It was a perfect day to go to the zoo in Dallas today. Thanks to Ashley for inviting us! Ashley, Erin and I took Bryn, Jackson, Emmett & Alex. The weather was perfect, a little cooler than the day before which was nice since we were pushing double strollers up and down hills!
We got to see penguins and elephants and gorillas and chimpanzees and exotic birds and all kinds of fun animals. 
Alex and Jackson enjoyed the petting zoo.
Actually Alex enjoyed kicking up dirt and straw at the petting zoo more than the joy of petting the animals (pure boy for sure!).
A highlight of the trip was when we were at the giraffe enclosure. You can buy lettuce for $5 and then feed it to the giraffes. They're training the giraffes to come over to the 'feeding station' to eat. So one of the zookeepers was at the feeding station calling the giraffes by name trying to get them over to the station. I was holding Alex up where he could be on eye level with the giraffes and we were standing right by the zookeeper as he was feeding the giraffes and when he had one last piece of lettuce he handed it to Alex to feed the giraffe that was about ready to mosey away.
Imagine Alex's delight when that giraffe stuck out his long tongue and wrapped it around the lettuce that Alex was holding! I just wish I could have done a 'freeze frame' so that we could have gotten a picture. When we were done with our visit and loading the kids up in the car, Alex's response when asked about his favorite part of the zoo, "Giraffe!"
I drove home with Erin, Jackson and Bryn. Poor little Bryn was starving to death on the way home! Erin pumps and then bottle feeds her because Bryn was swallowing too much air when she was breast-feeding which would give her miserable gas. For some reason she doesn't have the same issue when she drinks from a bottle. So Erin took her breast pump with us to the zoo. Unfortunately, this was the first time she'd tried using the pump utilizing battery power and the darn thing wouldn't work!! So baby Bryn was certain that she was going to waste away to nothing! We stopped and Erin breastfed her for a while on the way home, which bought us a little time but then BAM the hungry tummy came back. And sweet little Jackson had missed his nap because we were at the zoo during his normal nap time, so he had a bit of a breakdown himself! Poor little people!
I must NOT forget to mention that Emmett is no longer a two tooth little munchkin! He graduated to four, count them 1-2-3-FOUR teeth today!! Poor little guy has been miserably trying to pop those teeth through for WEEKS! I don't know how his little swollen gums survived for so long! I'm pretty certain that he has two more that will be popping through quite soon.
Alex has been on antibiotics for an ear infection for about a week. Briana checked his ear today and it looks like it is getting worse rather than better, he also seems to have bronchitis or croup!
A few comments for the 'travel log'! Briana, Alex, Emmett and I were supposed to catch a flight out of Seattle this past Wednesday at 12:45 p.m. The plan was for us to load the car the night before and then depart from Yakima as soon as I was done teaching Seminary (7:15 a.m.) giving us about 3 1/2 hours to travel to the airport. Tuesday night I checked the Snoqualmie Pass weather and there was a winter storm alert. GREAT, I thought! I was pretty concerned about whether or not we'd arrive in time...When I got up the next morning I got online right away and the first facebook post was one of the Seminary students from our building telling us that we could celebrate a happy leap year day by having a 2 hour snow delay. At our building when the school has a late start then Seminary is cancelled. Which was very nice because there was STILL the winter storm alert! So I got Briana up to get ready and we were able to load the car and head out of town by 6:30 a.m. As we drove it became apparent that the weather wasn't as bad as reported thankfully!! So we arrived in plenty of time to stop at Target to pick up some things for the trip. We had a park n fly at one of the hotels near the airport, so arrived there and made it to the airport about 2 hours before our plane was scheduled to depart. This was nice since we had 2 checked bags, 5 carry-on bags, 2 car seats, 2 kidlets and 2 adults! Briana rented 2 of the baggage carts and I still wasn't absolutely certain that we'd get it all in the airport intact! ;^) Here's a picture of JUST the kids and our carry-on bags:
The boys were absolute troopers on the trip. They had a difficult time with take offs and landings. Emmett especially had a hard time on the flight from Seattle to Los Angeles, the sucker didn't help! 
When they finally turned off the fasten seatbelt sign and Briana was able to get up with him he settled down with her as she held him in the back of the plane. Alex's ears were really bothering him so he was quite fussy at take off and landing. Fortunately about 10 minutes before we landed in Los Angeles he fell asleep, so he had a little bit of relief. 
While we were waiting for our connecting flight in Los Angeles an older gentleman befriended Alex showing an interest in his monster trucks and giving Alex a tool 'catalog' to read. He was on our flight to Dallas and made it a point to find Alex on the flight to tease him a little bit! Mommy and the boys getting ready to fly.
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