write when you can. If you have any question or want to see any other pictures just ask.