Catch Up

I haven’t updated in a while so this is going to be a lengthy catch up about the last two months.  This blog post may be a little disorganized but I’m just going to go with it. You should too!

Last week Jax was in a school play.  He was the elephant in the circus.  It was pretty adorable.  He loves to perform!

The day before we went on a little outing with his school friends.  He only has 7 children in his class (they started with 6 but added one a few months ago).  They’ve all become great friends.  I think he’ll be devastated this summer when he’s not with them on a daily basis.  It’s quite a diverse class, too.  Three of the seven didn’t speak English at the start of the year.  As it happens his teacher is trilgual speaking English, French, and German.  Too bad her three non-English speakers spoke Spanish, Portuguese, and some Indian dialect. 🙂

Ben worked a half day one Friday and we went to Orlando to visit the temple and Downtown Disney.  Kimmy joined us.  It was a fun afternoon/evening.  We learned the hard way that the kids are still terrified of the T-Rex Cafe.  :/  We had a pretty great time, nonetheless!

Took a few headshots of Jax in a parking garage while we were waiting for Ben:

Outdoor dance party:

Wendy, the triplets, and Aunt Judy came to town.  We visited in the afternoon and went to Lake Seminole Park for a family get together in the evening.  It was a fun, beautiful evening.  I love Wendy!  She’s like an older sister.  We had a fun visit.

Jax broke his arm.  Again.  He broke the right arm around this time last year.  This year he broke his left arm while jumping on the trampoline.  Ben and I were both present and it looked like nothing.  It was a small buckle fracture in his radius.  Sadie was super jealous that both McKay and Jax have broken bones and she never has.  So, Dr. Beck was fantastic and wrapped her arm, too 🙂  Cast on  pictures….. (I think the first one looks like he’s praying.  He wasn’t I think he had just blinked)

A group of friends went stand up paddleboarding one weekday.  Sarah was sweet enough to watch McKay and the other two kids were in school.  We went to a place off Honeymoon Island (Caladesi Island, I think).  It was surprisingly easy and we had a ton of fun.

We did our yearly strawberry picking with Kimmy and my mom. They were super helpful.  I always forget what an exhausting experience it is.  It starts out fun at 9am but when we’re still making jam at 9pm…..not so fun!  I think we picked like 56 quarts this year and we made a ton of jam.  I didn’t keep all of them but my cut was 60 jars!  We fly through that stuff.  We use it on toast, pancakes, crepes, waffles, and stirred into yogurt. The kids were pretty helpful and always enjoy the experience.  McKay ate berries all day long!  Other than breakfast it was pretty much all he ate.  Even at night he still was eating the washed ones out of our bowls and begging for more. Wow!

We signed the kids up for soccer which recently ended.  I think the kids enjoyed it.  McKay definitely did.  Jax had a pretty rough group of kids but still had fun.  Sadie had fun once she got there but wasn’t always thrilled about going.  I’m not sure we’d do it again too soon but maybe I’ll sign the boys up again in a year or so.  McKay adored his “Coach Conner” and was super duper obedient and desperate to please.  It was adorable to watch.

A friend came to town, Heather Wiley (now Johnson), so we took the kids to the zoo one afternoon.  It was fantastic to visit and finally meet her cute kids!  We’ve loved having our zoo passes.  I upgraded so we could get two friends in for free and we’ve gone with quite a few friends. I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve gone…..maybe 10? The kids still get excited every time and we’re still finding new places to explore.

As a sidenote, we’ve loved having Kimmy home the last 4 months.  She’s about to finish up her extended vacation and go back to Utah to try to find a real job.  We’ve been all over together – beach, racquetball, stand up paddleboarding (seen above), Orlando (seen above), yard work, strawberry picking (above), YMCA swim classes, Ellenton shopping, and she’s helped me with a few photo gigs.  We will be so so sad to see her go.  This was one of a few beach outings we’ve had with her:

Back in February the Cricchio’s came for a visit.  It was so, so, so fantastic to be back together.  The kids had a ball; it was like they had never been apart.  We sure wish they would move back 😉

 

The Haggards also visited around that time.  I didn’t take a ton of pictures but here are a few…..

We did family pictures since everyone was in town.  Candy worked wonders at getting smiles from the kids!

A few other random pictures for anyone who is still reading this excessively long blog post: