Serving Sabbath

 Community service is something that Amy really enjoys and with Covid, the opportunities have been much less.  Our church, headed of course by Pastor Jennifer who also has a heart for service, hosted a PBJ sandwich making morning in which we made 1000 PBJ lunches and then they were distributed (we certainly didn't make all those, the group did! 😊)

The bergherm boys joined our table, which is always lovely to have our extended siblings with us

And Cochrans were right beside us, 

so we could visit and chat afterwards!

Hard at work

Addison had her very first school project - she had to make a solar planet and she choose to tackle Neptune and its 13 moons - she charged ahead and did most of it all by herself - we only helped with tapping the paper on the box sites and printing out the name/title.

Yikes, it is hard to believe but Zachary is in 8th grade and will be graduating from middle school this year!  With the 8th graders, when they are finishing their sports season they did a little "ceremony" and give them a ball with signatures - this year Zachary played basketball and so he received a basketball.  The school team isn't super strong at basketball so their wins were definitely less than their losses.

A great picture for Zachary's 8th grade basketball photo!

Coach Dukes talking about Zachary during his part of the ceremony

The basketball team

MLK and Covid Strikes Again

As January marched along, we had grand plans on MLK weekend to take Addison, Kaleb and his friend Kieran to Disney.  Disney has re-opened but they are keeping their numbers to only about 30%, so the interminably long lines aren't so bad right now so why not?  Well, Amy was not an expert on how it worked in post-covid world and didn't realize that you had to make a reservation, so by the time she figured that out, there were no more tickets!   So no Disney that day, but we had a great Plan B and we took all of the kids to miniature golfing as well - joined by Devin and Aunt Heather.  The weather was perfect that day and we had so much fun!   

At the end of the 18 holes, Addison likes to "dig for precious rocks" - aka "waste of money!" but seeing as Amy was feeling bad about the non-Disney outing she agreed and the kids did have fun digging for rocks (but let's be clear, that still is a big waste of money! 😊)

We were all set on the weekend of January 23 to celebrate Amy's mom's birthday as well as our precious cousin Sadie's 3rd birthday!  But Covid struck again and that Thursday night we were told Addison's class had been exposed to Covid positive kid, so we cancelled all plans.  So irritating because on Sunday night, the school called and said that they had made a mistake and that there was no exposure....so plans cancelled for no reason!  BOO!  Better to be safe than sorry but it was really frustrating.  We tried to make the most of it though and found out that a local fairground had a outdoor laser light show that was akin to a movie drive in, where you drove your car and watched the laser show, so we got tickets and invited Grandma and Grandpa Lyle.  They came over before and we had some strawberry shortcake to celebrate (socially distanced) and then we drove separate cars to the laser show as we were still thinking Addison had been exposed at that point.

Happy Birthday!

A bit hard to see in the dark!

At the laser show we enjoyed seeing all of the lights (set to music) in the sky, so that was fun.  We took the Bergherm kids as they have had Covid and thus are immune to it (that is one good thing of already having it, you don't have to socially distance at least for 3 months after they had it!)

Zachary and Blake

While Addison and London watched from on top of the Expedition

And Evan and Kaleb (Evan not pictured) watched from inside the Ford

Later in that next week, we enjoyed some time out at Ponkan park, flying kites, throwing baseballs and kicking a soccer ball.  

Addison flying the kite

The weather was quite cold that day and Karis only wore short sleeves, so eventually he succumbed and put on the inside of Kaleb's fleece jacket - just a BIT too small! :)  Ha ha ha, desperate times call for desperate measures!

In unfortunate news, one of Zachary's close friends and soccer pals dislocated his knee cap in a soccer game in January - necessitating surgery to remove some bone chips and repair the tendons.  We dropped by for Zachary and Matt (another soccer team friend) to visit and just say hi.  We wish him a speedy recovery!

Farewell, So Long

We are very happy to say "farewell, so long" to 2020 - may it, AND COVID, leave us forever.  Unfortunately we also had to say farewell to our senior pastor - Geoff Patterson and his family as they accepted a call to Boulder, CO.  We are now in the search for a new pastor, so let us know if you have any great names! :)  

There was a drive-through to say good-bye, which was a nice way to allow everyone to come through and speak 1:1 with the pastor and his wife, without having too much concern about crowds and Covid.  It was a lovely day for it as well, which always is so pleasing when it works out!

That evening, we also had Bergherm's over for some games in the driveway -- one involved a shower cap, shaving cream and cheese balls - how many could you throw and get to "stick" to the shower cap!  Addison loved this game, opening her mouth to try and catch some of the cheese balls that went astray! :)

Or she would stand behind the chair, with her mouth wide open!  There were lots of cheese balls as you can see all over the driveway by the time we were done!

There is a fun new activity in Orlando - FOOT GOLF - aka with a soccer ball.  Jeff found it, so he and the three Z men decided to try it out.  It was a learning curve to get used to crossing the two sports, but it was deemed worthy of future outings :)

On New Years Eve, we went over to the Cochrans to watch William light some amazing fireworks!  Super fun!

At the beginning of January, Pastor Jennifer 'aka daytime mom' held a Children's church which Addison wanted to participate in, so we put our toes back into the water and headed off to SS and church.  It was great fun, and we are now going back to SS every week.  Church is still virtual at home, as Karis goes biking in the morning and then when we get back from SS, we eat brunch together and watch whatever church service we want (with not having our senior pastor, we are trying out older archived sermons and even our old Andrews University!). 

Other random happenings:

Kaleb is our baker, and made a delicious lemon loaf!  Yummy!

Umm, while this IS Kaleb's car, it would appear that he is just a tad too big for it now! :)

Addison playing Connect4 with a friend of the families - so sweet that Lucas would play with her even though he is Kaleb's age!  

Wild Florida

 Over the week in between Christmas and New Year's, it was a low-key week at work where Amy was able to catch up on a lot of CPE as well as have some fun outings with the kids.

One outing that we tagged along was to go to Wild Florida with Amy's cousins Jeff and Niesha, and their sweet girl Sadie!  It is only about an hour away from our house, and is a drive-through safari and then a zoo with educational talks about the animals.  It was a perfect day for weather and no rain, and we had a great time!

Taking a picture so that we'd remember where this was with the sign in the background!  Grandma and Grandpa came as well, just not in this particular picture

At the end of the drive-through safari part is a place where you can feed giraffes.  Amy is a sucker for this kind of thing (reminds her of great memories at the Tampa zoo!)

Isn't this picture just so great - love love love the giraffe's face looking in between them!

That is one long tongue!

The drive through was super cute, with these small little deer-type animals that could spring straight up in the air as they milled about - it was so cute!

And then there was of course a petting zoo, which Addison enjoyed very much!

Always have to get a picture of the kids in a photo-op spot, right!?

That week, we also went to SeaWorld with the Bs -- super fun to hang out with our "Daytime Mom and siblings"  The park was fairly full, so that was interesting but thankfully we are clearly past the point of any Covid developing in us, so it was a fun, successful trip!

No way was Amy going on a spinning ride - that would have resulted in sickness for sure or a headache but the kids had a great time!

She's ready for the roller coaster!  Albeit the kids' version :)

Feeding the stingrays is always fun!

And in other random pictures, Addison thinks that it is great fun to be the one to shave Karis' head and goatee - so she is just like her grandma who used to be a hairdresser.

The kids had some great sleepovers at the grandparents house during the break - and played Chinese checkers a lot!

Addison and Karis doing the wishbone - I think Addison won....and I am pretty sure she wished for a puppy - likely not going to happen :)

Karis in his crazy Christmas tie, and his crazy Duck Dynasty beard :)  That thing better go away soon! :)

Kaleb is about 1/2 inch away from being taller than Grandma! :)