From Our Neck of the Woods...: Texas in April 2012

In April, we flew to Dallas to explore. We visited the Dallas Zoo and had a lovely day. We explored several suburbs on other days. Then Kaitlin threw up all over the rental car so we returned to the hotel. Her stomach flu was over quickly by the weekend. On Friday, my mother, Cassandra, Jay, and 5 of their 6 kids drove the short 4.5 hour drive to stay with us in Plano for the weekend! It was our first time meeting little Marialina and was so much fun to see the cousins play and interact like they see eachother all the time. Oh, if only we lived closer. We played cards every night (just like the old days!) and ended our time together with a send-off lunch at Braum's.

Then it was Caroline's turn to get the stomach flu. She threw up multiple times, and I started to feel it as well, but kept it together. Luckily we were well enough to fly home when it came time.

So it was unfortunate to encounter so much sickness, but we really liked Dallas, and really LOVED seeing family! We missed seeing Ryan, but he had to take an SAT test back home and couldn't come. Next time, though...

(By the way, in case you are confused when looking at these pictures, Cassandra's daughter, Virginia, was known before by her first name, Logan. Recently, she wanted to be called by her more feminine middle name so everyone calls her Virginia now! Just wanted to clear that up so that you weren't saying, "who's this Virginia person and where is Logan?")

A very cool kiddie zoo area with a stream to cool off in the hot Texas sun.

Awwwww. Usually Kaitlin prefers cuddling with Nikki and playing with Caroline. So it melts my heart to see such sisterly love between these two!

Nik loves the birds and encouraged them to land on her. But this freaked Kaitlin out so I had to take her to the other side of the fence and watch from afar. She still talks about the day the birds landed on her sister and father.