Random Photos

Once every 3 months or so I finally get around to downloading the photos from my phone onto my computer. I always have a TON. I should really get a phone that has a good camera...but I'm too cheap to buy a new phone, so sorry these aren't great quality!

At Christmas our kids and some of their friends decided to put on a presentation of The Nutcracker. It took place at the neighbor's house, and the kids even work costumes. Ally was the sugar plum fairy, Kylee was Clara, and Skyler was a soldier. When he said he needed a soldier costume I was like, "Um...I don't know what that would look like." He put on his black pants and red shirt and told me I had to make yellow circly buttons out of paper. I made three. Then he was like, "Mom. You have to have 6. Cuz they have to go in two rows." Ah, got it! He always has this picture in his head of what things should look like, and he just has to explain it to me! Notice the other kid that was a soldier wore camo. I guess he had a different interpretation of "soldier" than Skyler did! :)

One day I asked Skyler to do something, and I told him I would pay him $1 if he did it. He did, but then I realized I didn't have a dollar. So I said, "You can either have a dollar or this little notebook I have in my purse." He chose the notebook, and then proceeded to draw this picture. "This is me combing your hair mom. Cuz that makes you happy." He is the sweetest kid!

When the kids are at school and Ally gets bored, she likes to "play dressup" with Colby...

Did I already post this one? Don't remember. When it got really cold in January (apparently the coldest January in 30 years!), we got creative with bedtime outfits!

One Friday in January we woke up super early and made a day-trip to DisneyWorld. The kids were surprised and excited!

People Movers is still a favorite ride for all the kids...

Ally will NEVER take a nap anymore. Never. Even if she is super tired and it's clear that she really needs one. But one day she was eating lunch and suddenly I realized she was really quiet. Yep. Asleep on her CHAIR. Cuz that's comfortable!

When we went to New Mexico this is the drink they gave me on the flight. Japanese Coke! I can see getting this on an international flight, but we were flying from Florida to Texas. Kind of weird, and cool!

In New Mexico Colby and Andy checked out the children's section of the library to make sure it was going to be a fun place to move to!

The kid museum here in Naples switched out their China exhibit, and it is now baseball. Ally became Rookie of the Year for...the ?Boston Redsocks?

Once the weather warmed up again (for a few days...then it got cold again...what a bummer for our last winter here!) Colby discovered that he loves the pool!

For Valentine's Day Skyler decided he wanted a lighthouse box. He was very particular about how I needed to make it, and sat with me the whole time, telling me what to do next. Kylee made a yellow submarine box all by herself, and I thought I had a picture of it, but I apparently do not. I know I took some because I remember getting both the front (with the person driving) and the back (with the propellor)...but where did they go....!?

We went to Free Zoo Day in February and there were a gazillion turtles in the pond, so we fed them.

Skyler and Ally did sidewalk chalk one day, and Colby wanted to "help".

He sat in the middle of the pictures and got super messy. But he thought it was sooo fun, and the other kids just laughed with him.

Around Valentine's Day the kids went to a treat/craft activity at the library, and made lots of yummy treats!

When my family was here, Connie and Sugi went to DisneyWorld for a couple of days and left their youngest kiddo with us. He's just a month older than Colby, so it was fun! He rode in our tiny wagon...

...and had fun at the kid museum.

Con, Tiff, and Me. Can and Rin missed out! Would've been fun to have everyone at the beach together!

One morning we went to the beach and my brother-in-law, Todd, caught this baby shark with his bare hands. Cool! And YUCK.

Skyler became Rookie of the Year for "The P Team". I don't have any idea what team this is, but he picked it because he likes the letter P, I guess?

Kylee was the All-Star for...whatever team this is?

More kid museum fun. Ally made a beanstalk with real magic beans...

...and wore humongous boots into the igloo.

That's about it. More random photos coming up in another 3-4 months!

Graduation!!

On Feb. 6 Andy completed his very last day of clinicals. Graduation wasn't scheduled until Feb. 24, so he had a couple of weeks to finish studying for his Board Certification exam that would need to be taken after graduation. His goal was to take it as soon as he possibly could.

In the middle of February some of my family came to visit for a couple of days. Andy spent most of his time studying, but he did manage to take off a few hours to go watch the sunset at the beach with us one night.

On Feb. 24 Andy graduated! Woot woot! This has been such a long and stressful road! He had to speak at graduation since he was the class President, and he did a great job. I tried to take a video of it with my camera, but it kept shutting off every 45-50 seconds, so I have the whole speech minus some gaps of 10-20 seconds when I had to turn it back on and restart the recording.

Andy's Dad, step-mom, and sister arrived on the day my family all left, and then his mom and his brother Pat flew in the next day. Andy always claims I'm not good at keeping secrets, but I have known Pat was coming since early-November, and when he arrived Andy still had NO IDEA he was coming. It was a fun surprise! I even managed to get Pat a ticket to graduation AND help Kylee put on a wonderful (and believable) "I don't want to go to the airport" performance when Andy suddenly decided to go with us to pick up his "mom" and I knew there wouldn't be room in the car since Pat was coming too -- and Andy still had no clue. Boom.

After graduation, the school has to notify the Board people that everyone has officially graduated, and then it takes them 1-2 days to send you a number that you can then use to register to take your test. Andy got his number on Monday afternoon, and the plan was to take Boards on Wednesday or Thursday. However, on Monday evening when he was looking at the time slots available, there was either Tuesday at 2pm in Ft. Myers (30 minutes away), or later in the week in Port Charlotte (2+ hours away). He really wanted to get it over with but wasn't sure if he was quite ready for Tuesday. He agonized over it, and finally decided to just do it. 

They get 3 hours to take the test, so he had from 2pm-5pm to do it. I had a video meeting with some of my co-workers from 3-5pm, so I knew he was probably going to be finishing while I was in my meeting. I told him he HAD to text me, either way. Pass or fail, I had to know. (I was sure he would pass, but you just never know!) At 3:26pm he sent me this:

I'm not going to lie, there were some tears shed! My poor co-workers had to have a little moment with me while I lost it for a second. You really don't realize how much stress it is until it suddenly ISN'T. It's been sooooo nice to have him home and not studying for the last few weeks. I really didn't realize how good it would feel. It's the best! I'm so proud of him!

As a side note, he is apparently famous now as "the guy who passed Boards super fast". We were at the beach with some of our friends the other day, and some of the people from the Feb. 2020 graduating class were there, and somebody said something, and then the other guys were like, "Wait...this is the guy who passed Boards before the ink on his diploma was even dry?!" Like everyone has heard about it. So strange. But that's our claim to fame right there, I guess! I'm just glad it's over!

Our Future Home in New Mexico

This post might come as a surprise to some people. You might be thinking "wait - I thought you were moving to Nebraska?!". It's a long story. Looong story. It made for another REALLY long month. January was nearly as stressul and long as September was for us, but all things happen for a reason, and to give you the short version: the weekend when we were supposed to be house hunting in North Platte, Nebraska, we bought this soon-to-be-started spec home in Carlsbad, New Mexico instead. We'll be living and working there after graduation, and we feel like it is where we're meant to be for now.

The first picture is from the front of our lot, the second picture is from the back. The lots are really narrow, but deep. The scheduled completion is 6/1, and at that time this .20 acre lot will contain a 4 bedroom home with 3 car garage with a cinderblock red fence all the way around. We're very excited to monitor the progress from here in Florida! We have friends who live in the same neighborhood already, so they'll be sending us pictures and videos of our home as it moves along.

Andy will [hopefully] find a temporary place to stay and begin work in mid-to-late April, and the kids and I will most likely stay here in Naples until our house is ready. The rental market in Carlsbad is out. of. control. We're wait-listed on a couple of different apartment complexes, but there's a new complex being built and even it is already all booked up before it's even finished...so it's not likely we'll get something, especially to only rent for 3 months.

Now we just need to find a way to make time move quickly! Since we were originally scheduled to depart Florida over Spring Break and now we're here for another 10-12 weeks...we're up for anything! Visitors...ideas of places to visit nearby...

Here's what our lot looked like when we were there in the end of January:

Here are some photos the builder posted for us on 2/21 after the foundation was poured and the framing was started:

Here are some photos from 3/4/2018 when the electrical, plumbing, windows, and bathtubs were in progress:

I'm looking forward to our next update, since I think they're doing drywall this week. Yay! It doesn't feel real yet...but we're getting there!

Colby can finally walk!

Ever since Colby was born people (including us) have compared him to Skyler. He looks like Skyler, he's huge like Skyler was, his head is big...etc. He's basically mini-Skyler, except with brownish-grey eyes instead of blue. Along those lines, he's about the same with his development as well. Our girls both crawled and walked really early. Skyler didn't crawl until 10 months or walk until 15. Colby is the same. It's so strange to think about how genetics works. Both our girls were similar, and both our boys are similar.

Anyway, he's about 14.5 months old and he has finally started figuring out how to walk more than a step or two at a time. In the last week or two he's gotten pretty good. I'd say he still crawls about 60-70% of the time, but he's definitely making more of an effort to get up and walk, which is progress! And yes, he LOVES to brush his teeth!

Happy Birthday - Kylee turns 10!!

It's crazy how fast time flies. It's hard to believe that it has already been 10 years since we became parents for the first time. Our tiny bald baby girl has grown into such a smart and beautiful young lady!

As a side note - I just noticed that the shoes you see reflecting in the edge of this photo are the tennis shoes I STILL WEAR. Yikes. Maybe that's a little sad, and it's time to buy some new shoes!

Kylee picked out a funfetti cake mix and the blue frosting that comes with the fish sprinkles, and then we made it look fun and colorful. I feel like my cake making has slacked in recent years - but she didn't want anything more fancy. She just wanted a rectangle cake with blue icing and fish sprinkles, so she was really happy with how it turned out.