School Dayze....

We have had some really fun school days lately - first off with Kaleb having a PURPLE party at school.  This was a near disaster though as the teacher did not email out to the parents the details of the party - thereby leaving most of the moms scrambling the night before to run out to the store to get all of the purple items that were required to make the day a hit.  The grade 1 class moms have been using an app called Band this year, which has helped with communication amongst ourselves - thanks to that app the party came off as a success the next day with one mom helping to dash out and get the remaining items for the moms who couldn't leave their house (i.e. when Dads were not at home to watch the sleeping little ones...)

They had purple belts (or headbands, depending on how they wanted to wear them), purple treats, purple tongues! :)

Last Friday we had the fun of going over to celebrate our cousin Niesha's belated birthday.  It was so fun to see them and visit.  It is never long enough or often enough!  We took a couple of pictures - the 'normal one' and the 'fun one'!

 

That Saturday night, Florida Hospital had their annual fall festival that we went off to - and they had a German carousel which was quite ingeniuous that the kids had fun on (although a long line!).  Even Addison went on it - although she looked scared when it was going fast, but as soon as it slowed down, she was all smiles saying "do it again!"  The concept is that these wooden crossbars with seats are wired to a pole and men just walk the crossbars in circles and "wind it up" - when the men let goes it unwinds itself so the folks on it get quite the fast circular ride!

 This is Kaleb on the left hand side as the men "wind" it up with Zachary below on the right hand side right under that super bright light.

 Karis and Addison are on the left hand side in this picture, with William and Devin on the right hand side across from them.

Sunday came to the pinnacle with little London's 1st birthday party (aka small wedding).  Jennifer is amazing at all things beautiful, so the party truly was spectacular with gauze on the chairs, fresh flowers on the center pieces, specially made paintings, a video of her pictures etc.  She won't realize how beautiful it was, but the rest of us enjoyed it immensely!

 London smashing her beautiful cake!

 While Addison shows off her pretty pink butterfly!

 Isn't Kaleb's bird cool?

They also had pony & horse rides, and Addison shocked Amy by actually being brave enough to go on it (while holding Amy's hand of course, but hey, this is major progress!!)

Fiorella took this picture, and for some reason it took the pinks and turned them into blues - totally cool picture!

On Tuesday of this week, we had the Colonial Fair at the school as the kids have been learning about the pilgrims and the Colonial times this year.  They had great fun dressing up, and then each grade had a small skit/presentation/song etc that they performed for us proud parents!  Afterwards, the classroom had food, crafts and games.

 Our Native American Indian and Colonial Man.  We're not sure who the girl in the sunglasses is.... :)

Mrs. Bukowski's first grade class had a skit about the Mayflower, and Kaleb had several parts in the play, starting off the skit by sharing the beginning information of the Mayflower voyage, but he then ran halfway down the line to talk about "hard tack" and the rats on the boat (yuck!).

Zachary's class had a drum song and then did a song on their recorders.  Some of the notes were a little shrill.... :)

 

 

 

 This is their classroom picture with the teacher Mrs. Lowry.

 A selfie with Mom to show off the butter that he had just "churned (shaken)" - it actually looked like edible butter and he DID then eat it on bread!

 Our friend Allen Isidro made this Mayflower boat for Kaleb and Evan's classroom (thanks Allen!!).  Super cute for the kids to take pictures with it!

A selfie with Mom just because!

Phrase of the week:  Mommy, we went to Awful house for supper!  Look at the picture below at their hats.....can you tell where they are?  It truly is Awful house Addison!!  Waffle House is not fine dining at its best!  Out of the mouth of babes! :)

 

 

Mosquitoe Park

Last weekend was the boy's Adventurer campout at Magnolia Park - but we came to find out it should be more aptly named Mosquito park!  Those suckers were sucking the literal life out of us!  We put on all kinds of mosquito spray - the natural kind and the "I'm poisoning myself" kind to no avail. They would even bite through jeans!  When we ended up at home, we were all covered by bites!

Amy and Addison decided that two weekends in a row of camping was a little much, especially with the time change we were all tired and Addison had reverted back to getting up at night (although thankfully not 7-8 times per night but still one time is enough!!).  So it was just Karis and the boys and the ladies came out the next day as it is only 5 minutes from our house thankfully!  Everyone had a great time, in spite of the mosquitoes, but they did decide to come home the 2nd night as there was a chance of rain overnight and no-one wanted to pack up the tent in the wet rain.

Won't be much longer he can sit on Amy's lap!

Of course this is how she had to come down each time - thankfully she never fell!

Kaleb and his love of gloves...maybe he'll be a surgeon someday!  With his friend Kieran.

Devin and Addison waiting in line on the playground set

 Addison had a great time riding the bicycle (with training wheels) - and there was a bit of a downhill part of the road so she would ride pell-mell down the road and one of us would have to catch her at the bottom as she hasn't quite caught on to how to use the brakes!

The boys had their football playoff games last Sunday.  Kaleb's team won their league while Zachary's came in 2nd (which was surprising as they were about 50/50 during the season).  They had a fun time and enjoyed their teammates.  Kaleb improved dramatically over the season -starting with his nervousness about even playing to being quite a good little defenseman pulling a lot of flags in the last game!  Amy watched him playing catch one with one of his coaches and was simply amazed at how well he was catching and throwing the ball - what a great amount of improvement in only 8 weeks!!!

Throwing the ball with his coach

Grandma and Addison watching from the sidelines

 Kaleb's team The Hornets - Dylan, Kaleb, Xavi, Ty, Gabo, Andrew and Austin

Awesome coaches - main coach Darren and Joey on the right hand side with Doug on the left hand side.

 The Wolves- Esai, Jordan, Luke, Noah, Obed, Andrew, Matthew, Zachary, Josh and Riley

With the coaches Gustavo and Andrew's dad

 Kaleb's team was tuckered out!!

During the pumpkin season, Addison wanted to have NOTHING to do with sticking her hand in the pumpkin to get out the seeds.  Apparently this is one area where she is girly! :)

Amy had a very long week at work during the final push for the 2016 budget, and Kaleb decided that we should get flowers for her!  So sweet!

He loved the blue ones in particular

A selfie...

 Phrase of the week:   We have had a more difficult time this year in remembering to bring all of our school stuff home each day - so Amy was once again looking for the kids' water bottles when Zachary said "This water bottle situation is getting overwhelming!"  Ahh, to be at a stage of life where one could be overwhelmed by a water bottle "find and rescue" mission!  It is hard to remember all the things that one is supposed to do at 9 years old!  :)

Juniper Springs

We did not have a post last weekend because the Zs, along with many of our wonderful friends, went camping.  Yep - camping.  We headed out to Juniper Springs which is only about 1 hour away, so it wasn't too far away - although too far to come back when we realized that we forgot to bring a single camp chair!! :)

There were 8 families to came - Cochrans (thanks Will for organizing!), Touchards (love having them here!), Cochran Srs (who took all of our cold stuff in their RV), Johnsons (Amy was wishing that she could sleep with Kelli in their RV!), Isidros (great neighbors - Karis especially loved the bowl of coffee in the morning!), Biris (our boys could not have been happier that their kids were there too!), and Mayrs (thanks to them for taking awesome pictures!).

The whole group

Zachary has been really into the Hardy Boy books lately...notice that even with all of these kids around, he's sitting reading his Kindle until he finishes the book that evening!  Like Mother like Son!

The campground was ideal - although the addition of a soccer field would have made it perfect.  There were clear springs that were a short walk (maybe 0.25 of a mile) away that the kids had fun swimming in (brr!), and it was not crowded at all with the fact that it was Halloween weekend (glad that we could avoid that business at home!).  The kids had fun riding their bikes around, kicking soccer balls, and of course roasting things over the fire.

Being that we hadn't camped in about 4 years (pre-Addison), the Zs were novices once again.  We managed to bring most things except our camp chairs.  In fact, we bought a Yakima cargo box for the top of our van so that we'd have lots of space inside the van...to no avail because when you go camping you have to bring EVERYTHING with you!

Our home away from home....a 10 person tent isn't as big as you think it is....  What are these 10 people??? Midgets? :)

The first night was terrible for sleep - not because we were uncomfortable (the lady Zs had air mattresses while the male Zs toughed it out on the small air pads on the ground)....but the HOOT OWLS that started to talk/fight all night long.  Oh for a bee-bee gun....  The second night wasn't much better for Amy as Addison got sick that Saturday with a stomach bug so was very restless and ended up sleeping on Amy's twin air mattress...which means no sleep for Amy.

To add to that story - Zachary had been sick with said stomach virus all week starting the Sunday before with a fever and then diarrhea on Monday.  He felt better by Tuesday so he went off to school but by Thursday it came back.  On Friday, Karis and the kids were going to Animal Kingdom for a field trip when he woke up feeling even worse!  So Amy finally after 5 days gave him some Imodium so that he could enjoy his field trip and camping....  Bad idea.  20 minutes later he was in her room with a blood red lips, super red ears and neck.  Add in itchiness and Amy knew he was having an allergic reaction.  She quickly gave him some grape Benadryl (which he HATES) in apple sauce.....and when that didn't seem to be working she gave him some Allegra.  After a while hives are starting to break out, so she called Heather who told her that she needed to go to the Centra Care for a steroid shot.  Prior to going, he did manage to point the "crowning glory" on the experience by throwing up everywhere (to which he then smugly says "I told you I hate grape!!"  Yeah thanks buddy!).

The flash makes the red lighter than it was - but you can see that his face is flushed and that his torso is mottled

The hives were starting along the base of his spine.

Anyway, after the Centra Care which thankfully did cure him with the shot (that hurt like a doo-dad for about 30 minutes), and the Imodium cured his stomach ache (cure his stomach ache but make him break out in hives...go figure) - Zachary and Karis headed off to Animal Kingdom to meet up with Jennifer and the other kids.

Anyhoo, the next morning after a week of not getting it, Addison woke up at the campground with diarrhea.  Never seen the likes of it!  But, she didn't once have an accident (thank you God!), but we did go to the bathroom about 500 times - thankfully it was close.  It too has lasted a full week with an odd middle section of being a bit better and than relapsing here at the end again.  Thus far, fingers crossed, the rest of us haven't gotten it.

True to form - Addison did of course give us several scares.  The first was Saturday morning when she decided to tag along with Zachary as he followed a trail to the springs (although he didn't know where he was going!).  Thankfully Amy and Karis ran along the trail and caught up to them.  But the big one came in the afternoon when Addison was down for a 'nap' while Karis took the boys to the springs to swim.  Well, Amy was sitting outside of the tent about 30 feet away talking to the other ladies, and about 10 minutes later she went back to check on Addison who was nowhere to be seen.  Looking around and not seeing any sight of her, Amy decided to chance it and run to the springs again.  On the way there, there were two separate adults walking back to which Amy asked whether they saw a little girl.  Both of them said Yes, so Amy 1) knew that she was on the right path, 2) began praying that Addison didn't take a wrong turn on the other trails and get lost and 3) wondered if you were an adult why would you let a tiny little girl unattended walk along the trail without stopping to see if you could figure out where her parents were!!?

In the morning having fun looking at the guppies in the water

While the parents enjoy the sun

and chatting...

while crazy kids get in the 72 degree water!!

From the other side of the story, Karis and Allen were sitting at the springs watching the kids swim when they noticed Addison sauntering into the clearing.  Allen leans over to Karis and apparently (so the story goes) and says "Man, you've got Amy on this one, she lost Addison!!  Call her and ask her how Addison's nap is going!"  Karis - wise man that he is - says "Hmm, I don't think so, YOU call her!"  Allen did in fact call, but Amy was running at that point so couldn't feel her phone vibrating in her pocket.  Karis later commended Addison saying "Man, she has a good memory!"  Uhh...this child will be the end of us.  We are thankful that she did not get lost, nor did she run into any snakes.

Hmm...looks like she is napping right!?

Speaking of snakes.  This may be the last time that Amy goes camping.  There were THREE snakes that were spotted by various people.  One was a coral snake (KILLER), one was the fake look-alike to the coral snake (who can remember the poem of which one will kill you if it can chew on you (no fangs) in the heat of screaming your head off???), and then a tiny little snake (be it a pigmy rattle snake or a garter snake - not sure, but it was a SNAKE!). Oh, and there is the small issue of BEARS - don't leave your food out

Which is the one that is deadly poisonous - do you know the poem? :)  Red and yellow kill a fellow....red and black friend of jack.  NO SNAKE IS OUR FRIEND! Yech

Other than that, we truly had a great time and the boys loved hanging out with all of their friends riding their bikes, playing soccer, swimming etc.  The weather was beautiful as well - we were very pleased!  Below are other pictures capturing our fun times!

Swinging in the hammock chair that Allen brought (he truly knows how to go 'glamping'!!  We love it!)

Addison couldn't be happier - just let her drink some apple juice in a box! :)

Well - actually, the red car with Uncle Kent pushing her and Elin around actually did put the icing on the cake!

AHH!!  John has been run over!  Oh, actually - he's just fixing Abel's front of his van when the shield broke off.  John is a very handy-man friend to have around!

Isidros dog Tux was a big highlight for all of the little kids, and he was as gentle and patient - never growing, snapping, or getting nervous around the kids.

Kaleb loved sitting in the Touchard chair!

David, Maddy, Amber, Addi, Kaleb and John Mark

While Kohden, Kaleb, John  Mark, Devin, Johnny and Kieran ham it up for the camera

 That night, there were stories and memories shared around the campfire (after s'mores of course!)

 The fire was a big draw, and thankfully no-one accidentally got too close.  Aunt Heather is photo-bombing this one of the boys!

So we had to get on without the interloper! :)

Addison apparently will swindle anyone into pushing her around in Elin's car!  Poor Devin is no bigger than Addison is!  

The Isidros and Zs had the supper meal (the 8 families split the 4 meals, it worked perfectly!).  We went with a simple meal of "Haute dogs" (thanks Allen!) and ended off with the s'mores.  Allen came up with lots of fun toppings - ranging from blue cheese, jalapenos, mushroom and onions, capers etc. And of course we had gluten free options for the folks among us that were gluten intolerant!

In other news, the weekend before we joined the Fulbright annual costume party to celebrate Victoria's birthday.  We have never done the "costume" thing, so wanted to remain fairly low-key and thus the farmer Z family was born.  Amy and Karis were the farmers, and Addison was the pink piggy (so cute!), Kaleb was the cow (never a more precious cow!) and Zachary was the scarecrow. Everyone had a great time!

The kids at the party (the flash only lit the top part of the picture...boo!)

Kaleb doing some "line dancing" (how does he knows???)  The Zs don't have dance moves, so don't ask us where he got this from!

Zachary riding the "bull"

We were not the winning family - but we had fun.  The winner that night was the 101 dalmation family - super cute!

Phrase of the week:  Mommy, my tummy is grumpy!  I guess that is another way for describing diarrhea, Addison! :)