Nina Visits Dallas

Another old post! I don't remember much of what we did but I'm sure it was a great time. Looking forward to when Nina visits here (hopefully).

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Old Friends

One of the hardest parts about living in Dallas was people coming and going so much. A family on furlough would move in next door, we'd become friends, the kids would LOVE their children, and then they would move back to their country 6 months later...that happened quite a few times. But I knew I had friends all over the world!

One family who was around for about 6 months had a son who Orin loved. I even wrote a blog post about how sad it was when they moved (you can read it here). They live in one of our Thailand's border countries and come to Chiang Mai often. We got to hang out with them twice a few weeks ago. Orin hadn't seen the little boy in 18 months, but after about 30 seconds of awkwardness they were best friends again.

The first time we got together we went to Huay Kaew Waterfall. It's really close to the city, it's free and just a really nice, quiet place. There is also a short hike you can do to go up to get a great view of the city.

Riding in the Songthaw to the waterfall.

Another day we went to this great park. It's in the middle of the city. Not much green around here. Very few places for the kids to just run around and play. But right in the middle of the city is this small, beautiful park. Seriously, you walk inside and somehow you don't hear all of the traffic and other city noises. We went here a few weeks ago as a family so we thought it would be fun to bring our friends.

You can buy a big bag of fish food for about 15 cents. The kids loved it.

And as you can see in the above picture, so do the birds. Orin did not like the birds so he went around to the other side and fed the fish from there.

Caiah and Jade chasing the birds. Jade was adopted from Vietnam and is about a year older than Sora.

I just love this one!

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Dallas blizzard of 2010

It may not fit the definition of a true blizzard, but by Dallas standards it definitely was. We had about 11 inches of snow last Thursday. I'm so glad we didn't decide to stay in New Orleans another day or we would have been driving through it all day.

Damien came home at lunch and noticed that because of the weight of the snow the tree branches were hanging very low right over our car. He decided to move the car to another parking spot.

Boy am I glad he did! This was the tree the next morning...right where our car was. We did not need a repeat of Hurricane Gustav, especially this week!
When Orin woke up he ran into our room saying there was snow everywhere. We figured it was just a light dusting on the ground and couldn't believe that the ground was covered. Orin's first instinct was to grab his light saber. I'm not sure why?
Micaiah on the other hand was only out for about 5 minutes and wouldn't leave this porch. He kept saying he was scared. This was the only fun he had...picking up some snow right next to him and throwing it at me twice. :-)
Literally 5 minutes after we came out he was begging me to let him go in. I was totally confused. He loved the snow when we were in TN over Christmas. Then someone mentioned that maybe he might be worried that we were going to try to take him on a snow tube and it clicked. The accident happened our last day in TN. He didn't see snow after that. Even today, 5 days after the snow he is still scared to walk on it. He will walk very far out of the way to avoid stepping in it. Just look at the concern on that little face.
Trying to build a little snow man.

We were playing baseball with the snow. Look at the HUGE snowball Damien threw for Orin to hit. Can you see it?
Orin wanted to help clean off the car.


Our snow man. Orin said he wanted to hold his hand. Orin insisted on eating his nose before we went inside because apparently carrots in snow are better than regular carrots.

Orin wanted to put snow gloves on the snowman because his hands were cold.

Ten Inches. It was 10 1/2 before around 10pm and it kept snowing all night!

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The Dallas Arboretum part 2

I had so many cute pictures I just had post a few more.



Baby Clay eating green beans for the first time! :-)

My mom made me this awesome sling for Sora. But Micaiah LOVES it. He still really likes to be held so if we go somewhere where we have to walk a lot I've been bringing the sling with me to use with Micaiah. I can't wait to try it out with Sora too!


Damien tried to relax for a while but it's pretty hard to do with two little boys climbing all over you.

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The Dallas Arboretum part 1

While our family was visiting we took a day to go down to the Dallas Arboretum (with a quick stop at Chipotle for lunch - there is no Chipotle in NOLA so Christian couldn't wait to get it). We had lots of fun!

Mimie with 3 of her 6 grandsons.







There was a cute little miniature old west town. The kids loved playing in it. Micaiah found this little bed and blanket in one of the house. Christina took some great pictures - but all I could think was how disgusting that blanket must be and I hope he doesn't get lice!





Cute little baby Clay!

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