After reading many beautiful and heartwarming articles written by mothers and daughters about Mother's Day, I wanted to share some of the photos and stories of animals I've seen around the world taking care of their young.  Some of you know that I've been involved in animal rescue for many years and have a soft spot in my heart for all animals.  I am always amazed at how protective and caring animals are of their offspring.

  I really wanted to write a post in honor of all mothers and especially those that are often overlooked on Mother's Day each year.  If you have pets you are a mother they could not survive without you!  I wrote a similar post about animal mothers and their offspring for Mother's Day a couple of years ago.  One of my readers was very grateful that I had posted it.  Sadly not humans have a mother at all or one that they are close to. 

My husband and I have also taken in several stray pregnant cats.  We found homes for all of the babies and mothers including the seven orange ones in the second photo down.  We actually kept the mothers - Princess (the black cat) and Peaches (orange cat) for ourselves. 

The monkeys that I saw at the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali we're so fun to watch.  The babies were so cute and well taken care of by their mothers.   I thought this mother was showing tremendous patience with her little one.
Here is a mother monkey feeding her baby what appears to be some coconut:
I saw many elephant mothers with their babies in the Serengeti National Park while in Tanzania:

 In late July of 2013 I traveled to Tanzania with a group called "The Giving Lens".  This group was founded by Colby Brown who was the lead photographer for National Geographic for four years.  We visited schools, an orphanage, families affected by AIDS and went on a three day safari in the Serengeti National Park and Ngorogoro Crater.  This trip would be classed as "adventure travel".  During the ten days I was there we stayed in three different areas of Tanzania including Moshi, Karatu, and Robunda.  I have many public albums with hundreds of photos on my Facebook page in case you want to see more.

Participants had the option of sleeping overnight in a boma in Masailand  like this one:

This was one of two group trips that I have been on in the past year or ever for that matter.  I decided to write this post so the post I will be writing later this week might make more sense.  With the growing popularity of group travel, I think it's very, very important to choose the right trip and know what questions to ask before committing to one of these trips.  Here is a brief synopsis of the 10 day trip I went on eight months and nine trips ago.  

Visiting Children in the Schools

I took this photo of Colby Brown and I was honored that he used this photo in an article he wrote on his blog A Road Less Traveled:  

 http://www.colbybrownphotography.com/an-adventure-through-tanzania-with-an-iq260-from-phase-one/

My photo is at the very end :)

The kids loved my sunglasses at the schools we visited:

Visiting Children in an Orphanage

Visiting Massai Land

 Safari in the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorogoro Crater

 I will leave you with a beautiful aerial view of Mount Kilomanjaro, which is the closest I got to the summit, as I was leaving Tanzania:

Thank you so much for stopping by.  I love to read your comments or questions and and reading other people's blogs as well.  Your e-mail address will never be published.  Take care my friends!

  ~Michelle