Party, Party, Party

Last weekend, we had a rare treat of going out for an "adults-only" evening out on Saturday night AND going to the Corporate party on Sunday to Epcot.  It was a true party weekend! :)

On Saturday night we headed off to eat at PF Changs with Cochrans and Johnsons.  The food was good but the company was even better!  We actually started the evening off with a bit of a jolt - when we received a letter from our Discover card indicating that there had been potential fraudulent attempts to access our credit card.  Karis called before we left for the restaurant, only to find out that Discover had actually issued an emergency credit card to a guy by the name of Mario earlier that week under our account.  Mario had charged 8,000 in the 2 days that he had the card.  Thankfully we aren't responsible for that, but it is deeply disturbing to 1) realize that someone has enough of your personal information to actually GET a credit card under your account and 2) that Discover suspected that it was fraud and yet still gave him a credit card?!!???  We're now in the process of trying to figure out how to protect ourselves from any further fraud attempts.  Fun, fun, fun.

On to truly fun things - the rest of the evening was as blast as we ended the evening by meeting up with Steinkes at Sak's Comedy Club. It was a hoot as always, and we laughed ourselves silly.

Jeff and William hamming it up for the camera, while Kelli and Kent are hidden behind Karis!

On Sunday morning we headed off to Epcot where we met our friends the Hilliards.  We had a great time exploring the educational exhibits and then the countries.  We stopped at France to have some pastries - YUMMY!

Zachary and Loghann posing nicely for a picture

Kaleb, Zachary, Cole & Loghann waiting for the China movie to start.

The fam....not too bad of a picture

Merry Christmas!  We wish everyone safe travels and a happy holiday season with family!

Phrase of the week: Zachary was talking to Amy one day and said "Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't - Mom, that's an 'spression, right?" Kaleb's discussion was with Mommy as well, in which he told her that he wanted to do something.  She responded "No, let's not do that" Kaleb's response? "I did it already" She turns around and sure enough, he'd already done it before he even told her that he was going to do it!  Good thing it wasn't anything too dramatic!

How Many Men Does it Take....

It sounds like the beginning of a good old joke, and it is in fact quite funny!  This story actually happened at the end of September, when Amy's cousin Jeff and Niesha moved down from Asheville to Orlando.  Uncle Ken and Aunt Ev had come over to our house, and Zachary had coerced Uncle Ken into playing frisbee with him outside.  Apparently one of Zachary's throws went wild, and landed high up in our tree.  Zachary uttered a frustrated "UGH" and stomped into the garage, emerging with Dad's hockey stick to try and get the frisbee out of the tree (smart thinking Zachary!).  That wasn't quite long enough, so back he stomped into the garage only to emerge with a long piece of baseboard molding.  That apparatus didn't have a hook to try and unhook it from the branch, so finally Dad to the rescue.  It took 3 men to rescue the Frisbee, with Zachary standing on Daddy's shoulders manuevering the hockey stick and Uncle Ken holding Zachary steady! :)  What teamwork!  They rescued the Frisbee!

While that was a random story, we didn't want to let too much time pass before we managed to get it into one of our blog posts, becuase it was such a great picture!  Last weekend, we had a very busy time on Sabbath when we went to Pastor Mark and Deborah Reams house for lunch with all of the other table teachers/Sabbath School assistants from Zachary's class.  It was really fun to get to know them all a bit better, and to talk with the teacher Miss Deanna without 40 kids running around! :)  After that, Zachary and Amy headed off to Adventurers where was once again named "Adventurer of the Day" - we're proud of you Zachary!

After Adventurers, we zipped over to the Bergherm's house where they were holding their annual Christmas party.  It was of course complete with beautiful decorations and yummy food!  Jennifer set up a "decorate your own cookie" station for the kids, which they of course thought was delicious!  Corey lead out in a game session, with probably 5-7 games that were very fun to play.

Karis and his partner trying to throw Christmas cards, one by one, into a bucket.  VERY hard!

The highlight (or should we say DOWNlight?) of the evening was......GASP.....discovering a huge patch of bald scalp on Kaleb - right on the crown of his head.  It is about as long as Amy's index finger, and about as wide.  He was sitting in front of her on the floor when she caught a glimpse of it, and she reached out to tussle his hair and discovered it.  Our friend Allen informed her that Karis must be messing with her, so she ran with Kaleb into the front room to inquire - only to have Karis be as bewildered as she was.  We have no done as much research as one can do on hair loss, only to remain as befuddled as we once were.  We've taken him to the dermatologist, only to have her remain in the land of uncertainty as well.  We truly have no idea - but we have a sneaking suspicion that it was the zip-line the week before at the Corn Maze.  The zipline ends rather abruptly, and the kids were taking fairly large "swings" at the end - somehow Kaleb managed to get turned around and when he "swung" up, he thunked his head REALLY hard on the wooden cross bar.  He didn't cry, but several minutes later he was still walking around rubbing his head because it hurt.  Kaleb's skin has always been incredibly sensitive, so we're wondering if the friction/impact of the zipline was enough to bruise his hair follicles, and it took several days for the hair to die and fall out.  We probably won't ever know FOR SURE, but unless other patches start to fall out, we can rule out alopecea (thank you Lord) and the doctor said that it wasn't ringworm.  Now we're just waiting with baited breath hoping and praying that it grows back, although she said that it could take several months to grow back.  Poor kid, he doesn't have very thick hair to begin with (long hair, yes, thick hair, no)!  Mommy's worst nightmare!  A balding three-year-old!! :)

The other big event this week was the grand opening of Amy's new workplace.  It was amazing.  Jawdropping.  Overwhelming.  Wow.   After a month it'll seem ho-hum, but for now it is eye-boggling.  Monday she reports to her new workplace - a whole 8 minutes from home, and CLOSER than Karis' workplace! :)

Phrase of the week:  "Mommy, I'm a super hero cleaner!"  Mommy's ears immediately perk up!  Let's try this out!  Super Hero Zachary, pick up the books in your room!  WHAT?  It's working.  Super Hero Kaleb, pick up the socks on the floor.  WOW!  It worked again!  In no time, the house was CLEAN!  Maybe these Super Heros will stick around and live here forever!!!  Having Super Hero Cleaners zoom around picking things up as their Mommy stands in the Central Command shouting instructions is fabulous!!!  Kaleb's conversation this week began with Mommy informing him "Kaleb, your nose is running."  Kaleb's answer: "Where?"

At school this week, they had a Christmas party, and kids dressed up as Florida "Crackers" (Pioneers?)  Not sure about our get-up, but it was the best that we had! :)  Zachary had a fun time dressing up!

Corn Maze-ing It Up!

Last weekend of course was American Thanksgiving.  We so enjoyed the four days off, and tried to cram in as much as possible on our "to-do" lists as we could.  It reminded us once again that we could REALLY do some serious catch-up if we ever could resign ourselves to a "stay-cation!"

We started off the holiday with Thanksgiving dinner at our house with Grandma and the Johnsons. It was a yummy meal and we have a fun visit.

The next day, we went on our second trip out to the Long & Scott Farms corn maze.  We went last year, and it was enjoyable enough that we decided to do it again.  It was a huge group this time (sorry, there were SO many people that I'm not even going to attempt to write down who was there, because I'll for sure miss someone, but let's just say that the usual suspects were there!) :). 

This year, we decided to tackle the kid's maze, which was just perfect.  They had five color stations where you would mark your fingers one-by-one, and at the end you'd have a fortune.  It kept the kids very entertained hunting for these things because it was fun to mark your fingers!  The kid's maze was much smaller, and so we were in there for about 30 minutes total - unlike last year where we wandered in the big maze endlessly until we found a map of the board and Amy "cheated" by taking a picture of the maze so that we could refer to her camera as a makeshift GPS to get ourselves out of there.  This time, we all walked out of there with smiles on our faces, so it was a success!

Marking his finger at one of the stations

A few of the kids at the top of a rickety bridge!

The other entertainment there is really fun, so the kids had a blast on the playground set, a bounce "pillow', and of course the famous zip line.  The kids could have stayed all afternoon, but the parents decided that afternoon naps should occur so we reluctantly left after a very fun morning.

What an action shot of Zachary in mid-air before landing on the bounce "pillow"

Zipline fun!

 We ended our Friday with having the Isidros and Johnsons over for supper.  We had missed Alan's birthday a few weeks back, so wanted to make it up to him.  The kids all had a fun time - especially when we made "rockets" out of alkaseltzer tablets and old film cases.

First time holding baby Erik - Zachary is in love!

 Saturday we hit the bowling alleys for a bit of fun - the kids really think that bowling is just wonderful.  We are hoping to go 5 pin bowling while we're in Canada, where the balls are perfect size for the little guys!

Sunday ended our fun, but busy, weekend with a Zbaraschuk "first".  We actually put up lights on our front hedge.....and tiny reindeer with lights.  We didn't want to go too crazy, so we haven't done anything else yet but it is a far cry from the old dark house that we've had in years past.  It is amazing what you'll do for a 5 year old, who is begging to have lights on the house.  Speaking of which, we have begun the nightly "Christmas light pageant" drive, where Karis and the boys drive around neighborhoods looking for the most amazing lights. Good times! :)

Phrase of the week:  We went to Amy's office to pick up some things (they're moving to the new Corporate Office building in a week), and Kaleb saw the baby pictures on her desk and said "That's Baby Me!"  So sweet.  Zachary's phrase this week was part of a conversation about school.  Amy asked him whether he had made a new friend at lunch that day by introducing himself.  Zachary said "no", and Amy replied that this is the method of making new friends, you introduce yourself etc.  Zachary then said "I have lots of friends, but I'm keeping it a secret."   Ha ha - not sure how they can be friends with you if it is a secret Zachary, but oh well!

Totally random, but I took a picture last time we went to Canada of them in their snowsuits.  Zachary was in the red one last time of course!  They're so excited, now cross our fingers for a lot of snow!

How Much Can Crazy Z's Fit into One Weekend - Camping and Legoland!

Two weeks ago, Amy flew to Dallas on Thursday and Friday when she returned we packed into the van and headed out to Clearwater Lake Recreation Area where we camped (first maiden camping voyage) with 7 other families.  The other families participating in the event were Bergerms, Biris, Cochrans, Deiningers, Isidros, Grodacks, and Vargas'.  The only glitch is that the weather that night was 44 degrees.  FREEZING.  

Group shot but unfortunately taken after the Vargas' had already left for the day

So with the frigid temperatures, we crawled into our tent (all set up for us when we arrived - what customer service from our dear friend William!).  Zachary first noticed that he could see the light at the campfire, and of course could hear talking from the other campsites.  It was a difficult effort to get the boys asleep with the excitement but tucked snugly into their sleeping bags with tuques firmly tied on their heads, they finally fell asleep.  Karis soon joined them in dreamland while Amy desperately laid there, wanting to go to sleep!!!  Alas, Amy couldn’t get warm to save her life, and at 1A after laying awake looking at the ceiling, she decided that perhaps the fact that she needed a bathroom visit was the reason for the lack of sleep…….so imagine her running through the woods to the nearest bathroom (a good 5 minute walk away!) and along the road with her flashlight bouncing all around and her teeth literally chattering to visit the loo.  Not recommended - why can't women pee as easily in the woods as men can!!? :)

She climbed back into bed, but frankly every time she moved, her tuque (which didn't have ties!) would shimmy up, exposing more and more skin, so the cold continued.  She longed for a scarf at this moment, but it was not to be.  She finally fell into a brief respite only to have Zachary cough around 3 and the boys woke up around 4:30 indicating that they too were cold, so climbed into our sleeping bags for a while before deciding that wasn’t going to cut it either…..so we all laid awake counting the minutes until it would be morning.  Needless to say, as soon as they heard other voices from our friends' nearby tents they were up like a lightning bolt!

Other than the frigid temperatures, it was a fun experience with everyone.  We had  a Sabbath School in the morning complete with Sabbath School songs, a story by Uncle William and with Aunt Lisa calling out a game of Bible bingo.  After that concluded, we then walked down to the lake for the kids to play with the football.  Allan brought PVC pipe cut up into small pieces and showed the kids how to make a marshmallow shooter (huge hit as you can imagine!!).  We then ate lunch and then headed off for a walk around the lake (after an unsuccessful attempt to get Kaleb to nap) where Aunt Lisa created a scavenger hunt of special shaped leaves, moss, feathers, acorns, small pebble, bark etc (with the special rule that everything had to be found already laying loose on the ground and not attached to a living plant).  The bear droppings discovered along the way confirmed the park ranger's words of advice as we arrived (keep ALL food and toothpaste in your cars as there are bears here!!)

Trying to warm up the next morning by the fire!

Sabbath School

Trying out the marshmallow shooter

Hiding behind Daddy so that he can EAT the marshmallows!

What walk is complete with swinging between Daddy and Uncle William!

Complete fascination with the fire - thank you Angels for making sure that he didn't fall in!

Filthy and happy eating a smore!

Just to keep our lives a bit crazy, we packed up Saturday night and headed home for a sound night of sleep (that was the sane part of our weekend!) before getting once again into the van and heading off to the Legoland (2nd time in 2 weeks!) with a group of friends.  There were about 7 families, but we hung around with the Hilliards for the day as Madison and Kaleb were the smaller kids and thus were both limited in being able to do all of the rides.  Oddly enough, the day was a Sunday and the weather was PERFECT and there were NO LINES – unlike the Friday that we had gone with the Gruias where the weather was terrible.  Very strange.  We literally waited for no longer than 5 minutes for any of the rides.  Our boys have continued their love of roller coasters – going on four of them multiple times! :)

All the kids waiting to get into Legoland!

This Lego "man" was sleeping and snoring - Daddy teased that it reminded him of Papa Z, so the boys had to get their picture taken on Papa Z's lap! :)

That weekend marked the fourth weekend in a row that Karis has been away from our house on the weekend – so we’re looking forward to some quiet time to regroup and get some things done around the house.  Although, we’re not sure when that will happen as the holidays are always crammed with too much to do in too little time! 

This Sunday we actually had the FH Gala, at which Bill Cosby was the star entertainer.  Always fun to get dressed up, and this year we saved a bit of money and Amy just wore a dress from one of our early galas - gotta love the ability to recycle!

Phrase of the week:  Zachary upon seeing Karis in his tuxedo, complete with bowtie, looks inquisitively up at him and says "Why does Daddy have a hairbow like a girl?"  Ha ha!  Kaleb's is a sound..."slurp, slurp....slurp, slurp"  This is the sound of Kaleb eating a yummy Vitamin C (one of Amy's childhood and adulthood favorites as well!) as he savors the vitamin without actually chewing it - it makes his mouth water so there is a lot of slurping! :)

Saying Good-bye

Still in the process of catching up on our missed blog posts! :)  Here is the 2nd "catch-up"!

Karis and Amy, along with Jeff and Niesha, flew up to Canada to pay our respects to Amy’s Dad.  The memorial was held on November 5th.   Kaleb managed to get croup the night before we left – the boys seem to sense when we’re leaving town!  But, Amy had some leftover medication from the last time that this happened so she did what ever good parent should NOT do and she self-medicated him.  Thankfully it worked like a charm so Amy’s mom didn’t have any problems while we were up in Canada.

The family all arrived Friday and left on Sunday, so it was a quick trip to enjoy each other’s company.  It was great fun, especially as we hadn’t seen Amy’s cousin Kim for a long time.  The funeral was a mixture of course of tears and some chuckles – but it was a nice tribute to Dad’s life.  Brad made a great collage and video of pictures from Dad's life, and it was really special to see all of those.   The church was full to the brim, with probably 100-120 people in attendance - many from our Portage days, so that was a real blessing to talk with everyone.    The family had a time of remembering Dad that afternoon, and talking about the faith that he had and the hope of heaven - it was really special to talk about Dad with loved ones and remember the highlights.

Brad, Amy, Grandma, Cam, Kim, Scott and Jeff on the floor in front.

That Sunday we took Jeff and Niesha to the airport and then headed out to Portage to take some pictures of where Amy grew up – as it may be a while before we’re back (although we plan to take the boys on a road trip some day to see some of these places).  We had a very fun lunch with Nicole and her husband Todd, where we caught up on everything.  We ended the night with Norma James, and a surprise game of Scrabble with Dorothy Wollman and Pastor Jamieson and his wife.

The house where Amy grew up - it used to be yellow!  It recently was sold to a new owner, and they were in the process of doing a lot of renovations on it.

Tiny church where Amy grew up - what fun memories though!

Childhood & Adulthood! friend Nicole

Grandma Norma!

 The farewell "gift" of the trip was that as we got up Monday morning to leave, we were treated with 2 special events - one was the first snow of the seaon for Winnipeg as we woke up to a white world!  The second was hitting the Roots outlet store as we walked in, asked where the kids clothes with the Canadian flags were, and then proceeded to have the fastest spending spree ever as we were on a tight time crunch to get ourselves back to the airport on time for our flights! :)  We do love to wear Canadian gear though!

Anna Maria Island - Beach Living at Its Best

The last month has been a bit crazy, hence the lack of faithful posts.  Our apologies to the faithful readers, we’ll promise to try and do better so that you don’t abandon us! :)  But, we'll try and catch it all up here in a few posts - all in one fell swoop!

The last post of course was the news of the passing of Amy’s Dad.  That weekend, Amy’s highschool roommate and dear friend, Carmen Gruia and her family flew from Portland, Oregon to enjoy some warm weather at the beach.  Carmen has three children – Anique (8), Ava (6) and Andon (2).  Karis had to fly up to Chicago that weekend for a continuing education class, so we hung around Orlando that weekend until he returned on Sunday night before heading out to the beach.  We had a lovely time in Orlando though – and took the kids to the zoo on Sunday where they had these cool air balls that the kids would be zipped into and could “run”/flip/crawl around inside the ball to get it to move around on a shallow pool of water.  The kids thought that it was a blast!

A little older, hopefully wiser, but still the best of friends!

Monday morning we loaded the van and car and headed off to Anna Maria Island, where we had rented a 6 bedroom house.  It was awesome , about 1.5 blocks from the beach down a very quiet street, heated pool, pool table and lots of room for all of us to spread out.  The beach was pretty quiet, with the water being pretty shallow so the kids could go and play.  Unfortunately the water was a little chillier than we would have desired but after the initial “brisk”reaction it was just fine to get into the water and play. On Thursday the wind kicked up a little bit and the kids were actually able to boogie-board. Zachary managed to figure out how to handle his board all by himself because the waves were pretty small and broke close to shore – so he confidently informed his father that he would NOT be needing assistance in the future. Good luck Zachary when we take you back to the Daytona side of Florida where the waves are bigger, faster and crest much farther out where you would have to be in much deeper water trying to get on the board! But, we’ll let the dream live a little longer…..



Doesn't this house just exude "beach"!? It was just around the corner from Publix (as well as the beach) - it was PERFECT!

Hurrah for being buried! - Zachary, Kaleb and Ava enjoyed the sand

Three beach babes - Ava, Carmen and Anique

Boogie Boarding School! :)

On Friday we packed up and headed to Legoland.  The fact that it was a Friday and RAINING made us think that it would be relatively deserted.  No such luck – 45 to 80 minute waits for rides.  Ouch.  But, we had fun anyway and enjoyed trekking around the park. 

Sabbath we ended our week and on the way back to Orlando we stopped at the Clearwater Aquarium where the famous dolphin “Winter” who lost part of her tail lived.  It was pretty neat to see the documentary on how they made the prosthetic tail for her.  The bad part of the trip was that the aquarium is tiny and they don’t have room to handle all of the visitors now that they have become famous – so cars had to park on a gravel dirt lot.  As Amy was walking into the aquarium she went to put her smartphone into her backpack and dropped it – only to have it drop face first down on a protruding rock.  You guessed it – smashed to smithereens.  It still worked but it was a cool $100 to get it fixed.  Thanks for nothing!  Oh well, could have been worse.

We were sad to see the week end with our visit with the Gruias.  We had such fun – we’ll want to do it again soon!  The boys actually played perfectly together with the girls – we weren’t sure as sometimes our kids can be little wild Indians, but they were on their best behavior all week and they had a blast playing together.  Interestingly enough, they kind of switched who they played with throughout the week,  but it seemed like Zachary and Anique gravitated toward each other and Ava and Kaleb paired off – even though Zachary and Ava are the same age.  It's apparently a love of older women! :)

Uncle Ervin was "playing" the children's feet like a piano - to which they were of course laughing hysterically!

One of the first nights at the beach, we headed down to a nearby playground that was housed on the beach itself.  While there, one of the trip's highlights was the fact that a dolphin was visible just off the shore as he swam around the water - coming up periodically and of course giving us much excitement!

Ervin and Andon on the walk back after the dolphin excitement!

Chasing the sea gulls while we waited for the dolphin to surface

Phrase of the week:  Zachary's was his comment that weekend prior to leaving for Anna Maria Islando when he solemnly asked Amy "Mommy, can one of my girlfriend's ride in the car with me to the beach?"  There truly is no question that Zachary loves his "girlfriends!" :)  Lately, Kaleb has been very "Daddy-centric" and all roads lead to Daddy, so this week's phrase is devoted to Daddy. "No, I want to be with Daddy.  No, I want to snuggle with Daddy.  I want to ride in the car with Daddy.  I want to sit on Daddy's lap.  I want Daddy to hold me.....DADDY!"