Hamilton & Nascar!

Just as a note before we dive into this week's post - we are having extreme difficulty for some reason downloading any pictures from our phones - thus these post updates are from January and February, while we continue to try and figure out solutions to download pictures from March!  So we apologize that these are all old updates, but better late than never!

In early February, Amy had a work conference here in town where they brought all of the executives from the entire company together for 3 days to focus on our new brand launch, brand promise and our performance under the name AdventHealth versus our old name Adventist Health System.  The two days were incredibly packed with great information, but the company also took the time to invest in the executives as employees, taking us to do some reallllly fun things.

The first fun event was to see Hamilton.  Amy had the pleasure of going with another friend the week before (also through work connections) and had been AMAZED at the music and how interesting the Broadway show was as it outlined Alexander Hamilton's life.  The music was catchy, and the story was riveting.  Imaging her delight when the next week at the conference they announced that they were taking us to see Hamilton!  She was able to catch a lot more the second time (the music is rap format, so you really have to pay attention to catch everything).

Some of Amy's work friends - Penny, Evie, Amy, Christine (Amy and Christine have been work best friends since 2000!)

Taking a selfie of ourselves, someone else took a picture of us! :)

The cast afterwards

The second day, the evening outing was to go to the Daytona 500 and actually get to ride in a race care - going 175 miles per hour!  Amy was totally in for this experience, and when she got into the car the driver asked "Are you nervous?" to which she replied "no".  He asked again "are you sure you're not nervous?" to which again she calmly said "no."  He started to car, and in literally about 3 seconds you go from standing still to 175 miles per hour, sling-shoting out from pit row out onto the track itself.......at which point Amy thought "Maybe I should have been nervous!!!!!" and the immediate next thought was "I should have prayed before I got into this car!!!" and then she started to chant a prayer because that is about all the thoughts that you can get out at the time "protect my family, protect my family" - at which point she realized "Wait, I am the one in the car, not my kids!!! I need the protection!"  As they round the third corner, for some reason that is the one where you feel the pull of the car trying to lose traction and slam against the wall, which is literally about 3 inches from your face - the prayer reduced to "God, God, God...."  Ha ha ha, but after the first lap, you start to get a feel for the car, and the fact that there are 5 cars racing only a few feet behind each other and the pull of the G-force and then you settle down.  Then the real fun begins - it is SO FUN!  When Amy got out of the car, she was ready to go again!  Super fun, highly recommend it for anyone interested.

AdventHealth Sponsors a car in the race - here it is!

This is our company's entrance gate

Amy and her friend Jennifer

The cars that we are about to get into!

Big thanks to Amy's old boss and mentor - Terry

Amy ran into an old college friend Vlad that now works for the company in Chicago now, so we sent Karis this text

What are the chances that Amy and her best friend at work - Christine - would get adjoining hotel rooms without asking!?  Super fun!

In other random pictures:

You can't see, but Zachary is driving the van from the back of the property up to the front at the request of his father.  Not very far and only on grass, but he was proud of himself

One day at school Amy got this text from Kaleb's teacher - when Addison saw Kaleb at chapel she ran over to hug him - so sweet!

Our little cousin Sadie!  She is getting big!

The whole family watching football

Follow the leader - cutting the grass

Addison is riding her hoverboard as she blows the grass

we changed out the faucets in our bathroom (love the new oil rubbed bronze!) and Karis was amazing as always and cut the tub tile so that the roman tub faucet could be changed as well without wrecking the tile!  Yeah!

Castle of my heart

On Valentine's Day, the kindergarten class at FLEC had the most adorable program called the Castle of my Heart - and all of the kids dressed up as princesses and knights - and gave their hearts to Jesus.  Precious!

The day of the school program they had a lovely little breakfast, and then they had all sorts of medieval activities and games - they all had a blast!

"jousting"

Bow and arrow

Addison and Sebastian

They also had the opportunity to single at church (Addison is in the second row) and single several songs.

She is in the second row in the middle of the picture

Of course for Valentine's Day, our tradition is to get take-out and have a candlelight dinner at the home with the kids and then exchange cards - this year it was Crepevine - yummy!

In an earlier post, we shared that we took the girls to Disney to see the princesses, but we didn't post these pictures, so putting these on as it is always nice to have some nice Mom and Addi pictures!

Introducing Mr and Mrs Lyle Litzenberger

On February 10th, Amy's mom married Lyle Litzenberger!  He is a lovely man with a very nice, laid-back personality.  We have enjoyed getting to know him very much, and they have continued to come to all of the many Z children sporting events, so the kids have gotten to know him as well.

He used to work for the church as a Treasurer, so he speaks the same language as Amy! :)  They were married in the Florida Hospital (now AdventHealth Orlando) chapel in the Ginsburg tower.  It was a family-only affair, and then afterwards we want to Francesco's for a dinner.  Amy and Addison (junior bride) walked in with Mom -- reminiscent of when Mom walked Amy down the aisle at her wedding! The kids (Amy, Brian, Amy and Stacy) all stood up as attendants in the front with them, and Amy's cousin Niesha officiated the wedding, so it was really special! Congratulations, and we wish you all the best!

This is a gala worthy dress, love it! :)

This is a picture of his kids - he has two daughters Stacy and Amy (and Amy's middle name is Lynn and born in May....how uncanny can you get!!!?) and his oldest son is Brian.  Stacy is married to Adrian (spelling?) and has a daughter Victoria (Tori) and Brian's wife is Leticia with three kids, Elana, Lance and Sarah.

Jennifer did the wedding cake and flowers, and of course did a lovely job as always!  The bottom layer was chocolate and the top was coconut.  The flowers were red roses and blue delphiniums

They went to the beach for two nights, with a "just married" banner on the car!

These boys are growing up too fast!

As we were at the hospital where Amy works, she took the boys (Addison was with Grandma) over to her office to see where she spends her days.  We should have raised the blinds as it is a nice view of downtown Orlando!