This last winter was particularly hard on everyone's grass here after very "cold" (yes, for all of our northern loved ones, it really wasn't truly cold, but to Floridians it was cold!) temperatures for extended periods of time. Karis had his fingers crossed that the lawns would come back if we just gave them a bit of time, but with each passing day that hope became more dim! With that in mind, Karis took the plunge this week to at least get Amy's mom's yard taken care of. He mis-calculated though and ordered too much sod, so when he realized this, he put the rest of the sod into the back of the van (who says you need a truck when you have an Odyssey!!?) and drove it home in a mad dash. It was late by this time already in the day and it was threatening to storm, and he still had to prepare the spot on our yard to actually put it down! He ended up putting the mower on the lowest setting to mow as much of it as he could, and then took the edger and "tilled" up the ground as best he could.
The real issue truly was the storm - as Karis was out there working, it was thundering and the sky was black. Amy had the kids inside to keep them out of danger and was praying that he wouldn't be hit by lightning (and clearly he wasn't - otherwise our post would be very different!). It began to POUR on him, so we whipped out the old SeaWorld poncho and he completed the job. Other than the fact that he was in danger and soaking wet by the time he was done, it was perfect timing as it rained that day, and has been cloudy/rainy ever since so we're hoping that the weather reprieve will help the sod take root. We still have more on our lawn to get done, but at least it was started!
In the pouring rain...
Intently watching Daddy
We had the pleasure this week of hosting a get-together for the Michigan Cochrans (soon to be Florida Cochrans!) as they were down here looking at houses. Between the Deiningers, Z's, Florida Cochran family, and soon to be Florida Cochran family, we had NINE boys (no girls!) here in the house! They played super well together, we were all impressed.
Not all of the boys were in this picture, but it did get a sense of happy play!
Kaleb graduated from the ISR swimming lessons this week. As we've mentioned in past years, Zachary was NOT a fan of the official swimming lessons although he LOVES to swim - he could cry and scream the whole time he was in lessons. Kaleb started off in his big brother's footsteps but about a week into it, he flipped a switch and stopped crying, and in fact would run into Miss Carmen's house, asked her to take off his shoes and then would tell her during the lesson which way he wanted to go when she released him into the water to work on his floating and swimming! He really aced the whole thing - he can now float in a very relaxed fashion, and will alternate between floating and swimming until he reaches his desired destination. He is as proud as a peacock that he can turn over at will now in the water!
For his last day, he had to swim fully clothed to be sure that he could still do it even if he fell in accidentally. He would keep his eyes closed when floating, but was completely relaxed and happy.
Proud as a peacock for reaching his destination!
Last week we attended Blake's birthday bowling party - the kids had a blast although as one of our friends said "Why doesn't someone open a candle pin bowling alley down here!?" It is just so much easier for the kids to handle one of those small, light-weight balls! Luckily, there was a ramp that the kids could lift their balls onto and then push them down the ramp to actually get enough speed to make it all the way to the pins. Everyone had a grand time once that ramp appeared!
The balls were 6-7 pounds - kind of hard to carry when you only weigh 29 pounds yourself!
Poised and ready to push the ball down the ramp
Phrase of the week: Kaleb's phrase is similar to last week's - "Walk!!" - he's just becoming so independent that he rarely will let you carry him anymore - he MUST walk himself! Zachary has become a very good helper around the house, and loves to do laundry (at least certain parts of the laundry) and will ask "Did you clean the 'cement'? which translated means the lint screen! Even though we use the correct word for it, he has latched onto "cement" - it brings a smile to our face, so we don't make a big deal of correcting him!
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