pretoria, south africa

i was able to catch the sun rising, thanks to the little fat baby who woke up at four in the morning.
hoping, hoping, hoping she'll go back to sleep...
it's a beautiful place where we stay...very much my style of a house...
the area is very nice, the weather is sunny and hot, with cool air (like summer time in baguio)
the land is incredibly vast. no longer the island i'm used to living on.
and the next few pictures are of the kid's room. i was very pleasantly surprised to find a perfect little kid's room set up that opens up to a small terrace right in front of the garden.
and these are some pictures for my dad...i know he'd love all these plants and flowers.
the crops are alan's little prizes...

and these are a few little sneaky plants that found their way to the roof...

when yer flying flying flying in a plane

as a general rule, the kids were very, very good during the trip...
i almost thought that with our hands full of kids and luggage i wouldn't be able to take any pictures...but...i thought wrong, and was able to get a few.

this is the first leg...
look at aileen, totally chilling with her bottle. this was a nice, comfortable and spacious start, with the plane less than half full.
and that's the little piggy girl, stuffing her stomach before paying her debts. she refused to be fed, and insisted on feeding herself. trippy trip.
the row in front of ours was empty, so i was able to put the baby to sleep, and daddy could fill out those immigration papers, while dava and aileen took up all the space they needed...
and this was a rollercoaster-like train ride in the malaysian airport, from one terminal to the next. huge airport...the train ride was probably the equivalent of magallanes to ayala.
thankfully, it was the baby's normal scheduled time for sleeping...and thankfully she kept to it...while dava and aileen ran around the airport like chickens with their heads cut off and no idea what the meaning of tiredness was.
this was a darling old lady who found great entertainment in humoring dava with her latest "i went to a chinese restaurant" dig. i took a video, but i don't know if i should upload it...we no longer have asian internet...
"look, uncle jim...a plane!"
konked out on the final flight...taking up all our seating space...
we didn't quite have the same luck as the first flight. this time the plane was going to johanesburg, cape town, and then buenos aires...so, there wasn't an empty seat.
samantha having some quality time with daddy, and giving us her last smile before coming to the end of all her goodness in the last hour of the flight.
a rainbow streak of sky over madagascar...
"since you can't smoke...we'll just sell cigarettes to you...just to test you..."

the last melon...

our external drive with the other pictures still hasn't quite caught up with us yet...but, i'm going ahead and posting these anyway...
this was our last family day, and with lani! yay!
so, i'll skip captionizing (it is a word...i know, because i just made it up myself!) pictures, and just let you look see...

despedida

our farewell cake and snackies

suzi with an I

suzi and seanie boy

some less-than-focused shots...our special camera, god bless it.

left: you have no idea how long i was closing my eyes... | right: randomjo says: "GMA wants you!" sam and anna say: "oy, tol! beer na tayo!"

jo and maDOnna

left: does this need a description? | right: good eats some random "action" shots left: little chanchina | right: chanchai and christina (hiding) uhh, yeah...just taking pictures of my so-not-anna kikay shoes...

my little mexicans...