Well I made it back from my week long adventure in China. The trip felt like three little trips in one. This picture above was me, Michael (my 11 year old piano player) and another lady helping me sing and lead worship at fellowship in Southern China. I really enjoyed getting to lead singing in this Chinese fellowship which consisted of ex-pats and natives and my traveling buddy, Ryder, gave the message.



Part two of my trip consited of my traveling buddy heading out to Australia on Tuesday late morning leaving me to wander around aimlessly through Hong Kong armed with exactly two words in Mandarin (hello and thankyou) and a cell phone that refused to work in Hong Kong. So I took a ferry ride across the harbor and then rode a tram up the mountain overlooking the city (as seen in the picture above). I made a friend for about 5 minutes as we became 'I'll take pictures of you if you take pictures of me' buddies. I never learned his name nor carried on any conversation thanks to the language barrier but I thank him for this picture.





Part 3 of the trip was me hopping on another airplane and flying about 3 and half hours north into central China to meet up with some friends who used to work with me back in the student work days many years ago. They have been living in China several years now and amazed me with the Mandarin they have learned and the great work they are doing there for our father. They just recently adopted a little girl from Ethiopia named, Makaria, which makes five total kiddos for them. Living with them for a day and a half stretched me and made me re-examine my own faith and trust in my father.

It was great to finally get back home and see my wonderful family and be reminded about how great a gift from God they are in my life. I had a blast giving some little knick knacks from China to the kiddos including these outfits that Joshua and Emily are sporting in the pictures below. The last video is a little shot of a song and dance Emily and Joshua made up called 'we are chinese'.

Joshua trying to adjust to our new early morning schedule. He requested to be cocooned in his towel on the floor to avoid having to face getting up and getting dressed.

Ballet is back and Emily is excited. She is now in the 5 and 6 year old class. This clip is from her first day back yesterday.

Kindergarten Begins

Well, one of those life milestones has come and gone as Emily has now begun Kindergarten. You don't really know how you're going to respond to everything. Probably the toughest part for Whitney and I was the massive change in our bedtime routines and the loss of our Friday (my day off) family day together. On Wednesday night the kids were having meltdowns as we had to drag them inside while the other kids from the neighborhood (who haven't started school yet) were out playing and having a jolly old time. Night one...they were definitely not ready to go to bed. It took four stanzas of amazing grace while rocking and laying down beside his bed on the floor for 45 minutes to get little blondie asleep. Emily was finally o.k. with the notion as long as her door was left open and just the right amount of light was let in. She then sang songs and talked to herself for about 30 minutes until she finally wore out. Another emotional aspect to this whole Kindergarten deal is the impact it is having on little brother. Joshua has grown up his whole life having big sister around to play with. The night before her first day he was going on and on about how he was going to miss her and not have anyone to play with. Emily several times told him "I know it's going to be difficult Joshua but you're going to have to get used to it." Then this morning she was giving Mommy instructions on how to care for little brother. The most important thing in caring for him was to play with him a lot. Anyway it has been an interesting adjustment so far. Today was her first full day and when Mommy asked if she missed her she said 'no, I didn't miss anybody' and that she had lots of fun. She said that she wants to buy lunch from the cafeteria because they have 'pasta and tomatoes (potatoes is what she really means) and lettuce'. Here are a few more pictures from her first day:

Poppaw and Grammy came into town to be here for Josh and Suzanne's wedding. Here are a few of our moments we've had together over the past week. On Thursday night before we left Bo came over and hung out with us for a while at the house and we squeezed all three kids on the window seat for dinner time. Joshua and Bo were having fun stealing each other's strawberries.

We had a great time in San Antonio over the weekend for Josh and Suzanne's wedding. Josh is our Junior High Pastor here at church. They both worked with me as student ministry interns my last summer as Student Pastor. So it was very special to get to officiate their wedding. The rehearsal dinner was at Casa Rio's on the river walk where we enjoyed some great San Antonio Mexican food. Whitney and I went over to hang out with the wedding party till around 2:00 in the morning over at their hotel. Whitney had a great time catching up with Ashley Eppers and it was fun getting to hang out with some of my old students and co-workers (Sean Eppers, John Hollomon, Colin Bates, Kevin Mahaffey, Arlen Acosta, and of course Josh Bramlett). On Saturday we walked around the river walk, rested and ate a nice lunch together. The wedding was held at the Trinity University Chapel which was a really cool old chapel with a lot of charm and personality. We finished off the evening at a beautiful old mansion overlooking the city for the reception. Of course there was a ridiculous amount of dancing and a ridiculous amount of sweating as it was August in San Antonio. Here are a few pictures from the experience:

On Sunday we went by and visited the San Jose Mission which is one of like 5 or 6 missions along the San Antonio River (the most famous being the Alamo) built back in the early 1700's by the Spanish.

It was a great weekend for Whitney and I as the kids were hanging out with my parents in Wimberley. So it was awesome just to be able to spend time with my wife and enjoy being together and remember that first we were husband and wife and THEN we were mommy and daddy. We really had fun with Bunny and Ronnie as well as we had a lot of time to visit and laugh with them. When ran by and picked them up on Sunday afternoon and made the trip back to Magnolia. Apparently my parents were giving them driving lessons as they kept wanting to be behind the wheel when we were picking them up in Wimberley:

Well we finally made it back and Grammy and Poppaw gave Emily and Joshua a little toy when we got in last night. An old-fashioned 'pop' gun. We heard popping noises all over our house for quite awhile and were under attack. Who needs expensive gadgets. It seems like the simple little toys get the job done pretty well.

The kids went to 'Wacky and Wild' Pre-school camp at our church this past week. Joshua was particularly excited as this was his first time to go to a summer camp. On Wednesday they go to get 'slimed' with shaving cream. The clip above was taken on the morning of their 'sliming'. Below are a few pictures from their last day of camp.

Well since Emily is about to start Kindergarten at the Christian Academy we did a full-blown family day on Friday. We went and ate lunch at a really cool cafeteria style restaurant called Cleburne's down off of Bissonnet. They had some amazing chocolate-silk pie with a nice flaky crust. Emily gobbled up her portion and of course our son (Mr picky) refused to try any of it. He is a true anomoly as he also claims to not like icecream or milkshakes (even though he loves chocolate milk). We then went to the Houston Children's museum which was a pretty amazing place (even though I think every child in the entire city chose to go the same day). Below are a few pictures from the museum.

After the children's museum we went to IKEA and Emily was now old enough to go into the play area where she watched movies and played on some trees and made some new friends. Joshua was about a half inch too short and still far from potty trained.

Lastly, Joshua got to experience his first trip to a real barber with the legendary Henry Snead. He got to sit in a little fire truck and get his hair cut and wear a jungle apron with cool animals on it. Below is a little video clip and some pictures from the experience.

Lastly, my lovely wife took this picture of our son. I have no words to describe this one.