To commemorate the last weekend of summer (a joke in Florida, of course), we headed down to Pompano Beach which is just north of Fort Lauderdale.  I am usually not a big fan of the ocean with the kids because you have to drive an hour to get there, lug everything on to the beach, sit there for awhile in the blazing sun, lug it all back to the car, deal with all the sand everywhere, and if you get really unlucky like we did in June when we went, suffer through a thunder and lightening storm with your kid who goes hysterical over it.  Yeah, the beach isn't my favorite thing.  BUT, if we actually stay somewhere ON the beach so that you literally walk from your door to the beach, that is completely different.  That is what we did in this case with a last minute deal at a Marriott hotel.

We headed down Sabbath afternoon - - it's about a three hour drive for us.  Just as we pulled up, I realized I had forgotten Colby's pack-n-play and Brady's sleeping bag. Whoops.  Thankfully they did have a pack-n-play so that crisis was averted.  There were no extra blankets in the room but we did request one and that worked for Brady on the floor (yes, I know it seems a little mean that he just sleeps on the floor but he still has a toddler bed at home and rolls out of any bed that doesn't have sides.  We know because it's happened).

A little dark but you can see the blue of the ocean at least.

View from our patio.

We still had a little time left in the day so it was out to the beach from there.  For a holiday weekend, the beach was pretty deserted...many because it was later in the day?  I'm not sure but it was very nice  to have so few people around us.  The water was a perfect temperature and the beach was just complete sand.  It was wonderful.

We ate some food we had brought with us and then it was off to Sawgrass Recreation Park (about 45 minutes away) to do a "Gator Night Tour." Basically it is an airboat ride but at night.  This park is located on the outskirts of the Everglades but as was clarified for me, it is not part of the Everglades National Park.

The kids have never been on an airboat ride before and it's been decades for me (and never at night, of course) so we were all pretty excited.  There were 25 of us on the boat so it was pretty good size.  Our captain was Gerald and I can only describe him as one of the most authentic persons I've ever seen.  He was probably in his 60's and he had a Southern (I guess that's what you'd call it?) accent and told us right off that he lived on a manmade island in the middle of the Everglades and he rode a boat into work every day.  He had been doing these tours and working in the Everglades for the last 30 years and although there were many other captains for the airboat tours, he was the only one who would do them at night.  The others were "too cautious." That made you stop and think!  He explained that although it was very dark and we ourselves wouldn't be able to spot gators, he had on a very powerful headlamp and he would be scanning the water back and forth and his light would catch the glint in the gators eyes.  Then, he would drive over to the gator and if it didn't dive under, we would be able to see it.

Long pants and sleeves and lots of bug spray.  Although we were moving so fast most of the time, we didn't have to deal with bugs.

Gerald

We managed to sit in the front row and the whole thing was just awesome!  There was just a sliver of a moon so yes, it was pretty dark!  You could see grass/bullrushes sticking up in the water in front of you and Gerald would just drive through it.  He somehow knew where he was going although it seemed to me that a person could get lost pretty easily out there.  Sure enough, he kept sweeping his headlamp back and forth as he drove and after about 15 minutes, he spotted one!  Once he slowed down, we could see the glowing eyes way off in the distance as his light stayed on it.  The gator didn't go under but instead just kind of treaded water as our boat approached. We were able to get right up next to him.  This experience repeated itself about five more times and I will say it was a neat rush each time you would spot the gator eyes way off in the distance.  About the second or third gator we spotted, we all got a rush of adrenaline.  Gerald explained that when the light shines in the gators eyes, they become blind, just like we would with a light shining in ours.  Sometimes they'll crash into the boat because they can't see where they are going. We pulled up to this one gator who started swimming right towards the boat at a high rate of speed...and he didn't slow down until he smacked right into the side of the boat directly next to Duncan and Brady.  It was pretty freaky and I think a few of us screamed! A few minutes later, Brady comes and sits next to me and I find out that he was doing so because he was afraid Duncan was going to throw him in.  When the gator had crashed into the boat, Duncan had picked Brady up very quickly and was holding him near the edge of the boat so he could see but in Brady's little mind, he somehow though Duncan was going to throw him in!  We felt really bad and Duncan obviously assured him that wasn't the case at all.

Another time near the end of the trip, Gerald slowed down and we coasted for several hundred feet at least.  None of us could see anything so we wondered what he was looking at.  Finally, we saw.  There amongst the bullrushes was a baby alligator about the size of my forearm.  We were all completely astounded as to how Gerald could have possibly seen a gator so tiny from so far away but somehow he did.  He explained that most baby alligators get eaten by male alligators but this one was about a year old and had survived.

The tour was supposed to be an hour long but you could tell that Gerald was really enjoying himself and we didn't end up back until about 20 minutes past the end time (it was now 9:50).  By this time, poor Brady was really tired and had his head down on my lap.  We piled into the van and all the kids were asleep in about 10 minutes (or 10 seconds in Brady's case).  Duncan and I drove back in contented silence.  The sound of a fun day for your kids!

After a good night of sleep (kids slept with no problems although some really loud people in the hallways woke me up at some point in the night), we headed down for breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  We got a deal where the breakfast buffet was included for Duncan and me and then all kids under 12 eat free so that meant free breakfast for all.  After that, it was on to the beach where most of us would remain for the whole day.  The kids had a really, really great time, I would say in particular Aubree and Brady although all of them loved it.  Calleigh enjoyed going back and forth between the pool and the ocean but Aubree and Brady just wanted to stay in the ocean the whole time, playing in the waves.  Again, there wasn't a huge crowd of people which was very nice although the pool, which seemed particularly tiny for a hotel, WAS a bit crowded.

Breakfast

The tiny pool  This was taken early Monday morning before we left.  Hence why there aren't many people in it.

At one point, Duncan took Calleigh and Colby to the pool and I stayed in the ocean with Aubree and Brady.  Brady had his goggles on and was trying to swim and look for shells or what have you on the bottom.  I told him he needed to get the snorkel so he wouldn't have to keep coming up for air.  He ran and got it and I helped him put it on and he used it for about two minutes.  Then, he stands up, takes it off, and turns to me and says, "Can I throw this on the beach so we can just enjoy the waves?"






I took Colby up for a nap about 2:00 pm and Duncan stayed out with the other three. About 4:30 pm, they all came back in so we could get ready to go get some supper (we hadn't eat lunch).  As they traipsed back in, I took one look at them and said "Oh, no." Yup, we were those parents who did a horrible job of reapplying the sunblock. Poor Aubree, especially, with her fair hair was completely red faced. Parenting fail! Clearly we are not accustomed to being outside for the entire day like we were.

We ate at the fine establishment of Kiki's Pizza where a family of six can eat for the low price of $24 which included a beverage for Duncan.  Can't beat that!  When we got back, Aubree's belly wasn't feeling very good so I stayed with her while Duncan took the other three to the pool (we weren't going to battle sand again, for sure).  After they came back, Duncan, Calleigh, and Brady curled up in one bed and Aubree, Colby, and I in the other and we watched a few episodes of Beachfront Bargain Hunt.  It was very relaxing and I really enjoyed all of us lounging together.  Of course, eventually we had to break the party up so that everyone could go to the proper beds to sleep.  It didn't take much urging since everyone was tired out from all the sun.

Brady actually fell asleep under this desk because he left the bed in a huff because at some point he didn't want to be in the same bed as Calleigh as we were watching the show.

When I woke up Monday morning I couldn't find Duncan or Calleigh.  Finally looked on the patio and found them playing Monopoly Deal.

Monday morning we got an early start because the plan was to go to Lion Country Safari which was about a 55-minute drive north from the hotel (in the town of Loxahatchee, just west of West Palm Beach).  We wanted to be there at 9:30 when it opened especially since we thought it might rain later in the day.  Lion Country is indeed a safari where you drive your car through the "safari" and wild animals are roaming freely around.  Sadly(?) this did not include the actual lions who were penned up but we did have huge rhinos walking right next to our car as well as zebras, giraffes, tortoises, ostriches, and numerous other animals, most of which I've never heard of before. At one point, we pulled up next to some grazing animals and I looked down at my handout to identify them and Brady says "Look at the wildebeests." Yup, sure enough.  That kid had learned more from watching Wild Kratts than you could in a textbook.
It took us about an hour to drive through the safari and then we parked to do the walking part of the park which had some rides, lots of more animals, a splash playground, two waterslides, a train ride, paddle boats, etc.  I was fearful it would be very crowded because of the holiday but we didn't have to wait to do anything. It took us several hours to get through everything (did I mention it is still very HOT in Florida at the beginning of September) and we ended our time with a meal in their very reasonably priced restaurant.  Just as we were finishing up (about 2:00 pm), it started to sprinkle so our timing seemed to be perfect.

The lions

Got to feed the giraffes.

With all four of them sitting together on this little train ride, I will admit I had a tear in my eye thinking about them all getting older.

The boys took a nice long nap on the way back and it was an uneventful trip although we did feel incredibly bad for all the people headed south on the turnpike as it was backed up for miles.  Apparently lots of people must come up to Disney for the long weekend.

It was a great trip but it didn't end on a positive note for Aubree.  As she was getting ready for bed, she couldn't find her "Aubree" blanket and we realized we must have left it in the bed in the hotel.  She has had the blanket since birth and has her name embroidered on it.  She was devastated, of course, and I thought "Here we go again" since I quickly recalled Calleigh's reaction to losing her "Calleigh" teddy bear on our trip to Williamsburg last year.  I was confident, though, that the hotel would find the blanket in the bed since I was 99% confident that's where it was. She had slept with it that night. Alas, no luck.  We called that evening and again the next day and they said they'd get back in touch.  I called them a third time on Wednesday and they said they didn't have it.  So discouraging especially when you KNOW that's where it was. Someone (a former employee of Duncan's) had handmade the blanket so I know I can't get the exact same one but we will work on getting a new one for her.  Note to self: Do not let kids bring their precious belongings when we are going to hotels.

Tuesday morning it was back to business.  Work for Dad and school for the kids. Brady is still going strong with his schooling but it comes and goes. Sometimes he'll just play with Colby for long stretches and then come to ask to do school work. Sometimes he wants to do it right away.

Wednesday the girls started their homeschool PE class.  We had started doing it at the end of last school year and are happy to be getting in at the very beginning this time.  It is a measly $8 for the month (every Wednesday).  The teacher, Rodney, is really great with the kids.  They are doing soccer this month and will be doing a different sport each month.  The only downside is that you have to be six so Brady can't do it.  I thought about doing the homeschool gymnastics again so he could join but it's so expensive and frankly, I'm appreciative of not having another commitment.  Our school days are definitely longer this year with some additional subjects we haven't done in the past.  It is so nice to just be able to work uninterrupted in the mornings to get our work done rather than having to break for some class (the PE class is at 10:00 which is most inconvenient). Even with days without interruption, I am still finding that the girls are having to finish their individual work after lunch which generally didn't happen in the past.  Still, we school much less than a regular school when you consider we don't start until around 9:30 or 10:00 am.

The boys having fun in the game room during PE (these are free).

If you've ever read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, you will recognize this letter tree that I started for Brady.  So far we have "A" and "B."

Some other pictures from the week...

At ice skating on Tuesday night, one of the local girls was headed off to a competition so she did her routine (to music) for all the kids.

For Science, we had to start a fire using the sun and a magnifying glass.  It worked.  Don't try this at home, kids. Ha!

On Thursday afternoon, one of Aubree's best friends, Eva, and her mom and two sisters, came over for a play date.  It was a great time!

For years I've wanted Calleigh to love reading as I do and finally things have started to click.  I haven't had the heart to tell her no reading at the table since it's all so new.

Brady with a "broken" foot, lots of bandages, and a "Pick-Up-Sticks" canister representing a prosthetic arm. Not sure what happened to him.

Have a great week!

This week was the semi-annual consignment sale, Boutique for a Week, in which I participate.  There is a lot of prep involved because you have to tag all your own stuff which means picking a price, entering into the computer, printing the tag, and attaching it to the item.  If clothes are involved, than you have to hang them up and iron them. Duncan gives me a hard time because it is rather time consuming (as in, I didn't do anything in the evenings but that for a week plus).  I was relaying to him how when I took all the stuff to the car on Sunday that I had gotten a blister on my foot and I had sweat pouring down my back.  He wanted to know if it was worth it for a few hundred bucks or so.  I told him, "First of all, last time I made $350 and second of all, don't you know me?? I love anything that has to do with selling something, handling money, tracking what I sell, etc." That's just me...the accountant in me no doubt.  I love buying something at a yard sale for $1 and then selling it two weeks later for $6.  What can I say, it give me a thrill!

I had to drop my stuff at the sale on Sunday afternoon and then I was scheduled to volunteer doing set up at the sale with Jennifer and Katrina from 5:00 - 9:00 pm.  I told Duncan he would be on duty during that time.  So Saturday night he says to me, "How would you like to have a Corey day tomorrow?  I'm going to go on a bike ride and then I'll take the kids to the beach and then on to my parents' after that for supper." Gee, I don't know.  I guess that would work.  Ha!  He left about 10:30 am and I was very excited to have time around the house to get stuff done.  Unfortunately, pretty much the whole time was spent getting my stuff completely ready for the sale but it was still nice to work without having to break to make food, etc.

This picture doesn't do it justice but the guest room has been my staging room for several weeks.

Daddy made sure to keep hats, sunglasses, and sunblock on after our last beach fiasco.

I only had one little snafu and that was that I had forgotten that the Patriots had their season opener that evening at 8:30 pm.  Of course, we always tape the games anyway, which I did, but I knew the kids would want to watch at least the beginning and now we wouldn't be able to start it until at least 9:30 pm when I got home.  Oops.  It was funny because I saw at least three or four Patriots fans dropping off their stuff so I chitchatted with them and they all were certain the Patriots were going to win the game even though Brady was out with his suspension, Gronk wasn't playing, and they were playing a great team in the Cardinals.  Guess I should have listened to them.

The three youngest were already asleep by the time I got home but Calleigh was there to greet me, all ready to get the game started!  She watched the first quarter and a half with me (which was good, so far) but by then it was like 10:30 pm and I told her she needed to get to bed.  She VERY begrudgingly went up so I told her that if in 20 minutes she was still awake, she could come back down.  Well, on the dot, there she came.  Duncan ended up going to bed himself not too long after so it was just my girl and I watching the very exciting conclusion in which the Cardinals tried to kick a 47-field goal to win the game with about 40 seconds left.  They missed!  Calleigh and I were very excited and I was indeed happy I had a companion to watch the game with. By now it was 11:30 pm but I thought, "This is why we homeschool.  She can sleep as late as she wants in the morning." That turned out to be 9:00 am which is when she got up to tell the other three about the missed field goal.  Of course, Aubree and Brady were very upset that they didn't get to watch the game so every night this week Brady would tell me he wanted Calleigh to go to bed while he got to stay up and watch football.  It didn't compute with him that there isn't a game ON every night.

Kind of dimly lit but you get the point.

As far as the sale, I was quite pleased as I sold 192 out of 325 items for a gross total of $695 of which I get $451.  Or, I get most of it.  The kids think they should get some of the money for things that were theirs that they had paid for themselves or gotten as gifts.  We went to the sale to shop on Thursday night (I also went on Monday) when most things were 50% off and the kids had a good time looking at everything.  Brady found a black Build-A-Bear which he claimed he had always wanted and declared, as we were at the register checking out that it was "The best day ever!" I guess he had already forgotten his excitement on Monday night when I had purchased him some boxer briefs.  He immediately put them on and started prancing around and saying he was just like Daddy.  He wore them the next day in which we had ice skating.  I was chitchatting there with my friend Amy R. (not to be confused with Amy Z.) and Brady came up to me as free skating was ending.  He whispers to me, "Did you remember to tell Amy that I'm wearing boxers?" So of course, I had to tell Amy right then that he was wearing his boxers and she congratulated him and he just had this cute smirk on his face like he was the cat's meow.

I swear his ribs are only showing because of how he has his arms.  He may not eat vegetables but I DO feed him other food!!

On Monday the kids had a dentist appointment.  This would have been Colby's initial visit but since he had his "emergency" visit from his tooth problem a few months ago, it was his second visit BUT, it was his first visit where he went back by himself with his siblings.  Sort of surreal to be sitting in a waiting room all by myself!  Before long, the hygienist called me in to review everyone's status and she broke the news to me that Aubree had a small cavity.  At this point, Aubree broke into major tears.  None of the kids has had a cavity before so it was a pretty big deal.  The dentist came in a few minutes later and he calmed her down by telling her it was actually really the START of a cavity and not a full blown cavity and that he was fine with waiting six months to see if it might go away. So now we are sure to brush that area very carefully.  He also told me that the person with the teeth in the best shape is Calleigh who is the only one who brushes her own.  I told Calleigh that I apparently needed to hire her to brush the other kids!  Don't I wish.  I think brushing teeth is one of my very least favorite activities ever.

This week we've started studying ancient Egypt and I am reminded why I love homeschooling.  I love to learn right along with the kids.  I'm sure at some point I learned a good portion of this stuff when I was in school but let's be honest, how much does anyone remember?  Now I get to sit down at the dinner table and ask Duncan "Where were Upper and Lower Egypt situated in relation to each other??" And when Duncan pauses for a second to think, I say "Upper Egypt was actually SOUTH of lower Egypt because the Nile River runs from south to north." Duncan says "Someone just warned me that this was going to happen.  You're going to learn all this stuff and think you're smarter than I!!" Ahhh, it's all in good fun but I do find it so interesting.  The one frustrating thing is not knowing how to pronounce the names.  The king of Upper Egypt was King Menes and I wasn't sure if it was pronounced "Means" or what.  I decided to just go with that.  We were instructed to act out the "battle" between King Menes and the king of Lower Egypt with Aubree playing the part of King Menes and Calleigh the king of Lower Egypt.  When I said we were going to be doing a play, they both ran and got their KIND (Kids IN Drama from our church) shirts to put on.  That's when Aubree started laughing because her shirt said "KIND" and she was pretending to be King Menes.  Of course, later in the day we were watching a documentary for kids on Ancient Egypt and discovered that it's actually pronounced "Men-es." Oh well!  It gave us a good laugh at the time.  King Menes won, by the way.  Now you can be as smart as I.  This is where a smiley face emoji would be good but I don't think you can do that on Blogger.

You can't study Egypt without learning about pyramids!

Making a shofar for Rosh Hashanah

Using sugar cookies to practice our cuneiform writing like the Sumerians in ancient Mesopotamia.

Another thing we are working on is learning all the books of the New Testament (although we already had learned it in first or second grade - - a brush up is always good).  To aid in that endeavor, our curriculum included a books of the NT song including the piano accompaniment.  The girls have been learning to play the song and I find them at all times of the day, tapping the song out on the keys.  It's not a fancy song - - you just play with one hand - - but it sure sticks in your mind and now I even hear Brady singing it randomly.  And it is in my head now.  I'm glad you can't hear me singing it out loud.  Speaking of the piano, Calleigh has now progressed to Book 4 (of the Simply Music "curriculum") which means she is starting to read music.  Up to this point, they've just been learning to play songs without any music which I have really loved because they haven't been bogged down in learning to read notes - - just learning to play songs.  But now it's time to step it up.

Thursday night as I was putting the yard sales into my GPS as I usually do on Thursday nights, I realized there were basically no yard sales at all for Friday.  I think it was because earlier in the week there was a big tropical depression threatening to come our way but then it ended up turning towards Georgia.  The yard sale damage had been done though as people were probably afraid to plan anything for this weekend or at least today.  Now we had a whole free day with nothing going on.  I came up with the idea of riding the SunRail which is a commuter train system that was launched here in Central Florida over two years ago but we had yet to ride on it.  After hitting two measly yard sales, we arrived at the Altamonte Springs Station to catch the 10:23 am train.  As the kids stood there peering down the track waiting for the train's arrival, I honestly felt the same excitement they did.  There is something about waiting for a train...and then seeing that first glimpse of it coming around the corner.  "It's coming! It's coming!" The kids might have said yelled something too, I don't remember! The SunRail is two floors so, of course, I'm sure you know where we ended up.  The train wasn't very crowded because of the time of day, no doubt, so there were plenty of seats.  Some people take the train to the Florida Hospital stop to go to the Science Center but that was only three stops away and I wanted to go farther so my plan was to ride it to Church Street and then we would walk a few blocks from there to get to the big library downtown.  The kids had never been so it was perfect.

Ironically, Calleigh was reading a book about a train.

Why the long face, Aubs?

Thankfully I had the foresight to bring the stroller (which we don't do much anymore) because it was a bit of a hike in the hot sun.  It wasn't far by adult standards but for two little boys who get tired out easily it seems, it was definitely needed.  The kids were very impressed with the library (FOUR floors!) and the huge children's section, especially Calleigh.  She has been reading books like crazy the last few weeks and the branches near us didn't have any more of the books she was looking for (A to Z Mysteries).  Of course, we can always order them to be delivered but she wanted to have some immediately.  She found three she hadn't read but we also found some other series for her to start on including one that is good for Sabbath reading.  That was a major win!

It's so nice when the older siblings can read books to the younger siblings.

We stayed there about an hour and then everyone got hungry so we stopped at Pita Pit along the route back to the train which was to depart at 1:25 pm.  I had been wanting to try Pita Pit out for years and finally got the chance!  I had a really good Falafel pita and then the girls each had a veggie one for only $2.99/each which was a fantastic deal especially since it was the same size as an adult one ($6.19).  Highly recommend the place.

We made it back to the station with plenty of time to spare.  It wasn't very crowded but there were two ladies sitting near us and one of them made my day by telling me, "If you ever teach a class about how to get your kids to sit and wait quietly, I'd love to attend." Simple words but it meant a lot. Thankfully once we were on the train, she wasn't sitting near us so she didn't see the kids arguing about who was sitting where and who got to look at a particular library book first.  I quickly came back down to earth!

Brady, of course, wouldn't eat anything at the Pita Pit so we stopped elsewhere to get him a slice of pizza.

This morning we shook up our usual Sabbath routine by going to a big church service at a rented church in Winter Park.  AHS/Florida Hospital hosted a church program for the area to celebrate 150 years of Adventist health care.  Not to be confused with Adventist Health System (AHS).  The first Adventist medical institution, Battle Creek Sanitarium, was established in 1866 and from there, many other sanitariums and institutions sprouted up including Florida Sanitarium in 1908...which later became Florida Hospital.  The service was full of stories about how it all started, music, and a short sermon from the North American President of Seventh-Day Adventist, Dan Jackson.  There were several thousand people in attendance and I was really blessed although it did get a little difficult towards the end to keep the boys occupied.  They aren't accustomed to sitting in a church service for an hour and forty minutes (no Sabbath School).  I guess I need to host a class on "How to get your kids to sit quietly and wait!"

The stage which included an orchestra and singers.

This exact painting hung in the lobby of New England Memorial Hospital...the hospital where I was born and my grandfather was chief of staff for many years.  When the hospital closed, Florida Hospital purchased it and it hangs now at Celebration.  It really speaks to my heart for many reasons.

A different bench but we still got our weekly Sabbath photo.

This evening we celebrated the Biblical feast of Rosh Hosanna, also known as "A Day of Blowing" or "The Feast of Trumpets." This wasn't quite as involved as our Sabbath celebration but still meaningful.

The kids blowing their home-made shofars to signify the beginning of the feast.

Home-made honey loaf cake.

The ladder symbolizes that we understand our prayers are directed to God on high although I'm not clear on how a ladder symbolizes that!

A few other pictures...

I saw this message posted in a Facebook group for our curriculum and I felt like it was directed right to us.  A girl pen pal from Nova Scotia looking for one in Florida?  Check! So now Aubree has a pen pal and she's very excited.

Board Week at work means Cory Reeves in town so we met him for supper at the newly opened Zoe's Kitchen after ice skating Tuesday night.  Love their food!

This was Colby all upset Friday morning because we didn't do our usual morningsnuggle on the floor in his room.  He does love it so (and so do I).

Have a great week!

Two years ago when Brady was three we made the mistake of signing him up for soccer with the girls.  He lasted half a class and was done.  Ever since, he's been saying that he'd play soccer again when he was five.  Sure enough, soccer began last Sunday and there was Brady all set to play as a five year old.  I think Duncan and I may have been more excited than he was although he was bouncing off the walls when he saw that Duncan had gotten him new soccer shorts and socks.

Sunday morning I was helping him get dressed and he had all sorts of things to say...

Me: "Brady!  Today is your soccer debut!"
Brady:"I AM going to play.  And if I change my mind, I'm going to change it back."

Me: "You need to listen to your coach and do what he says."
Brady:"I hope he speaks English!"

The coach did indeed speak English and Brady did, in fact, do as he was told.  They do a lot of warm up exercises and ball handling techniques and then they get to the game. Considering it was his first game - - ever - - we thought he did really well.  He went after the ball hard and had a couple of times when he had the ball and people were chasing him down.


Afterwards, he was quite red (it's still like 90 degrees here now!) and was sprawled out in a chair trying to recuperate.  I helped him take off his shoes as we would be there for awhile while Calleigh and Aubree did their session (the 4- to 6-year olds went first and then the 7- to 9-year olds).

Me:"Brady, you did so great!  I can't wait to watch you play again."
Brady:"Do you think I could skip one of the weeks?"

Come on!  I know he had fun but he's already looking to take a break.

We did watch the girls play too in case anyone is wondering if we completely ignored them now that Brady is playing!



This week we had the pleasure of watching two Patriots games since they played Sunday afternoon and then again Thursday.  Calleigh watched all of both games with me and is now convinced the Patriots will be winning the SuperBowl.  Brady watched parts of both games and after playing a lot of catch and throw of his football with Duncan, he had this to say..

Brady: "I know what I'm going to be when I grow up."
Me:"What?"
Brady: "A football player.  But I"m NOT going to be on the Patriots because they already have a Brady."
Me:"Well, you know Tom Brady will be old and won't be playing anymore by the time you get old enough."
Brady (completely perplexed):"WHAT??? Okay, I guess I will be on the Patriots then.  I'll be Tom Brady since he'll be gone."

I mean, I **think** he'll be retired but maybe Tom will be 60 and still playing.  Who knows!

It's so weird seeing somebody else playing QB for the Pats

The Patriots did do something for the first time though which I thought was pretty neat.  The first black starting QB ever in their history!

Colby is very inspired watching Brady play football so he had to get in on the action too.

This week was one of routine...school, art class, ice skating, Adventurers, yard sales. Aubree did have a bit of excitement when she got her new "Aubree" blanket in the mail.  I had ordered her a new one off Etsy about 10 days ago and she has been asking every day when it would get here.  She was especially excited because the font that was used to write "Aubree Lynn" on the blanket was called "Aubree" even spelled the same way.  Yesterday the blanket arrived and even though she really wanted to sleep with it last night, she gave it to me to sleep with.  Why?  Because the reason she loved her old blanket so much was because she said it smelled like me.  This afternoon she and Calleigh got it out of my bed and Calleigh buried her nose in it and yelled "It smells like you!  Awwww!" I'm not sure exactly what I smell like but I guess it's a good smell!!  She still didn't want her blanket tonight so as I write this, I'm cuddled with it on my bed.

This week we've been studying the Egyptians pyramids and mummies which prompted some very interesting discussions on how just exactly the pharaohs were mummified. We were also inspired to make some pyramids out of sugar cubes which I finally had to throw away after a few days because the kids kept walking and by and licking the pyramids.

I'm not sure that there were Native Americans around in Ancient Egypt but they made their appearance at the sugar cube pyramids nonetheless.

Using shaving cream to practice spelling for the girls, Brady his letters, and Colby just for fun.  I always hate the mess afterwards but the kids love it.

Since we are studying mummies and how they are preserved, we are doing a science experiment by burying these items in dirt for a week and seeing what happens to them.

Calleigh digging the hole to bury them.

We are also doing an experiment to see what happens to bread, toast, and bread with antiseptic ointment on it after a week.

Tomorrow we are celebrating Yom Kippur for school. Because you fast on Yom Kippur, the "feast" is celebrated the evening before which we did tonight. Yom Kippur is a "Day of Atonement" in which you confess your sins to God so that you can be have at-one-ment with him.  My friend Amy, who celebrates the feasts, says that the fasting also includes fasting from drink, not just food.  However, Duncan and I aren't quite willing to make that kind of commitment, at least not at this point, so we will just be doing the food fast.  It started at sunset tonight and will go until sunset tomorrow.  This will be the first time I have ever fasted so we shall see how it goes.  I asked Aubree if she would be willing to even just skip one meal and she was completely aghast so I took that as a "no."

Dad said a blessing over each of the kids.

Fortunately they didn't giggle as much this time as they did when we did it before.

And yes, if you look closely, you will see that some children preferred to eat cereal at this special meal. Incidentally, the one lit candle as opposed to two for previous feasts, is a special candle to remember our loved ones who have passed away.

Some other pictures...

Duncan got the new iPhone7 which takes pictures underwater.  This also means I now inherited his iPhone6 Plus (I only had the 6).  So far after two days, I'm liking the bigger size.

Colby in Sabbath School building a house for Elisha.

The Isidro kids came over and Brae helped build another sugar pyramid.

Yup!  It's happening.  Only three months and a day until Christmas!!

The news came out in the morning about Brad and Angelina's divorce and then later in the day, I saw this at the grocery store.  So I guess sometimes the "tabloids" are actually correct!

Brady drawing himself during Adventurers.

Happy fall y'all and have a good rest of the weekend.

Last weekend (not the one that just passed), we celebrated Yom Kippur which entailed Duncan and I fasting from sunset Saturday to sunset Sunday.  As I had mentioned in my last post, this is the first time I had purposely fasted for a whole day and I was curious to see how well I would fare.  It turned out that I didn't have a problem at all although the reason for it wasn't a great one.  I woke up Sunday morning with a blazing headache.  I knew it wasn't from fasting because I had eaten supper on Saturday night (before sunset) as usual so I hadn't yet skipped a meal.  I still managed to make it to a consignment sale though while Duncan took the kids to soccer.  Priorities!

Playing football with some friends

Aubree in the green shorts.

Playing football with Dad.

Later in the day, Calleigh had Marley's birthday party to attend and on the way there I finally gave in and took some Excedrin Migraine which I was afraid to do on an empty stomach.  But I was desperate.  It helped a little but I told Calleigh I couldn't sit and chit chat for two hours and look at people eating food (not that I was really hungry because of the headache but still...) so she was on her own for the party.  After we got home, I had all the kids give me a neck and back rub and the boys even massaged my feet. Ahhhh! A reason in and of itself to have children!! Meanwhile, I was starting to feel a little bit hungry and I thought maybe eating food would help the headache in this case. Time to check the phone and see EXACTLY what time sunset was...7:18.  I started making food at about 6:50 and we started eating at 7:19.  Duncan had a massive headache too so both of us were anxious by then to eat and see if it would help (it didn't much so I ended up going to bed early).  All in all, I found it pretty easy to go the day without food because of my condition but I do feel bad because I think part of the reason to fast is to have a clear mind and spend some time communicating with God but it was really tough to do that with the way I felt.  I look forward to trying it again sometime.

Calleigh with Marley the birthday girl (turning 9)

Meanwhile, these three were home with Dad.

This past week we were still working on our Ancient Egypt unit and I brought out an Egyptian Mummy Kit I had gotten at the Skeleton Museum a few weeks ago.  It's available on Amazon too but I got it half off at the museum. The kids had SO much fun digging/scraping the mummy out and both girls declared again their desire to be archeologists when they grow up.  I highly recommend this kit for your kids or it makes a great gift for someone and it's not that expensive (like $11 I think).  It is a little messy though but totally worth it!  Incidentally, I didn't tell them what they were digging out so it added to the mystery of it.

We learned about how they built pyramids using friction.

It's easier to move a big load if you reduce the friction by using an object (like the markers) to cover the smooth surface.

Last week we had buried a tray with apples, carrots, wood, and a rock to see which things decay.  We checked it almost every day to see if it was still buried and on the very last day we discovered it had been dug up by some animal.  We found only one of the apples over near a tree, half eaten.  We dug around and at least found the one carrot and it was clear that it was definitely decayed.

We finished learning the books of the Old Testament so the girls had to put all of them in order using the cards they wrote them on as we learned them each day.  They both got them all correct.

This past Sabbath we had Adventurers which was a trip to Lake Lotus Park and a picnic supper.  To get to this park on the weekends, you have to park offsite and take a "tram" ride to get into the park.  The activity, an A to Z scavenger hunt as you walk along the boardwalk trail, was lots of fun but many of us parents were wondering why this activity wasn't planned for cooler weather.  It is still so hot here now with the temps almost reaching 90.  We sucked it up though!  The best part was food being provided so that I didn't have to cook (although I did bring my own can of Vega-Links since it's the only hot dogs I eat.  Sad, I know.)  Before we ate, Pastor Barb made the announcement that the last ride back to the parking lot was at 7:00 so FYI.  At about 6:25, the family had finished eating (which may or may not have had something to do with us being first in line to eat!).  We took a look at the sky and the 100+ people all there and figured we better get going before there was a mass rush. So we quickly headed for the "tram" along with the Bergherms.  Sure enough, on our way home it started raining with thunder and lightening so we felt fortunate to leave when we did. As I was getting the kids ready for bed, the warning buzz on my phone went off. Unfortunately, Aubree heard it and asked what was going on.  The warning was for flooding for our county but I assured her that it wasn't even raining that hard and that we were going to be perfectly fine where we were.  But you know how she is...she started getting a little worked up even as I was trying to assure her.  Then Brady pipes up, "Aubree, she's the mom.  She knows everything." So there you go.  And did we drown?  No, we didn't so I rest my case.  Thank you Brady!

Riding the "tram."

This wasn't all of them but the club has 104 kids this year...the most ever.

Calleigh pointing out a baby alligator to Amy.

Right after this picture he realized his fingers were stuck in there.

Aubree with her best friend Eva.

Yesterday after we got over the shock of the Patriots losing 16-0 (which really means little to me since we were playing our third string QB), we decided to finally take advantage of the free public skating opportunity the kids get with their lessons.  They have public skating every day at RDV and the kids can go once a week for free to practice.  It just never seems to work out but we finally made it happen.  This means that I was lacing up for the first time in probably 15 years.  Aubree was so worried, "Mom, I don't want you to skate because I'm afraid you're going to fall down and get hurt." I was touched by her concern but a little perturbed she didn't have more trust in my abilities!  We got to the rink around 6:00 pm and after paying for myself (a whopping $11.25.  Holy cow!) Duncan and I got the kids laced up and then it was time for the moment of truth.  I'm pretty sure they didn't think I was going to be able to skate. But I showed them! It really is like riding a bicycle and I had no problems and didn't fall once.  Now, I'm not my dad or brothers on skates but I can hold my own pretty well. I raced around for a few minutes by myself and then skated around with the kids for most of the rest of the time including holding Brady's hand for a few laps.  The funniest thing is when we ran into our soccer coach, Pastor Moreno, who we had, of course, just seen that morning at soccer.  It was his daughter's birthday and she wanted a skating party.  Her older brother, Josiah, who I think is seven, is the best soccer player for his age group and is a little phenom on the field.  As we passed the bench, we could see him sitting there with his skates on but he was crying.  I couldn't help but think to myself, "Well, we all have our strengths and weaknesses!" Interestingly, that morning at soccer, Aubree had put it through Josiah's legs in this awesome move that we will probably never see again but I was pretty excited.  Anyway, we had a great time on the ice although my feet were killing me at the end.  Those rentals are for the birds.  As we were coming off the ice, Aubree says to me "Wow, Mom.  You are a good skater.  You're almost as good as me." She thought a minute and then says "Actually, I think you may be better than me." She definitely HAS gotten better but not quite that much!  She did tell me that ice skating is her very favorite thing even ahead of art class and definitely ahead of soccer and gymnastics.  It must be the Canadian blood in her.  **I do realize that proper English would have been "You're almost as good as I" but I'm pretty sure Aubree said "me" so I wanted to write it down as is.  Just in case you were questioning my grammar...

Come on!  Look at that form!

This picture makes me look all hunched over though.

Halfway through they brought out the zamboni which I thought was totally unnecessary.  The ice was still in great condition.  Maybe they just wanted us to go buy some concessions.

This morning we went to the play Llama Llama at the Repertory Theater next to the Science Center.  I love going to these kinds of things but it does throw your school day into chaos because you don't get home until like noon.  As we were driving, I made the executive decision that we were just going to go to the Science Center afterwards and call it our school day.  A few minutes later, one of the kids sees us passing the Science Center and says "When can we go to the Science Center again?" And I say "How about TODAY?" They all start whooping and hollering and it makes you feel good. The play was great especially since we got seated on the front row.  It kept all the kids completely entertained and it wasn't too long - - only about 45 minutes - - for us antsy adults.  A good time was had afterwards at the Science Center as I, especially, enjoyed the new Toytopia exhibit which showcased popular toys from the last 100 years.  A trip down memory lane...

Front row, baby!!

Okay, who remembers that orange thing in the top right corner?  A Speak and Spell!  I specifically remember using one of those when we lived in Sterling, MA.  We moved from there when I was seven.  I loved that thing and I have thought about it from time to time even before I saw it today.

You had to build your own car and then race it along this track.

Colby loved working on this train track so much.  It's going on his Christmas list!

Some other pictures...

The kids were so excited because I said they could do a sleepover in the boys' room and Colby could stay OUT of his crib. This was a first!  I was a little apprehensive but this is eventually what happened...

....all asleep on the floor albeit in a slightly different order.  However, we did end up moving Colby to his crib because I worried he'd wake up in the night.

Aubree made the skallops (it's spelled with a 'k' because they are fake) all be herself.

These two are constantly working on some sort of art project that they make up on the fly.

Meet David and Roger.

Waiting to help with the offering.

It's fall in Florida if we say so!  Time to decorate the pumpkins.  We also put all of our decorations out.  I love it! Have a great week!

At the beginning of last week, grumblings started happening about a hurricane headed in our direction.  This is not a surprising development as Florida is an area where hurricanes pass by, usually on the way to other places as of late.  Back in 2004, three hurricanes came through Central Florida (one while we were in Nova Scotia) and they ended up being fairly ho-hum (the first one did cause some serious roof damage for some folks).  For some reason, I distinctly remember Duncan and I walking out of an Albertson's grocery store right before the last one hit that year and chuckling at how everyone appeared to be overreacting to the storm like it was Armageddon or something and it turned out to be harmless even though it was a Category 1 passing right through us. With that memory in my mind, I refused to get too worked up about this one especially since all projections showed it to not be making landfall anywhere near us.

Now, I will give the caveat that we have no tall trees whatsoever near us...I'm sure if we did, I may have taken the storm more seriously.  But, since we don't, Duncan and I really weren't worried about things at all.  We didn't buy 168 gallons of water as advised by a hurricane preparedness website (that's one gallon per day/per person for 14 days) or buy, say, 19 loaves of bread.  I did, however, buy a 6-pack of Propel (peach flavored water) just so I could feel like I was doing something.  And to really stick it to Matthew, I even purchased eight boxes of FROZEN mini pancakes on Wednesday because they were BOGO.  I was THAT confident that the storm wasn't going to be huge and we wouldn't lose our power.

School was cancelled on Thursday and Fridays at every school except Green Gables Christian School.  Yup, that's right.  I'm the mean homeschool mom that made her kids have school even when every other school was out.  Stinks to be a homeschooler sometimes!  But actually, the kids didn't really even make the connection that school was cancelled elsewhere so it was all good.  Duncan got home mid-afternoon and he and the kids spent some time bringing in everything from outside.  We wanted to take some precautions at least.

They had been saying that the storm would hit some time during the night and I figured the kids would want to sleep with us just in case.  As Thursday wore on, the time kept getting pushed forward but it was too late to take back the sleepover invitation so it was the six of us bunking together in our room, Colby once again in a sleeping bag because the pack-n-play was now buried behind a bunch of lawn furniture cushions in the garage.

Before I turned in at about 1:00 am, I checked the hurricane tracker one last time and it was nice to see that the storm had moved east (about 20 miles, it turns out) and was no longer going to actually make landfall directly east of us as originally thought.  It made a huge difference.  I thought it meant I would have a nice easy night of sleep but then Colby woke up about 2:30 am and was all wet and then Calleigh woke up at 3:00 am saying her belly hurt.  The latter was particularly concerning because she had just had a "throw-up session" on Tuesday morning (after a two month lull).  I offered her a glass of OJ to see if it would help because one of Duncan's doctor colleagues thought she might be suffering from hypoglycemia.  She drank a few sips and she didn't end up throwing up which was very nice but I am not convinced it was the juice.  Anyway, I ended up sleeping on the couch with her the rest of the night in some weird position because she was hogging the blanket.  Not the best night of sleep..
The fiercest past of the hurricane hit on Friday mid-morning.  Things were whipping around but no significant damage of any kind occurred.  I would say the gusts were around 50 miles per hour.  We never lost our power although Ron and Elaine did which was no surprise.  After 2004, Ron bought a generator to be prepared. However, as the years went by and no hurricanes came through, he finally sold the generator at our yard sale in April, making the statement at the time, "Now we know a hurricane will hit." So yup.  Blame Ron! The worst part of no power is the lack of a/c because it's still pretty hot around here at the beginning of October.  We were glad to have them come here so they wouldn't have to sleep overnight in those conditions.  It turns out, they got back the power that night anyway.

The extent of our damage.

Watching coverage Friday morning.

Grandpa heading out Sabbath morning.

Everything at church was cancelled except for third service.  It was a capacity crowd who heard a terrific sermon.  Brady was apparently unimpressed though.

My cousin Megan had to go in to work Thursday morning at 7:00 am and could be there up to three days.  She didn't have anyone to take her dog so she asked us. Sushi is a big girl...over a hundred pounds as she's part Great Dane part bulldog.  I knew she was older(eight) now and calmer so I thought it would be a neat experience for the kids.  They welcomed her with open arms! She fit right in and was really good with the kids including when they lied (laid?) on top of her.  The first night we kept her in the crate and that proved to be a bad move because she started whining and crying during the middle of the night but as soon as I let her out, she was fine.  Megan had warned me about not letting her get around any food (which I should well now from my dog days).  As we did school on Thursday morning, one of the kids mentioned a snack and I said they could go get one.  Well, awhile later we all came downstairs for lunch and I noticed the pantry door open and there was a suspicious looking bag on the floor near it. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was a bag of sub rolls, torn open with only 1/2 of the four subs left.  I had another bag of three in the pantry so I quickly went in and checked and they were gone too.  I looked around and couldn't see the bag on the floor anywhere and went into a panic that Sushi had eaten the rolls AND the bag!  How bad would that be?  Thankfully a minute later one of the kids noticed the empty bag in her crate.  Phew!  After that, we made sure to keep our panty door closed.  Megan came to pick her up on Friday afternoon and we were very sad to see her go especially Colby who was sleeping at the time and woke up to find her gone.  Some significant tears were shed.

So, all and all, Matthew was a dud but it did do some damage albeit far removed. Duncan was set to go to San Diego on some business for a few days, leaving Sunday morning.  Alas, a couple of the hospitals on the east coast which had been evacuated ahead of time, were having challenges getting back up and running so he had to cancel his trip.  Thusly, he was around on Sunday morning to take the kids on a bike ride on the West Orange Trail.  I was happy to stay home and have a few hours to myself to clean up and get some things done.  About thirty minutes into my relaxing interlude, Duncan calls me and says "Calleigh crashed and she broke her tooth.  It's pretty bad." Arghhh!!!  I wasn't sure if the tooth was bad or if Calleigh herself was bad or both.  I wasn't even dressed yet but I threw on some clothes and sped over to Chapin Station which is near where it occurred, calling Jennifer on my way to get tooth advice.  I was expecting to find Calleigh all scraped up and bleeding. She was neither of those things but she did have her hand clapped firmly over her mouth and wouldn't take it away.  Turns out she was going at a low rate of speed when she got too close the edge of the trail and "fell" off the trail which is a "ledge" of about three (?) inches off the ground.  Even though it isn't that high, it was enough to knock her off the bike and her face had hit the pavement.  Aubree was behind her going a regular rate of speed and managed, at the very last second, to avoid crashing into Calleigh.  Had she not, no doubt Aubree would have had some serious injuries herself.  Duncan says Calleigh got right up, covered her mouth (she thought it was bleeding but it wasn't), and said "I"m okay, I'm okay." She didn't realize she had broken her tooth until Duncan told her.

I called and left a message for the dentist who called me back within a couple of minutes which was very impressive.  I wasn't sure if we needed to find the broken off piece of tooth.  Duncan had no luck finding it in the grass, weeds, and dirt and neither had I.  Thankfully he said it wasn't that critical and after sending the dentist some pictures of Calleigh's tooth, he proclaimed that no serious damage was done and that I could call in the morning to get an appointment to come in later in the day.  Poor Calleigh seemed to believe that tooth was going to get fixed that day and was very upset that she was going to be in her current state until then.  As the day wore on, however, and after Duncan showed her some pictures of fixed teeth, she relaxed completely.  Her biggest fear, which she kept mentioning through her tears after the incident, was that she was going to be like me and wouldn't be able to eat anything any more.  It is true that with the veneer and crown on my front teeth, I have to eat much more carefully than I once did.  But I still lead a happy life and I assured Calleigh it would all be fine.

She won't mind me sharing now that it's fixed.

We were able to get an appointment at 1:30 pm and Elaine was kind enough to meet us there so that I could go back with Calleigh while Elaine stayed with the other three. I was thinking it was going to take a few hours but it was really amazing.  It was back to good as new less than 45 minutes later and she didn't even have to get a needle to numb it or anything.  You can't even tell to look at the tooth that part of it is "fake." Dr. Bertot used some sort of resin to just fashion the missing portion of the tooth.  Bada bing, bada boom.  The bad news, indeed, is that this fix will only last a few years at most.  With kids, it's harder to keep them from breaking it again whether they eat something too hard or have some other accident.  So in all likelihood, we will be back there before you know it.  But at least we know it isn't that big of a deal.  When she becomes a young adult, she can get a veneer which will be much sturdier.  I'm just glad my girl can smile again with confidence.

Good as new! The marks to the (your) right of her nose are also from her bike accident.

In other more important matters, Saturday evening we gathered at the Zbaraschuks to pray for 4-year old Sammy Vohwinkel who has leukemia.  His mother, Stephanie, was my very first friend when I moved down to Florida in 1998 and I actually knew his dad, Matthias, from when I did a summer internship the year before.  They moved to Texas some odd years ago but we still keep in touch, especially since they homeschool their four kids and more importantly, because they are good people.  Anyway, Sammy got diagnosed about two months ago and he needs as many prayers as he can get if you are the praying type.  Some other friends who knew them also gathered and although it was a nice evening of food and fellowship, our primary goal was to do something special for Sammy, including a group prayer.  Our family shared the special text of Joshua 1:9 which is a personal favorite..."Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." I'm glad we always have hope that God is in control!

Some folks working on the letters to spell "SAMUEL"

We had letter "A" and each kid put their handprint on the sign.

Vasti had a special reading.

We did FaceTime with Stephanie, Matthias, and Sammy (who has been in the hospital for three (?) weeks.

Some things we've been doing for school lately...

Playing "The Royal Game of Ur" an old game back from ancient times.

Stirring some baking soda and water together to make crystals (has to sit for a few days with a string hanging in the solution)

Got this for Brady and he loved it!  He did all 30 cards in one sitting.  Maybe HE will be my math kid because so far I'm 0-2.

At first I had to give him beans to use as counters but then he figured out how to do it without them.

Making her name using Egyptian hieroglyphs

Calleigh doing the same except using some Hieroglyph stamps we had.

Painting pottery at art class.

Some kind of Mexican art.

Homeschool PE.  Doing basketball this month.

Swish!

Boys in the game room while girls are doing PE.

Making papyrus today.

 Some other items...

Aubree has been checking the mail every day for a letter from her penpal in Nova Scotia.  She finally got one back!

We baked some chocolate chip pumpkin bread to take to our new neighbors which we attempted to do on the Friday afternoon of Hurricane Matthew.  Alas, the neighbors had evacuated elsewhere it appeared.

We had success on dropping it off on Sunday.  Only the dad was available so he said he'd stop by with his wife and son the next day.  They did and were so super nice and brought us flowers and a card as a thank you. I am inspired to bake something for more of my neighbors now.  Have a great week!

Just as we did last year with our fall field trip to Williamsburg, Jennifer, Vasti, and I decided to do a field trip this fall...a tradition in the making, if you will.  This year we (or it was me, I think!) decided to go to Atlanta with a quick stop in Chattanooga as well. Other than driving through on my way back and forth between school and Florida when I was in college, I had only been in Atlanta once.  That was ten years ago when Ron and Elaine lived there for a short spell.  I knew there was lots to do and the good news was that it wasn't nearly as far away as our drive to Williamsburg.

We had been planning to go up on Sunday after soccer but we discovered that Stone Mountain didn't have much going on during the week at this time of year so we had to revise our plans so that we could be at Stone Mountain on Sunday rather than Monday.  That meant going up on Saturday instead.  Jennifer and I decided to go up together since we were staying together while Vasti was staying at her sister's apartment - - she left a little earlier than we did.

For our accommodations...we didn't end up booking anything until a few weeks before we left.  We discovered that the Atlanta area is rather expensive.  Nothing seemed just right on VRBO and hotels with a kitchen that were even available (not many) were WAY expensive.  But then one day I was struck with the inspiration to try AirBnB since Ron and Elaine have used it a couple of times.  What a big difference!  Places were much cheaper and I found a whole townhouse available for a great price. The lady who owned it had gotten married so her place was now sitting empty.  I was immediately impressed at how quick she was to respond to any of my questions.

Jennifer and I left at 3:30 pm and arrived at 10:00 pm.  I had brought supper with us so we didn't have to stop really except to go to the bathroom and get gas.

We were pleased with the place when we got there.  The only drawback, which we knew going in of course, was that it was three stories.  Why do people do that??  I mean, I know why they build them but why would anyone want to live in them??  As luck would have it, I was the one sleeping in the third floor bedroom and if I were a cursing person, I'm sure some choice words would have been coming out of my mouth going up those long flights of stairs as I carried/dragged the burgeoning duffle bags.  I look forward to having some strong, strapping boys someday. As for the location, the townhouse was only about 20 minutes from downtown which was terrific.  Driving in the first night,  the immediate area looked slightly rundown but the next day when we came in from a different direction, it looked much nicer coming that way.  Overall, we didn't feel unsafe or anything.

Our bedroom.  The bed was very comfortable. It did come with bedding but this picture is from when we were leaving and I stripped the bed.  Notice the pretty fall trees out the window.

Game room on the first floor.  We rarely went down here.

The second floor, aka, the main floor.

We finally got everything in and all the kids settled into bed and they were asleep and Jennifer and I sat down to relax and talk before hitting the bed ourselves.  It was probably about 11:30 pm.  As we sat there, I suddenly thought I heard a familiar sound.  "Did you hear that?" I asked.  We listened again and a minute later, there it was again. "That's a smoke detector!" said Jennifer.  Sure enough, a stinking smoke detector was making that chirping sound it makes when the battery is low.  We deduced that it was coming from upstairs (we were on the middle floor in the living room at this point) so up we went, trying to figure out exactly which one. Shoot!  It was in MY room.  What followed was a whole bunch of problems as we couldn't find any new batteries and as soon as I had taken the one down from my room, the one out in the hall started beeping too.  Eventually we realized that we would have to leave them down and take out the batteries to get them to stop beeping.  Unfortunately these were the only detectors on the third floor so then I had to go to sleep with the uneasy feeling that if a fire started up there during the night, we would have big problems.  Not my best night of sleep!  By the way, the kids all ended up sleeping in the same room as me.  There were only two bedrooms so obviously Jennifer and I each took one but there was also a loft with a sofa bed.  I thought maybe the girls would sleep there but they decided not to.  Colby was in his pack-n-play and the other three were on the floor.  They slept fantastic the whole time.
Sunday - Stone Mountain

We were up and out of the house by 9:15 for our 40 minute trip to Stone Mountain which was to the east of downtown, while we were west, right near the airport. Thankfully we didn't need to go through downtown to get there so we didn't hit any traffic at all.  We had bought a Groupon for the day which didn't turn out to really be a big savings but it was all good.  Despite it being Sunday, the place wasn't very crowded and we didn't have any wait.  We did the gondola type ride to the top and a whole bunch of other kid activities down below that I never even knew they had when I was there ten years ago.  I guess I wasn't concerned about kids stuff then though.  One of the highlights for us was Calleigh getting selected to be in a pie eating contest with two other kids.  She was really in it just for the whipped cream which is what did her in. Two of the kids asked for whipped cream on their pumpkin pie and the third, another girl, didn't.  Common sense would say she would be the one to win since she had less on her plate to eat.  Sure enough, that's what happened.  When we reported it to Duncan, he said he was glad that his daughter had NOT won the contest! And Calleigh herself didn't care...she was just glad to eat the whipped cream!

Headed up the mountain on the sky ride.

Atlanta way off in the distance.

Hard to see but the carving in Stone Mountain is in the background.

They had a fun ropes course for those too small for the bigger one.

I think you had to be 40 or 45 pounds to do this one which meant Brady was out, of course.

There was a huge four story barn that had all these balls the kids could shoot.

This slide started on the fourth floor.  I put Colby (although this picture is Brady) on one of the slides and then suddenly realized I didn't know where the slide came out.  It disappeared into the wall for a bit.  I went into a panic because it took me SO long to find the end of it and I was afraid Colby was roaming around looking for me.  Fortunately, all was well.

We played a really fun game where we were on a team with a couple other people playing against three other teams and we had to see who could find random things like a "Honda car key" or "a camera" the fastest.  We did the best but then at the end they gave a bunch of bonus points to the best on-stage performer and one other team had a cute little boy do it.  We should have sent up Brady!

These were the three on our team.

Calleigh getting her whipped cream.  I finally had to yell "Enough" from my seat.

You couldn't use your hands.

They had a pumpkin festival going on complete with carnival games.

One thing I felt bad about going on this trip was that I was going to miss Tom Brady's home debut when the Patriots played the Bengals on Sunday afternoon. I couldn't get anything worked out with watching it on my phone so I figured that was that and I'd watch the highlights later.  But then!  Sunday morning I noticed that the game was going to be on the local CBS station in Atlanta AND the townhouse had a DVR.  I was SO happy.  The only problem would be making sure that I didn't somehow hear the score which might be hard with Blake around who was checking often.  But, I pulled it off and it was a very happy fan who sat down on Sunday evening after a full day and got to watch the Pats dismantle Cincinnati.

Monday - CNN, Coca-Cola, & Aquarium

Monday morning we were out the door at nine something again, this time for a trip to downtown.  I was concerned about traffic (because isn't Atlanta known for it's horrific traffic??) but it appears we were a little later than rush hour. Jennifer and I parked at a parking garage right next to CNN and I was worried about how much it would be. Maybe $30 or $40 for the day since this was what it would be in Boston? Nope. It was only $10.  What a nice surprise!  We parked for the whole day there because all of our activities were within walking distance.

Atlanta has a great deal on a something called a City Pass which is good for multiple attractions and saves so much money compared to paying for each thing individually. Included was the CNN Tour which we decided to do first because I figured it might be the one to least interest the kids for the day (although it would be the most interesting for me!).  If I had taken a moment to think, I would have recalled from when I did the tour before that they have TV's, many of them very large, showing CNN 24/7.  I was a bit worried what was going to be on those TV's all around us seeing as Calleigh has this strong desire to watch the news.  Thankfully it was nothing too serious...mostly election coverage which I do realize can be dangerous itself but nothing bad on that morning.  The tour was interesting in that you aren't allowed to take any pictures which was a shame but I guess it makes sense.
Next up on the list was Coca-Cola.  We had thought it would be close by but when I checked my phone for directions, it said it was a mile away.  We didn't want to move the cars so we decided to just set out since it was a gorgeous day and we wanted to walk through Centennial Olympic Park anyway.  We stopped at the edge of the park after walking through to play on a playground and as we started up again, we noticed a building right next to us with a big Coke bottle on it.  A quick check confirmed that it was indeed where we were going. Apparently I had brought up the office building on my map search as opposed to the building they do the tours in.  I was so glad we hadn't tried to drive there.



We enjoyed the tour but the highlight, no surprise here, was getting to try all of the Coca-Cola products at the end.  You get a cup and you go around to all the machines and drink as much as you want.  There were dozens and dozens of choices because they make sodas tailored to a particular country that we would never find for sale in the US.  We all declared that the worst soda, by far, was one called "Beverly" from Italy.  I can't even describe what it tasted like but it was nasty and we all dumped our cups out immediately.  At the very end of the tour, each person got a glass bottle of Coke to take with them.  Brady was so excited about that bottle and kept asking me when he would get to drink it.  I finally had to level with him that there was NO WAY he was drinking it as it was full of caffeine and obviously sugar.  He was crushed but was partially appeased when I said he could have a sip if Daddy ended up drinking it.

If only it was the World of Pepsi-Cola so I could get some Mountain Dew.

They say that the secret recipe for Coke is in the vault there.  Seems a little sketchy but they make a big deal out of it.

Had to take a picture with the Sphinx in the background since we are all about that these days.

Cheers!

Nasty Beverly is there on the far right. As Duncan said, they didn't spend much on branding.

When we finished there, it was on to the Georgia Aquarium which is arguably the best aquarium in the US, according to some.  Since I have been to so few aquariums I can't say whether that is true or not but it's certainly the nicest one I've toured.  We ate lunch in the cafeteria first and then spent the next five plus hours there.  A good time was had by all especially Aubree when we saw a dolphin show at the very end.  She already liked dolphins before that but this solidified for her that she wanted to be dolphin trainer when she grows up.

They have several Whale Sharks which are really cool.

We thought this was neat since it says it was one of the largest alligators ever measured and it was out of Lake Apopka which is our lake we "live" on.

All the bigger boys wanted to do was go outside and play football.  So we took a break and let them all play for awhile.

Aubree and London.

We wrapped up the evening by eating supper at the CNN Center where they have probably 20 restaurants in the food court.  Clearly it isn't very busy in the evenings as there were barely any other people there.  I tried the veggie burger from BurgerFi for the first time and it was fantastic.  Pricey, but fantastic.

Tuesday - Zoo Atlanta and Fernbank Museum of Natural History

Tuesday morning it was off to the zoo.  We enjoyed ourselves although we were disappointed that the pandas weren't available for some reason.  They were shuttered in their building.  They had enough other animals to keep us busy though and a nice cafe to have lunch.  We were also pleasantly surprised when we got to do the few rides and climbing wall they had for free.  Usually it was like $2 per person per ride but with the City Pass you got to do unlimited rides/climbing for free.

They have three lion brothers and they were just sitting all in a row here staring at us.  It was really neat.

Lunchtime.

Calleigh and Aubree are in there somewhere.  Brady wasn't big enough once again.

Train ride.

The zoo took us until mid-afternoon and then Jennifer mentioned that we could get into Fernbank for free, either using our City Pass or our Science Center passes which had a reciprocal agreement with the museum.  Hearing Jennifer say "science" I assumed Fernbank was a science center so I put that into my map app.  It was about a 20-minute drive during which time both Colby and London fell asleep.  We got to the museum, which had a sort of inaspicious look about it, and very gingerly took them out of their car seats and into their respective strollers.  Both continued sleeping.  Success! We walked into the place and immediately saw a sign that said "Admission is free but donations are accepted." That didn't seem right!  Why was the City Pass putting a ticket in our booklet for the place if it was free?  As it turned out there was BOTH a Fernbank Science Museum AND a Fernbank Museum of Natural History.  Whoops! Vasti, who had left a little later than us from the zoo, was already at the correct place, the Museum of Natural History, when we called her.  We felt like some dumb tourists but then the other bad thing was that we had to take the sleeping children out of their strollers and back into their car seats again.  And yes, you guessed it, they didn't sleep through the transfer a second time.  Fortunately the correct location was only five minutes down the road but the "damage" had already been done.

The correct place turned out to have a really neat boardwalk in the back and then also on the third floor, a terrific kids' area.  We were very sad that the museum was only open until 5:00 pm because we ended up not having enough time for it all.  We did get to catch an IMAX movie at 5:00 pm though on dinosaurs, much of which we didn't agree with but it did have some interesting things in it, nonetheless.

That's Colby in red on the right.  He couldn't quite get up the courage to go across this bridge.

This was the area the kids loved.  The museum was basically empty which I guess is what a Tuesday afternoon during the school year will get you.

Wednesday - Uncle Bob's Pumpkin Patch & Newnan, GA  

Tuesday evening after Jennifer and I had put the kids to bed, we sat around chatting about our plans for the next day.  We were headed up north of the city where we were going to do a scavenger hunt and visit the Cabbage Patch Hospital.  She gave me the address and when I put it in to look at the directions, it said one hour and thirty minutes.  What??! When I told Jennifer she swore that when she put it in at home, it had said 40 minutes.  Clearly that hadn't been correct.  Not only that but we would have to be driving right through downtown so it was probably way more than 1:30.  No way were we going to undertake that.  That left us with no plans for the next day.  We thought it might be nice to go to a pumpkin patch somewhere, since it was fall after all, but every place we could find was only open on weekends to the public and weekdays to groups but only with reservations.  I finally posted on the big homeschool group I'm in on FB asking for Atlanta people to give me advice and someone mentioned Uncle Bob's Pumpkin Patch which was about a 40-minute drive south.  I checked their website and it seemed to be the same problem, groups during the week but only with reservation.  I decided to just call when they opened at 9:00 the next morning to see if we could get in on short notice as a group since there were 12 of us.

We had just eaten breakfast when I called at 9:01 am and explained my situation.  She was really apologetic on the phone when she said that they were completely booked up for the next few days. I told her thank you, it was worth a try.  She then comes back with, "Well, if there is any chance you can make it here by 10:00 this morning, we could get you in." I said I'd take it!  None of us were even dressed yet but Jennifer and I went into super fast mode and got out of that house within 15 minutes and arrived at the farm by 9:59 am.  We gave ourselves major props.  That wasn't an easy feat with seven kids! As it turned out, since Vasti was farther away, she didn't get there until 10:20 am.  They were nice though and said it was fine if we started out tour when she got there.  So we pulled it off.

Just finished the corn maze.

On the hayride.  I wore a giant "14" around my neck so they could keep track of our group.

Learning about weaving.  This is the wife of "Bob" whom the place is named for.   We noted that everyone there was really nice which basically could be said for everyone we encountered on our trip.

Guys, honey bees are SO interesting.  Seriously, this was probably one of my favorite things on the whole trip...just hearing her talking about the bees and seeing the queen bee.  I need to watch a documentary.

Another smaller corn maze.  Aubree was a good sister and took Colby through it.

Pottery making.

At our last stop on the pumpkin tour, a lady gave us a recommendation for lunch in the town which is called Newnan.  It turns out that Newnan is one of the towns where they film the TV show "The Walking Dead." I have never, nor will ever, watch this show, but it was clearly a big deal for the town which we could tell by walking into the restaurant with signs up everywhere.  The town was indeed very cute and after lunch we took the kids to an area downtown where they could play some football and soccer. After a stop at Stone Cold Creamery, we had to say a sad good-bye to Vasti, her mom, and the boys as they were continuing on the next day to Kentucky to go to The Ark.  Then Jennifer and I headed to Goodwill for some shopping.  Considering that we had done a ton of fun things with the kids, we figured they could put up with shopping for an hour!

On our way in for lunch.

Football and soccer after lunch while Jennifer and I drove around with our napping children.

He's clutching his gourd they gave him at Uncle Bob's.

It was sad to see our friends go.

Evan bought the game Pie Face but with a twist.  You don't know which one the whip cream is going to land on.

Who's it going to be???

Is the one who gets the whip cream in the face the winner of loser??  Hmmm..

Thursday - More Shopping and Tellus Museum

Thursday morning it was time to check out of our townhouse.  The five nights had gone by fast.  I was very happy to see that it was much less work to get the duffle bags DOWN the stairs rather than up but I still swore I would never stay in a place like that again...at least not without Duncan with me.   It was time to head north as we would be staying in Calhoun, Georgia with Cory and Amanda Reeves for Thursday and Friday nights.  Jennifer would be staying with some friends the next town over from there. The great news was that Bruce and Duncan were both flying in that afternoon to spend the next few days with us.  It turned out that Duncan had a meeting with Cory and others in Tennessee on Monday so he was able to come up a few days early. Jennifer's friend, Clint, was to pick the guys up at the airport which was a huge relief for us.

On our way up to the Tellus Museum, which is a Science museum in Cartersville about 45 minutes south of Calhoun, we stopped at Once Upon a Child.  We had a little extra time so we decided a little more shopping was in order!  As for Tellus, we were able to get in free to that one with our Science Center passes.  It wasn't a huge museum by any means but it did occupy us for a few hours and the kids REALLY loved mining for gems.

Picnic lunch.

So fun!  I even got in on the action.

You could also hunt for dinosaur teeth and bones.

We settled on Mexican for supper and the guys arrived with Clint just in time to eat. How exciting to be reunited with Daddy!!

From there, we had to part ways with Jennifer which was a little sad after being with them for so long.  But it was on to Cory and Amanda's.  We were anxious to see their house they had just finished building and they had been bugging us to come up.  The house was gorgeous!!  We are exceedingly envious of their property too since it has woods as far as the eye can see and Noah and Jake play outside in it for hours.  They also have two dogs and chickens.  The kids had a really, really nice time there and were so sad when we eventually left.




Friday - Chattanooga

Chattanooga is only about an hour north of Calhoun so it was convenient for us to spend the day there on Friday.  We had gotten some high recommendations to do a rock climbing place, High Point Climbing and Fitness, in downtown Chattanooga so we decided to start our day there.  I'm so glad we did!  The three eldest had a blast there particularly Brady who started off slowly with the whole climbing thing, since it was his first time, but then quickly picked it up and was climbing like a freak by the time we left. The neat thing was that they had an auto belay system so that nobody had to stand there holding the other end while the kids climbed.

Aubree would only go this far.

But once she saw Brady go to the top, well then, both girls followed suit.  They couldn't let their little brother outdo them!

Calleigh

Aubree

Colby hanging out.  They say kids as small as three can do it but there really wasn't any way he was going to be able to climb more than a foot or two.

Some men went down into a manhole and that was very exciting for Colby.

We ate lunch at a local pizza place and then it was on to Raccoon Mountain Caverns where we took a 45-minute tour of...some caverns.  It was very neat although a bit stressful because we couldn't touch anything lest the formations stop growing.  Hands transfer germs or something which can stunt the growth.  I didn't understand it all exactly...just knew it was bad to touch stuff which is hard to monitor with four kids!  I did come away knowing that I would NOT be interested in doing a longer tour where you put on a head lamp and crawl around on your knees and even stay over night in there. Not for me!





Our next stop was Lookout Mountain, a short drive away.  Here we did a incline railway trip up to the top which sported a gorgeous view of Chattanooga and beyond. It's claim to fame is being "the world's steepest passenger railway." It was about a 15-minute trip up and indeed, I really had to wedge my foot in at the end of the trip to prevent myself from tumbling out of my seat since we were at such a steep angle (we were facing down, with our backs to the top of the mountain as we went up).  Meanwhile, Colby fell asleep on my lap on the way up and I didn't have the heart to wake him up so I spent the next hour just holding him on my lap on a bench at the top.  Oh, it was so nice to just hold him like that because how often does that ever happen?  He is usually in his crib for nap time.

My view from where I was cuddling Colby.

It was nice that Duncan was there so he could take the kids and along with the Bergherms go exploring while I was indisposed.  There was a park there at the top, Point Park, that is actually a National Battleground, and we got stamps to take home for our passport book (I wished I had brought the actual passport book with us!) Duncan got a bunch of great pictures of the kids in the fall leaves there so it was a very successful outing.
All in all, we found Chattanooga to be a charming city and I was very glad we added it to our field trip.

Sabbath - Church & Departure

We attended church in Calhoun, which I noted was very warm and friendly.  We sat just behind the administrator, Pete, of Gordon Hospital (the AHS hospital located in Calhoun where Cory is the CFO) and his wife.  They were very friendly and Pete shared with me that they had homeschooled both of their kids all the way through high school.  That was very encouraging.

This attraction is right behind the church.  A church member made cities and such out of stones.  Tour buses even come in to see it!

After church we had some haystacks courtesy of Cory and Amanda and their amazing kitchen and then it was time to pack up and head out.  It was particularly sad because we were leaving Duncan behind.  He tried his hardest to get me to stay but I really didn't want to miss another Sunday of soccer and plus, I wanted a day to unpack and get settled before the new school week on Monday.  The journey home was very uneventful and we pulled into our driveway at 12:09 am after leaving at 3:36 pm.  It was longer to get home because we were farther north in Calhoun than where we were in Atlanta.

We always knew we could find Colby in the play room.

It was a terrific trip and I can't wait to figure out where we go next year.  As Brady told me in wonderment about four days into the trip "Mom! We have done fun things for us EVERY day!!" Nothing beats spending time with your kids (and hubby) exploring this great country of ours.

Since I'm about three weeks behind if you take out the week we were gone, I figure I'm going to just do a picture summary to catch up.  So here we go...

Love watching the kids all enthralled in the same thing.  In this case, the book Picturepedia.  Great book and recommend getting it from the library if you can. Here's the LINK on Amazon to see what it is.

Ninja!!  Inspired by the show "American Ninja Warriors" the three eldest have joined a Ninja class on Thursday's at Gymnastics USA. Unfortunately they only had size Small shirts for the first class so the girls had to wait to get theirs - - so only Brady posed.

They love it SO much.  The teacher, Chris, is super nice and the class is only six kids total.  In this shot you can see where Aubree is coming off the padded wall after jumping up on it.  They are doing all sorts of stuff - climbing ropes, tumbling, crawling along the underside of balance beams, etc.  They enjoy it so much more than regular gymnastics.

I decided to go ahead and order the Kindergarten curriculum since Brady was continuing to bug me all the time about doing school and what I had just wanted cutting it for him.

My homeschool cohort, Vasti, who is one year ahead of me in the school curriculum threw a Roman Feast and invited kids and moms to come in Roman attire.  Love these two!

Part of the group.  I didn't stay with the boys because it was a Friday and I had to get my yard sale-ing in, of course! The girls had a great time though.

Addision and Calleigh happened to be wearing matching dresses.

This guy.  He missed the rock climbing in Chattanooga.

Playing the old Egyptian game, Senet.

Brady working on gluing the sea for the second day of creation.

Started up ice skating class again and the Zbaraschuk kids are in it this cycle.  Always more fun to have friends!  Incidentally, Brady really has improved his ice skating. One class a few weeks ago, suddenly he was going quite fast and turning on a dime.

Studying Esau and Jacob for Bible so we made some lentil stew/soup after we read about Esau giving up the birthright for a bowl of it.  We followed a recipe in our teacher's manual and it was so good (the key ingredient was the lemon!)

We can't let the fall pass by without attending at least one festival.  I took the kids to the one in Windermere where I had lost my phone last year.  Sadly, Duncan was gone all week on business so it was just me and the kids.

Breaking the tissue paper on cups to get a prize inside.

This was crazy.  You got three throws to knock down jugs with a ball.  Brady went up there and in his three throws, he knocked a jug down on the bottom each time.  Bing, bang, boom.  It was so methodical.  That's my lefty!

Colby was on cloud nine to do a monster truck bouncy house.

The kids were so sweet to each other all evening.  Aubree and Brady paired up to watch each other in the bouncy houses while..

...Calleigh and Colby were a "team."

But above all, they had fun together and I think I actually teared up a little watching them .

Watching a science experiment.  Looking to see the reflection of the fork on the top of the water from the underside.

Punching out some oranges to use on a tree for creation Day 3.

The girls got their shirts!

We had a yard sale at Ron and Elaine's on Friday, October 29.  Since Duncan was out of town, we stayed over Thursday night which made the kids very happy! The sale went great and I made $550 although $250 of that was from selling some big lawn equipment.

The girls with their lemonade/brownie stand.  They made $16...not quite as much as they made last yard sale.

Ron has been sort of trying to sell this wheelbarrow wheel for several yard sales.  I say sort of because it once belonged to a wheelbarrow of his father's and is thus obviously quite old.  He wasn't sure if he really wanted to sell it.  Someone tried to low ball him and he said "no" and then this lady overheard and said she wanted to buy it for the full price (which was only $25).  She seemed like such a sweet lady so we had to take a picture to document it.

These kids crack me up sometimes with the things they play.  All hail "King Brady."

This past Sunday was "Let's Move Apopka" which was in place of soccer. The kids participated in a fun run.  Here they are stretching beforehand.

Brady in the yellow getting ready.  Colby is behind him so you can't see him.

Unfortunately, someone accidentally set up this bouncy house/obstacle course right in the middle of the fun run so you had to go through it on your run.  Aubree was REALLY mad about it.  She was taking the run very seriously until she found out about this.

Colby!

Duncan is trying to train her so that she can go 5K's with him.  The day before she had run two miles with him only walking for a short bit of it.  She is inspired by Duncan's colleague Herb, whose two daughters (ages 12 & 14) did the 5K as part of the Let's Move day.  Both finished first in their age category and the oldest, Lauren, finished FIRST overall for all women.

Sunday evening we attended a birthday party for Victoria Fulbright and were encouraged to wear costumes.

Arghh Matey!

They had rented giant tricycles and they were so fun to race.  Here's Duncan in the foreground.  He was not victorious unlike yours truly!

Not only did he not win but on the second lap, he took a tumble.

The girls organizing the Abraham/Isaac/Jacob/Joseph family tree that we had written out on index cards.

Monday evening (aka, Halloween), we had Trunk or Treasure at our church and we were pretty sure this was that blasted bouncy house from Apopka the day before.

The game we brought was "Throw the ring on the squash/pumpkin." It was not quite as popular as the game in the background.  A friend from church, Irene, had a basket on the roof of her car and she had kids try to throw a ball into it.  She gave kids who did real money!  Calleigh won a $2 bill and then Aubree got $5 because it was the end of the night and she had run out of $2 bills.  They were quite excited.

Calleigh with Violet...She looks up to Calleigh and it reminds me of when Calleigh was this age and how she liked the bigger girls.  Calleigh is very kind to her.

Tuesday evening Jennifer, Katrina, and I went to Universal CityWalk to celebrate Katrina's 40th birthday which was the next day.  We wanted to keep her out late so we could be with her when the clock struck midnight and it was officially her birthday.  This is a new restaurant that just opened and it was amazing.  It's a full restaurant not just desserts.  I had some Brussels sprouts with a mild jalapeño sauce and it was to die for.  As for the desserts...a milkshake is...get ready for it...$12!!!  It is an impressive looking milkshake but wowzers!!

Two of these ladies are now 40 and the other one likes to remind us that she's not.

The boys made a new friend at PE...Conner.

Not sure what happened here but Conner seemed quite pleased.

Okay, I think we are back to the present day.  I will leave you with a couple quotes from my dear Brady.

As he tries to identify the letter "G" and is having a hard time:"I'm trying with my whole entire brain."

As he sits on the potty, he yells out to me:"Mom, pooping is fun!  It's nice to have quiet time and just relax."

Doesn't he sound like pretty much EVERY dude?

Happy Sabbath!

Last weekend we were at Camp Kulaqua with Adventurers, hence my lack of a post. Not too much happened last week though - - just the presidential election!

I don't want to get political on here so I'll just talk about facts.  The facts are that leading up to the election, Calleigh must have asked me at least five times, "Who do you think is going to win?" And every time, I unhesitatingly said "Definitely, Hillary." I think pretty much everyone thought that!  I honestly wasn't sure if I was even going to vote especially after my last experience when I had to wait almost two hours.  That was soon after moving into our home here and I wasn't accustomed to those kinds of lines. Fortunately, I had noted that we had a new polling location this go-round and my hope was that meant a shorter line.  I was willing to give it a try.  We finished up school early and headed out at about 11:15.  And voila!  There was literally one other person voting in the whole place.

Backing up a minute...as you know, I drive around every Friday going to yard sales.  I travel in and out of about six or seven towns/cities and two different counties.  Over about the last month, the kids and I have been observing all of the campaign signs in people's front yards of which there have been many.  I am not kidding at all when I tell you that we saw one, ONE, Clinton/Kaine sign in all of our travels. It was so crazy. That was compared to hundreds and hundreds of Trump signs.  We did wonder if it was an omen.

We had ice skating that evening but upon our return home, we turned on the TV coverage and settled in for what we thought was going to be a short night.  When Obama won the two times, I seem to recall knowing pretty early on that he was going to win.  Calleigh insisted on watching it all with us even when the other three went off to bed.  Actually, that's not true.  Aubree was downstairs too but she fell asleep really quickly.  Eventually, Calleigh succumbed too and that just left Duncan and me.  Of course, it feels like you are watching it with a lot more people because we were texting my family constantly throughout the night.  What did we do before texting?!!

And she's out.

The whole thing was all surreal.  Trump was winning states nobody thought he would win, including Florida.  I kept thinking he was going to fizzle out but it never happened. Unbelievable!  Since I am a night owl, it was no problem for me to stay awake and I was determined to stay up until after he made his speech.  Poor Duncan had to go to work in the morning (or should I say, later that morning) so he hit the sack around 1:30ish but I stayed up until the end and probably didn't get to sleep until about 3:45 am.   Good bless homeschooling!  Calleigh got Colby up in the morning and the kids watched Dolphin Tale until I rolled out of bed at 10:20 am.  Needless to say, I'm sure we weren't the only ones skipping Homeschool PE at 10:00 am!

In the end, Orange County, which is our county, heavily voted for Clinton as they did for Obama last time.  Seminole County was still Republican but not as much.  I have no explanation for why Orange County had no Clinton signs up!

Friday afternoon we were off to Camp Kulaqua.  I like going with the Adventurers better than the church because the club covers all the meals so I don't have to worry about it. We had the option of staying in the on-site hotel this time but we opted to continue staying in the mini-lodge.  It's closer to everything and plus, we have a common area for the adults to sit and talk after the kids are in bed.  The downside is we have to bring our own bedding and towels but we are used to it by now.  Jonathan Biri joined our Adventurers this year (he was at Apopka last year) so it was the Biris, Bergherms, and us staying together.  They were kind enough to let us have the room upstairs so it was our usual sleeping arrangement.  The kids slept perfectly and Duncan and I even got to sleep in the same bed this time since previously I always kept it open for Colby to join me if needed.  So glad we are past that!

It seems like half the time I don't pack appropriately for the weather and this was one of those times.  You see it will be 80 during the day and you don't pay attention that it will only be 55 in the mornings.  I only brought one pair of leggings for the girls and they were filthy by Sunday morning but they survived! It's nice to be a little bit cold again after such a hot summer.

We had a nice time as usual with a bunch of activities and honors going on.  The only snafu I would say was the eating.  There was so many more kids in the club this year that it would take a really long time for everyone to go through the line to get their food because it was single file.  We also didn't have enough seating for everyone and for one of the meals, we ended up having to sit on a bench to eat instead of a table.  But again, I didn't have to cook so it was all good!

We had a table this time.

Friday night vespers.  Not sure why my three are the only ones standing!

I just had to take a picture.  These girls - - Lindsey, Mia, and Aubree - - are ten days apart in age.  All three have blond hair, blue eyes, and apparently like pink!  I thought it was interesting to see the height range too.

This is how Colby rolled.  We didn't bring our stroller this time so he rode in from of London who was thrilled with the arrangement.  Colby did get a little frustrated at times with her pulling his hair and ears.

Just two bros hanging out.

Working on an honor.

Apparently Johnny didn't want to work on the shield so Vasti recruited Brady who was happy to work on it by himself instead of having to share with the girls.

Katelyn reminds me so much of Acadia both in looks and she also has an older brother the same age as Camden.  And now I see she's left handed just like Acadia!

Sabbath afternoon at the zoo.

He's growing on me.

The cutest little workers ever!  They got to serve the fruit at supper on Saturday night.

One funny thing happened Saturday night.  We were broken up into two different groups.  Our group went on a hayride first and then the bouncy house was second.  It was this big obstacle course one like they did last year.  Colby can do it all by himself now and he was so excited when he got off it the first time that he started running around like a crazy kid.  He ran down the side of the bouncy house and ran right through this "arm" thing like he was running through a ticker tape to win a marathon. The only problem was that it was the attachment to the fan that keeps the bouncy house blown up.  It came right off and you could hear the air starting to come out like when you're blowing up something inflatable and you take your mouth off it.  Duncan ran over to it quickly and got it reattached but not before the guy in charge had to come out from helping kids to see what happened.  Oops!  A few minutes later, I could hear Calleigh explaining to someone "My brother accidentally knocked off the thing that blows the air into the bouncy house." I told her "It was NO accident! He did it on purpose." Although obviously he didn't know that's what it did.

The scene of the crime.

Right after the incident, Duncan took Brady back to our lodge because apparently Brady was bored?  Maybe he was just tired but after doing the course one time, he came up to me and says "Can you please take me to another exhibit?" Not sure what he was expecting!

On Thursday we broke up our school week by going to the Festival of Trees at the Orlando Museum of Art.  I can't quite wrap my head around why I have never taken the kids there before although when I was telling Duncan that he said, "Don't you remember taking Calleigh there as a little kid and her screaming and crying when she sat on Santa's lap?" I guess that's why we've never gone back! Well, we've missed out because I loved it so much.  Of course, I am a sucker for anything Christmas but then throw in a piano playing Christmas music in the background and I'm a goner.  The neat thing was that they had a scavenger hunt to do as you looked at all the trees and gingerbread houses so that added another layer of enjoyment to the experience as well.  You can get an annual membership to the Museum of Art for $80 and the deal was that the tickets to Festival of Trees would be free which normally would have been $35 so I figured $55 for the year was a good deal.  I think we will enjoy going back to see other things during the year.  Something we haven't done before!

American Girl doll tree.  The girls were smitten.

The gingerbread houses were really impressively done.

Some of the smaller trees and wreaths.

The only complaint is that nobody had the answer key.  I wanted to know if we got some of the ones where you had to count items on the tree correct.  Ah well!

After that, we moseyed over to the Orlando Science Center which was next door so we could check out the new KidsTown expansion they opened last month.  I was very impressed with it as were the kids.  I'm very thankful that Calleigh has not outgrown any of the stuff yet - - she had just as much fun as her younger siblings even though it is geared more towards them.

The new orange grove.  Kids could have stayed here for a really long time.

We had to stay for lunch, of course.  This kid kills me.  Sometimes he will eat two bites of his food.  Other times, like this time, he will eat an entire pizza (albeit a personal size) in about four minutes.

Some pictures of what else we've been up to...

Proud of my hard working girls!  Jennifer had a big order due and "hired" the girls to tie bows around a bag with a cookie in it.  It was a bit of a challenge since it was three ribbons at one time but they did great and got paid to boot!

Studying liquid, solids, and gases for Science.  Experimenting with candle wax changing between liquid and solid.

"I want to do more experiments, Mom" he says.  This is what I came up with after all the candy from Trunk or Treat.

Making fig cakes for our Egyptian feast.

Eating...Egyptian style!

Well, I'm not a makeup artist, obviously, but we had fun!

The girls are back on their AG doll kick so it was only fitting that Lea and McKenna join us for school.

At Adventurers a few weeks ago...one of the dads who is a firefighter taught the kids about fire safety.  He showed a video about how to call 911 and it included a part about how when you're outside and need to call, you should look for a payphone.  Seriously?? I'd say the movie is SLIGHTLY outdated.  I actually think it's kind of dangerous in a way to show the kids this, as if a payphone is a viable option.

Barnes and Noble on a Saturday night.

The actual celebration for Katrina's birthday...Sunday morning breakfast at Keke's.

Colby is so happy he can do this 24 piece puzzle all by himself.  It's permanently kept on the floor and he takes it apart and puts it together several times a day.

Brady is in charge of making sure the toilet paper stays stocked in the bathrooms.  I came up with a good way for him to carry the rolls upstairs.

Daddy was gone to Boston on business for a couple of days and brought everyone back a t-shirt.

We did public skating a few Sunday's ago.  Aubree was so sad because she seemed to skate slower than what she had been doing.  Last week I got her some new skates since the old ones were getting too slow.  She says "I hope they're fast skates." Bless her.  If only there were such a thing.  She does seem to be doing better with them though.

Uniform Sabbath on the first Sabbath of November.  Colby will be wearing one next year at this time!

One of those parent moment's that you aren't exactly proud of but can't resist.  Someone knocked Brady's smoothie all over his face and Duncan couldn't resist taking a picture before cleaning him off.

This was from last month but I just saw it on Duncan's phone and couldn't resist posting it. I love it so much!

Good thing I don't believe in Santa or I would be on his naughty list for my tardiness in posting here. The thing is, I have the best of intentions but each evening when I should be typing, a Christmas movie comes on the Hallmark channel and I can't help myself. The kids are in bed, the tree lights are twinkling, the pine candle is aglow, and I can't help but sit and soak in all the Christmas-ness.  These weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are my most favorite times ever.  

The only way to catch up (because I have a movie I've started and need to get back to) is to mostly post pictures so bear with me!

I will give a separate shout out to Thanksgiving Day at least.  It was wonderful! The kids really do love the holiday so much and can't wait to watch the parade and spend the day with their friends.  We had 32 persons...19 adults and 13 kids.  The menfolk did their usual golfing in the morning and we ate the big meal at about 2:15 pm.  I love having it earlier than we used to so that I have time to look at the ads for Black Friday before falling into bed from pure fatigue.

The Grodacks (6), Braces (2), Bergherms (5), Bergherms (3), Isidros (5), Isidros (2), Zbarashcuks (5), Bobbi (Amy's mom), Julia (Jennifer's mom)

Jennifer had a friend who made these lovely box centerpieces for me.

Jennifer decorated the inside of this one.

And I did this one.

The outside kids' table.

The inside kids' table.

Time for some games!  An egg race...

A potato race using a spoon only to roll it along.  Now I can see how Aubree (brown shirt) got a hole in her leggings.

Throwing wadded paper into the bowls.

Winners

My handsome boy chilling out (nice photo, Allen!)

The girls and I were in Duncan's car out running errands after soccer a few Sunday's ago.  We were in the Target parking lot and as I stopped to turn into a parking spot, we felt a fairly significant bump to the back side of the car.  Sure enough, someone was pulling out of a spot and hit into us.  The gentleman and his wife got out of their vehicle and the guy was clearly not happy and kept saying sort of to himself, "Where did you come from??? I looked like seven times!!" It was obvious that he didn't think it was HIS fault and his wife was trying to calm him down. The paint job on Duncan's car was clearly damaged but fortunately no dents whereas this guy's car didn't have much to show.  The wife mentioned something about calling the police which I guess I should have but I didn't feel like waiting around.  I finally said that I was certain that if the police came, he would be ticketed because he bumped into me.  I was fine with just exchanging contact info.  That's what we did but Duncan never contacted them. I guess it's too much trouble than it's worth.

Because it's so sunny, you can't even really see much here.

Now for some more pictures of other activities...

The last day of soccer was Sunday, November 20 and it was COLD!

Everyone gets a medal, right??

Guess they saw the Olympics.

Gala time at Disney's Coronado Springs.  Jennifer was most kind and did my hair for me.

The music was Rascal Flatts which I neither liked or disliked going in.  It was okay but really not my cup of tea.  Which was too bad because we were right in the front row.  Duncan and I did have fun watching all the women (some of which were in their 50's) act like groupies taking all these selfies, etc.

Jennifer's basket which she donated to the gala like last year.  It sold for $350.

It was fun having Uncle Ricky and Tia Ana in town from Mississippi for Thanksgiving.

They came to ice skating to see the kids skate.

We introduced them to Zoey's Kitchen with which they were very impressed.

Now that we have eight seats in our van, we were able to take Ricky and Ana on the Apopka Wildlife Drive all in our vehicle.

Got our tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  We first attempted it at Lowe's and then I remembered why we never go there.  The trees are all closed up and you have no idea what you are getting.  We ended up at a mom and pop place in Winter Garden and it was SO much better.  The owner even told us him mom used to be a Patriots cheerleader when he saw our license plate!

Black Friday shopping.  Calleigh is really into dressing her and Aubree alike and the boys alike and will pick out all of their clothes.

We stopped at one of my favorite restaurants, La Granja, for lunch.  They have the most fantastic black beans and yellow rice and three of the four kids love it.  I'm sure you can guess which one won't try it.  We did get him to try a tostone though because it looked like bread.  A Christmas miracle!  You can see his PJ&J there that I had to bring.

I got this set of books at a yard sale for $6 and sold them on eBay for $24.99.  I was very excited!

Colby went on an outing with just he and Daddy and stopped at a Starbucks for a treat.

Found this note that Aubree had written I guess to post on her door.  Love # 5!

Three of the four sound asleep. Poor Colby. All left out.

Building a snake habitat one morning so I let them have a few extra minutes before school started.

Isn't he an amazing artist?  Ha!  Pretty sure Dad helped him here.

Trying to guess which things will float and which won't.

Recording the results. Hard to tell here but a can of Coke does NOT float whereas a can of Diet Coke does.

Diet Coke is lighter than Coke because it's flavored with Aspartame which is much sweeter than corn syrup (used in Coke) and thus less of it is needed. Bet you didn't know that!

Watching water boil and evaporate and then condense on the lid.

We just started studying the plagues so we've brought some of them to life with activities.  Here they had to find 100 "frogs" hidden all over the downstairs.

They were everywhere.

Counting them up.

Afterwards I said I was thirsty and needed water.  Ahead of time, I had put some cherry koolaid mix in the bottom of my glass.  As they watched me fill the glass with water, it looked like it was coming out red like "blood." They were extremely impressed especially the boys and Brady wouldn't rest until I told him how I did it.

Eating lime jello which had turned red from the blood in the water.

Even the toilet water had turned to blood!

Plague # 3 was gnats and Colby threw poppy seeds on the "Egyptians."

Plague # 4 was flies and Calleigh got some (black and white papers from the hole punch) dumped on her head.

Went to Holiday on the Drive in College Park last Thursday night.  I made sure to get there right when it opened at 5:00 pm so the kids could do the trampoline thingy and the climbing wall without waiting a long time.

It worked out perfectly.  They were the first ones!

Even Colby got to do it.

They loved the "snow." It was ice on the bottom but bubbles blowing out.

Calleigh and Aubree just love Violet and Nora.

Elaine so desperately wanted to let one of the helium balloons go that the kids had gotten from a booth.  Finally after a long time, one of the kids agreed and she let it go....and it promptly got stuck in a tree right above her head.  Oops!

The Florida Hospital Church had a jazz group there performing and they were really, really good.  I wished I could have stayed and listened to them the whole time.  We made it through about three or four songs at least.

Decorating some Rice Krispies treasts.

Saturday night we went to Crane's Roost for the tree lighting and fireworks.  Love Colby's face!

Some Girl Scouts sang a bunch of Christmas songs and the kids LOVED it, especially Brady.  I said we needed to leave and he kept wanting to stay for one more song.  And Aubree now wants to take voice lessons!

London's 2nd birthday was celebrated at a park yesterday.

The girls found this new Elmo purse at a yard sale and were SO excited to give it to her since she loves Elmo and purses.

We were going to go to Gaylord Palms to do the scavenger hunt yesterday after the game but it got so late that I enticed the kids to go to Winter Garden instead and stop at Jojo's for frozen yogurt.  They bought it!

I just love downtown Winter Garden.

They have a light show on the town hall.

After nearly a month hiatus, I'm finally back!  What can I say, Christmas is just really busy around here (plus, I STILL can't stop watching Hallmark movies at night when I'm supposed to be doing other things).

I will primarily be doing pictures just to make this go faster.  And on that note, let's get this thing started.

Before I transition to the trip north, when Christmas really starts (!!), I'll wrap things up here at home first.

Plague # 8 - Locusts.  Kids had to find locusts hidden all upstairs.  Aubree had bought a bunch of squishy ones at a consignment sale and I thought it was really dumb at the time but they ended up coming in handy!

Plague # 9 - Darkness.  I blindfolded the kids and then they had to identify various objects using their hands.

Plague # 10 - Death of firstborn. We couldn't bring ourselves to harm this guy here so we skipped it.  Ha!

Went to a lovely Christmas party at the Hilliards complete with a White Elephant gift exchange which is quite interesting when you have 40 kids/adults.  Brady got an adult gift several times so Duncan and I took them in order for him to pick a new one when our numbers were called.

Now that Duncan is really and truly an AHS employee (as opposed to FH), we went to the AHS Christmas party this year which was held at a nice park in Winter Springs.  Duncan didn't get the "wear green" memo for our family.

They did a great job on the party even having some live reindeer.  When Colby saw the reindeer he says "Oh, is Santa in town?" This picture is only a smidgen of the total party area as there were thousands of people in attendance.  I also got to see some old friends I used to work with and of course, my dear friend Stephanie in town from Texas.

I love it when the whole menu is vegetarian!

The next evening I took the kids to Celebration to meet up with Jennifer, Vasti, and Katrina for dinner and to let the kids play in the "snow."

The "snow" turned out to be soapy bubbles but I could have sworn when I was there years ago that it was real snow (manmade, of course).  Aubree especially was really disappointed in the bubbles but they did end up having a (dirty) blast anyway.

Note to self: Bring change of clothes next year.

While out at Once Upon A Child getting some last minute clothing items for up north, Aubree spotted this doll.  She runs up to me and says "It's Kit.  It's an American Girl Doll!!" It was only $6.50.  Clearly someone messed up really bad, big time.  Our gain though!

Last week of ice skating and Brady passed into the next level.  Now all three of them are in the same level, pre-alpha.

We left for my parents on Wednesday morning, December 14.  After our successful flying experience for Christmas last year, we decreed that we would always fly from now on.  Of course, the downside is that it's so expensive to fly around Christmas, particularly coming back since it's right after Christmas.  The way up is usually pretty cheap since it's far enough in advance.  I kept delaying and delaying the purchase of the return home which we wanted to do on Monday, 12/26.  It was like $300 and I was hoping it would go down since it was still three or four months away.  Finally, about the beginning of October when I saw that the price had gone up to now over $400 a ticket (one way!), I knew I had to just do it.  We did have some miles we could use and I also had Duncan's voucher from the summer when his flight had gotten cancelled on his way up to Maine.  It was good for 50% off a flight.  So I go in to book the flight and it asks me for Duncan's voucher number.  I put it in and low and behold!!  It took 50% off all SIX flights!!  I was so happy and also a bit mystified as to whether it was really supposed to do that or not so I hurried up and booked it.  As annoying as it was for Duncan to be delayed by about 20 hours getting to camp meeting, that snafu saved us $1,250 so I'd say it was worth it! Thank you Southwest.

Megan doesn't work on Wednesdays so she was able to take us and our 12 checked bags to the airport.  What would we do without free checked baggage?? We had extra room going up because we knew we would need it for bringing gifts back.  But mercy, just ice skates and winter outerwear takes up a whole bag!

Jennifer made me a bunch of Christmas cookies to take up.  We got the bright idea to give them out to the fight attendants and others who did things for us.  It was SO much fun!  One flight attendant told us she wanted to cry that it was one of the nicest things someone has done for her.  We will make it a tradition each year!

Umm...Duckon?

The flight went great with me sitting with Colby and Calleigh and Duncan had Brady and Aubree.  Both my parents came to pick us up in separate cars which was a big help.  Did I mention we had 12 bags??

Colby held out as long as he could be he couldn't quite stay awake all the way to Papa and Gigi's.

Thursday morning we headed out to Natick Mall and Duncan was delighted to find a Tesla store inside.

Camden and Brady strolling the mall.  Camille arrived with the kids shortly after we did on Wednesday.  Unfortunately Shawn had to preach on that next Sabbath so he had to wait to come down.

Photo courtesy of Camille.

The American Girl store at the mall.  Calleigh and Aubree were waiting for this day.  When they finish a year of piano, they get a new doll.  They decided that instead of getting a regular doll, they wanted to get a Wellie Wisher that was half the price of the big doll so that they could also get a second Wellie Wisher to give to their cousins.  So the same amount was spent in total but they were able to get four dolls this way.  I think Acadia and Winnie were happy with the surprise!

Friday we went to the Christmas Village at Jordan's Furniture.

The bigger kids went to a 3D version of Polar Express.

Colby and Winnie were too little so Camille and I took them to Costco where we basically ate lunch based on all the samples.

On Sabbath, Aubree sang "Away in A Manger" for special music at the Braintree church.  So proud of my girl for having no problems with singing in public!

Our one and only snowfall of the trip happened Sabbath morning (17th).   They were able to play for awhile before getting ready for church.  Later it got warm and rained so it didn't stick around long.

After a potluck at church, it was off to Newport, Rhode Island where the family once again had the privilege to stay for two nights thanks to the generosity of Aunt Lori and Uncle Charlie.  Last year the entire family was there but this year we had to do without Jonathan Wall and family, Aunt Sherrie (who got sick), and Jen who just had baby Landon a few weeks prior.  We still had most of the family though.

Impromptu snowball fight upon our arrival with Tyson and Westin with the little snow that was left.

Just after we got to our rooms, Aubree hit into Colby's head which caused her very loose front tooth to finally come out (after some more wiggling by Duncan).  A very dramatic experience as you can see.

The girls with Hudson.

Uncle Kevin and Dad.

Devin, me, and Rad.

All the second generation cousins save Zasha, Luccia, Landon (who was just born!), and Griffin who had stepped out somewhere.

Hanging out with Mia.

Going on a walk through Newport.

The grandparents watched the kids on Sunday morning while the eight cousin couples went to breakfast.  They broke up into teams to build gingerbread houses.

Calleigh was the captain of her team (Aubree and Camden of the other two) and I thought it was cute that she picked Winnie with her first pick to have on her team (and then Colby next).

Most of the boys.

I guess we didn't get a girl cousin photo (where are you Alison??) but Camille is a pretty good stand in.

A picture of the missing tooth. Acadia lost her bottom one a few days after Aubree.

Sunday evening, we took a stroll through the streets along with Dad.  It was so wonderful.

And...my favorite part.  Everyone watching the game together.  This year it was the Broncos again and again we were victorious! Monday morning we checked out to head back to my parents' but not before getting the awful news that my mom had to go into work.  Every nine to fifteen months the state comes into her nursing home to do an evaluation and the fifteen months was up at the end of December.  You never know when they will come.  Unfortunately they picked pretty much the very worst week.  My poor mother had to work Monday - Thursday of that week with all of her family back home having fun.  It was torturous for us too, though, because we had to make our own food.  Just kidding!  Kind of.

Even though there was barely any snow the whole trip, the kids went skating SIX times which really made up for it.  It has even inspired Duncan to skate so he can do it with them.

Not skating yet but he's signed up to start in a few weeks!

Tuesday we went to Boston City Hall where they've set up a beautiful outdoor rink and a bunch of shops.

I paid to skate and get rentals and as soon as I put them on, I was in complete pain.  They were so uncomfortable on my bunion.  I skated for 30 seconds just to say I did it and then immediately took them off.

We went and ate at Quincy Market afterwards.  One of my favorite places at Christmas.

On our way into Boston, we stopped at my mom's nursing home to see Bob who is now a resident there.  He seemed very pleased to see us.

On Wednesday afternoon, my dad took Calleigh, Aubree, and Camden to the radio station so they could do the Christmas program as they usually do.  This time the program actually aired on Christmas morning (it airs on Sunday mornings) so we listened to it Christmas morning before we opened presents.  It was the first time I had heard them so that was neat.

Got some shopping in at Patriot Place before the radio show and had to take a photo to prove we were there.

Wednesday night Gigi babysat while the rest of us went out shopping.

Thursday was the Pops.  As is our usual tradition, we first went to Cheesecake Factory at the Prudential Center.  We were very worried my mom wasn't going to make it to the Pops since we weren't sure what time the state would leave but thankfully they left in time and she made it! We have gone to the Pops as a family for at least the last 25 years in a row and we didn't want it broken.

Love seeing Aubree with her arm around Camden as we wait for our seats at Cheesecake.

Brady seems to have a thing for Winnie.  Several times over the course of our time together, I would see him caressing her hair or whispering in her ear.

You can see to the right of Aubree's eye that she sustained a hockey injury when Calleigh accidentally hit her with a hockey stick.  We hope it was an accident, at least.

The Pops was great as usual but I did leave disappointed when they didn't play "White Christmas" as they usually do during the encore.

Friday was basically Christmas Eve for us in regards to shopping since the real Christmas Eve was on Sabbath.  I did feel like I was a little rushed at the end of my shopping but that's how it goes sometimes.  It was also a little Christmas though for us too.  Ricky and Ana left the next morning to go to Ana's relatives for the rest of the holiday so we opened presents with them on Friday morning.

Even though some of our group (Duncan) are down on Panera, I always love to stop here for lunch during Christmas because it's so cozy.  Santa also happened to be in the store but Colby was too scared to talk to him.  I'm not really clear if he thinks he's real or not.

Winnie helping Gigi with the green beans.  I got rather nostalgic thinking about Calleigh helping Gigi in this same kitchen years ago as a 2-year old (I think I must have been watching videos of it lately).

These three weren't with us at Panera because they were on a special trip with Gigi.  She takes just the three of them shopping and out to lunch each Christmas and they look forward to it so much.

Dinosaur gift from Uncle Ricky and Tia Ana.

Friday night Freddie, Kathy, and Bruno came over and we exchanged some gifts with them too.

On Sabbath it was my dad's week to be at his Norwood church and he had asked all the grandkids to be a big part of the church program by doing music.

Aubree was going to play and sing "Silent Night" by herself but she wasn't loud enough on her own so my mom had Calleigh sing with her.  Of course, you only ended up hearing Calleigh because she held the mic next to her own mouth but I loved having Aubree play the piano and hearing Calleigh sing.

The girls singing together.  But let's not be fooled.  Winnie was the star!   The song was "Christmas is Here" by JJ Heller and I'm guessing Winnie (like my girls) had never heard it before this season but she knew EVERY word to the song.  And she's two!

Calleigh playing "What Child is This"

Aubree did a reprise of "Away in a Manger" like she had done the week before but Winnie was happy to sing with her.

The kids (along with Bruno) singing "Joy to the World." This cracked me up.  Look at Winnie.  She was so unhappy because she couldn't have the mic!

Colby during the children's story.  He was just playing with the poinsettia instead of paying attention to Papa.

Sabbath afternoon we had a little rest time and then it was time to begin our regular Christmas Eve festivities.  Kelly, Steve, Caleb, and Kaitlyn arrived just in time to accompany us caroling.  The funny thing about caroling was that several people answered the door in their Patriots attire or in one case, their pajamas because they had been at the game earlier and were so chilled from the rain, they had put their pajamas on as soon as they had come home.  We had to warn them not to tell us the score  because we had recorded it and were going to watch it after the caroling.  We took it as a good sign though that they still had jerseys on.  And indeed, the Patriots slammed the Jets 41-3.

Found a great deal on Christmas jammies at the Gymboree outlet that the kids opened on Christmas Eve.  They were very excited, especially Calleigh who is so into matching clothes.

Christmas Eve game time.  Trying to put the boxes in order based on shaking them and hearing how many bells were in each box.

Apparently Calleigh was the one who figured it out for this team.  We played some other games too but evidently I didn't take any pictures.

The kids had to build a "snowman" for one of their games.  This is Caleb and Colby.

Christmas morning.  Presents finally under the tree and ready to go!  My dad went and picked Bob up at the nursing home so he could still be with us on the big day.

Stocking time.  Aubree, in particular, says she likes doing her stocking more than opening the gifts.

Uncle Charlie opening one of his ties.  The kids love hearing his "WOW!" every time.

Calleigh's big gift...a Gronk jersey.  Aubree was pleased with her Edelman too. Aubree's came from Target where the jerseys are considerably cheaper than the Patriots pro shop where we had to get Calleigh's.  They had no Gronk sizes for Calleigh at Target so we had to get her the authentic one instead.

Acadia and Winnie with their big gifts, double strollers for their dolls.  Acadia is wearing an old fashioned dress we found at a yard sale and it fit her so perfectly and she looked adorable.

Another yard sale find.

The boys got hockey jerseys but I think he mostly cared about this lollipop.

Shawn and Camille gave us some wonderful pictures from our photo shoot in Nova Scotia.  I love them!

Rad and Jen popped in for a quick visit so we could meet the newest cousin, Landon Latimer Case, born December 2.

Getting in some Monopoly Deal.  I was not successful.

Christmas photo op.

Shawn and Camille left that evening and then it was down to just my parents and us. Monday morning it was time to get in one last skate.  The skating really made our Christmas and the kids had such a fun time with it.  This time we were at a pond in Walpole, the next town over, and for whatever reason, the Boston Fox affiliate was there for the day taping some segments on skating and pond safety.  We were basically the only ones there in the morning so they ended up interviewing both Duncan and me and also recorded my dad out on the ice with the kids, mic'ed up. They aired the segment on the 4:30 news which my mom recorded and they played the Duncan part of the interview.  But then when they posted it to their website, Duncan was out and I was in.  So I guess we both got our 10 seconds of fame!  Meanwhile, you can see and hear my dad with the kids.  Click HERE to read the article and watch the clip.

As I was packing up to leave, I discovered there was another toothbrush exactly the same as mine.  GROSS!!  I have no idea whose it was.  Both went into the trash pronto.

Time to catch our 7:15 pm flight.  Colby found a neat way to get around.  I thought the airport would be a zoo (at least by Providence standards) but it was pretty calm.

And so ends Christmas 1.0.  A wonderful time was had by all and I'm super sad that it's already over. As someone posted in a meme on the 26th, only 364 days until Christmas and I can hardly wait!!

Life goes on and at least we had Christmas 2.0 at the Gregory's to look forward to. Here are some pictures from that event and some leading up to it.

Brady reacclimatizing to the Florida weather and the fact that there are flowers out at this time of year.

On 12/29 my Aunt Mary turned 80 so we met some of the family in Mount Dora for a birthday lunch.

We ate at the Lakeside Inn and it was a beautiful spot.

The kids loved running around in the big field after lunch.

Heading out for some shopping with dad on Friday (he had the day off)

Christmas 2.0 at Ron and Elaine's on New Year's Eve.  Duncan found a piece of bread in his stocking and also some random ping pong balls.  Those at least ended up going with a ping pong set he opened later.

The girls screeched like the girls they are when they opened a bunch of matching clothes.

Colby as very happy with his dinosaur.  He's very into dinosaurs right now.

A calico critter house for the girls from us that I had gotten off eBay.  It was supposed to be opened at my parents but it never made it there.  Long story.

The girls actually stayed up until midnight and watched the ball drop which in my opinion, is one of the most overrated things ever.

The boys playing with one of Brady's gifts the next morning.

Duncan had Monday off for the New Year's Holiday so we decided to be tourists and walked around Disney Springs.  They have a new Coke store there and we were so excited when we found the "Beverly" drink that we all had tasted and hated at the Coke tour in Atlanta on our trip.  The employee gave Duncan a free taste of it.

We ate at the T-Rex cafe for lunch and I couldn't take my eyes off Colby pretty much the whole time.  The place is filled with giant dinosaurs that move and make all kind of noises.  It was like he was in dinosaur heaven. Our table was in a cave portion and the lights kept changing hence why it was red.

No comment necessary.

Our next experiment in our Science book was the Diet Coke/Menthos one so it was perfect to have Dad be in charge of it.

We discovered that when you put it in a 2-liter of cold Diet Coke, it is a lot smaller of an "explosion" than a warm bottle like the first picture.

So this happened.  Duncan made Harvest Cheddar soup in the Vitamix and we somehow convinced Brady to eat it.

I literally had tears in my eyes.  He's never, ever eaten soup in his life and never, ever tries anything new.  He ate about 10 spoonfuls.  I was SO happy (the soup has celery, onions, potatoes in besides cheese and apples so he ate VEGETABLES!) In closing, we are so excited about this wonderful news! Get ready for Brace cousin # 8 coming June 4!!  Have a wonderful week!

There is a big difference between little boys and little girls and one of the most noticeable of those differences is the desire in little boys to fight and beat each other up.  Duncan has a pair of boxing gloves that he has for his punching bag in the gym and Brady and Colby love to each take one so that they can "box" each other.  Mostly it's harmless since they are, after all, only three and five.  Unfortunately, sometimes it's not.  Recently we had one of those times.  It was about 8:00 pm on a Thursday evening and I was resting on the couch, perhaps with my eyes closed.  I heard the boys come down the stairs and start making noise in front of me.  A few seconds later, I heard Colby start yowling and I knew something had gone awry.  Sure enough, he comes over to me and I spot blood on his forehead.  I yelled for Duncan to come since I don't do well with blood.  A quick look and Duncan diagnosed him with needing a few stitches, most likely.  I asked if he wanted to get a second opinion but he said "I've been around this block a few times." That is indeed true since Brady has had two sets.

As I post this picture, it's the first time I've even had the courage to look at the wound.

Calleigh completely freaked out when she came downstairs and heard what had happened...yelling and screaming, the whole lot.  We finally got her calmed down and she was nice enough to help.

Sadly, the Centra Care (where we have a hookup) had just closed so it seemed like the best option was to take him to the ER at the Winter Garden Hospital.  The bleeding stopped pretty quickly but Aubree went with them just in case she needed to do anything on the drive there.

You know all those horror stories people tell about waiting in the ER for hours?  Well, this wasn't a horror story like that but it did take 2.5 hours from walk in to walk out. Then, in the end, all they did was superglue it which Duncan says he could have easily done himself.  We will know to have some on hand since you just KNOW there will be a next time! Here's a video from the ER that we recorded of Colby.

Calleigh and Brady quickly put together a gift for Colby to help him feel better when he got home.

Waiting for the doctor.

We weren't exactly sure how it all happened but the best we can glean is that Colby fell down and hit the lower edge of the ottoman.  The ottoman itself is all soft and cushioned but the bottom where the legs are is hard.  Duncan made several attempts to get an answer out of Brady and Brady finally said "THIS conversation again??" So yeah, he clammed right up.

All's well that ends well although we did have a little scare a few days later.  On the Tuesday before the head incident, Brady started puking in the evening (purple smoothie all over the rug - - argh!!!) and on into the night.  Fortunately he never had any other symptoms and was completely better by the next afternoon.  Fast forward to Saturday night (two days after Colby's head incident) and Colby starts vomiting.  It was a long night but it's amazing how great both boys are.  They never said a word.  They'd just sit up and throw up into the bowl without uttering a sound.  Colby did this throughout Saturday night and he and I just stayed in bed Sunday morning since we hadn't slept much.  Come early afternoon, I noted that he felt warm so I took his temperature which was 102.2.  Well, that got me paranoid.  Brady hadn't had a fever. Colby had had the head trauma and they say to watch for vomiting, fever, etc. I started getting worried that maybe he had an infection.  Duncan looked at the wound carefully and we didn't see any problem signs.  Colby slept with me again that night and I was going to call the pediatrician in the morning but he slept fine and when we woke up in the morning, the fever was gone and he seemed completely normal.  All's well that ends well again.

I hate him being sick but I did love the cuddling.  He sat on my lap and fell asleep while I was doing school with the girls.

I think he put himself on the floor rather than rolled off.  I hope!

Lazy Sunday with Mom in bed.  He may be growing up but he sure still loves to play with my hair.

A week ago Friday night (the 7th) we were excited to have the Frosts (Shannon, Sean, Finley, Griffen, and Hudson) come stay at our house for a few nights.  They had come down to see some of Sean's relatives and also to go stay at a time share they had booked at Ormond Beach.  Of course, we were having some very cold weather, for us, right about then so that stunk.  Still warmer then up north though!  The girls were SO excited to have Finley to play AG dolls.  Both the girls love playing with younger girls for which I'm grateful.  I guess that must be because they are the older cousins (reminds me of myself).  Having said that, I think Brady was the one who played with Finley the most.  They are less than four months apart in age and Finley is clearly accustomed to playing with boys (having two brothers and also mostly boy first cousins) and the two of them were best buds in no time.  We actually even caught them kissing....very innocently, of course.  They were at our house Friday and Saturday night and I felt so bad because it was during the Colby sick time so I made especially sure to stay quarantined. Thank goodness they never caught anything. They also came back Wednesday night and when they had to leave on Thursday evening, Finley says to me, frowning, "I wish I could live here." The kids really did have a good time!

The girls laid out dress-up clothes and labeled them with names for when Finley would arrive.

At church on Sabbath morning.

These two!

Hudson at 15 months

While Finley and Brady may be great pals, these two got along great too.  Both have a mutual love for dinosaurs.  In fact, we raved so much at the T-Rex Cafe that the Frosts went themselves for Griffen.

They are exactly seven weeks apart in age.

All the Frost and Grodack kids being very serious.

My mom arrived on Wednesday evening.  Since she had her vacation with us disrupted by the state being in her nursing home during Christmas, she said she would come to Florida in January to see us.  She had another purpose too but I'll save that for the next post.  She slept in Aubree's room (which is always empty since Aubree sleeps with Calleigh) the first night since the Frosts were here.  Thursday morning I'm sitting in the living room and Calleigh strolls down and announces, "I threw up at 1:00 last night." I was like, "What?? You didn't even come and tell me?" She says, "No, I went in the bathroom next to Gigi and she helped me." Of course, anytime Calleigh throws up I'm worried that it's the ongoing problem she has with vomiting in the early morning hours but considering both the boys had it and plus she had mentioned before going to bed that her stomach felt strange, I felt good that it wasn't connected to her other problem. After she did her thing, she climbed into bed with Gigi for the rest of the night.  My mom comes down and says that Calleigh woke her up during the night to ask her to stop snoring and Gigi told her, "You know, you can either just listen to the snoring or you can go back to your own bed." So Calleigh rolled over and went back to sleep! I guess it wasn't THAT bad.

Alas, this isn't the end of the sickness story as both Aubree and Duncan were hit with it, the latter very badly, later in the day and into the (whole) night.  Basically, what it boils down to is that I'm the last woman standing.  I hope I don't regret saying those words.  But really, I guess I must have a very strong constitution.  No doubt it's all the tea I drink and staying up late.  Hehe.

The night Duncan was sick, I slept on the couch downstairs with Aubree (my mom was in the guest room) and Calleigh set up this make shirt bed in the boys room (I don't know why but she decided to sleep with them!)

A few other pictures...

It was really cold the first Sabbath of January!

A Science experiment with a 2-liter bottle.  We boiled the one on the left to show how heat would make a balloon blow up.  But it clearly also made the bottle shrink dramatically.

This boy loves his books.

While this boy loves his red Coca Cola glass we got in Atlanta.

Every time he uses it, he washes it very gently by hand.

That's it for now.  Have a great week!

Pretty much ever since the last of our two dogs, Dewey, died in March of 2012, the kids that could talk started asking for another dog.  But we moved soon after that and then another baby came along in 2013 and frankly, I enjoyed having the break.  But periodically we would get the question, "When can we get a dog?" We would usually answer, "Someday." Well, "someday" finally came!

I grew up with Golden Retrievers and absolutely adore them.  To me they are just the happiest, friendliest, prettiest dogs ever.  It was my dream to have one of my own someday. I have been allergic to cats since my early 20's (after having cats as a kid, no less) and then about 10 or 12 years ago when I had an allergy test done to try and figure out why I'm allergic to my parents' house (which I still haven't figured out), I discovered that I have a mild allergy to dogs.  I had no problem with our dogs at the time, Italian Greyhounds, as they are hypo-allergenic.  It did make me wonder about other breeds though.  As Duncan and I got more serious recently about getting a dog or dogs, I intentionally petted longer haired dogs whenever I had the chance to see what would happen. A couple of months ago we were in the home of someone with a black lab and my eyes hurt me SO badly.  The dream of a Golden was officially dead.

What should we get then?  We loved our IG's but Duncan really wanted something a little bigger so we turned out attention to Whippets which are basically the same dogs as IG's but larger.  I figured that since I wasn't allergic to IG's, the same would hold true for Whippets.

Unfortunately, Duncan couldn't find any available locally.  It was a little more challenging because we wanted two - - two males. The closest we could find were in Kentucky and they didn't want to ship them (this is how we had gotten Dewey and Marlee.  They were from Nebraska and came via plane). Can you say road trip?? Of course, this all came to fruition at the beginning of December and since we would be gone for Christmas, we needed to hold off until after we got back to make the trip.

It was SO hard not telling the kids.  We didn't want to tell them for one, because in case something didn't work out, we didn't want them to be disappointed, but also, we thought it would be really fun to just show up with dogs!! But every time one of them would ask the "When can we get a dog??" it was everything I could do not to say, "How about next week?"

Just before Christmas we finally settled on the date of Saturday, January 14 to fly up to Louisville to pick them up.  The plan was to fly up Saturday night, get a rental car, stay over night, and then early the next morning, pick them up and undertake the 12.5 hours home.  We thought this was a good weekend to go because Monday was MLK Day and Duncan would have the day off (mostly).  Unfortunately, I did not consider the NFL playoff schedule when we picked the date and imagine my extreme consternation when the schedule came out and the Patriots game started at 8:15 on that Saturday night.  Our flight was to leave at 8:00 pm.  Oh, I was SO disgusted!! Of course, we were flying up on Southwest so technically, we could change our flight but this was the weekend we needed to do it so we were going to have to just make the best of it.  We did determine that the flight would have WIFI and you can watch live TV on your phones so I felt a lot better about things.

My mom timed her visit with us being gone so that she could stay with the kids but also, she really wanted to be here for the surprise.  We told the kids that we were taking a quick over night trip with just the two of us (which was true!) since Gigi was here to watch them and they didn't question it at all.

It sure was weird (but in a NICE way) of getting on an airplane without any kids. Duncan has A List status because of all his flying and he was second on the plane after the wheelchair folks so he saved a seat for little old "B" status me in the fourth row.  Sitting in the second row was another couple decked out in Patriots gear (like us) so that added to our festive spirit.  We got the iPad going with the TV right away and sure enough, CBS came on and we could breathe a sigh of relief.  The only problem was that instead of the sound working, all we could hear is weird music.  Oh well.  At least we could watch which was the important thing.  We had some very, very tense moments in the second quarter and by the time we landed two hours later just as it got to half time, it was perfect timing to do some pacing.  I really thought they were going to lose and I'm usually not a negative person like that.  But Houston, whom they were supposed to blow away, was making a game of it.

Selfie in the airport as we waited to board.

Thankfully the Louisville airport is relatively small (think: Providence) so we got our rental car and sped to our hotel (a Best Western) in about 35 minutes.  I had to put the game on NFL Mobile on my phone so that we could watch in the car on the way to the hotel.  A few minutes after we got to the hotel and checked in, the Patriots finally put the game away and the trip became much more enjoyable for us.  Whew!

Picture my mom sent of the kids watching the Patriots game.  Apparently none of them made it to the end.

The gentleman, Tad, we bought the dogs from actually lived just north over the border in Indiana - - about a 20 minute ride.  We first had the free breakfast offered by the hotel (incidentally, our room was right near the breakfast area so I woke up to the smell of bacon for the first time in my life.  Not sure what the big deal is about that!!).  Tad breeds Whippets and also Basenjis and shows many of them around the country.  We knew we were getting good quality (hopefully)!  As we got close to his house, I looked over into a field and and I saw two deer grazing.  That reassured me that we were doing the right thing and that I picked the right names...Donner and Dasher.  Our IG's always reminded me of reindeer (and thus, Whippets also do) and I thought it was neat to see those two deer just before we picked up our new dogs.  I actually had the name Donner picked out for 17 years.  It was what I wanted to name our second dog if it had been a male.  Alas, they had none and we ended up with Marlee.

We rang the door bell and immediately a Whippet came to the door.  We were like "Holy cow!  It's huge!!" We weren't sure if it was one of ours or what but we noticed how much bigger it was then our IG's.  Tad finally came to the door and introduced us to Luke, who was our dogs' father.  I petted him for a little bit and then Tad brought up the first dog.  Oh, it was so exciting! I can't even remember which one it was first but it didn't matter.  He was very friendly and came right over to me.  On the way there I had told Duncan, "You know, we didn't even ask Tad what these dogs were like...whether they're skittish or afraid of their own shadow or what." The dogs are actually six months old so should have distinctive personalities by this age and it made me nervous that we didn't ask more questions.  But then, the other one came up and I was incredibly relieved to see that they were perfectly normal, good dogs.  HOWEVER, their sister came tearing into the room like a humungous ball of energy - - jumping all over the furniture and basically going bonkers.  I breathed a big sigh of relief that we had gotten the males!!

Tad saying good-bye to Donner and Dasher.  That is their sister on the far left. Tad was really, really super bad communicating with Duncan through the whole process...like not responding to emails for days and then only answering like one question out of three you'd ask.  I was almost ready to give up and eat the deposit.  After we picked them up, Duncan commented that he noticed a big scar on the side of Tad's head like maybe he'd had head trauma.  That would explain it and I'm glad we didn't give up.

We were anxious to get going so after a little chit chat, we loaded the dogs up into the crate in the back seat of the car to begin our long journey home.  I was a little perturbed though because within about five minutes of getting into that house, my neck started itching really badly.  Hmmm.  What was up with that?  Hopefully a weird coincidence.  But then I also noticed that I was getting a little stuffy.  Now I was starting to get worried.  I did know that the house had contained Basenjis as well.  My hope was that they have very allergenic hair.

About an hour into our trip, I looked into the crate and oh no! One of the dogs had vomited.  I'm pretty sure the theme for the month of January has been "vomiting" since all the kids, Duncan, and now at least one of the dogs had vomited.  So fun!  We pulled off the next exit which happened to have a gas station with a convenience store hooked on to it.  Duncan tried to maneuver the dogs out of the crate and car while I ran in for paper towels and water.  It became very clear to us that the dogs had never been walked on a leash before because they kept trying to pull on it and were half strangling themselves.  I also was thinking about the highway that we very close to and remembering Tad saying "Don't stop at a rest area or somewhere next to the highway...just in case." But then, he probably didn't foresee the mess they would make in the crate.

Stopping to clean the vomit.

After that, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.  Duncan drove the entire way and I spent my time reading a book and eventually watching the other football games that came on.  It was a really pleasant trip, actually, after that initial snafu.  I was thinking the 12.5 hours of travel time that the GPS said would be for sure more than that because of stopping.  But I failed to consider we had no kids with us and you can move so much faster when it's just two adults.

Meanwhile, my mom and Ron and Elaine took the kids to the Highland Games in Winter Springs.

I kept texting my mom about our arrival and as we neared the house, I told her that the plan was that we would ring the doorbell and she was to make sure that all the kids came to the door together so that all would be standing there when it was opened.  It worked perfectly.  You can see the video here.

That was now six days ago and we are settling in.  I have to say that we really, really lucked out because the dogs are SO good with the kids.  They let them pick them up and handle them every which way and they don't say a word.  They have energy like puppies and will chase each other around in the back yard but they aren't high needs or are constantly jumping on you or chewing everything in sigh like some puppies. However, they aren't fully house broken and we have had a # 2 accident just about every day. Fortunately, they ARE crate trained so they stay in there without a problem. We keep them in the crate (which we put in the office) at night and also when we leave.  They do cry a bit when we first put them in the crate at night but it doesn't last very long.

Donner is the one on the left.  He is more tan than Dasher.

Their mannerisms are so similar to Dewey and Marlee including even how they sleep like this with their heads hanging over the side.  But yeah, being around them really makes me miss Dewey so much.  He was such a great dog.

Duncan is hard at work getting them trained and they've already made great strides with walking on a leash.  We also discovered, accidentally, that they aren't prone to running off if given the chance.  On the first day, Monday, somehow the side door to the backyard was left open and the next thing we knew, a kid was running in and yelling, "THE PUPPIES GOT OUT!" We went into a semi-panic and ran out the front door.  Sure enough, they were about two houses down running across the front lawn away from us.  We called after them and they immediately turned around and came back.  So that was good to know at least.  Now we don't have to worry if they get out the front door as we come and go because we know they won't run away.
As for allergies, well, I'm happy to report I don't have any respiratory or eyes problems. BUT...they do make me itch.  If I pet them or they rub up against me, within about 60 seconds, I'll get little red marks that look like bug bites and it itches.  I got some allergy shampoo for them off Amazon that got good reviews and Duncan bathed them today. Hopefully it will help.  I'll also be seeking other ideas/solutions to the problem.  The good news is that I can live with this annoyance but the other, not so much.

In other news, the kids started back with ice skating lessons on Tuesday and Colby was part of the group!  He was very excited and as I laced up all their skates (so fun lacing up skates for FOUR kids!) I marveled to myself that this is the first extracurricular activity that all four kids have done together.  My baby is growing up **insert sobbing here**.  He did really well and pretty much had the teacher, Miss Joy (whom we love), all to himself the whole lesson.  Here's a video of them.

Learning some things before hitting the ice.

He was all smiles when he got off the ice and I was thrilled that it had gone so well considering that many kids will cry during the lesson and refuse to go back (this has happened to several friends).  At home later, Duncan asked him how it went and then mentioned something about doing it again next week.  Colby says, "Well, I think I will wait until I grow up and get much taller." Oh you're going next week, you surely are.  But I wasn't going to say that then.  We'll see what happens next Tuesday.

This week we also had the pleasure of several field trips.  On Thursday we went to Wonderworks on I-Drive for the first time.  We went with the Winter Garden Homeschoolers.  It is a really neat place...kind of like a Science Center type place but much flashier.  There were lots of different activities to do but the favorites were the virtual reality roller coaster and for Brady, especially, the laser tag which was the last thing we did.  The place wasn't crowded at all and in fact, it was just the five of us playing against each other.  When we finished, they had a board showing the top three scores.  Of course, I had the highest score but then second was Brady.  I was very surprised that he beat the girls!  He is dying to go again because what boy wouldn't want to shoot a "gun," right??

Virtual air hockey.

Hard to see them but the girls did a ropes course.

Laser tag!

I was Player 35 and Brady Player 30.  I think Aubree was actually third.  What happened Calleigh??

Lunch at the cafe.

Yesterday we joined Champion for a field trip at Busch Gardens.  We hadn't been in three years when we went with Ricky and Ana and I jumped at the chance.  We get a good rate going in as a school group and then I didn't have to pay for Brady and Colby since they have a special free pre-school pass for kids five and under.  All I can say is that if you ever think about going to Busch Gardens, go in January!  The longest line was about two minutes long!!  It was so fantastic.  Last time we went, Calleigh was incredibly disappointed that she couldn't do the newest roller coaster, Cheetah Run, because the line was more than an hour long.  This time?  No line!  It is probably my favorite roller coaster of anywhere and the girls and I rode it twice (although they wanted to do it a bunch more). Brady had a big achievement in that he went on a roller coaster for the first time that goes UPSIDE DOWN! I thought that was pretty impressive for a five year old although Duncan wasn't too thrilled I let him do it.  Hey, he was the right height (42 inches) and he wanted to do it.  It actually Aubree's first time going on one too but it's a bigger deal for a five year old.

The boys reacting to something on stage as we wait for the show.

I always love watching them watch something.

Glad I didn't put my hand up to be a volunteer like the lady in the green shirt did (she was part of our group).  No way would you ever see me holding a python!

Jonathan got picked to come up and interact with the sloth.

This was Colby's very favorite ride.  He loved it so much.  Oh, the look of joy on his face the whole time (sorry the picture isn't clear).  We went back and did it again at the end of the day.

I got Brady to go on this ride with Colby even though he didn't want to.  When I went to get them off, he reported that it was "absolutely boring."

I was glad the girls were good sports and went on some of the "baby" rides with the littler kids.

Colby loved this little log ride too.

Calleigh was so great and took Colby all over these nets.  He was a little apprehensive but he said he'd do it as long as "Calleigh holds my hand."

This is what big sisters are for!

He also loved the Sesame Street show.

One of the last rides we did was the Congo River Rapids.  At the beginning of the day, Violet said she wanted to sit next to Brady on at least one ride.  I told Brady that and as we walked towards this ride, Brady said that Violet should sit next to him on this one but "only if she wants to." As you can see, she did.  When they sat down, Violet says to him "Let's hold hands." It was so cute.  I think she was a little nervous.

So yeah...I got completely drenched on the ride.  I guess I kind of forgot about that.  I brought changes of clothes for the kids but not for myself.  It is not fun wearing jeans and being soaking wet.  I had to borrow Jennifer's jacket for the ride home.  I took off my pants and covered myself with the jacket and hoped I wouldn't need to get out of the car for any reason!

The kids went on it three more times after Katrina and I got off (I wanted to get back to Colby).

Some very wet and cold boys.

A couple of other pictures...

Science experiment. Noting that air isn't weightless.

Adventurers on Wednesday night.  She started playing a video about animals so Brady called Colby over to watch it and put his arm around him.

Sabbath School this morning.  Silly boy.

Clowning around for the weekly Sabbath picture.

Have a great weekend.

No sooner did Colby heal from his glued forehead and his bout with vomiting, did another mishap befall him....this time completely of his own doing.  The kids were very kind and gave to me as a birthday present a massage and hair fixing done entirely by themselves.  It's really quite lovely...or I guess it would have been had I actually received it.  Last Friday evening, they had laid out all their accoutrements to give me said treatment.  As I was standing in the kitchen finishing up supper preperations, I suddenly heard Colby whimpering/crying, saying that is eye hurt.  Low and behold, he had poked himself in the eye with the metal end of the back scratcher.  Now, sometimes a poke is just a little poke and in a minute or two, you're fine.  But it appeared this wasn't one of those times.  Of course, I couldn't actually investigate the eye myself and as usual, I was very grateful Duncan was on hand to facilitate the inspection.  I, meanwhile, was quite busy trying to calm Aubree down who was HYSTERICAL.  I mean, like, certifiably if that is such a thing.  I had to force her to go upstairs so that Colby couldn't hear her or at least hear her as much.  I'm not sure to this day if she thought his eyeball fell out or what.  I don't think either of my girls has a future on the clinical side of healthcare but maybe this is typical behavior for this age group.  I don't know.

Duncan determined that either it was the biggest coincidence ever and Colby had a hair on his eye or more likely, something had happened.  Thank goodness he managed to have this accident before 8:00 pm so Centra Care was still open.  This time I volunteered to take him.  With our connections, we only had to wait a few minutes.  The doctor confirmed that he has a corneal abrasion which is very common and would heal on its own.  I did have to pick up a prescription to put on the eye 2-3 times a day and then also gave him a dose of Advil to help with the discomfort.  Once again, he was my sleeping buddy.  He was quite tickled with that fact and immediately asked, "Can we watch Paw Patrol?" I think we had watched enough episodes of that to last us a year when we laid in bed with his stomach woes.  Of course, it was also now Sabbath so I had to let him down gently.

The perpatrator

The next morning was Sabbath and I had to teach so when we saw that he was still firmly holding his hand over his eye, Duncan ended up staying home with him.  I was thinking to myself...how long does this part last where they won't let go of their eye? Hours? Days? But then when we pulled into the driveway getting home from church, he came bounding out in just his diaper yelling "My eye is all better! My eye is all better!" That was code for "I don't have to hold my hand over it any more." Thank goodness!  We did have a few more bumps in the road when Duncan had to put in the ointment but by Monday, we were pretty much back to normal.  Now that the calendar has switched to February, I'm hoping Colby's streak of bad luck has come to an end.

Duncan sent me this picture while I was at church.  He had to jimmy rig something so that Colby wouldn't have to keep holding his eye.

Doesn't look perfect but we'll take it!

Sabbath picture without Colby.

Earlier in the day on Friday, we got to take a field trip to a marshmallow factory in Sanford (about 40 minutes from here) called "Wondermade." Ironically, I had noticed this company for the first time just a few weeks before when we were at the airport on our way to get the dogs and the neat packaging caught my eye.  I don't even like marshmallows but the package looked cute and I noted it was a local business.  Fast forward a few weeks and coincidentally, here we were going to see their operation.  It has only been in business for four years but is gaining success especially since they were featured by Rachael Ray on her show.  The company was started by a local pastor when he was trying to figure out something to get his wife for Valentine's Day (I think that's how the story goes).  Now he and his wife (and five children!) have this thriving business.  The lady giving us the tour was just very, very nice and I was impressed with their operation....even though I don't like marshmallows.  The kids do though!  Of course, she did say that they use beef marrow (better than pig marrow, I guess) in making them so even if I did like them, I wouldn't be eating them.  I wasn't about to say the kids couldn't eat any though especially after they got to decorate their own and take them home.  She says they are trying to come up with a vegan version but so far they all taste bad.

They also sell unique flavors of ice cream including "avocado." Maybe they're Tom Brady fans??

"Yum, this cow marrow sure tastes good!" Yuck!!

Aubs and her BFF, Eva.

The founder and his wife.  Nice beard. You can guess whether I'm sincere or not.

Last week we had a pop in visit by Uncle Charlie and Aunt Lori who are down here at their timeshare in Bonnet Creek.  We were excited to have them meet the dogs since they are the ones who introduced us to Italian Greyhounds and by extension, Whippets.  I was curious to see if Uncle Charlie, who is very allergic to dogs, would have a reaction to them but he was fine.  Apparently it is just me with my bumps/rash that I get.

As you can see, the dogs were very excited to make their acquaintance.  They could tell they were kindred spirits.

Kelly, Steve, and the kids came down a few days later and we all went for a Legoland outing on Monday, one of the homeschool days where we get in cheap.  We are experiencing very nice weather (low 70's) lately and it was terrific day for a theme park (or is that an oxymoron?).  It is nice because Colby is a touch over 36 inches now which seems to be one of the big cutoffs for going on a lot of the rides.  I am very happy for the two sisters to take the two brothers on the rides (many of them require riders under 48 inches be accompanied by riders over 48 inches) while I sit back and watch.  Some of them I do go on like the new Ninjago ride which is a 3D ride where you have to wave your arms and such to slay dragons, etc.  Basically the kind of stuff I don't want my kids watching.  As you can imagine, the boys LOVED it and begged to go again.

Entering the new Ninjago area.

Such joy!

Brady boating with Uncle Charlie

My boating companions.

Colby wanted no part of this until I explained that it was a guy dressed up like how Santa Claus is a guy dressed up.  Then he was game.

Little Kaitlyn is such a cutie!

Can't leave until we have the apple fries!

I give this mom some mad props.  That has to be at least a four year old on her back.

Last week Thursday (26th) was my 41st birthday which I'm pleased to report is much less traumatic than the 40th.  Ron and Elaine were most kind and came and picked the kids up about 10:30 am so I could do what I wanted for the rest of the day.  That included shopping at the consignment store, laying out on the hammock, watching a movie (in my living room), and then going out for supper with Duncan at Urban Flats in Winter Garden.  A great day!  I also received a "Corey" day from Duncan on Sunday and did my usual Goodwill outing.  When can it be my birthday again??

My card from Calleigh.  It was very sweet once I got past the handwriting.  I take solace in that hardly anyone will be writing anything any more by the time she hits the work force.  I hope.

From Aubree.  Love her humor.

Lastly, things are going pretty well with the dogs.  It's definitely changed our way of life, mostly for the good in that the kids love playing and snuggling with them.  I've pretty much had to pick up one poop or pee accident a day.  I'm starting to come to the conclusion that "Donner" is the problem child although I don't always catch the culprit in the act so I'm not 100% sure.  He's also the one who doesn't like going into the crate when we leave or at night and he'll drag his feet the whole way.  Fortunately they don't howl through the night and in fact, the crying, if any, is relegated to about the first five minutes.  They have definitely impacted our schooling in that we mostly do school now downstairs on the kitchen table.  If we try and do it upstairs, they have to come up with us because I don't like leaving them alone.  Once upstairs, they have a heyday in the play room finding a million things to chew on.  So downstairs it is.  Since the weather is so nice, we just leave the back door open and the boys and dogs play out there while the girls and I school inside.  It's a little bit of a pain carrying books and such up and down and I miss my white board but it is what it is.  Also, you know how greyhounds love to run and can do so very quickly?  Whippets are almost as fast and these two will tear around the back yard like their tails are on fire.  They will do it even in the middle of the night when I let them out to pee before bed.  I'm so scared one of them is going to slam into something really hard but so far it hasn't happened.  They also LOVE to dig holes and I really need to Google how to put the kibosh on that.  I fear one of them will break a leg when they step into a hole running at 35 miles on hour.

Aubree selfie on her iPad.

A few pictures to close...

Big game for the Patriots almost two weeks ago now.  Look at all these crazy people picking the Steelers.  We showed them!

We're going to the Super Bowl!!!  What a pain it was to watch the Pats/Steelers.  We were under a tornado watch and the DirecTV kept going out and I had to switch back and forth to NFL Mobile on my phone.

Week 3 of Colby skating and he can already "skate" (more like take steps) all over the ice without any problem.  He's doing so great!  Brady was right by his side during the free skate.

Working on the curtains for the tabernacle during Bible class.

The girls were very annoyed that the boring brown cloth went on the top, covering up the more interesting colors.

Breaking rocks for Science.

More Science...melting a crayon in tinfoil.

Have a terrific weekend!

My kids have been so spoiled!  When I was a kid, Boston sports teams weren't all that great.  The Celtics won a championship in 1984 but I was eight and don't really remember it.  I remember the Red Sox and Patriots losing championships in 1986 when I was 10 and then the Bruins losing two in '88 and '90.  Of course, we always watched because we thought "this is the year." It just never was.  But then finally, in 2002 (the 2001 season), the Patriots won the Super Bowl and the spoiling began. Boston sports won championships in 2004 (two), 2005, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015, and....2017!! Calleigh has already "seen" six championships in her nine years.  Not too shabby.

Sporting their tattoos

Taking a snooze during the pre-game show.  That's his jersey next to him.  I didn't want him to put it on until game time so it wouldn't get all dirty.

Megan was sick and couldn't join us but she sent a picture of Sushi all decked out.

My text exchange with Aunt Toni. The top looks strange because I had to redact a prior conversation!

Watching the postgame coverage...Aubree finally fell asleep.

The moment many of us were waiting to see.  Roger Goodell handing the MVP trophy to Brady on Monday morning.  AWKWARD!!

Calleigh in the front of the far group in her jersey at PE.

Still wearing it Friday while out and about.

Aubree didn't follow the directions on here during church but I liked her version better. I really liked her first "e" which says "eat anything besides meat."

Had a nice Sabbath lunch with Aunt Lori, Uncle Charlie, the Conrads, and Ron and Elaine.  The northerners all left on Sunday morning because they had specifically booked their tickets for the morning in case the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl.  They wanted to be home to watch it.

Duncan took the kids to Adventurers on Sabbath afternoon.  I love my little blondies.

Monday evening we went to the church to get our family picture taken for the church directory.  The photographer also took pictures of each of the kids which I thought didn't come out that great.  But, it was fun watching the kids pose for them.

One night this week, Duncan went up to check on the kids and found the girls both sound asleep with the boys.  He did end up moving them to their own beds.

Aubree was even in Colby's crib.

Working on their spelling with a little help from Dasher.

So sweet and innocent.

But then this is what happens when you leave them downstairs at midnight for a few minutes because Colby starts crying in his crib.  That's a charger that they chewed in case you can't tell.

This is what happens to my arm in the span of 60 seconds after they rub against it. I really need to look into solutions for this!

Church today.

I will not hide my head in shame. But only because I have to make sure my head doesn't rub up against anything and hiding it might do that.  On Sunday, we discovered that we had lice.  Many of my friends and even a relative have gone through this but we never thought it would happen to us.  Weeks ago Calleigh started complaining that her head was itchy.  I looked it over (not super thoroughly) and didn't see anything of note so I bought some dandruff/anti-itching shampoo.  It didn't really seem to help but she hadn't been using it for that long.  Then, on Sunday, Duncan gave the boys haircuts and low and behold, a live bug (only one) was found on Colby's head.  After careful study, we determined it was in fact, a louse.  No!!!!  It would only make sense there were more to be found. Brady's head yielded nothing.  But Calleigh's head, although no actual lice were spotted, had many nits which are lice eggs.  I guess those nits can make your head itch?  I don't know! But what I do know is that what followed for the next four or five days were treatments, combing of hair (sometimes for several hours) and massive drying (our dryer has a 65 minute "sanitize" setting) of blankets, pillows, towels, etc.  Oh what fun we had!  Aubree had a few live lice on her head and lots of nits too which are super hard to spot.  You have to be looking at the strand of hair at just the right angle. You seriously feel like you're going to go cross-eyed. Duncan found a few old nits on my head but that was it.  Thank goodness!

Our hair Monday morning after sleeping with the treatment in it.

At any rate, lice are pretty common now apparently and kids aren't even required to stay out of school when they have them so I felt okay with going out in public after we had done our treatments.  I have no idea where we got them or how long ago we got them but I can tell you that my kids will not be trying on any kind of head paraphernalia in any store again ever.  Oh, and Calleigh's head is no longer itchy so there you go.

Lice my have consumed a lot of my free time this week but we did get around to doing a few other things.  Sunday afternoon we met up with Ron and Elaine at the Forest Lake Academy International Food Fair.  Duncan was a little under the weather so he didn't make it so I just went with the kids.  You would wonder what Brady could possibly eat there but fortunately they had an "American" food booth and he got a hot dog.  He said it was the best hot dog ever.  Sad to say it was a Big Frank and I only buy Vega-links because that's all I like.  Perhaps I need to buy other variety for the kids.

The dessert table was also a hit.

The place was a zoo but somehow Elaine managed to find us a table.

Monday morning we took the dogs to the vet for the first time.  We got a recommendation from Tiffany and Anthony since there are so many options and we didn't know. The place is definitely a "no frills" place as compared to our old vet (which isn't an option because it all the way on the other side of town) but we are keeping an open mind.  It turned out that one of the dogs (can't remember which one) had whipworm so they both went on some meds to clear that up.  They both also have something called "luxating patella" which is a knee cap that can move out of place. It may happen every now and then when they're running around although we've yet to see it.  They'd only have surgery at some point if it got really bad so here's hoping that doesn't happen.  As we suspected, Donner is a little heavier than Dasher at 31 pounds compared to 27.

Donner

Dasher

Tuesday was Valentine's Day...yay (**insert sarcasm here**).  Jennifer planned a nice little homeschool lunch/get together at a park where the kids could exchange valentines. Despite my lack of interest in the holiday, it was nice getting together with friends and plus, she brought a lunch for us all for a small fee.  Always nice when you don't have to make a meal.  She also had a big bowl of heart candies and we all guessed how many there were to win $10.  Colby says to me "14" and then Brady says offhandedly, "1,000." I was busy trying to help Aubree write down an answer so I didn't really pay attention.  After Jennifer looked through the guesses everyone wrote down, she announced that the number was 1,018 (or 1,118 I'm not sure which) and that the winner was Calleigh who guessed 950.  I felt very bad that I didn't write down Brady's answer!  But good job Calleigh.

Working on their valentines

This is what Jennifer brought for her kids to collect valentines.

And this is what I brought....Target plastic bags.

Cookie making station.

Yup, Calleigh still in her Patriots jersey.

Bowl of candy to guess.

Some other pictures....

The kids crack me up.  I spotted this little tiny snake near our car and the kids ran over to see it.  Brady immediately says, "What should we name it???  I say Shadow." Like it was going to be our pet or something.

Adventurers on Wednesday evening.

And...we're back to Legos.  It's funny how they rotate through different toys every few weeks. They didn't want to take a break to eat lunch so they brought them downstairs so they could do them at the same time.

Teeth brushing time.

Brotherly love.

Out shopping on Friday morning.

Brown Sabbath.

Sabbath afternoon snooze.

A couple of comments from the kids...

Can you tell that we've been reading the Old Testament?
Brady (upon hearing we were taking the dogs to the vet):"Are they going to get circumcised?"

Me: "Girls, lets go easy on giving the dogs so many bones to chew on.  We JUST got that bag a few days ago and it wasn't cheap."
Calleigh:"But you got it at Costco. Wasn't it a good deal?"
Aubree:"Things at Costco cost a lot of money."
Calleigh: "No, they don't Aubree."
Aubree: "Yes, they do.  It's called COSTco.  Duh!!"
So she's thought we've been getting ripped off at Costco all this time?

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Last week we had fun going on several field trip outings with two different home school groups in which we belong.  On Monday we went to the CARE Foundation in Apopka which rescues wild animals (some that were in commercials and then they were no longer wanted, etc). Some places may do rescues and then find new homes for the animals but this place keep this animal for the rest of its life.  I had no idea that you could just be driving down the street and behind some trees, people may have lions, tigers, bears, etc in pens!  I assume they are licensed to do so at least...one would hope.

We got to see some animals out of the cages before the tour started.  Wow, even Gronk is on the tour!!

Meeting the ferret.

This is as close as I got.

Also hard to see but if you look closely you will see a fox sleeping on the roof of this building.  Look at his position.  So funny!

Our tour guide, Kelly.  She said you could be as young as 12 to volunteer here as long as a parent was with you.  That got the wheels churning!

Probably my very favorite thing to see there was the habitat that held a raccoon, two house cats, and a bobcat.  They were all together and the raccoon and cat were even snuggling. It was so cool!  I find that kind of thing so neat...to see animals that are friends that you wouldn't expect.

Hard to see but this is the raccoon and the cat.

We got to help in a sort of rescue at the end.  We had to park in a very sandy area and almost everyone had left before us.  As I pulled out, I was a little nervous that we were going to get stuck because it seemed like our tires were spinning for a second. Fortunately, we made it. But then I looked over and saw a lady in an SUV that was most definitely stuck. She was just shooting sand out from under her tires and getting her car stuck even worse. I parked our car (on the non-sandy part) and went over to her to tell her to stop and I'd go find help. Her boys were scared in the back seat so I told her to have them come into my van and watch a movie to distract them. Thankfully a couple of male employees were still milling around and I filled them in on the situation and one of them got boards while the other went and got a Jeep to help pull the SUV out. The owner of the Jeep, who I think ran the Foundation, joked that this was probably the only time the 4-wheel drive will ever be used on the Jeep. It was a little touch and go but they finally got the SUV out. The kids were very enthralled with the whole thing.
On Wednesday we went in a much different direction and did a Krispy Kreme tour!  I have actually never stepped foot into one before as I am not a huge donut lover although I'll eat one if it's put in front of me. I sort of felt like we were cheating because Dunkin Donuts is from my (almost said "our" but I realized that my kids, in fact, are not from MA) home state and all.  Not to mention that "America runs on Duncan" errr...Dunkin.  But, we couldn't pass up the educational aspect of seeing how donuts are made.  I will say that everyone was super nice there and you could tell they liked their jobs. The lady giving the tour had been working there for nine years.  Wow! That's a long time to be making donuts.  I said "Tell me the truth...you hate donuts, right?" Indeed! As we expected, we got a free donut at the end and the kids were quick to say "This is better than Dunkin Donuts!" I think they might be right.

Feeling the donut dough. They did throw it away afterwards.  I was worried there for a minute!

Man, I really got my money's worth out of this jersey purchase.

Dipping her donut into the chocolate.

Also last week, although not a field trip because it was a Sunday, we went to the Orlando Home and Garden Show. We always like to get good ideas for our home and garden.  Okay, that sounded lame but whatever. Ron and Elaine accompanied us and they were nice to take the children to the kid's activities so Duncan and I could walk around alone.

Face Painting.  A football - - who would have guessed. But look...No Gronk jersey!

They had a dog rescue station and we couldn't get the kids away from the puppies.  Please, we need to get home to your own puppies we kept imploring.

Elaine took this and I don't know exactly what was being said but I loved how Calleigh was touching Colby's head and talking to him.

Lunch break for the crew.

This week the Reeveses were in town for some meetings at AHS so we did our usual dinner outing with them and the Isidros.  We also saw them later in the week as AHS was having their annual "Conference on Mission" meetings on Friday night and Sabbath at a nearby hotel.  Duncan took the girls on Friday night to vespers and to church on Sabbath.  I joined with the boys after I got done teaching SS.  Also a highlight was stopping at AHS on the way home and Duncan showed us his building and his office.  We had never been there before. The kids were enthralled and as we were leaving Brady says to Duncan, "Daddy, you probably have the best work I've ever seen."

Monday evening at Winter Garden Pizza Company.  The kids all insisted on wearing their Patriots gear since everyone else was a Broncos fan. It really was the kids' idea...I swear!

On the first floor they have a mock patient room and doctor's office.

The "break room" near Duncan's office.

His office which is on the top floor.

He has a balcony area right outside of his office.

The dogs are doing well although honestly I can't believe they haven't broken any legs yet.  They tear around the back yard at like 30 miles an hour and change direction a fraction of a second before they'd plow into the cement fireplace. We have found various scraps and cuts, some more serious than others, especially on Donner.  We don't even know when it happens because they don't make a peep when it does, apparently.  You'll just be cozying up to one of them and you'll look and be like "Oh wow. Donner has a gash that goes all the way through his snout." So yeah, they're crazy out there.  We have also discovered that Dasher is the one who likes to beg and steal food. You'll find him standing up on top of the table in the blink of an eye. Donner is the one who hates the crate and will cry for some of the time he's in there. Despite having some of these issues, and despite already wrecking at least three different shoes and numerous toys, we are still crazy about them.

I generally don't like the dogs upstairs because I'm afraid they'll poop but sometimes the girls like to sneak them up there.  This picture cracked me up because of Colby's face and him pulling on Dasher's leg.

Did I mention they like to dig holes? Exhibit A.

Here are a few other random pictures...

Matching up flash cards for their Greek vocabulary.

Went to a baby shower for Magally on Saturday night.  She's having boy # 3 in April.

The kids built a big fort.

One little conversation before I close...

Brady and Colby were horsing around and apparently something happened and Colby comes over to me crying.
Me:"Colby, what happened?"
Colby:"Brady hit me." Sniffles, sniffles.."But I still love him."

Have a good week!

I'm still here...March was super busy with all of our company visiting and then April has just gotten away from me.  Hope to have a posting this weekend.

There is a LOT to catch up on so I will mostly do this in pictures.  This will be Part 1 of the catch up.

On March 1 my mom flew down from MA and spring break was under way.  My dad and the Shawn Braces drove down, arriving on Thursday afternoon.  Meanwhile Ricky and Ana got into town Friday evening.  The Brace clan was back together!  It wasn't quite (okay, it wasn't AT all) like the cruise was last spring break but whenever we are together, it's still a terrific time!

Let the fun begin!

Sabbath picture.

I recruited Camille to lead out in some songs for Adventurers on Sabbath afternoon.

The cousins and Colby got to work on the honor which was sand art.  I was teaching it so it was especially easy to include them.

Earlier in the day, we had the aunts, Uncle Dick, and cousin Randy over for lunch and fellowship.

Sunday morning it was off to Key Largo (part of the Florida Keys for those not familiar) for the next five nights.  We had two, 2-bedroom units.

They had some nice paths for the Nature Hunters to explore.

The beach at the hotel.

On Monday we did some geocaching at various locations around the hotel.  It was the first time the Brace kids had done it and they all had a lot of fun.

Went to a nearby bird sanctuary which was a very interesting place.

Photo op at the bird sanctuary.

These are great pictures from Camille.

Stopped for a little treat treat at McDonald's.

Tuesday morning we travelled a little over an hour to the Everglades.  I was there as a kid but my kids had neverbeen.  With our national park booklet that we have now, we are all the more motivated to get to the parks.

It did not disappoint.  We went on an hour long walk/tour with a tour guide and saw dozens and dozens of gators, some only a few feet from us.

The parents-to-be.

The boy sure loves his Papa.

He'd put my dad's hat on over his face and have my dad say "Where's Colby? Anyone see Colby?" and then Colby would take the hat off and surprise my dad, giggling like crazy.  And then he'd say "Again!" over and over again.

Buddies

After the Everglades, we ate and then went to the Alligator Farm in Homestead.  After our time there, we realized that the alligators must actually be on the farm to be raised for slaughter (is that what you call what happens to gators?) Love the cousin love here.

Airboat ride.  Love that little face.

Wednesday was Duncan's birthday.  And we were off to the beach about 1.5 hours away.  Good beaches are few and far between on the Keys.  This one was called Bahia Honda.

The kids worked on a sand castle and moat.  Brady totally cracked us up.  He kept telling everyone they were doing a good job, as if he was the foreman.  But he was sure to remind them, "I'm not the captain. We're all captains." I had a lady come over and tell me afterwards that she was so impressed with his leadership skills and how encouraging he was to everyone.

Snack, snack, snack.  These two.

My parents watched the kids that evening so the three couples could go out to celebrate Duncan's 39th.  We went to the Old Tarvernier Inn Resturant and were very impressed with the ambiance and food although the waitress was a little strange.

Thursday some of us did pool time. There was also a hot tub that Duncan, Shawn, Camille, and I went to hang out in one evening.  No sooner did we get in then a couple of old ladies lit up their cigarettes.  Needless to say, we didn't stay.

Duncan and Calleigh went paddleboarding.  She looks so grown up.

My mom, Ricky, Ana, Shawn, and Camille went snorkling.

We left Key Largo on Friday morning to return home but first stopped at Biscayne National Park which is just south of Miami.

Too small to see it here but you could see the Miami skyline from this vantage point.

Brady and Aubree kept climbing all the trees.  Brady declared himself the "climbing brother" while Colby was the "jumping brother."

Most of the park is underwater but we did take a short walk on the part that wasn't.  It was very pretty with all the mangrove trees.

Sunday morning soccer started back up again.

The family LOVES crepes so we introduced them to the Crepevine. So delicious.

On Monday I woke up feeling pretty awful...appeared to be coming down with a cold. Thankfully the rest of the family took the kids to the Science Center with them so that I could recuperate at home.

Tuesday we took advantage of a homeschool deal and went to some attractions on I-Drive including Madame Toussads wax museum.

I don't know where Brady comes up with these ideas!

Calleigh had never heard of nor seen Michael Jackson and she honestly couldn't believe he was a man.

We also went to the Sealife Aquarium in the same complex.  It was relatively small but nice.

We couldn't go to I-Drive without taking them to the World's Largest McDonald's.

After lunch we did the Orlando Eye which I call the London Eye pretty much every single time.

Most of the family left on March 15 but my dad stayed with us until March 24.  It was SO terrific having my dad here the extra time.  I am loving the partial retirement that enabled him to do it.

He did Bible for school with the girls each day.  How awesome to have an "expert" teaching you!

After supper, he'd go out and play Red Light, Green Light.

Hearing a bedtime story.  This might have been when he told them the Elephant Man story.

Don and Sue Perkins also came down for a few days.

After my dad left, Aunt Toni and Uncle Terry came by for a couple of days as they made their rounds in Florida.  The winter brings that out in people it seems.

It was nice to have Aunt Toni in Sabbath School to help Colby since I'm the teacher and have to attend to other things during class.

Speaking of coming to Florida, Ron's son and daughter-in-law came to visit with their almost 3-year old daughter, Zoe, whom we had never met.  It was neat for the cousins to spend time together.

She turned three but she's almost as tall as Brady...not surprising considering her parents are both over six feet tall. On Sunday, March 24 many Adventurer clubs from Central Florida got together at our church for a Fun Day.  The kids worked on honors and various other fun things but the highlight of the day was reciting 12 memory verses from memory.  They announced there would be prizes for whichever Adventurer could recite the most memory verses.  For several weeks leading up to the event, I worked with the girls to learn them all.  They were very eager to do so!  Here are the verses they learned: 1.) Isaiah 40:31 - But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint. 2.) Philippians 4:13 - I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. 3.) Hebrews 12:1 - Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 4.) 2 Timothy 4:7 - I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 5.) Philippians 3:13 - I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize. 6.) Psalm 119:32 - I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. 7.) Psalm 60:12 - With God’s help, we will do mighty things. 8.) Romans 5:3 - We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 9.) 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 - Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (NIV) 10.) 1 Cor. 10:31 - So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (NIV) 11.) 2 Timothy 2:5 - An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. 12.) Deuteronomy 31:6 - Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you. It may look like a lot and I guess it is but it amazes me how kids (really in general) are able to memorize things so quickly.  It really didn't seem like that much work for them to learn them all.  Part of the inspiration to learn them was because "very good" prizes were mentioned.  Rumors were going around that a previous winner had gotten an iPad.  It seemed hard for me to believe! The morning of the event started off very poorly when I awoke to Brady telling me that the dogs had pooped in their crate overnight.  Fortunately for Duncan, unfortunately for me, he was off doing the Tour de Cure bike ride. He lucked out on that one. I had to give the dogs baths and also  had to clean out the crate while trying to hold my nose all at 7:30 am.  So fun.  But things looked up from there.  After attending the "opening ceremony" at 9:00 am, the kids worked on an honor and then it was time for them to do the memory verses.  I was just excited as they were! They both did really great and recited them all perfectly!  Calleigh went first and then Aubree.  It was all very informal with them just standing in front of an older lady.  There was nobody even watching or anything.  They both received a pin that said "Memory Verse Master" and then we just had to wait until the end to see if they won anything or not.  Meanwhile, we told Calleigh's teacher what she had done and he said "I know one year someone won an iPod." That was a little different from an iPad but still exciting! The closing program was at 2:00 pm and that was where we learned that the girls were two of only four kids out of more than 300 that had learned all 12 memory verses! The called each one up to award them a prize which were some books, small Lego set, game, etc.  The other two kids were boys but one of them had already left.  After each of the three received their prize, they randomly picked one to be the grand prize winner.  Who would it be?? We had a two in three chance.  And the winner was....Calleigh!!  We couldn't wait to see the prize.  Well...so much for an electronic gadget. The grand prize was a nice set of books.  Thankfully they handled it very well and weren't too disappointed it wasn't something "better."  The following week was Investiture at the church to conclude the year for the Adventurers.  The Adventurers were already going to be performing a couple of songs up front during all three services so Pastor Barb asked if the girls would like to do their memory verses during that time as well. I know some kids might be too shy or nervous to do it but not Calleigh and Aubree.  They jumped at the chance! I will admit I was a little nervous on their behalf but they did so well all three times. Several people told me what a blessing it was to hear those verses especially coming from children. Praise the Lord! During Investiture that afternoon, they recited them again, including Psalm 23 that they had learned for school, and they were called up to receive a special award.  It was a very proud moment for Duncan and me. This marked the end of an era as Calleigh is officially no longer an Adventurer.  Next year she will be a Pathfinder!  Hard to believe but it's true.  Next year also means that Colby will make into Adventurers as a Little Lamb.  Now that all four of the kids will be in something, I decided it was time to become part of the Adventurer team so I will be one of the leaders of the Little Lambs along with my friend Patti (she teaches the same Sabbath School class as I do but in the next time slot).