We have another graduate on our hands! Kaleb has graduated from Kindergarten! Remember the good-old days when you just went to school and went onto the next grade, without all of the pomp and circumstances of Pre-K and Kindergarten? There is even now a "ceremony" for the other grades to move on to the next level - come on!!? Ah well, good for cute-ness in their little caps and gowns! :)
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| Ms Mcree and Zach - we love you! |
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| Signing his yearbook |
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| And reading his young author's day book about a birthday party - great coloring this year, and an imaginative story! Dedicated to mom and dad (awww!) |
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| Best teacher we've had - Mrs Monk - amazing! Kaleb's Young Author's Day Story was about a princess "Mrs. Monk!" and was dedicated to his friends Ethan and Eva |
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| The young graduate - so handsome! |
The decorations were so cute this year as it was only the K and Pre-K graduation (vs a combined 8th grade graduation) - precious!
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| All pictures were done before the ceremony, which sadly Karis wasn't able to get off until the ceremony started, so he wasn't in these pictures! :( |
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| Kaleb is on the far right hand side at the very end. |
We also had investitures for Adventures - always a fun event in our home as one of our male children (remaining anonymous) HATES to wear belts. You might as well have to pin him to the floor to get the belt on him and after that it kicks off a terrible mood until something can finally distract him.... Thankfully they are all smiling in the picture below (although it took a bit of a threat that we'd stand there taking pictures FOREVER until they gave a good smile!!)
For Memorial Day, we headed out to Pompano Beach for the weekend - we've now done this for several Memorial Day weekends, and it is nice to be "away" but yet within a short driving distance. Pompano Beach is near Miami where Karis worked pre-marriage as a travelling PT, so we remembered a drive-thru zoo called "Lion Country Safari" that we wanted to take the kids to. Johnsons and Cochrans came with us, and we stayed at the Wyndham Palm-Aire which was about a 12 minute drive from the beach, but it ended up being super fun as it was 1) easy to get to the beach 2) and park at their sister resort that was ON the beach where we could use their private beach, pools, bathrooms, children's play area complete with the ring toss game, bean bag toss game, and two macaw birds for interest, and 3) the resort where we stayed at a water slide, mini-golfing, children's playground AND lots of space! :)
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| Zach, Kieran, Erik and Kelli |
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| Playing Uno |
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| The Z kids love to mini-golf! |
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| the ladies trying out golfing.. |
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| Or play in the water trap while her brothers golf! :) |
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| Elin, Addi, Erik and Devin |
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| Building a fort |
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| Eating a hundred pringle chips! |
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| In a "mood" about something..... |
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| We found a great Italian restaurant Umbertos - great food and service! |
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| This automatic footwasher to remove sand was the bomb - it was amazing, and could get the kids entirely clean! |
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| We even got to see fireworks from our balcony - thanks to Memorial Day weekend! We were in the Sabal Palm building, and it faced the fireworks so we had a front row seat! |
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| Not the best family picture, but the only one that we really got on this vacation. |
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| Not too bad of a group shot for the end of the weekend......with tired babies! :) |
The first night that we were there, we put the boys to bed in the guest room (they're starting to sleep very well together in the same room although we haven't yet tried them in the same BED yet), and then put Addison in a toddler blow-up mattress in the guest bathroom (huge area!). About 45 minutes after going to bed, (and we had gone to bed ourselves), Addison got up and tried to wake Zachary up. Well, after getting Zachary up this year at 10P to go to the bathroom (which we no longer need to do after a couple of months as he is completely night-time dry now - congrats Zach!), we know that is virtually impossible to wake him up - like waking up the dead! So Kaleb woke up (or was awake still), and brought her to our bedroom and said "She's blowing in Zachary's face but he isn't waking up!" - so not wanting the boys to wake up with her crying, we let her sleep with us the rest of the night (aka, not great sleep for the parents!). The next night she went into the toddler bed in our bathroom and all was splendid! :)
That first night, Amy flipped the hotel 'chain' at the top of the door as she always does and around mid-night, she heard the door open (thank goodness for being a light sleeper!). She got up out of bed and went into the living room only to discover that Zachary was sleep-walking and had opened the door as much as it would go and was standing there looking out the opening into the hall. When she asked what he was doing, he mumbled and then went back to bed. Next morning....remembered nothing! :) Good thing he didn't escape and Amy didn't sleep through it! :)
We hit the Lion Country Safari on Monday on our way home, and it was really fun as we remembered. They have added a walk-through portion where you can stay after the drive-through is done and it had camel rides, feeding the giraffes, budgies, lorrikeets, tons of kid rides, a petting zoo, water slides (2), a huge splash park etc. It was too bad we didn't have more time there, as it was really fun. The hot weather though was a little much, but thankfully the splash area cooled us down and Addi repeated her nap from the drive down...sleeping the entire 3 hours home! Bravo!!
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| Karis loves the ostriches - and one even walked by our car and pecked on the window! Another one did its ritual mating dance.....for a human zoo-keeper lady! :) |
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| You had to be small enough to go on this ride....Kaleb just made it! |
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| Hmm....not sure what the crinkled nose means....stinky? :) But at least she's brave enough to do this! |
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| Hit of the day? Mining for 'jewels' |
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| Ingenious riding toy that moves when they simply move the handles back and forth. |
School is now over, but at the end of the year they had another play that Zachary was a part of. He had a speaking part this time (maybe spoke 3-4 times). It was a super cute play with the kids painted up as jungle animals. He said that he was a bit nervous up there - but frankly this is why Amy put him into drama - let them get used to being up front and practicing so that by the time he's an adult, he'll have all of the nerves worked out and can give presentations etc, talk to groups without getting nervous!
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| This was during his promotion ceremony, right before the play. |
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| He's the 4th one from the right hand side. |
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| Love you kiddo! |
Phrase of the week:
When discussing when we could have to eat as we were driving, Addi shouted out "I want Pita and Thomas!" Hope Thomas doesn't mind being eaten.... :) Good thing we had hummus to substitute for Thomas!
On our last evening at the resort, we walked out on the pier, and Kaleb said as we were walking there "Where is the Pierre?" Pierre seems to have a bit more 'flair' than plain-old pier doesn't it!?
