Letting Our Lights Shine

Over the past month, we have had a couple of chances to do community service events, which allows us to as a family help think about others - it has been a great experience.  The first was the Orlando Cares event for packing food for Puerto Rico hurricane victims.  It was down at the convention center, and we packed food (chili can, chips, granola bar, apple sauce and a little dessert) in boxes.  Afterwards they fed us lunch and gave us free tickets to the Southern Women's show!  Addison was even old enough to join us, so it was a really great experience.

Starting to pack the meal boxes

Proud of this family!

As we walked out, a lady was standing there and saw Addison and gave her this crown - she was in seventh heaven! 

Pretty princess

Pretty finger nails and lipstick samples!

The next event was the Adventurers Can Collecting.  Addison has always been too young before to miss her nap, so this was the first time that Amy and Addison have gone but the Z-men have gone many times.  We actually just hand out the bags themselves and then the Pathfinders go to pick up the filled bags a few weeks later.  It was a beautiful day for the event, and it was fun to walk around outside enjoying the fresh air!

Kieran and Kaleb

Erik and Kaleb hanging out on the bus from one subdivision to the next

Our most recent community outreach was "Pack the Forest" which is sponsored by our church at the Academy gym.  The meals are basically oats, spices, rice etc in a bag that they then boil.  The event packed 65,000 meals!

Kieran tagged along with us for this one, while Addison and Daddy stayed at home for a nap!

In other news, we have also had a few weddings over the past month that we went to (one of the reasons we haven't posted on our blog for so long is that we were out of town!).  The first wedding was a coworker of Amy's from her AHS days, so it was lovely to witness their wedding celebration.  They had a foot washing as part of the ceremony, it was very unique!

We do - 18 years later!

The happy couple!

Random picture:

One day Addison insisted on taking her fishing pole to Miss Jennifer's - and actually caught a few fish!

Gender Reveal

Catch-up #2 - again, trying to catch up on our missing weeks where we went radio-silent on the blog!

Amy's cousin Jeff and Niesha are expecting their first baby in February of next year, and they also just bought a new house - major changes going on all at once!  They had a special event to reveal the gender of their baby (which was a surprise even to them) and to have a house blessing for their new home.  It was a special opportunity to gather together with friends and family and celebrate the new beginnings for these special people.

They revealed the gender of the baby through a fireworks display - it was incredible.  Watch the video to see the gender of the baby based on the color of the first fireworks! :)

Niesha's sister Shayna came for the event and did a lovely job of decorating and then a friend made an amazing cake, and she just does this for fun - she's not a baker!

Beautiful - and chocolate, what else could one ask for?

Participating in the house blessing

Reading the house blessing

 There was another little girl there, and Addison had fun getting to know her and playing.

At FLEC, they had a grandparents day so it was fun for Grandma to be able to go to Zachary to school and participate.  So glad that we are blessed to have her here near us!

Addison is taking soccer skills camp again this year, and it is amazing all of a sudden she has really gotten into it and is running around on the field instead of hanging back.  She is so precious - whenever she kicks the ball she then looks back at Amy with a huge smile on her face!  She is all girl though - she has informed Amy that she is not pleased that her soccer socks aren't pink! :)

Kicking the ball

In the goal now

She was so into it that day!

 We capped off the weekend by going over to Touchards to watch the final show of the America Ninja Warrior - it is a favorite, and our favorite contender almost finished the course but much to our disappointment he fell.  Boo!  Addison had a bit of a poor ending to the night when she stepped on an ant pile on the way out and was bitten 16 times on one foot.  Sleep wasn't plentiful over the next two nights for Addison or Mommy......  but thankfully she didn't seem to react as much as Amy or Zachary usually do, so that was a blessing.

Zachary and Daddy went on a FLEC field trip to the Ponce Inlet Marine Center - they even went on the bus!  What was funny is that all of Zachary's friends were on the bus, but he had his kindle and was so into it that he just sat and read the whole time instead of talking to his friends.....the kid is into his books....

Seine netting

Zach, Cristian and Luke

What was funny is that through a complete coincidence the other two kids went to the same place for a field trip with Champion the Friday before.  What are the chances of that?!

Touching a huge snake skin - GROSS!

Showing some bravery!

Random pictures:

Digging for worms to go fishing

She is so into slime lately - she even put it on her "Thankful for... list"  

Love that smile and those dimples!

Blast from the Past

We are sorry for the long drought on the blog posts - we have been out of town for several weekends, so it just ends up being a blur when we get back and the blog doesn't get updated.  But we haven't abandoned the blog....the posts will still keep coming! :)  This is catch-up #1!

We recently had a fun trip down memory lane by trying out a new restaurant in Orlando - Earls - with Jeff and Niesha.  It was fun because when we used to live in Canada, this restaurant was a favorite hang-out for young, poor high school kids because they had cheap food on certain nights and a "margarita-ville" type decor - lots of parrots everywhere.  So we decided to go and try it out - it was much more upscale than the Canadian version, although we did laugh when we were looking around for any sign of the Canadian version and FINALLY saw a nod to their roots when we located a mural on the wall of parrots!  

It was fun to try new foods, and enjoy the company - and then afterwards we went out to get some ice cream - who can say no to ice cream! :)

Jeff is ready to dig into his ice cream!

A few weekends ago we had a Maddie and Cole over to hang out for the day, the kids ended up having quite a wide variety of activities that they did to find entertainment for themselves - the day went by very quickly!

Playing a game of life together

After playing inside, they all went outside to play on the Ninja Warrior obstacles until the heat pushed them back inside!

Just hanging around....

Cole trying the warped wall

When they went inside, their fun morphed into a pillow fight

While the girls decided to play at less "impactful" activities!

Random picture:

At one of Zachary's soccer games - hanging out on Dad's shoulder.  Addison is in a phase that she loves to wear dresses!