Solar Bears, Riverdance, Birthdays & Braces off!

January ended up being a busy month - we had the pleasure of attending a Solar Bears game with Karis' entire work team as his manager was treating a high lever leader of the Solar Bears game.  It was a fun experience as we hadn't been to a hockey game in a long time.  Addison seemed to be quite energized by all of the fighting --- hopefully she outgrows that but even Amy remembers as a girl, the fights were always one of the most exciting moments, everything else is just chasing that little puck around the ice!  Karis on the other hand of course adores hockey and understands all of the ins and outs (and still plays hockey through a rec league even at his advanced age! 😂) so he was jazzed to be there.

Addison got to take a picture with the mascot, which was a fun turn of events!

At some point they turned off the lights and everyone pulled out their flashlights, which is always pretty.

The next day we kicked things up a notch and took Amy's mom, Lyle and Kaleb/Addison (Zachary preferred to stay at home and watch football) to Riverdance.  We got tickets through work plus Amy's boss ended up not being able to go so he gave us 4 more tickets - so Kelli and Elin came with us too.  We got there and in the last minute rush of getting our seats Amy's friend (and now boss) Doug ended up sitting with us and his daughter sat with Kelli, Elin, Addison, Amy's mom and Lyle -- we switched at halftime so that he could sit with his daughter and Addison came back with us.  Thanks Doug for that graciousness!

Riverdance was incredibly good - it was way more entertaining than we had expected - such talent!  Definitely worthwhile for anyone who would want to see it!

Kaleb, Amy, Doug and Karis

The family back together for the second half

Capturing the moments with one's grandparents is so important, time is just too fleeting

The whole group

It was Grandma's birthday that weekend, so we took the opportunity to sing and eat cake together!  WE love you grandma - we are so blessed to have a loving, active grandma in our lives - she never misses anything!

Another milestone has come upon us -- Kaleb has gotten his braces off!  He had them for slightly longer than 2 years, and it is hard to believe but he has now graduated from having metal on his teeth!

Taking a picture as we walked in to get them off

The practice does a fun special celebration complete with singing (if the child wants) and Kaleb was game for doing "it with style" so he agreed to the chanting and singing afterwards - super fun!

And afterwards his beautiful new smile!

Pathfinder Survival Camping & MLK

MLK came rapidly upon us after Christmas - especially as we were delayed getting back from the holidays, and MLK was a busy weekend for us!

Kaleb headed out on Friday for a survival pathfinder camping trip up in the Ocala forest with Kieran and Uncle William (thanks to Uncle William for being willing to go as a chaperone!) and came back on Sunday.  It was a VERY cold weekend overnights (one night was just above freezing and one was projected to be about 29 degrees!  Eeks!).  While cold, Kaleb did report back that he had a fun time, so all was not lost.  We spent some hard-earned dollars at REI outfitting him, complete with hiking backpack, sleeping mat, cooking utensils, MREs, a shovel for toilet-related "business" etc.  Fitting everything into that backpack was a trick afterwards, but we managed by putting his sleeping back tied on the outside.  Thankfully Kaleb is in very good shape between his soccer teams and working out on the Tonal at home, so we weren't worried about his ability to hike the 2 miles into the camp and out again even with the backpack on.

Hiking in!

Warming themselves by the fire the next morning

Taking his hand at chopping down a tree for firewood

Thanks to Uncle William they had the fixings for hobie pies and grilled cheese sandwiches the first night!  Yummy!

As you'd expect with survival camping, it wasn't a super big group of Pathfinders that went - congratulations to them all for surviving the weekend!

Meanwhile back at home we kicked off the weekend by hosting a playdate for Addison and her friends - she invited her grade 4 friends - Liam and Olivia, Michael, and of course Erik and Elin were here.  Liam and Michael are currently her besties at FLEC, and Olivia is Liam's twin and on her soccer team so they all play together really well.  It was a fun afternoon - although a bit chilly so they had great time by jumping from the hot tub into the cold pool (hot/cold treatments are supposed to be healthy right!?)

While the kids were in the pool Kelli and I huddled under a blanket to stay warm and supervise the kids!

That Sunday Addison had a special opportunity to go and help a little girl in our community celebrate her birthday - she recently lost her mother to cancer, so it was a bittersweet time - Pastor Jennifer was determined to be sure she had a fun experience so put together a little group of girls that she may interact with once she joined FLEC (she had been homeschooled before), and off to American Girl doll store where they had a lovely lunch, cake and then of course shopping for new treasures!

About to head into the store!

And coming out with their treasures!  Makaya, Emily, London and Addison

We hadn't had the chance yet to do Christmas with the Js and Cs, so Sunday evening after everyone got back we headed over to the Cs to enjoy some food and games.  It is always fun, and of course the kids are happy with their opportunity to extend Christmas a little longer!

And in a random picture to wrap up this week's post - Addison has been enjoying learning how to fish with the Js (who enjoy fishing very much).  She apparently "speaks" fish more than Amy ever did as she has caught several and Amy NEVER caught anything when she'd go with her grandparents!  😂  It is great to see her getting new experiences that involve being outside!  Awesome!

Post Christmas Trip to Canada

Prior to Covid, Karis and Amy had the realization that getting up to the farm every two years just wasn't enough with how fast the cousins are growing (and they LOVE to be together, so we needed to grab this time with them before everyone is in college and off to individual lives) plus with all of us aging, we just can't take for granted how many more years that any of us have - so we made the decision that we would go up every year during the holidays -- with this year being our Christmas in Orlando with Amy's mom, our trip started on Dec 26th.

Dec 26th dawned bright and early at 5A as we got up to go to the airport only to find that our Air Canada flight had been cancelled and instead of flying out on Monday (coming back the following Tuesday), they had rebooked us to FRIDAY!  Most of our trip gone!  Unbelievable.  That set off 3 hours of us on hold with the airlines, scrambling to figure out other options.  Air Canada was super unhelpful (wouldn't let us re-book to another city and drive because it was "too far" (um, what difference does it make to them, we are the ones out of the money for a rental car and 8 hours of driving on winter roads.....) so we ended up with no choice but to fully cancel our flights and rebook with Delta.  Delta doesn't fly to Saskatoon anymore though, so instead of a 2-hour drive when we landed, we had to pivot and fly to Bismarck ND and drive 10 hours across the border.  This began the most messed up trip of our lives....

We flew to Minneapolis Monday night, just to get the trip started and to try and give ourselves time for any delays etc.  Hotel #1 now part of our trip expense.  We were supposed to fly to Bismark and land at 11:30 Tuesday -- which we could have made it to the farm by bedtime, but we were delayed by 4-5 hours so we didn't get out of the airport and on the road until about 4P -- so now the question is whether to try and tough it out and drive to the middle of the night or to stop somewhere.  That decision became made for us when about 5 hours into the drive it started to RAIN (even though the temperature outside was 19 degrees!?) and the roads started to freeze.  In addition, the wind picked up to the point that you couldn't see the road very well and as we reached Regina, cars were starting to go into the ditch.  Past Regina, it was a 2.5-hour drive just to reach Saskatoon and with it being now 9:30PM, and very few towns with lodging options past Regina, we decided that it just wasn't safe enough nor would we reach the farm until very late as we were having to drive slowly, so we stopped overnight in Regina.  Hotel #2 -- but thankfully safe.

The kids were fully engaged in playing Kaleb's new switch, so they didn't care.  And thankfully we had a Tahoe this year so it was MUCH more comfortable for the very long drive.

This is what the road looked like - a sea of white - thankfully this year the snow wasn't up in the air making you complete blind, but you still couldn't see the lines because the wind was so bad and with it being icy underneath, it just wasn't safe to continue.

The next morning we got up and hit the road.  Thankfully the wind had died down and the snowplows (6 of them in a line in this particular picture!) were out clearing the roads!  We made it safe and sound Wednesday afternoon -- two days of travel later.

Once at the farm, the fun began - the kids had a great time playing with their cousins.  We missed Korey and Rachel's family, but it was her family's Christmas, and they were in Hawaii - umm, soooo fun!

There were lots of fun moments of games, gifts, cooking together etc.  Our other sister-in-law Lorie had just had a hip replacement the week before, so she stayed safely off the ice at home, so it was a relatively quiet time at the farm. 

Very gracious cousin to let her put hair bands in his hair!

Addison made it outside to craft herself a tiny snowman

The kids were very helpful with dishes this year - bless you all!

And with cooking

Karis is the pancake maker and Zach lent a hand this year!

No trip to the farm is ever complete without a project (speaks to Karis' happy place!), so he and his dad worked on doing drywall in their basement in the area that they will be installing a summer kitchen.

Addison is our child that is most inclined to help with projects, so she came down for a while but just wasn't quite tall enough to reach easily without exhausting her arms.

Our trips are never complete without lots of games - I mean, what can a person do when it is cold outside -- let's play games - farming game, Stockticker, Logo game, Dutch Blitz just to name a few!  And Emily is always gracious and does crafts with Addison - which delights Addison's heart for sure!

Dutch Blitz

Stockticker

Another farm tradition is an outing to the Little Red sledding hill.  Amy stayed home but Karis and Uncle Kent took the kids and they had a great time - even coaxing Emily for a run or two (such a gracious niece we have!!)

The sledders

Can only imagine how this train ended up at the bottom!

Tandem with Emily

There are lots of traditions while in Canada, and one of them is the New Year's Eve jello parfaits and a run by the teenagers out into the snow at midnight in their sock feet.  Crazy kids!  The adults do not stay up for this portion of the evening however!

Eating their jello parfaits

Lorie was feeling up to having some company later in the week, so we headed over one evening for pizza and gift exchange - it was lovely to visit and catch up.

And one last tradition is the height picture of all of the cousins.  Kaleb and Connor are neck in neck, so we're not 100% sure who is taller so we took a picture with both orders (Connor ahead in one, and Kaleb ahead in the other, but we're posting just the one here)

And as you'd expect, there are just lots of other moments of hanging out, reading, watching shows, eating (and eating!). 

These two are crazy together!

Doing some PT on Kent

The week came way too fast to an end when we only arrived Wednesday and had to then turn around on Monday to make the 10 hour drive back to Bismark for our Tuesday flight home.   Thankfully the roads to Bismark were clear and we made it safely there to Hotel #3. 

Boredom leads to wrestling with Dad on the bed!

The Bismark airport was small but had a nice little couch/sitting area - which turned out to be fortuitous as instead of leaving in the morning, we were delayed 6 hours to Minneapolis, and this kicked off the return trip that just wouldn't end......

The flight woes out of Bismark of course made the flights in Minneapolis a hot mess -- there was a blizzard in Minneapolis so our 6:30 flight didn't board until 10:30P (so much for getting home in Orlando at 2:30 in the afternoon which would have made getting to bed on time so perfect!).  We boarded the plane at 10:30 and then at 12:30A as we sat on the tarmac STILL after two hours (Karis at this point was planning on just landing and going straight to work as we couldn't get home until it was time for him to get up and get ready), the pilot came on and said that he had timed out and we all had to deplane and they would "try again tomorrow morning."  Thankfully they granted everyone a free hotel room that night (Hotel #3), free Lyft ticket, free food vouches etc.  But getting the Lyft to the hotel proved problematic as we were cancelled four times and the hotel didn't have a shuttle.  So at 2A we finally abandoned Lyft and tried to get a taxi, arriving at the hotel at 3A and into bed -- only to get up at 7A to get back to the airport for our 10A flight.....which then was delayed until 5P (NOOOOOOO) and we didn't get home until Wednesday night at 10P.  

Waiting for the tax at 2A

The only bright spot on the ride home was that Karis scored a first-class upgrade -- and as Kaleb had the chance to ride first class through a similar upgrade when he was 10, we let Addison have it (Zach didn't want it).  She got a lay-down chair!  She was the queen of Delta - she was super excited!