All I Want for Christmas in My Two Front Teeth!

How can this be - but our little girl has now lost BOTH of her front teeth within a matter of days!  Amy had been hoping that the teeth would last through the annual family pictures but that was a no-go - especially with a little help from an anxious girl who was ready for those loose teeth to be gone!  

Both Alison and Addison lost teeth on this day, so now they are matching with no front teeth to be had!

So proud of herself!

At the beginning of November we also had Moms and Muffins at the school - which is just a fun opportunity for Moms to go to chapel and see their kids.  Grade 1 did a poem of "If you Give a Mom a Cookie" (Similar to the story of "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie"), so Addison had the chance to be up front which was really sweet to see her!  They had to dress up like a mom, so that was quite interesting to figure out how to make her look older - we did our best and she was sure cute, but not sure that she looked like a mom truly! :)

Isn't she cute!

First chapel Amy could sit with the boys

With the second chapel being for Addison's grade

Addison got to announce one of the song as well as doing the poem up front!

Afterwards, we went back to their classrooms where Addison had made a craft about Moms - so sweet!  Love you sweetheart!

Early November we also headed out for the Adventurer Campout at Kalaqua which is always fun.  This year we only stayed one night as Zach had a very early soccer game on Sunday morning.  We stayed in the A-Frame house with two other families, so that was fun.

For Sabbath lunch, Addison's class was in charge of serving haystacks, and they took their jobs of handing out chips very seriously! :)

Ready for some chips?

In the afternoon, there was lots of canoeing, spikeball and soccer playing to be had before heading into the evening where we had s'mores - yummy!

Two spike ball games - the men just love this game!

While the teens and tweens were out playing soccer!

Always love roasting marshmallows

Zach and Blake are never far from each other - these two have been best friends for 12 years!

We found an old picture of Blake and Zach together - best friends since the moment they laid eyes on each other! :)

Random pictures:

Kaleb did a project on the water cycle - he did a great job!

Fall Festival Time!

The fall of course has lots of fall festivals, which having young kids mean that we enjoy being out and about a lot!  They have also had some fun field trips, which we've tagged along on a few of them so we've enjoyed seeing some of Florida!

Addison had a field trip to Barberville Pioneer village, in which they introduced the kids to early settlers and Native Indians.  They had different stations throughout the grounds and we rotated through - it was quite interesting and well done!  One lady told a  Native Indian legend complete with hand motions that the kids did along with her - Amy found it quite engrossing! 

Making a clay pot

This gentlemen showed them how they cooked corn soup and gave them each a little bit to try - Addison was not brave enough to track it though!

But she did help at the station where you could help weave a rug!

And the petting zoo is always a hit!

Carding wool

Love spending the day together!

At church, we had several festivals in October that we didn't share earlier - first off starting with Pumpkin Fest - an opportunity to get together and play silly mixer games - always a hit!

They possibly were making up a game here - one never knows!  Duncan, Karis and Duncan's father in law Ron

There was a great turnout!

In the crazy twist of the game Hungry Hippo, four people were on sliding platforms with laundry baskets and a bunch of balls in the center - Amy agreed to do it - it is like a back bend keeping yourself straight on this thing - good workout! :) Alas, we did not win but it was fun anyway!

As an alternative to the Halloween trick or treating, our church has a Trunk or Treat festival, and it was a great hit this year complete with face painting and tattoos.  The Zs came back with all kinds of interesting accoutrements! :)

In other random happenings:

We did the responsive reading at church - Zachary was very nervous before we went up but he did great!  Kaleb read two parts, and was a champ up there!  Addison welcomed everyone - next time when she can read a little better we'll get her more into the mix

At a recent work event, Jonathan Isaac stopped by and everyone could take a picture with him - hilarious to stand beside someone THAT tall compared to you!

Kaleb had spirit days at church and went with crazy hair one day!  

NACA 2019

It is quite obvious in reading this blog that the Z-boys are deeply involved in soccer.  Zachary has been playing on an Adventist team that is part of a city league now for the last 3 years, and Kaleb for two.  Zachary's team is very athletic and technically sound, and their coach Billy is also the coach of the academy varsity soccer team.  The academy varsity soccer team goes to Dayton, Tennessee each fall in october for the NACA tournament.  This year, Coach Billy decided that he wanted to see if the tournament would allow our middle-school team to come even though they are much younger.  So on Oct 22nd, the Z family plus grandparents minus Amy (who flew in the next evening) drove up to Dayton Tennessee to watch the games.  The games started on Wednesday to figure out what bracket each team would be in (three divisons) and then the tournament officially begins Thursday and finishes Friday.

It was a bit nerve-wracking for the moms taking our younger sons to play with kids the size of men (let's be clear, some of the guys playing had full beards and others were 6 foot 6!!), but the kids were super excited.

Day 1, they played 2 games and Coach's hope was that they would lose at least one so that they would be down in Division 3 which would mean (in his mind) that they would have a chance of doing well in the Division.  Sure enough, they lost the first game BUT they won the second game!!!  Super proud of them.  As they walked out on the field, the opposing team had a mom and daughter sitting there and the daughter said "why are these young kids here" and the mom replied "they are here for a reason, don't be too confident" and sure enough as our boys played it was clear that they were good enough to play in the tournament.

On Thursday, they had only one game and it was a nail-biter - they were tied at the end of the game so had to go into penalty shoot-out.  Talk about stress!  Each team had 5 kids that could kick the ball, and Zachary was the last on our team to kick.  Amy had to watch from afar she was so nervous!  But he got it in!!!!  And then we saved the next goal, so we won!  Yahoo! It was super fun to watch because all of the kids were so excited that they dog-piled the goalie and then the high school boys had been watching them as well and ran from the sidelines to celebrate with them.  It was really amazing to watch our FLA high school boys cheering and celebrating for our younger kids!

During half-time, they always huddle and say a prayer - love the spiritual aspect and love the teamwork!

This is Zachary's winning penalty kick - his hands were already raising in triumph as the ball sailed through the air (half way in the picture) as he knew that he had placed it too far away for the goalie to catch it.  We were one proud family of him!

Our team was wearing orange and they are already piling on our goalie, while the dark blue guys are the academy boys running out to celebrate!

That is one big clump of happy boys!

That evening, there is a tradition that the soccer team goes up to the coach's room and sits in a bath of ice water (in their swimsuits) for 1 minute to force all of the lactic acid out of their legs.  Karis went up with them, and it was a hoot to watch all of the boys and their reactions to sitting in the water! 

On Friday we had two games - one in the morning and then one in the afternoon.  The morning game was thankfully nice weather, because as the day went the weather deteriorated into rain and cold.  The first game was good, and the team managed to get their next win!  Amy was just blown away - thus far the boys had played four games against high school kids and won three of them!  Unbelievable! And with that win, they were in the Division 3 Championship game!

running out to celebrate the Friday win

The cheerleaders on the sidelines!

Dad is always a faithful supporter!

while Addison found some friends to play with and make bracelets!

The afternoon championship game weather was cold and awful, and the parents had on rain ponches, rain boots, umbrellas, heavy coats, hats and mitts.  Amy had serious empathy for the boys playing just in their short sleeve shirts and shorts out there in the rain.  The championship game was handily won by the other team much to our disappointment, but the boys played hard and to get 2nd in the high school tournament was a huge win.  The team they played was clearly a Division 2 or 1 team, so we cheered the boys up with the fact that they had done so well up to that point and placed higher than 7 other high school teams!  The final team that we played had huge players - 2 of them had to be about 6 foot 5 or 6 - crazy tall!  One of our players is quite small and he only came up to their stomach! 

The tense moms - Lilli, Cathy, Jennifer and Amy

Here is the team and the coaches (Cole and Billy)
Back row (L to R); Zach, Matt, Daniel, Cristian, Luke, Sebastian, Savion, Jordon, Josh, Robert
Front row: Andrew, Aidan, Adrian, Blake, Erick, Jon-Jon, Austin, Cody

7th graders on the team

Zach's fan club!

And his #1 supporters!

Love these two guys!

After we finished at NACA on Friday afternoon, we headed down to Chattanooga to enjoy some time with our family and friends.  We are so fortunate that they live there that we can see them now usually once a year!

And when we see Aunt louise, she has fun when we check the height of the kids with her! :)

Aunt Louise and the kids

Nose to nose for our annual height check - they were trying not to giggle!

We had a lovely lunch with family on Sabbath at Aunt Louise's independent living place - they have an activities room that has a kitchen and lots of tables.  It was perfect!  We celebrated the October birthdays which was fun!

Kathy and Aunt Louise have their birthday on Oct 18th and Aunt Marge is on Oct 31st!

Playing UpJinx with Aunt Louise - always good for some laughs and fun.  What a sweet tradition!

Uncle Melvin chatting with Zach

He is one of Amy's favorite uncles!

And the rest of the time we spent with Hicks for Sabbath where we enjoyed visiting and then later playing games!

Leah trying to teach Addison how to ride the ripstick on the road outside their house

A night of card games!

Kayley was so sweet to play Uno with Addison - they just took to each other right away!

And the next morning playing a new game called "Trash"  Crazy names these days!

We drove back home on Sunday with a safe trip so we are always thankful.  There weren't any major accidents either so that was nice to make it back home in time for supper.