Where did our little baby go - she is getting so grown up and just graduated from Pre-K! AHH! We tell her to stay our baby and her sage response is "I'll always be your baby, even when I am an adult!" Yes, you will sweet-pea. Congratulations on finishing your first year of school! Their theme was "Blasting Off to Kindergarten" as you can see throughout the pictures.
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| All dressed up and hair curled (thanks Jenn!) |
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| She invited Miss Ivalee to the graduation |
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| Ready in her cap and gown! |
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| These two have such a special relationship! |
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| Daddy was still on the way, but we captured a picture of the ladies! |
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| 5 years old! |
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| Elin & Addison |
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| Such a grown-up pose! |
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| Daddy has arrived!! |
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| It was during the school day, so Zachary wasn't here with us but Kaleb could at least be in the pictures! |
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| Another sweet friend Maiya |
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| Addison is at the very end on the left |
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| With her "diploma!" |
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| Thank you Miss Jennifer for coming! |
So a funny story - Kelli and Amy have been friends since we started working at FH, and lived together in the first few years. They often were mistaken for each other (and still are but less frequently) and our daughters are now also mistaken for each other --- what are the chances of that!? They are both blond with curly hair, and folks have a hard time. Well, at the pre-K graduation we noticed that when they posted the girl's pictures of themselves "Blasting off to Kindergarten" that they switched the girls pictures!!! Hilarious!
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| Addison's coloring picture with Elin's picture |
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| and this is Addison! |
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| Addison and London |
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| Her teacher Mrs. Gardner |
Also at the same time of year (end of school year), Kaleb had his "Young Author's Day" at school in which they were allowed to write a creative story for their book this year. His book was really creative about a royal bird, and it was quite fun to listen to!
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| His whole class in their tie-dye shirts! |
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| Reading his story to the class |
At the first of June, we had the fun experience of going the River Ranch with a group of 5 families in RVs. We rented one of course as we don't actually own one (maybe next year!), and Amy and the kids headed off Thursday night and Karis came down Friday after work. It was a great place to go as they had a lot of activities and we had a fun time trying many of them out! We were on a canal, so we all had these little docks that we could enjoy the mornings from!
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| The whole group (except Zachary who was taking a nap!!!!) |
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| Off we go! |
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| Beautiful rainbow on the way there |
They have an activity center there complete with a free petting zoo, horses for horseback riding, a mechanical bull, mini-golf, climbing wall, jumping thingy etc. The kids had fun playing on these things on Friday afternoon.
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| Off Zachary goes! |
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| While Kaleb is hanging on for dear life! |
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| Zachary and David on the climbing wall |
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| Kaleb on the jumping contraption |
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| Zachary and David on the zipline |
There was a little petting zoo there that Addison enjoyed, with farm trucks, ponies, baby goats and a variety of other animals to view and pet
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| Enjoying the tractors, just like Daddy! |
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| Cute baby goats! |
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| She seems to really enjoy riding horses.....hopefully she doesn't want riding lessons! |
On Sabbath, there were activities to go on a Swamp buggy, and then on an air boat ride. It was fun to get out in nature and the water, and we saw some alligators, birds etc. Amy and Addison didn't go on the swamp buggy, so next time we'll have to check it out!
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| Swamp buggy |
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| Air boat ride |
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| Sitting behind the B's - taking a picture of them taking pictures! :) |
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| Wearing our ear covering protection! Addison actually fell asleep on the ride while sitting in Amy's lap - the noise was like "white noise" lulling her to sleep! |
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| This was our group that went on the ride together |
On Saturday night, there was a rodeo at the resort, so we headed over to watch the bull riding and the barrel racing. In addition, there was a 10 year old boy trick rider - he was pretty good!
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| Trick riding standing up on two horses at the same time as they ran around the corral! |
Over the course of the weekend, there were a few "mishaps" that occurred to the Zs and the Bs. The first isn't really a mishap but rather just an unfortunate turn of events - we all rented RVs to go to this campground, and their RV's air conditioning stopped after the first night. It was super hot, so it was a less than ideal situation. Several of us had brought along large fans though in light of how hot it was outside, so we gave them fans to keep the air moving at night. Their boys came over to sleep in our RV at night so that at least they weren't suffering! Which leads us to the second unfortunate event - on Sunday morning Amy woke up quite early (as normal) and because all four boys were sleeping in (as they had been up giggling quite late the night before), she laid in bed to avoid waking them up for about 2 hours. Finally, she got up about 7:45 and walked out into the main living area only to realize that there was a FLOOD on the floor (what is it about the Zs and floods....remember when our house flooded back in 2003???). One of the kids had gotten up in the middle of the night and gone to the bathroom, washed their hands and left the sink on. Well, the grey water tank filled up and once it was full it had nowhere to go except for up so it overflowed (thankfully it wasn't the BLACK water tank!!!!). Who knows how long it had been overflowing, but it had flooded the main living area, and had started to leak out through the slider and created a LAKE under the RV outside. AWFUL. So Karis and I spent the next three hours frantically trying to dry out the RV before the owners came to pick it up. We were successful in at least getting it to be damp (vs drenched) by the time that they got there, but we held our breath to their reaction. They were actually super nice about it, and in the end, it dried out sufficiently that we didn't have to pay a ton of extra money to repair their RV. That was a serious answer to prayer!!
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| All four boys bunked in together |
The weather was quite rainy that weekend - torrential downpours which did keep things a little cooler but it would also trap us at times....Karis took refuge out of the rain by sitting in the golf cart - in the very middle as it was still wet on either side!
In other activities, there was the pool, bike riding, driving around in the golf carts etc. It was really a fun weekend and we're thinking about doing it again in October!
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| Addison is such a little 'mother' - she just loves babies! |
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| Hanging out in the shade! |
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| Riding their bikes through mud puddles |
In May, Addison also had her ballet "rainbow" recital. She has been taking ballet lessons for the past year with two friends - Elin and Victoria. They were cute in their little rainbow colored ballet dresses!
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| With their "trophies" |
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| London came to watch! |
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| With their teacher |
Random pictures:
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| Kaleb's day on broadway - he didn't want a speaking part this time, so he was just part of the singing choir |
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| After the RV outing, the boys learned how to play chess (thanks Mateo!) and have started to play it around the house now! |
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| Baby Sadie was over for a visit! |
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| A birthday cake bonfire....they lit those candles so many times that some of them melted away completely! |
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| Some of Zachary's soccer friends |
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| A picture from Daddy's birthday! |
- The very last day of school, Zachary was playing soccer at recess and ran after the ball, smashing into the chain link fence at exactly the wrong spot. There was a part of the fence wire sitting out, and it punctured his arm - almost going in and out. Poor kid called for help but no-one realized what was happening, so he had to extricate himself. Thankfully he was calm and didn't just yank his arm straight out, as he would have ripped a long line of skin. We took him to the urgent care to be sure he didn't need stitches or a tetanus. He has healed up well thankfully after this!
So having a pre-teen is always an interesting experience....and one of the fun times is the sometimes sullen expressions on their faces....these two pictures captured the "yes, I'm smiling for yet another picture mom" and the afterwards "but I really hate taking pictures, why do you make me" face afterwards!! We like the smiling face better!! :)
