We, finally, after several years, had a birthday party! It was for all the boys except David. It was a great and crazy party. We had rented a water slide and snow cone machine, which was a hit since it has been a pretty hot fall. All the boys helped prepare the cakes and our front yard. I’m not sure how many people ended up coming but it was between 25-30 kids.
Time to party!!
Beach visit to try out a new surf board that Marlee and Noah bought from a neighbor.
The moon looked like a sun rise that evening.
Field trip to Lake Ashby. Great nature walk where we saw a rattle snake and a black razor.
Another afternoon beach visit :-)
Rafael was not feeling great so he was chilling on a chair and we read some books while the brothers played and surfed.
Gabriel turned seven last weekend and as tradition he gets to pick his breakfast, which he gets in bed. Gabriel picked soda and left over pizza ❤️ He is such a funny boy! Since we haven’t had a birthday party in a long time they have all gotten to pick an activity to do on their birthday, or around that date depending on the day. For Gabriel’s birthday we all went to the skate park and then played Monopoly. It was a great day! The monopoly game is not over yet (3 days later) but me, Gabriel and Rafael are out…
I can’t believe my sweet, independent, smart, considerate and caring Gabriel is already seven!!
The brothers attacked him when we sang in the morning…
I am reconnected to the rest of the world again (I have a phone) and my time in peace and quietness is over ;-)
Not much going on here now. Just school and normal activities.
Gabriel stayed home from coop today because of a stuffy nose. He did have a fever a couple of days ago but it disappeared within a few hours so I don’t know what is going on. Noah and Raffi had fun at coop today though.
About a week ago I "lost" my phone as I was using it in the water in the waterproof bag I have. Unfortunately, it was not waterproof anymore and my phone did not survive the bath it got... We were at Rock Springs on a field trip when it happened. A wonderful park that we had never been to before. There is a natural lazy river to float down and we had a great time. A lot of the kids' friends from coop were there so I hardly saw the older ones as they were creating islands, made spears to pretend spear fish and having fun in the lazy river. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from that day as my phone did not want to start again... Hopefully, I can get some pictures from some of the other families as soon as I have a working phone again.
It has been a little tricky to not have phone but also pretty nice. I will hopefully get one tomorrow so this break will soon be over. Despite the lack of being able to connect with people as easy as normally we have still stayed pretty busy. Last weekend we spent on our land in De Leon Springs mowing the grass and clearing out sea weed, to create a little swim spot. Sunday we had a beautiful day on the water in Ponce Inlet, by Disappearing Island. We went there with some other friends so hopefully I can add some pics later. It was so pretty!!!
Monday we had coop and after that we hang out with some friends in New Smyrna who surf a lot. Marlee and Noah had a blast!! Rafael was home with Alex since I did not know that we would stay for so long. We ended up staying way past bedtime bbq:ing and grilling marshmallows. What a way to spend Monday night, right!
The rest of the week was pretty normal, doing school work and other things. Yesterday, after coop I took the boys to the beach surfing. David got to go in the water, too, and he loved to dig in the sand with his little hands and feet. So cute! I brought our flip phone that I have tried to get to work while waiting for a smart phone (which failed) and actually got some pictures :-)
Since, I am doing the blog update on the laptop I am able to add some videos!! So here some videos from the past month or so. David started crawling around mid September so that is his latest major progress.
That is all for now, maybe I will be able to do an update from my phone next time...
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...
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!! :-)
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.
