New Family Members!

 Addison has been begging for fish, and seeing as these are the least problematic pets to have, we finally agreed to surprise her with the fish as a Christmas present.  After we returned from Canada, and recovered from Covid, we finally headed out to Petco to take the plunge.  We ended up getting Glofish, because doesn't seem kind of cool that they glow?

And with that, Addison excitedly added Sparkle, Spring and Glo to our family.  We were waiting with bated breath to see how long these fish would last, and we're happy to say that because we are behind on writing our blog, that after 6 weeks they still are alive!

Surprisingly, even though they are fish, they are providing a lot of entertainment and Amy is finding herself becoming affectionate towards the fish - especially Glo (the yellow one) as Glo is the most adventurous - while the others often are hiding away in the various water features, Glo is always out finding adventurer and coming up to the glass where you can actually SEE Glo.  The other fish have slowly become more comfortable and are starting to be out more, so we will see over time if they remain reserved or if they start to be as brave as Glo.

After choosing her new fish

We set up a fish tank in the kitchen so that we could see them all the time

In other news, Addison had the opportunity to do Offering call at church with her friend Elin and so worked to memorize her part.  Unfortunately Elin's mom got Covid right before Sabbath, so Elin couldn't do it -- so Addison pinch hit and did the whole thing (which was fine, although she didn't have time to memorize the whole thing so Addison read it - but she did a nice job of speaking clearly into the microphone -- well done Addi-cakes!)

Bird Watching

 Zachary is taking biology this year at FLA, and one of their projects that they have to do is to find and identify 30 different birds.  It is due in March, and like a true teenager he'd love to leave it until the last minute but with how busy we are, Amy was having none of that so we started to go out on Sabbath afternoons to do different nature drives nearby to find birds.  So far we'd doing well and he is about halfway there - frankly likely we have already found 30 birds but we don't know how to identify them all so it is a bit tricky!

The first was a drive through Apopka wildlife drive, which was a cool cloudy day - and being novices we didn't have any bird books or apps with us, so we just took pictures and crossed our fingers that we'd figure out what the birds were later.  

Taking pictures 

Got a good shot of a great blue heron!

The next weekend we headed down to Lake Eola where they have 5 different varieties of swans!  And other birds we couldn't identify - we need to have birding experts come with us!

A blank swan!

A black necked swan - so cool!

So majestic and beautiful

In other random pictures, Addison got our Amy's old flute and was giving it a try - she got it to have a sound, but Amy unfortunately isn't much help as it has been too many years!  She may decide to play flu when she can get into band in 5th grade.

Very intent on making this work!

A Hiking We Will Go

Kaleb has been doing the advanced Pathfinder honors, and one of them is hiking.  He has to do 2 five mile hikes, 2 ten mile hikes, and one 15 mile hike.  Yikes.  That is a lot of hiking!!

The first hike Karis took him on with other folks around Black Bear Trail - it was the 10 mile hike.  There were a fair amount of kids out there, so it was a fun entertaining time as well as parents for Karis to talk to.  No pictures of course were taken to document said hike however.

The next weekend, Amy went on the hike with Kaleb - and of course Kieran and Heather were there.  It was a lovely time to chat as we walked and the weather was perfect.   We had some good laughs along the way, as part of the hike went into very muddy, swampy around of Wekiva State Park - so we very gingerly had to tip toe through in order not to sink up to our ankles in mud.  One point Kaleb mis-stepped and sank all the way up to the top of his hikers--while we all stood around yelling and laughing.  Good times :)

We are ready!  Kaleb and Amy used our water backpacks for the water and snacks - those have come in handy from our summer Southwest trip!

What was not so wonderful was at the end of the long tiring hike that we had gone the wrong way at the end.....and thus our 10 mile hike turned into a 13.5 mile hike.  Thankfully we figured it out in time but we didn't get back to the car until dark - driving out in the pitch black we were thankful that we hadn't been totally lost in the park in the dark. 

Hiking out as the sun was setting

The following weekend, we decided to hit the trails again and do the last long hike (and complete the extra mileage we needed to get the 15 mile hike in).  The weather was a high of 58 that day, so us wimpy Floridians bundled up.  Karis decided to come and bring Addison along to get her some exercise - thinking that he'd just turn around once she got tired -- but lo and behold she surprised us all by hanging in there - we didn't do the full 10 with her, but she did the first loop and back to the parking lot which was 5-6 miles.  Amy's hips were hurting that week so she ended up just doing the loop with Addison and Karis finished the second loop with the gang.  We've never done these hikes in the park before, and it truly was a lovely experience - we need to do it again sometime!

bundled up and ready to go!

Addison is our climber so she took every opportunity to climb trees as we went.  Thankfully this time the trail was entirely dry. 

At the playground afterwards, we made it!

No longer a baby, she definitely doesn't fit into the baby swing anymore!

In other news, about 10 days into January, Kaleb and Addison came down with a sore throat that turned into a fever.....and you guessed it, we had Covid.  Karis ended up getting it a few days after they did, and then Zachary decided to wait another 2 weeks before getting it (so annoying, should have just licked the spoon when the kids first got it so that everyone would be done with it!).  Amy oddly enough never got it either time - that or she was just asymptomatic.  Either way, thankful for that!  Thankfully it seemed to be mild and the family got over it very quickly without any lasting effects. 

It looks like a pregnancy test - but the super faint line at the bottom is Kaleb's positive result for Covid.

In other fun news, we have finished our laundry room remodel!  It is so awesome, what a transformation.  The original laundry room - it was a deep green with wallpaper on the walls (the white portions of the walls had floral wallpaper on it previously). 

And the new laundry room - new cabinets, new paint, new backsplash, new counters, new lights!  We are still doing a few decorative touches for the shelves on the left hand side, but that is still coming along.

Funky light fixture on the ceiling for fun

Canadian Christmas Part 2

Every two years we join the Z family for Christmas at the farm, and thankfully the Covid travel restrictions were eased so we were still able to do that this year.  We weren't sure that the border would stay open with all of the increased cases in December.  We were so happy to be able to go, as the kids are all getting older and will soon be off to college. 

Covid has changed a lot of things, and travelling to Canada was one area that we noticed big changes - first, our normal Delta flight to Saskatoon no longer existed.  Instead of being able to travel there for about $800-$1000 each (which was already expensive in our mind!), the tickets jumped up to $1800 a piece and we could no longer use any Delta airmiles to make the tickets reasonable.  We just couldn't justify that much for each ticket, so we began to explore flying to a city further away (Edmonton, Calgary etc) and driving - and our final decision was to fly to North Dakota and drive across the border.  It ended up being significantly cheaper, AND we could use airmiles AND it made the Covid testing a little easier as we didn't have to test for Covid prior to coming back, so it saved us that headache and cost.  Flying to North Dakota did mean that we flew, and then had an 8 hour drive ahead of us, so that was not as nice as 2 hours, but we still felt it was the better option.  Driving the last 2 hours in a white-out blizzard though on the way there was less than fun -- but thankfully it was a four lane highway so we didn't have to worry about oncoming traffic, but there was only a path open in the middle of the road open, and extremely difficult to see at times.

Ready to begin the drive!

Testing though to GO was still a requirement so we all tested 2 days before and then prayed that our test results would come in time, which they did.  We also had vaccinated Addison in December so that we wouldn't run into problems with border but she was one day shy of being "fully" vaccinated as Canada required the 2 weeks and a day to have passed since her second shot and we were only 2 weeks past.    With that in mind, she was still required to be tested on Day 1 and Day 8, and then Amy was also randomly chosen to be tested as well even though she was fully vaccinated - and the results didn't even come until after we'd gotten back to the US!  Thankfully it didn't interfere with our visit to Canada as we always primarily stay at the farm anyway. It won't be a day too soon when this Covid business is done!

Anyway, on to the fun stuff!  The farm is always a highlight - the kids have so much fun with their cousins, they are just giddy with delight.  There is lots, lots, lots of good food and desserts and lots of games and puzzles, and now video games.  We normally go bowling once while we're there but this year we decided to skip that in light of Covid but we did go to the movies once, and enjoyed the entire movie theater to ourselves as we went to the 11A showing and no-one else was there - so that was kind of nice!

Puzzles are a nice way to get everyone involved in hanging out together and something to do as we talk, so there were a few puzzles that were done this year, and even Addison got involved this year!

Speaking of games, one of our kids favorite things is the candy game - Aunt Lorie buys a bunch of different kinds of candy, chips, soda etc and then there is a dice game - depending on what you roll, you get to pick from a designated pile.  First she let them each pick one item before the game began to ensure that they each would end up with something that they really liked, and then after that candy could be stolen, made "safe", or just in general had to pick from one of the three piles based on the dice numbers.  And then afterwards, lots of trading happened anyway between the kids!

Explaining the rules

A highlight in Canada is always all of the yummy treats to eat like cinnamon rolls.  Addi this year helped grandma do a little of the baking which she enjoys - and then of course devour them afterwards!

pinching the edges together

Making pink jello together

working on a supper meal one day

We enjoy playing a lot of games while we're there, such as stock ticker, Pitt, and we played a new game called "dice" this year which as you'd expect, is just a bunch of dice! :)

Rubik's Race

Pit

blokus

The telephone game

Doing a craft together

This year the younger kids decided to try and do a sleepover on the air mattress, but it didn't last long before Gianna headed downstairs to snuggle with her Mama, and then the second night Uncle Karis' Stinky Pajama Gang story was too scary when a fish jumped into the imaginary canoe and knocked Nik out into the water so he headed on downstairs to his parents too!  It was fun to let them try though, and they were all excited with their little stuffed animals to snuggle in together.

"Little Red" is always in high demand which is a sledding hill nearby, so they headed out there one day when the weather warmed up just a bit - it was bitterly cold (-35) most days, so it wasn't until the last Sunday that it got warmer just a bit and they all bundled up and went sledding.  

With how bitterly cold it was, it made the science experiment of taking boiling water outside and throwing it into the air to watch it become snow before it hits the ground perfect!  Addison and Nik (and Gianna a few times too!) must have done it 20-30 times as Amy manned the stove to keep the boiling water coming.  Here is a series of pictures from the start to end below with Addison. 

Speaking of science lessons, a science lesson was had this year when the younger kids learned all about static electricity - and suddenly that became a form of entertainment to "shock" everyone around.  Uncle Karis is always game for tomfoolery, so he was happy to shock them back!

When the kids were really little (the youngest three weren't even born yet) and everyone was in Orlando one year, we did a group picture -- and this year we decided to recreate it.  This was a hoot trying to each kid to look exactly like they did (as close as possible) so many years ago with expressions, body postures etc.  

The original picture

Hilarious!  Kaleb has his tongue sticking out, Zachary is solemn and looking out into space, Connor is so cute playing itsy bitsy spider with his hands, and Emily was hugging Kaylie

And Addison didn't want to be left out, so we did one afterwards with her in it. 

We have started to do a height picture each year as well as all of the kids are really stretching up.

The three brothers are all about the same height!

No trip to the farm is complete with a work project - it makes the Z men happy to be sure - and this year they were working on the basement laundry/kitchen area - hopefully they will have it done by the summer and can enjoy the somewhat cooler space while cooking etc during the heat of the summer. 

Oh, and no Christmas is complete without presents - so there was of course gift exchanges for the kids which they then enjoyed playing with the toys for the younger kids while the older kids got mostly money. 

Lined up on the couch during gift exchange

While the adults watch and chat!

Not sure what made this the "piggy back" year - but one evening everyone seemed to be determined to give piggy back poses for the camera!

Even Dad got into the fun

Even a sitting down on a chair piggy back!

And really one of the most wonderful parts of the whole trip is just being able to watch the family bond, talking, sharing thoughts etc.  It is a blessing to be part of a family to be sure - and we should all never take it for granted.

Emily is beloved, Addison adores her

The Z matriarch and patriarch sneaking a smooch!

This year the basement sewing area/TV space was finished, so the boys hung out there watching sports a LOT.  And hiding if a parent came down for them to do chores! 😏

climbing out from under the sewing machines where they had hidden