Fathers' Day, Bowling & Animal Kingdom!

We are blessed by amazing men in our lives, and we are delighted to be able to celebrate Father's Day for Karis and Grandpa Lyle!  Happy Father's Day to men who are kind, hard-working, and fun to have around!

We were at First Watch (Kaleb is at Camp Kulaqua still)

The best buy of the summer was a daily bowling pass at Bowlero for Karis and the kids - it gives them 2 free games every day including shoe rentals, plus an arcade credit.  Addison is in love with that arcade credit as they have a squishmallow "claw" that she keeps winning at!  She had to start giving them away she was winning so many!

Addison has been getting better at bowling along with the boys and Karis of course.  She still uses the bumpers but got 143 one day - not too bad!

Addison used her Disney pass this summer to go to Animal Kingdom and see the baby giraffe, thanks to Alicia and Liz for letting her tag along!  It was a fun day and she enjoyed it - and Mama enjoyed amortizing the cost of that Disney annual pass down further 😂

Watching the vets work on an animal in the clinic

Our dear friend Elin's birthday was in June, and she took friends over to the Lake Nona Adventure park - the water makes the Florida summer time heat bearable thankfully!

Lily, Penny, Lele, Alison, Addison, Elin and an OCS friend of Elin's

Not sure why but Karis was going through old photo albums and found these pictures - look how young he looks, and with a head of hair!

The whole Z family!

A rare sighting of Mr. Zach on the couch with Aria - he works 3 days a week so there are weeks where we only see him on the weekends, so we are delighted to be able to have him in our space when we are awake and at the house ourselves!  Having a college age kid means that you get barely any pictures, so we have to grab them when we can!

VBS, Ducklings & More

 After Addison returned from Camp Kulaqua, the next fun to launch was VBS.  The church does an incredible job with hundreds of children attending and the decorations are always fantastical.  Addison was a crew leader/assistant again this year.

As we prepared to head over to the church one morning, we saw these adorable little baby ducklings walking on our driveway - how precious are they!?  Kind of like the little VBS kiddos that Addison helped shepherd around all morning! 

That weekend we invited Harters, Reiners, Pellindinis and Lundes over for "make your own naan pizzas."  We thought that would be easy-peasy but were shocked to realize that Costco no longer sold the personal pizza size Naan breads.  Indian grocery store to the rescue (thanks AI for that suggestion!)  Poor Karis was the one who went, and he said he has never seen so many naan bread styles in his life!  Amazing!  He ended up buying one brand but the wrong style (to which we had a chuckle that just because you buy a Honda, it doesn't mean that the Odyssey is the same as a Pilot!) so he had to go back and get the right kind.  That evening was lovely to visit and catch up - and then Amy asked for some thoughts on her back deck and the ladies, who are all very talented at decorating, rearranged things to have a better flow.  Stay tuned for pictures in the future as Amy's friend Carmen then came down in July and we then took the time to do some decorating of the space as well!

Visiting outside on the deck after shoving furniture around

The re-arranged space has the table over in the open space by the dining room, which opened up the space by the BBQ more.

And in a random picture, Addison has been delighted to be a mother's helper to Amy's cousin Lauren's baby Emery.  These two are so cute together!  We crossed paths at church the other day so took the time to stop and love on the baby for a bit.

Summer Camp!

 Addison headed off to teen camp at Kulaqua this year.  Teen girl's camp was a little nutty to try and get into - we have always registered the boys on the morning of January 1st, but when Amy went on to register Addison at the same time, it was already full!  What!?  So some of the girls had made it into the teen camp and we registered Alison, Addison and Elin into junior camp and then put them on a waiting list....thankfully during the 7th grade spiritual retreat Amy received a call from the camp director that she had some slots open up and all three girls were able to move up to teen camp - although they were in two cabins rather than one.  Addison, Elin and Victoria were in one cabin with Lily, Alison and Lele in the other - which was just across the hall.

Elin, Addison and Lily

May it be a super fun week - you will be missed sweet girl!

Lily, Alison, Addison and Elin

While we waited in the car line, we were able to see Kaleb!  It was hot and humid, we felt for them standing out in the blistering sun!

Nike and Kaleb

We've missed you kiddo!

Kelli and Amy carpooled, which always makes the trip go through a little faster and more fun!

We are off!

Addison did enjoy teen camp and had a great time rotating through the different activities each day.  She jammed her finger near the end of the week but thankfully it was not broken.  A more recent new friend Pastor Alex was there, so she sent a few pictures during the week of Addison at the various events.  Addison volunteered at one of the morning worship sessions for one of the illustrations

Her final creation

And having Kaleb there meant that we also got a random picture here and there!

While Addison was away at camp, Amy took the opportunity to do her every 5 year colonoscopy.  This would be the second one - this time she did the pills instead of the drink - the drink possibly is better as it works faster but both were ok.  Thankfully no polyps again this time - so another completely clear report. She took slightly longer to wake up this time, but still felt really good afterwards so we went for lunch at the local Sakari Japanese Bento box place and then we went and looked at bath tubs etc as we are starting to plan on the re-do of our master bathroom in the next year (it takes a long time for us to choose things.....)

Waiting for the procedure to begin - ready and waiting!

Still smiling afterwards at lunch!

He fits!

And while Addison was away, Karis was hard at work helping to set up for the Forest Lake SDA Church VBS program which was the next week.  His handy-man skills came in handy for sure!

Random events:

Kelli and Heather took the kids down to a pottery painting event for Turkish pottery.  What a fun afternoon!

And a movie outing with London and Nalexi

Memorial Day 2026 Weekend

Over Memorial Day, Stephanie Vohwinkel was in town and we were excited to be able to have her spent the weekend with us.  Her daughter Sophia was in the AdventHealth summer RN internship here in town, so Stephanie was enjoying some time with her after spending a few days here on work business. 

We took Sophia and the Zs out on the boat - what a lovely day!

Sunday saw Kaleb packing up his car, and heading out to Camp Kulaqua to be a junior camp counselor.  It was his first time, and it was for one month.  Sneak peak, he had a great time and handled the kids fantastically!  He was a relief counselor (2 hours rotating around cabins each time), day-off counselor one week (where you take a different cabin every 24 hours) and then the last week he held a cabin of his own. 

We will miss you!

On Monday Memorial Day, we had Addison's friends over to tube, including the 8th grade girls and then invited the parents over that evening for burgers.  It was a great evening and we laughed and visited and got to know the parents a little more

Penny, Alison, Lele, Lily, Addison, Raylin, Alexa, Amaya (and Taylor was not in the picture)

Emy is Alison's little sister, and she had a great time with the big girls!

This week also saw Amy and Karis both having a birthday. 

Mexican food

Culver's Ice Cream for Karis

Graduations Galore & Menopause!

With Kaleb being a Junior, Orangewood includes the Juniors in their Senior graduation ceremony.  It is held on Friday before Sundown, and we were able to head over there to the Northland Church to watch.

Juniors walk across the stage and are handed a candle from the Seniors as the proverbial "mantle" is handed from the Senior class down to the Juniors.  The juniors wear a black cape and the seniors wear red.

Friends Becca and Ashlynn. We couldn't find his male friends in the mad crush of people

The FLA graduation was the same weekend, so Sabbath we were delighted to be able to head over to Biris to celebrate the graduation of Jonny Biri, Kieran Cochran, Andreas Mayr and Max Genanian.

The Saturday night FLA graduation is the major event, and Heather was able to get 2 extra tickets so Amy and Kelli could attend to support Kieran.  Congratulations Kieran!

Kaleb, Cameron, Becca, Leticia and Lily

Micah Hillmon

John Mark Touchard

Jackson Holland

Jonny Biri

And one of the moms!

The same week on Tuesday was the FLEC 8th grade graduation, held at Spring Meadows church.  We headed over to support Addison's 8th grade girl friends and of course Devin Cochran and Blake Holland.

Devin Cochran

Amaya, and 7th grade friend Penny

Blake and Raylin

And another 7th grade friend Lily

On Sunday, Amy and some lady friends went out to the Samantha Bee Menopause comedy show at Dr. Phillips.  We went out to eat lunch at Thrive beforehand.  It was very fun and we laughed a lot - it is better to laugh then cry 😂

Maria, Kayleith, Olesea, Erika, Kelli and Amy

On Sunday, Addison went to Disney with Alison S in order to see the Christian artist Joshua Queen - it was a fun time!

And in a random picture, how sweet is it that Addison still likes to hold a parent's hand!  Love this!