Soccer Tournament - Dayton Ohio & Chicago Healthcare Conference

Late October found 4 of the Zs flying out of town - very unusual for both parents to be out of town at the same time, but Karis and the two boys flew out to Dayton Ohio for the soccer tournament and Amy flew out to Chicago for 3 days for a Kaufman Hall healthcare conference.  Thankfully Grandma saved the day once more and was able to watch Addison -- we are grateful for you Grandma Bobbi!

Kaleb is playing defense for the Varsity soccer team, and Zachary is the team manager - helping with logistics and tracking statistics.  Karis is helping as a co-coach where needed.

All ready to go, including his tie!

The boys and girls soccer teams

What a handsome couple and a beautiful view!

On Sunday they were able to tour the local aviation museum

That's a huge donut!

Hanging out at the airport

 

Amy enjoyed the quick trip up to Chicago - it was a super conference, complete with the Harvard professor on happiness - Arthur Brooks - and Grant Hill.  The weather was lovely, and we were able to see a bit of the iconic Chicago scenery.

The old historic water tower

The previously known as Sears Tower

Amy flew home on Friday afternoon, so was able to spend the weekend with Addison - Mommy Daughter time!

Hurricane Milton

 October found us waiting with baited breath for a category 5 hurricane bearing down on Florida - Hurricane Milton.  We were fortunate that it did not end up packing that much punch by the time it came to Orlando, and we were relatively unscathed -- with one small exception as you'll see in the pictures below.  We did enjoy some time to watch a movie during the day off as we waited for its slow progression. 

At least 3 of us watched, including Aria, but the boys decided If was too baby-ish of a movie -- boo!

The pool was very full, with more rain pouring down!

Our only real damage was the panel on the garage coming off.  Karis was able to fix it thankfully - he is a magic handy-man for sure!

Addison is in Una Voce (advanced choir) at FLEC, and they are in the midst of practicing for Singin' in the Rain.  Addison is super excited about it, and enjoys the opportunity to perform.  What a great opportunity to learn how to be in front of people without having a lot of nerves.  Miss Esther is the leader and makes it really fun for the kids, we are blessed.  

Practicing the moves for one of the singing and dancing numbers in the play.

Aria, our dog, continues to show her love for swimming and water.  She regularly jumps into the pool for a swim.  At least maybe it helps keep her smelling good! 

She is getting quite big - about 50 pounds now

Random pictures: 

The kids have taken Juice Plus gummies since they were babies, and we've finally made the break - no more JP gummies.  Good-bye to a longstanding health tradition.

Random picture:

Amy was working with her finance director Art, who is a photographer in his spare time, and he took this picture of Amy while she was focused on working through a spreadsheet.  Art has a great eye - it is a neat one with the two dueling laptops and the floor to ceiling windows behind Amy - it feels like the trees are part of the indoors!  

Pumpkin Fest & FLEC Fall Festival

October started with a fan favorite - the annual pumpkin fest held by Forest Lake Church, this year at the warehouse so that there was a larger venue.  We were over at Hollands first, so dashed home to get the butternut squash risotto and then over to the fun.  Lots of fun mixer games, and then the ending had the tank game -- Kent and Karis won again - yay, but the biggest yay is that they partner together and thus allow Kelli and Amy to watch from the sidelines 😀

Hard at it - Karis is in the blue shirt and Kent is the black shirt on his knees on the right hand side of the picture.

Allen Isidro is the main brainchild behind the pumpkin fest (he and wife Tangie used to do it at their house!) - thank you Allen for putting together a wonderful opportunity to meet new people and to enjoy some lighthearted moments together!

Pumpkin bread - yum!

FLEC has a festival Sunday each year that has lots of really fun activities, food trucks, BMX bike show this year.  Addison came and enjoyed "shooting" her tie-dye shirt with her desired colors.  

Speaking of FLEC, they had breast cancer awareness month and kids were allowed to wear these special pink hoodies.  This is a group of girls that has a few girls that have been close to Addison - Addi is in the front sitting on the ground, and her close friend Elin is on the left hand side at the end - these two get confused for each other all the time, just like her mom Kelli and Amy 😆

Addison tried out for the FLEC JV basketball team and made it - basketball is a new sport for her so it is fun to watch her learn new skills - good for you girl!

Grade 4 at FLEC read through the book "The Wild Robot" and it just came out as a movie, so London invited Addison to come along with the rest of the 4th grade kids (who were able to come on a Sunday afternoon) to enjoy it.  Addison said it was a little more emotional at the end than she expected but that she really enjoyed it.