Party time!

Karis and Amy both celebrated their birthdays last weekend (although Amy is about to put a stop to all future birthdays! :) ) by joining our family here in town for Sabbath lunch.  Niesha was back in town from her trip, so we were able to catch up with her for a lovely visit as well.  Hard to believe that the year is going by so quickly!

Never a serious moment with Jeff! :)

After the birthday party, we joined the Hilliards and friends at their home for a swimming break, complete with a wiener roast for supper.  It was great fun to get together and just enjoy the nice summer evening that we were having.  The kids thought that roasting their supper was quite the highlight!  The Hilliard family is moving soon, so this will most likely be the last time that we are at this current home!

Fascinating fire!

Sunday was our special day to honor Heather C and her upcoming birth of a baby boy.  We are all so excited for them, and we had a lovely time showering her with gifts!  We pretended that we were Jennifer's proteges and "crafted it up" for the decorations - it all turned out thankfully.

Group shot, but unfortunately taken after Heather H and Corey G had to leave - congrats to the Cochran family!

On Monday, Jennifer was out of town so rather than getting a babysitter, Karis decided to take the day off - as it was his special day anyway! - and spend it with the boys.  They took off for the petting zoo in the morning, where we were pleased to see Kaleb become bolder, and actually touching some of the animals on his own!  We might just make it yet! :)

What a beautiful peacock display!

While it is still only one tentative finger, he IS in there by himself, touching the lamb! :)

The baby chics are always a highlight.

After the petting zoo experience, they headed to SeaWorld for the afternoon where William and Kieran later joined them.  They had a ball going to the Shamu show and of course Happy Harbor where they rode rides to their hearts content.

A "before" picture - sitting on the front row at the Shamu show.  Brave or dumb, it's all personal opinion! :)

The "after" picture - looking quite pleased with themselves!

Phrase of the week:  One morning this week, Zachary whispered in Amy's ear "Mommy, I had a dream that a lady angel came and talked to me.  She was beautiful!   I wish that she was real"  Amy:  "Maybe she was real, in the Bible angels talked to people in dreams."  Zachary: "No, I think that they were all awake."  Eventually Amy winds the conversation to ask Zachary WHAT the angel said to him.  His reply?  "She said to water the garden, because sometimes Daddy forgets!"  Ha ha! Such practical guidance!

Celebrations

Last week we had a special treat when Amy's cousin Jeff came over to spend Sabbath with us.  Niesha, his wife, had taken a quick trip up to Asheville, NC where they used to live, so Jeff was a bachelor for the day.  The boys were delighted to see him and enjoyed playing with him, although we attempted to keep it on the quieter side as Jeff is still struggling with some vertigo at times.

Jeff and Zachary throwing a football at the park

Sunday was busy with two celebrations - a brunch out at Keke's Cafe (Yummy!) for Mother's Day with the family and then a birthday party after naps.  We ended up seeing quite a few of our friends at the restaurant as we were coming and going, so that was a nice way to begin our day with a passing visit.

Aunt Louise, Amy's Mom Bobbi, Amy, Heather, Linda, Kelli

The birthday part was to celebrate Calleigh and Aubrey's birthdays last Sunday at the park.  It was a very fun party - not too stressful, and the weather was perfect!  Jennifer helped Corey with decorations and the cakes/cookies, and Corey outdid herself with very fun park food!  The kids had a blast playing together of course while the parents had a lovely visit.

Maddie, Kohlden, Braelyn, Calleigh, Kaleb, Evan, Luke, Aubrey, Zachary and Blake.  (Missing from picture - Adam must have been off playing either football or basketball.)

Something Calleigh was telling them was very important!

We had another ultrasound this week for Baby Girl A.  They're telling us that she is about 2 lbs 11 ounces, and her size is measuring about a week in advance of where she is.  We have about 11 weeks more to go!  How fast did the time go!?  They were able to catch a nice 3D of her face, so we thought that we'd share.

Phrase of the week:  We've been attempting to help Kaleb learn the days of the week, and while we're about 90% there, he steadfastly refuses to remember Wednesday.  So, it always goes like this "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday"  We're not sure if he's just playing with us, but we've gone over the days of the week many a time, and Wednesday just does not exist in his brain! :)  Zachary's perennial phrase lately is "I want to watch the weather" - he asks for this every morning now when he gets up - the Weather Channel is his favorite!  He is very distraught by the summer rain pattern that we're in, so hopefully he gets over this quickly because otherwise it is going to be a very long summer! :)

On another note, Karis has another birthday this week - Happy Birthday!  He is taking off the day from work, and going to take the boys down to the Petting Farm to enjoy some fun together.


Heather and Amy are due 2 weeks apart - Heather is having a baby boy, and Amy of course a baby girl.  They carry completely differently (Heather high, Amy low) so it is fun to compare.

Week of Visitors

As mentioned in our Camp Kulaqua post, we headed out on Sunday to drive like mad home so that we could meet Chad and Melanie Dudar - one of our close friends from high school and his wife - as they arrived after spending a week on a luxurious cruise celebrating Chad's 40th birthday.

We had a great time visiting and catching up with them - we don't get to see them often, so we are always thankful for these little moments in time when you can re-connect. They both were very engaging with the boys, so quickly became the stars of the household!  Being Canadians, Chad loves hockey, which Zachary was thrilled about so he managed to coerce Chad into playing table hockey with him multiple times!

They also had a great time playing in the pool, with Chad throwing them up in the air as high as he could.  In Zachary's words, "Mommy, I could almost touch the screen roof!"  Zachary is getting too heavy to throw Zachary that high anymore, so this was one last hurrah for Zachary to enjoy the thrill of flying high in the air!

Chad and Melanie headed off Tuesday morning (and we're disappointed to say that we did NOT manage to get a picture of both of them - what kind of blog is this!?) to go back to their sweet girls in Nova Scotia.  We hope to see their whole family come down next time!

On Thursday, Karis' cousin Todd and his wife Jamie came for a visit along with their boys.  Karis met them at Aquatica for the afternoon, which was very fun other than the steaming hot concrete that ended up burning Karis' feet and leaving him with a few small blisters. Ouch!

The Befus family have two boys - Kyan and Abel, and the four boys had a fun time playing together while we ate supper.  It was a short visit because after supper, they headed back to their condo on the beach to finish up the rest of their vacation.  Sounds like their time at the beach was really fun, so hopefully this means that they'll be repeat vacationers here in Florida in the future! :)

Happy Mother's Day to all of the amazing women out there, who dedicate their time and energy to making the lives of little people better!  We thank you and love you for your time, support and love!

Church Retreat

Last weekend, we headed out for our very first church retreat (hence, we apologize for the lack of a post - we just weren't here!) at Camp Kaluqua.  Because it's been a while since our last post, this will be split up into 2 separate posts as there has been so many fun things going on!  It is about 2 hours from here, and is a REALLY fun place to go with your kids.  It has a small zoo, ponies/horses, a water park, go-carts - you name it!

We were accompanied by many of our friends - Bergherms, Cochrans, Deiningers, Grodacks, Isidros etc.  We ended up staying in a little chalet that had 2 bedrooms, a loft, a bathroom and small living area.  It had A/C - can we say "this is Amy's idea of camping!?"  It was awesome!

We got there on Friday evening in time for the boys to break out their bikes and start exploring the camp.  Shortly after dark, a group of us, including Zachary on his bike, left the chalets to walk to the cafeteria so that Amy could pick up Kaleb from Karis (where he was waiting to do the final registration) as it was Kaleb's bedtime.  Unfortunately Zachary zoomed off in the dark on his bike and got lost - much to Amy's worry and anxiety.  After walking to the cafeteria and back to the chalet - with still no Zachary, she called Karis to tell him to get on his bike and start combing the camp - thinking all the time "We're going to be on the local news - "Parents lose son overnight in the woods!"  About that time, Zachary realized that he was lost, and started to cry and scream for Mommy - have we ever mentioned that Zachary has naturally a very loud volume to his voice?  Well, Karis could hear him from where he was at the cafeteria, so jumped onto his bike and easily located him by simply following the sound of shrieks.  We are SO thankful for Zachary's loud voice at that point!  He learned a good lesson about staying in sight of an adult that he knew, and the rest of the time went swimmingly!

On Sabbath, we went to Sabbath School where we did the Family Sabbath School on the 'low ropes course' which is basically just different activities set up that require you to work as a group etc to accomplish, such as the trust fall.  It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it.

Seeing if they could fit on the small platform

Zachary wondering if he should really do the trust fall! :)

Doing the plank hard - hard with the very small kids! :)

After lunch at the cafe (where we ate way too much!), we headed off to the small nature center and zoo. There were quite a few animals, but the most amazing was the male lion.  This lion was jumping around in the air, pacing back and forth etc - no sleeping for this lion!

Karis was very intrigued by the lion (out of the picture) - the lion was staring him down at this point!

Amy was pretty much spent at this point with the head and pregnancy, so the family all headed back to the chalet for an afternoon nap in the cool A/C.  Ahh - what sweet relief!  There were crafts that rounded up the evening and a lovely time of chatting outside the chalets after the kids all went to bed.

Sunday we got up and headed over to the water park in which the family had lots of fun in the wave pool, the lazy river, and the water slide.  The boys were really disappointed to leave on Sunday!

We really enjoyed spending time out in nature with all of the kids and friends.  We ended up taking assignments for meals, and two families hosted each a meal over the weekend.  There were some really delicious meals, and complete for the Cinco de Mayo celebration, the Isidro/Cochran group brought a pinata that the kids thought was the most fun ever! :)

The kids waiting for their turn at the pinata

Zachary taking a swing and having items fly out!

We headed home on Sunday to begin a week of company - which we'll include in our next post so that our faithful readers don't get reading exhaustion! :)