HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAFFI!!!

Such a great day, Rafael's birthday. We had told him that we would celebrate him this weekend instead of today, since Alex had to leave early this morning and we had coop all day. However, me and Alex decided yesterday that we would give him breakfast in bed and one little gift today, so we did. I think he got pretty surprised :-)

We then went to coop and had a good time there. Rafael's tutor had made a special game during class for Rafael's birthday :-)

After we got home we had an AC guy here to clean it out so we had to stay home for about three hours. We had dinner and after that we made a quick trip to the beach. Marlee had promised Rafael a surf lessons! The waves did not cooperate...

Noah

Rafael going down...

Marlee

Marlee is laying in the wave?

Marlee and Noah 

I had some really tired boys after their shower.  Tomorrow is another field trip so now if ks time to sleep... 

First field trip of the year - Sea Life, Orlando

We hardly made it to any field trips last year because of my hard pregnancy and then having David but we have started strong this year and made it to our first field trip of the year. I thought we had one tomorrow, too, and was all ready to go when i realized, in the last second, that that field trip is not until September 24, lol! 

Today we went to Sea Life in Orlando. It was a great aquarium with lots of smart solutions where the kids could go inside the fish tanks in little "bubbles". They also had several tinnels and a "touch" station at the end where they could touch star fish and sea anemones. They such your hand in!! :-)

We had a great day but now I'm ready for bed!!!

Surf, friends and diaper explosion 💥

Some storm created some big waves here and there have been a lot of surfers out to enjoy them. While this was going on we had some friends from Sarasota visiting. We met them at camp constitution last year and they were going to St Augustine for vacation so they came and spent some time with us, too. We spent a lot of time on the beach :-)

Last Sunday there was a Celtic festival here. We went with some friends and it was so much fun. The kids for to test some Celtic sports (some similar to Scandinavian sports, too) and Alex got to try some axe throwing :-)

Alex is going to a few places around the country this week so we are "home alone". David has taken some big steps while he has been gone. He has started crawling properly and maybe that got his stomach started because today he had the biggest blow out any of my kids have ever had!! I was in the kitchen an he was in the playroom, which is pretty much the same room. When i look over it looked like the dog had had an accident on the carpet... But it wasn't the dog... I won't give you more details (the picture says a lot...). Luckily i have some awesome boys who can help when i need them. Marlee took over the cooking while I tried to wipe down David. As soon as he was as clean as possible i out him in his tub to give him a bath. Noah watched him in the bath while i could clean the carpet and the toy box and some affected toys... David must have lost at least a few pounds getting rid of all this...The carper was soon clean and so was David. He happily went down for a nap after his bath and we had a peaceful lunch. 

Around 8pm today there was a rocket launch. We just happened to walk outside when it happened, i didn't know about it, and it was the coolest one i have seen. It looked so big and the weather was clear. 

Woohoo, quick update

It has been so busy here! Mainly because of AC peoblems. It's a longs story but we were without (central) AC from Friday night to Tuesday afternoon. We spent a lot of time finding several portable and window ACs so try to cool down our sauna a least a little. It worked somewhat. We got the master bedroom to a reasonable temperature and the playroom was okay so we had two rooms to sleep in. The AC is running now, but not very affecient so we are still running two extra AC units while waiting for our system to be properly fixed. We are waiting for a few different estimates at the moment...

During this hot time in our lives the weather has been hot, too :-) and the waves have been great so we took a break from school to get some beach time yesterday :-) Marlee and Noah were so excited to surf these waves!!

Something, even more exciting, if you ask me, biut maybe not Marlee, lol, is that we got our shed and well delivered/drilled at our land!!!

Next step: have someone help with the interior...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH!!!

Last Sunday our Noah turned 9!!! My sweet, sensitive, compassionate, creative and smart boy is getting so big! There was a lot of Lego related things on his wish list but also walkie talkies and some in other things. 

We didn't have many plans for the day except Noah picking the food and cake, and church in the morning. However, we had invited some of his friends and ended up having some food and ice cream (he picked ice cream) at home and then went to our land in De Leon springs. Noah got an inflatable kayak for his birthday so we brought that and another one we got from Alex's parents. The kids had so much fun playing with the kayaks in the water and having nerf gun wars in the woods. 

Morning greetings!

Lake Winona

Everyone was exhausted by the time it was bedtime and Alex fell asleep with the small (I guess middle) boys.

Last week was our first week of CC. Marlee is not doing CC this be year and i never got s chance to take a picture of Noah but Gabriel and Rafael were happy to make funny faces :-) 

Miami and the Keys part 2

Day 2 we woke up to a pretty windy and cloudy day. We still decided to get put and try to find Grecian reef again. This time Alex made sure to know how to use the GPS and we got there, eventually... It was a very wet and bumpy ride to get there. Some of us had taken sea sick meds before we left the dock. Poor Raffi was too young to take it and he got really sick. When we reached the reef he didn't want to get in the water anymore. 

I hurt my back on the way out because of the rough sea so I got in the water for a little bit but then stayed in the boat with Raffi. He is such a trooper!! He didn't even complain when he was throwing up over board. 💪 It was very good that we had left David with farmor and farfar!

Lunch break. Check on David and get Bubbles, who was going out with us after lunch.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the afternoon trip. We went to the same place as the day before and this time we brought Bubbles and David. Farmor joined us, too. We all had a great time in the water. Bubbles jumped in several times by herself but needed some help to get back in the boat. It was so fun to see her swim with all of us. David was floating in an his little "boat" with a sun screen.

After getting home and cleaning up up a little we went out with farmor and farfar to have a delicious dinner at a local restaurant!!

Today we woke up to very windy weather! We had hoped to be able to go out on the boat a last time today, before leaving, but the weather was really not good for it. We packed and left. Alex did a great job getting the boat back on the trailer in the stormy weather. We are hoping to be back in not too long and have some better snorkling weather with less wind.

On the way back home we stopped at farmor's and farfar's house in Miami to pick up some things and to wait for rush hour to be over before getting back on the road.The boys swam in the pool while Alex and farmor packed the last things. I rested my back and watched the boys in the pool, which feels a lot better today by the way :-)

Bye bye South Florida for this time!! Now back to Ormond for some sleep and coop tomorrow morning!!