First Ever Z Road Trip

It is a common joke among all of our friends that the Zs are just not road-trip people.  Call it over-dosing on road trips as kids (where it was common for a 13-15 hour road trip anytime we went anywhere), or just impatient as adults - but we've never gone anywhere further than 6 hours away (and that was only one solitary time, all other trips have been 3 hours or less!).  Anyway, we gave it a whirl last weekend when Amy's cousin's daughter (got-that?) Jenna got married.  Jenna was the flower girl in OUR wedding, so we felt like it was a circle of life moment to go and share in her big day - add to that the fact that all of Amy's living aunts and uncles (except one whose health is not good) were there (so a total of 7 present) - and we decided that we needed to 'suck it up' and get in the van and go to Chattanooga.

And we were off!

A new way of wearing one's shirt.....to keep warm....If only we were still this flexible! :)

Unluckily enough, we couldn't leave until 9:30 as Karis works the early shift at work and couldn't skip the first part of the day - so we ended up leaving in time to hit Atlanta rush hour traffic....on a  Friday......kill us now and put us out of our misery!  Amy almost jumped out of the van a few times! :)  Addison had to go to the bathroom every few hours, so we stopped and stopped and stopped.....finding our way into some of the dirtiest bathrooms ever known to man.  Good thing for soap! :)  It took us 10 hours to get there, but we finally arrived safe and sound.  The kids were all actually very good on the way up until late afternoon when the lack of a nap started to catch up with Addison and she got very whiny...thankfully about 4P she finally fell asleep for a while.

We stayed at our friends the Hicks, which we always enjoy seeing them and catching up with them and their children.  There was little sleep to be had though over the weekend, as we all tried to catch up with one another.  Their kids are older than ours, thus a later bedtime, so our kids ended up going to bed later as well - they loved it of course but we knew that the subsequent week would probably be rough with some poor behavior - but it was only one weekend and we deemed it worth it.

Addison took to Erick right away...of course...tall men! :)  How did this little baby get to be 5 foot 10 already??  No way!

On Sabbath, we headed over to the Southern campus where we joined the family for lunch after church - all sides of the wedding parties were there, so it was fun to a lot of people.  That night, Amy's cousin Rick and Millie hosted a get-together at their house where we enjoyed some good one-on-one time with extended family.

feeling right at home in their Sabbath school!

Zachary is so tired he is leaning/hugging on Uncle Kevin! :)

The 9 Syfert siblings....Amy's mom is the youngest sitting on Aunt Bonnie's lap in the front.


And now the current state of the siblings.  Uncle Gene was not able to make it, and Aunt Bonnie has passed away.

In order of age starting with Aunt Louise on the left to Amy's mom on the right

The cousins (7 of the 23(?) cousins)

Then there were the "out-laws" as my Uncle Melvin likes to call the in-laws! :)

It took Addison about 2 seconds to warm up to Uncle Melvin - who doesn't love Uncle Melvin!!

Amy certainly loves him too!  Love that shirt!!!

  On Sunday, the wedding wasn't until 7P so we had the day to play - and we did another 'first' when we went to the Urban Rocks climbing gym.  It was interesting - Kaleb didn't want to go, but he ended up being a little climbing machine and had so much fun going up the walls.  Zachary - our Mr. Safety Man, had a little harder time trusting the 'auto-belay' machines that they would actually support his weight and gently lower him down to the ground, so he would climb up.....and then climb down.....making himself exhausted of course.  At the end, Amy made the mistake of clapping to and encouraging him to let go and just trust the rope to come down as it would be more fun but he ended up upset and started to cry.  At that point, we couldn't get him down until we finally one of the workers free-climb up (it wasn't too far for a grown-up), and Zachary managed to talk to the very calm man and climb his way back down.  Poor kid.  Hopefully this won't scar him for life!

It was these green bumps that hit his back as he rode down the first time, making him afraid that it hurt...

Climbing together

Waaaaaay up there!

The wedding was beautiful....although HOT as it was outside in Jenna's family home yard...hot and humid!  It reminded us of our own beastly-hot wedding.  At least Jenna's didn't start in the morning when the sun was beating down.  Afterwards, there was a reception of course and we enjoyed the final opportunity to visit.  At the end, we thought we lost Addison as we were leaving, so all four of us were running around looking for her...but we quickly discovered that she'd climbed up into an older gentleman's lap and was just sitting there 'holding court."  We were highly surprised as she normally is very wary of people she doesn't know!

Dedeker family - Jake, Jason, James (groom obviously), Jenna, Judy (Amy's cousin), Jay (All Js!! :))

She warmed up to cousin Steve the later the evening went!

 Amy's mom had an unlucky episode on the way home where she accidentally turned into some train tracks and blew out two of her front tires.  Thankfully all was fine with the car and with her, but Karis did end up having to change two tires in the crazy heat....the man is a saint!

A funny joke of the weekend - the Hicks love pets - having 2 dogs and 2 cats.  Our kids are not used to pets of course, so when the dogs would charge out barking like crazy, it scared them.  Zachary was quickly verbal in that he liked their cats but did NOT like their dogs as he was scared of them.  Amy shared that if it was their dog, and if they had known the dog when it was smaller/younger, they wouldn't be afraid of them.  This of course leads Zachary into thinking that WE are going to get a dog (not convinced of this yet!!).  Anyway, the Hicks' have one dog that is perhaps not even THEIR favorite....and Kevin would start to make hints to Addison that maybe she'd want to take a dog home.....and she said "the little one" (much to his delight as that is the dog - Cookie - that he was hoping she'd say!).  After that, there were hilarious jokes about Cookie coming home with us.  Thankfully, Cookie did NOT end up in the van when we pulled out of the driveway! :)

Good-bye Cookie!!

Kaley, Kaleb, Erick & Addison, Zachary, and Leah

Thankfully the ride home was only 7 1/2 hours long - thanks to hitting Atlanta at the right time of day and for Addison holding it much longer on the way home - with only one pit stop the trip went MUCH faster!

Prior to the road trip, we actually had some fun days when Amy's Uncle Don, Aunt Linda and their grandson Camden came down.  We went to La Nouba with them....first time for the kids (loved it!)...and then Grandma B took the boys the next two days to Legoland and Disney World....we kept Addison at home as she was still potty training (doing SO WELL!) and we wanted her to nap as we knew the weekend would be long... 

Random pictures:

I see a little something extra in this suitcase....

Voila!

And a new game has been borne in the Z household.  The adults have always played cribbage when they get together with the Hicks, and now Zachary and Kaleb have figured out how to play, so the family has been playing since we got back.  It is good for counting and math skills!




Phrase of the week:  Leah asked Kaleb if he wanted to race to the top of the rock climbing wall, and his sanguine reply?  No, let's just climb side-by-side and do it together.  So Kaleb, happy to play with kids and not be in a competition all the time!

The "A" Birthdays

We had an "A++" weekend when we had the opportunity to celebrate Adam and Andre's birthdays!  On Saturday, we headed out to the beach to enjoy the lovely weather and fellowship for Adam's 12th birthday.  How did the time go by so quickly! We remember when he was born!

Look at that tiny little guy!

The birthday crew with Adam in the orange shirt - easy to spot!

The group playing soccer

Playing shuffle board for the first time!

Kaleb trying out skim boarding.

On Sunday we headed over to celebrate Andre's 10th birthday - the kids had lots of fun playing the Dance video game (notice poor Kaleb was the guy crouching on the floor as another dancer had to put his foot on Kaleb's head! - all in good fun!)  The fun ended too early as the boys are signed up for actual hockey lessons this summer (more on that in a future post!), so we had to head out early to make it in time for that.

Playing "Wrap a mummy"

The birthday crew

We also had the pleasure of Karis' college friend - Jerome Lee - coming to visit as they went on a Disney cruise.  It was really fun to get to know them a bit (Amy did not know Jerome at school) - Addison too to Jerome right away, which is a little unusual as she tends to be shy around people when she first meets them (unless they of course let her play with their phone!!)

Using a selfie stick.....

Speaking of Addison - her potty training is going very well, and we have actually now had some success on the poop front - thank goodness!  Maybe she'll end up being the easiest of all three after a horrendous start to the process!  She does love her "marsh-mells" and will actually get up from a nap to pee instead of peeing in her diaper.  Fingers crossed!

Our children love nothing more than an adrenaline rush with Daddy throwing them in the pool, so we captured a bit of their fun in a series of pictures....

Kaleb taking the first round of fun....

Before Zachary gets his turn...he's getting big enough that Daddy won't be able to do this much longer at all!

And then Addison takes her turn into flight.  We don't yet trust her ability to swim all the way to the edge on her own, so Zachary was waiting to fish her out of the water

Big splash for a little girl! :)

Potty Training!

Addison is in the midst of the transition to a Big Girl!  We started the potty training adventure last weekend after we got back from Canada over the July 4th weekend as Amy had four straight days at home.  Not sure that this was the best timing as we are planning on driving up to Chattanooga in a few weeks for a wedding - so how will it go in the car for 10 hours?  Will this confuse her?  Unsure!

Anyway, the first day was an abject disaster.  No success at all.  Failures a-plenty.  Held it for 5 hours until she went for a nap and got a diaper.  Then peed on the floor at Publix.....Then peed on our back deck and then added poop to the mix.  At this point the Z-parents were needing some encouragement (thanks Jenn!!).  The next day, we had success!  5 times in the potty with no accidents - although we still did not see any pooping action (now we're holding the poop!!).  The success came for pee when Amy pulled out the portable potties to place around the house and had them in the tub washing the when Addi decided to get into the tub and sit on it.  With the warm water running, with her feet in the warm water....she was able to pee!  Of course thereafter she decided that she had to have the potty chair in the tub in order to pee!  But, that night we went to Cochrans for a 4th of July get-together and she did manage to go pee in the potty chair when it wasn't in the tub, so yeah!  Her treat will be marshmallows for pee, and M&Ms (CHOCOLATE!) for poop!  

The week has gotten steadily better thankfully - with her managing several times to get the poop in the potty (and several times NOT :( ) and starting to become very reliable as it relates to pee.  She reminds us a little of Zachary as he struggled with the poop - both of them seem to wait until there is a diaper on to do their 'business' (which is better than accidents!).  It seem when she's distracted is when there is an accident but we're on our way!

Doesn't she look thrilled with the notion of being a big girl?  No!  Notice the couches are covered with waterproof covers! :)

The boys desire to cook continues, so we made a 4th of July flag cake - it was pretty good!

The 4th of July festivities started on Friday night at Cochrans, where we also celebrate Erik and Adam's birthdays (July birthdays - both on the same day July 30th!)

After the pool

Addison was scared of the noises and eventually went into the van to watch the fireworks.

Very first sparkler!

The Cochrans have a tradition that the kids always stand on the brick wall to wave good-bye to visitors, so the Z-children decided that they wanted to do it as well so the parents had to drive up to the wall to wave good-bye to our very own children before putting them in the car! :)

The actual 4th of July was quiet as it was Sabbath.  We stayed at home from church (because really, do we need to go to church and pee all over the carpet????), but that night we were brave enough to head over to Grodacks to share some fun and fellowship.  Of course with all of the kids and distraction there, Addison promptly forgot the ability to hold it ad peed and pooped in her pants!  JUST GREAT (SORRY COREY!).  Thankfully it was a relatively small mess but still - how embarrassing.  We had hoped to go to the pier and watch fireworks but the mosquitoes were so bad that we quickly put an end to that adventure!  It was fun to see the ones that we did see though off in the distance before we decided to bail and get away from the bugs!

Playing soccer in the backyard

The parents should be running around too! :)

Random:

Kaleb's reading is really progressing and he's now able to read the Magic Tree House books - mostly on his own with only a little help with some of the really big words!

What a good big brother - playing air hockey with Addison....of course chanting "I scored, I scored, I scored, I scooorrrreed...." whenever he got a goal....She didn't seem to mind as she started to chant it too! :)

Blast from the past - Jenn found this picture and sent it to Amy - how cute is that!?  The boys were 5 at the time....Kaleb's striped shirt is in the background just out of the camera.  Look at those chubby faces - so precious! 

The "big boys" are so little here!

Phrase of the week:  "Marsh-mells!"  This is Addison's treat for going pee in the potty - she does love her marsh-mells!