San Antonio...Mon-Wed

Monday morning my mom and I packed up the three girls and headed to my sister's. We're staying with my niece, Brielle, while her mom, dad, brother and sister head to China on Wednesday to get their newest brother/son, Ji Hao (soon to be Brock Ji Hao). You'll definitely want to follow their trip over at Another B to Keep. They are in Shanghai now and will be leaving for Nanjing tomorrow.

Anyway, it took my mom and I 15 hours to drive to my sister's, but the girls did great. We even pulled over to watch the sun set and to take some pictures (see above). The actual sunset was prettier.

Wednesday I drove my sister and her family to the airport early in the morning. I wondered how Brielle would do when she woke to find us to greet her instead of her mommy. Brielle will be three next month and is very attached to her mommy. This is the first time she's really been away from her so we were expecting a lot of drama. She's actually done great...I'm sure thanks to a lot of prayer. She's asked about her mom a few times and has even cried a minute or two, but gets over it rather quickly. She's having a great time with her cousins.

I'm usually lucky to update the blog once a week, but...now try not to laugh...I'm going to attempt to keep a daily entry for Brielle's family to see. What? It could happen! So, even though I'm behind a few days, here we go....

Wednesday morning my mom and I loaded the three little girls into the strollers after breakfast and went for a walk around the neighborhood and to the park. I didn't bring my double stroller so both Miyah and Mei Lin squeezed into a single stroller giving Mei Lin the perfect excuse to complain (not that she needs one :).

Brielle at the park. The girls had fun playing at the park and we all got hot enough to warrant a swim. My sister has the most amazing pool in her backyard. The kids are LOVING it.

Mei Lin, Brielle, and Miyah

After naps we headed over to a wildlife ranch. This place is amazing. The animals roam free and come up to the vehicles to be fed. We saw a ton of deerish kinds of animals (we didn't buy the $3 identification guide, okay!), zebra, ostrich, etc. Miyah LOVED it. Mei Lin loved it before the ostrich. And Brielle held her bag of feed, fairly underwhelmed.

Brielle holding her feed.

Mei Lin and Miyah feeding the animals.

Miyah and Mei Lin were introduced to this ostrich when he stuck his head in their window. Mei Lin SCREAMED and fell over. She hasn't been the same since.

My mom had a close encounter, too, only with a zebra. Her reaction was much the same as Mei Lin's.



Here I'm trying out the advice I've read in "Brit*ney Spe*ars' Guide to Parenting" ...and for those of you who doubt I'm trashy enough to pull it off, check out the bra strap.Just in case you take me seriously, you're only allowed to drive 5 mph through the ranch, so I was not endangering my children...but I wouldn't blame you for turning me in for the bra strap.

(Below) Miyah feeds a huge ostrich, completely undaunted despite the fact that he's many times her size and has evil eyes.



My little animal lover.

Mei Lin is still traumatized from the ostrich. Anyone know of a good therapist?

Miyah chased a peacock.

Afterwards we tried to order dinner from Taco Cabana...what is with that place...??...we had a similar problem there two years ago. We ended up driving off after no employee knew what a fajita was (at a Mexican restaurant) even though it was the first item on their menu and all of them spoke perfect English....argh...we had Quiznos instead. We got home late, but the girls were good about going to bed after dinner.