St. Louis

We travelled to St. Louis this weekend for the Children's Hope National Reunion Picnic. We left Friday afternoon around 3pm and purposely didn't give the little ones their naps so they would sleep in the car. Of course our children had other plans! Collin slept for 20 minutes and Alana and Dylan didn't sleep a wink! They watched movies and snacked the whole way there and did great. Even after not taking naps they had a horrible time settling down for bed. Especially Dylan, who kept popping up in his crib to tell us one more thing. "All done" " All done night night" "Mommy - Need to potty" "Mommy -- Rock a baby" "Mommy -- I love you" "Mommy -- kiss" "Mommy -- need a drinky" You get the picture! He finally went to sleep around 10:30 (after putting him to bed at 9:00) and was still up before 6:00 in the morning. Luckily he was able to go back to sleep and then slept until 9:00 am.

Saturday morning we went to the picnic. Xin Yi was so excited to see her friend Yu Jie again, but she was hanging out with another girl from her travel group. The two older girls (8 and 11) were speaking Mandarin and Alana seemed to shut down when she was with them. We went out for lunch and as soon as she was away from the other kids she was back to her happy-go-lucky self. I hope she is able to get over this for her Mandarin classes that start next month. It must be hard to be between languages right now. Many times she will say "mama" and point to things, but then doesn't say anything because she knows I won't understand.

Saturday evening we went to visit Victor's Uncle Mike and Aunt Julie and their kids Matt and Isaac. We all had such a great time. Julie fixed a wonderful dinner and then we went outside to play. The boys set up a baseball game in the backyard while Julie bounced with Alana and Dylan on their trampoline. It was such a nice evening!

Sunday morning we met my friend Staci and her daughter Rachel at the Missouri Botanical Garden. None of us had been there before, but it is safe to say we'll all be going back. It was so beautiful! The kids had such a great time in the Children's garden. Especially the water playground area where they all got soaked! We went out to lunch with them and then headed back to KC. It was an exhausting weekend, but so much fun!