Okay, so we didn't actually get anything checked off the bucket list this week... but we did have an awesome weekend worth a recap. (Though, technically we could double check the whole "Spend the night with Nana and Papa" thing because the kids did it a couple of weeks ago and I am doing it with them this weekend.)
The week started with Kenzie restarting swimming lessons. She only had the week left but we took an extended break while her swim instructor was on vacation. I had a few worries about how she would do after such a long break, but she took too it again like a fish to water (see what I did there?) She jumped right back in and it was like the lessons never ended. Actually, she did even better than she ever has before and at the end of the week, we ended up with an official graduate of the Red Cross Preschool Aquatics Level 2 course. Here is a recap of her swimming lesson journey this year. She passed her clothing test with flying colors and we are so proud of her.
We did our usual errands and things through the week like hit up the library for story time. We also ended up going to a special program at the library later in the week put on by the Central Florida Zoo. It was about animals in the Caribbean. The kids had a chance to play on the computers before the program. Kenzie has been really into the jigsaw game and the Dora game that lets you make recipes lately. Will just paints or does the instruments usually. Whatever makes them happy. The program was pretty good. It was a lot of kids and some of them were not acting that nice. There actually had to be a librarian brought in at some point to try to restore some order with the older children. Kenzie and Will loved it though. In true Kenzie fashion, she left me behind to go sit at the front with some kids she decided must have been friendly. She said she was a little sad that she wasn't allowed to pet these animals like some of the other programs we have attended, but it is what it is. She said she still enjoyed it. I'm going to be sad when she returns to school in a couple of weeks and can no longer attend these programs because they often fall during school hours as younger kids and homeschooled kids can still attend them. It does mean that we can try to hit up the bubble play time though for Will as Kenzie is too old and they ask for it to only be 1-3 year olds since older children can get a bit more rough.
Thursday night was... interesting. Steven didn't get home until after 10pm from work and we were sitting watching TV when half (just half) of our power went out. We tried flipping breakers and everything but nothing was working. We had a call in to an electrician when Steven started mumbling about 3 phase power or something and put a call in to the electric company. As it turns out, the line to our house and our neighbors was low voltage or something and so only part of our power was getting to us. The major issue was that it took out all of our major appliances like our AC and fridge. It took until almost 4am to get everything fixed. Our sleep was pretty poor until it was fixed but luckily the kids didn't seem to notice. We had to keep opening and closing Will's door. We would open it to let the air move around since his room gets so hot so quickly and then have to close it because as they were fixing it, it was clicking the power on half way and our fish tank was making a ton of noise. It wasn't fun. Steven and I were exhausted on Friday.
After Kenzie's final swimming lesson on Friday, we met Steven at his office for lunch. We hadn't seen him much during the week because he was working long hours and we wanted to make sure we saw him before we headed out for the weekend. So, we picked him up and went over to Chick Fil A for lunch. The kids were famished apparently and ate everything on the table. I'm surprised they didn't try to eat the little plastic placemats we had put down for them.
This weekend I took the kids and dog up to my parents' house because we wanted to get the carpets cleaned before Kenzie's birthday party next week. Eek! Next week!! Anyway, that means the kids and dog have to be out of the house to allow the carpets time to dry. So, after Kenzie's final swimming lesson on Friday and after I took the kids to meet up with Steven for lunch,we set off for Palatka.
The trip to my parents' uneventful (thank goodness) other than the fact that I was tired. We got there a bit before my parents were done with work so the kids played around until my sis-in-law made it over after she got off work and my parents finished. Then we set about making spaghetti for dinner. Everyone enjoyed it. After dinner we went over to Danielle's house (and Rick's but he is out on the road right now so we are calling it her house for now) and went for a swim in the pool. The kids LOVED it. Kenzie practiced all of her swimming and Will wanted to float and spin around while someone held him yelling "weeeeee". That reminds me... I want a pool. Well, a pool that someone else handles the payment for the upkeep and everything. Is that too much to ask? =) The kids went to bed late but exhausted. Will actually just told me "night" and went right to bed. In a pack-n-play. In a strange place. With a lot of random noise going on around him because there were 5 other people in the house and 3 large dogs at bedtime. That's how you know the kids were tired. Haha! After bedtime, the adults just sat around and chatted for a while before we all turned in. I was just done. As for Steven's night... his was far more eventful. Apparently, in the aftermath of our power being off for so long, the AC backed up and it was like a block party when all of our neighbors came over to help fix it. In reality, I think they came over because they were worried about him since I wasn't home. Then he mowed the grass and finally spent about an hour moving more furniture to get it out of the way of the carpet cleaners on Saturday. I'm sure I have said it before, but I am so thankful for all he does. He worked all day (after a restless night of sleep and a crazy long week) and then did all this so that we can have a clean (and cool) house.
Saturday morning we got up and after breakfast we headed out towards Gainesville. My parents live about an hour away and I have never actually seen the UF campus. So, we decided to go over and walk around. We ended up parking by the stadium, but we didn't see much more than that because it was so hot. We got a few pictures and then went back to the car and headed towards the mall in Gainesville. On a side note, I have little exposure to college campuses. I (obviously) went to UCF. I also toured FIU when I was college shopping but that was it. I remember thinking FIU was pretty small (at the time... I have no idea what it is like now). I always enjoyed my UCF days. I loved that UCF almost worked like this little self-contained city. I know it is bigger now, but I think it still retains some of that feel. UF was weird to me. It just sits there on the side of the road in the middle of town. Just different for me, I guess. We figured we could go ahead and start the college search now. We decided that the kids can attend any school they want... except USF. We aren't allowing that ridiculousness. Haha!
Anyway, back to the mall... I wanted to check out Belk because we don't have one near us and Kenzie is going to need some new clothes for school this year. We had lunch at BJ's Brewhouse, which was yummy and then did a bit of shopping. We had to make a pitstop in the mall play area though. Seriously, as soon as we set foot in the mall, Kenzie was asking if there was one. How were we to tell her no? Will fell asleep as we were looking for a restroom before leaving. He was so tired that I actually took him out of his stroller and changed his diaper then put him back without him ever waking up. Score for having at least one easy going kid!
After driving back to the house, it was almost time for dinner so we just ordered pizza. The dogs (minus ours because of that bum knee) chased the frisbee around for a while which the kids think is awesome. Then, we headed over for another dip in the pool in the evening. As usual, we had to drag the kids away when we were done. They went down for bed fairly easily again. Will actually tried to climb in the pack-n-play on his own because he was so tired. He fussed for a minute but went to bed quickly. For dinner (and again after dinner), Joe mixed up some margaritas for us. They were pretty good. It was nice to sit and relax after the kids went to bed.
Saturday afternoon/evening for Steven was really good, too. He decided after the carpets were cleaned and he worked on the yard more that he would go over to his parents' house for the evening. He helped them run some errands when he got there and then they went over to The Reef restaurant for dinner and then sat on the beach during sunset. They even saw a snake on the beach. Alive. That's one we haven't seen before. He stayed with them Saturday night. It was nice for him to get away too. His work responsibilities have gotten even crazier in the last couple of weeks and he has three full time projects going at once right about now so he needed a little break. Especially after the crazy week he had (plus all that electric issue stuff on Thursday.) I don't know too much about what he did but I did hear that he was eating brownies at 10:30 at night so it sounds like a good time to me.
Sunday we just hung around my parents' house and relaxed. We have had so many crazy weekends and days as of late that I am exhausted. July is a fun month... but so tiring. We just let the kids play in and around the house. We ended up going to pick up lunch meat (and popcorn chicken) at Publix for lunch and the kids wanted to have a picnic on the back patio. Papa had someone over doing some yard work for him so they ate lunch in the shed or something and Nana and I had a picnic with the kids for lunch. Will freaked out about the boat on the lake behind the house again. He loves those boats. My favorite exchange was this one...
Will: Boat!
Me: You see a boat?
Will: Yeah. Mine.
Me: You have a boat?
Will: Yeah. Two. (While holding up two fingers.)
Me: You have two boats?
Will: Nods head emphatically and yells "Boat" again.
My mom bought this pudding dirt cup thing a couple of weeks ago and her and Kenzie put it all together during Will's nap. Again, thankful for the easy going kid. I told him it was nap time and he ran right into Nana's office where his pack-n-play was set up. He made sure Monkey was in it and then asked to be picked up so I could sing to him. He sang with me and then went into the bed. He fussed for about 3 minutes and then was out. He woke up once about 30 minutes in and called me but then went back to sleep. He ended up napping for over 2 hours when I had to go in and wake him up because it was just going on too long and we had other things to do. As for Kenzie and the pudding cups, Kenzie thought it was awesome to make, but wasn't as into eating it. She isn't really a super sweets kind of kid and took a couple bites before declaring that she was done. She also sometimes seems to have aversions to some food textures and this might have been one of them. Either way, Nana and I thought they were awesome.
Steven stayed with his parents Saturday night and Sunday morning after an early breakfast, they went out to Jungle Hut Beach. That has quickly become our favorite East coast beach (north of John Lloyd). He said it was low tide and super nice. They even had a crab digging right next to their tent that morning. Somehow he got his mom to get in the water. Sort of. Up to her knees or so at least. Steven went in the water (of course) and his parents went for a walk on the beach. His mom and him did some shelling and he ended up coming home with a number of nice shells for our ever-growing collection. Pretty soon we are going to be able to add a bunch of sand to the floor and just pretend that we live on the beach with as many shells as we have in this house. He ended up going home shortly after the beach because he needed to get some work done (as in, real work... for his actual job) since he has been so busy lately. We figured it was easier for me to keep the kids out of the house and out of his hair so he could actually work. If we are home, he doesn't get anything done because they are constantly trying to "help" him work. It's been a very rough work week for him (and then consequently a long home week for me). It's going to be a rough couple of months coming up as he has 3 full time projects going on right now (which I mentioned earlier) and while two are in Florida, one is in Oklahoma which means more phone meetings, probably some travel, and dealing with a time difference. Plus, of the two in Florida... both are an hour or more away. Plus, he has another in South Florida starting up here soon. I need to figure out how to get him on a project in the Keys. Then we could try to tag along on one of his work trips. Haha! Though, I doubt that would ever work out with Kenzie starting up school here soon.
Back in Palatka we ended up needing to make a pitstop at a shoe store because Kenzie messed up her sandals and living in Florida means living in sandals a lot of the time. We found some fairly easily and then the kids and I went with Nana to Wendy's for dinner. For some reason, Kenzie was on a Wendy's kick all weekend and kept asking for it. We wanted to get something easy anyway before heading home. After dinner we loaded up my car, put the kids in pjs, and I headed out. Kenzie made it about 15 minutes down the road before she told me she was going to close her eyes since the sun was bright and then snoring less than 3 minutes after that. Will made it all the way home talking to me periodically because he had such a great nap. My favorite part was him yelling "Sissy!" at Kenzie and trying to wake her up. Not because I wanted her woken up but because she tries to do the same to him if he is sleeping in the car. It serves her right. She was so exhausted though that she never even stirred. Haha!
I can't believe we are finally entering into the final week of July. Homestretch!!! Haha! We are almost there. While our bucket list items will not stop until Labor Day, once July is over, we are a bit calmer. I'm also getting super excited to celebrate Kenzie's birthday this weekend when she turns FOUR!!! We have such a fun party planned and I think she is going to have a blast. I can't wait to see her face when the bounce house shows up. It is a surprise for her so I think she is going to be ecstatic. So, here we go! One more week and we have quite a lot of fun stuff lined up for the week/weekend to celebrate Kenzie's birthday. So excited!
The week started with Kenzie restarting swimming lessons. She only had the week left but we took an extended break while her swim instructor was on vacation. I had a few worries about how she would do after such a long break, but she took too it again like a fish to water (see what I did there?) She jumped right back in and it was like the lessons never ended. Actually, she did even better than she ever has before and at the end of the week, we ended up with an official graduate of the Red Cross Preschool Aquatics Level 2 course. Here is a recap of her swimming lesson journey this year. She passed her clothing test with flying colors and we are so proud of her.
Thursday night was... interesting. Steven didn't get home until after 10pm from work and we were sitting watching TV when half (just half) of our power went out. We tried flipping breakers and everything but nothing was working. We had a call in to an electrician when Steven started mumbling about 3 phase power or something and put a call in to the electric company. As it turns out, the line to our house and our neighbors was low voltage or something and so only part of our power was getting to us. The major issue was that it took out all of our major appliances like our AC and fridge. It took until almost 4am to get everything fixed. Our sleep was pretty poor until it was fixed but luckily the kids didn't seem to notice. We had to keep opening and closing Will's door. We would open it to let the air move around since his room gets so hot so quickly and then have to close it because as they were fixing it, it was clicking the power on half way and our fish tank was making a ton of noise. It wasn't fun. Steven and I were exhausted on Friday.
After Kenzie's final swimming lesson on Friday, we met Steven at his office for lunch. We hadn't seen him much during the week because he was working long hours and we wanted to make sure we saw him before we headed out for the weekend. So, we picked him up and went over to Chick Fil A for lunch. The kids were famished apparently and ate everything on the table. I'm surprised they didn't try to eat the little plastic placemats we had put down for them.
This weekend I took the kids and dog up to my parents' house because we wanted to get the carpets cleaned before Kenzie's birthday party next week. Eek! Next week!! Anyway, that means the kids and dog have to be out of the house to allow the carpets time to dry. So, after Kenzie's final swimming lesson on Friday and after I took the kids to meet up with Steven for lunch,we set off for Palatka.
The trip to my parents' uneventful (thank goodness) other than the fact that I was tired. We got there a bit before my parents were done with work so the kids played around until my sis-in-law made it over after she got off work and my parents finished. Then we set about making spaghetti for dinner. Everyone enjoyed it. After dinner we went over to Danielle's house (and Rick's but he is out on the road right now so we are calling it her house for now) and went for a swim in the pool. The kids LOVED it. Kenzie practiced all of her swimming and Will wanted to float and spin around while someone held him yelling "weeeeee". That reminds me... I want a pool. Well, a pool that someone else handles the payment for the upkeep and everything. Is that too much to ask? =) The kids went to bed late but exhausted. Will actually just told me "night" and went right to bed. In a pack-n-play. In a strange place. With a lot of random noise going on around him because there were 5 other people in the house and 3 large dogs at bedtime. That's how you know the kids were tired. Haha! After bedtime, the adults just sat around and chatted for a while before we all turned in. I was just done. As for Steven's night... his was far more eventful. Apparently, in the aftermath of our power being off for so long, the AC backed up and it was like a block party when all of our neighbors came over to help fix it. In reality, I think they came over because they were worried about him since I wasn't home. Then he mowed the grass and finally spent about an hour moving more furniture to get it out of the way of the carpet cleaners on Saturday. I'm sure I have said it before, but I am so thankful for all he does. He worked all day (after a restless night of sleep and a crazy long week) and then did all this so that we can have a clean (and cool) house.
Saturday morning we got up and after breakfast we headed out towards Gainesville. My parents live about an hour away and I have never actually seen the UF campus. So, we decided to go over and walk around. We ended up parking by the stadium, but we didn't see much more than that because it was so hot. We got a few pictures and then went back to the car and headed towards the mall in Gainesville. On a side note, I have little exposure to college campuses. I (obviously) went to UCF. I also toured FIU when I was college shopping but that was it. I remember thinking FIU was pretty small (at the time... I have no idea what it is like now). I always enjoyed my UCF days. I loved that UCF almost worked like this little self-contained city. I know it is bigger now, but I think it still retains some of that feel. UF was weird to me. It just sits there on the side of the road in the middle of town. Just different for me, I guess. We figured we could go ahead and start the college search now. We decided that the kids can attend any school they want... except USF. We aren't allowing that ridiculousness. Haha!
Anyway, back to the mall... I wanted to check out Belk because we don't have one near us and Kenzie is going to need some new clothes for school this year. We had lunch at BJ's Brewhouse, which was yummy and then did a bit of shopping. We had to make a pitstop in the mall play area though. Seriously, as soon as we set foot in the mall, Kenzie was asking if there was one. How were we to tell her no? Will fell asleep as we were looking for a restroom before leaving. He was so tired that I actually took him out of his stroller and changed his diaper then put him back without him ever waking up. Score for having at least one easy going kid!
After driving back to the house, it was almost time for dinner so we just ordered pizza. The dogs (minus ours because of that bum knee) chased the frisbee around for a while which the kids think is awesome. Then, we headed over for another dip in the pool in the evening. As usual, we had to drag the kids away when we were done. They went down for bed fairly easily again. Will actually tried to climb in the pack-n-play on his own because he was so tired. He fussed for a minute but went to bed quickly. For dinner (and again after dinner), Joe mixed up some margaritas for us. They were pretty good. It was nice to sit and relax after the kids went to bed.
Saturday afternoon/evening for Steven was really good, too. He decided after the carpets were cleaned and he worked on the yard more that he would go over to his parents' house for the evening. He helped them run some errands when he got there and then they went over to The Reef restaurant for dinner and then sat on the beach during sunset. They even saw a snake on the beach. Alive. That's one we haven't seen before. He stayed with them Saturday night. It was nice for him to get away too. His work responsibilities have gotten even crazier in the last couple of weeks and he has three full time projects going at once right about now so he needed a little break. Especially after the crazy week he had (plus all that electric issue stuff on Thursday.) I don't know too much about what he did but I did hear that he was eating brownies at 10:30 at night so it sounds like a good time to me.
Sunday we just hung around my parents' house and relaxed. We have had so many crazy weekends and days as of late that I am exhausted. July is a fun month... but so tiring. We just let the kids play in and around the house. We ended up going to pick up lunch meat (and popcorn chicken) at Publix for lunch and the kids wanted to have a picnic on the back patio. Papa had someone over doing some yard work for him so they ate lunch in the shed or something and Nana and I had a picnic with the kids for lunch. Will freaked out about the boat on the lake behind the house again. He loves those boats. My favorite exchange was this one...
Will: Boat!
Me: You see a boat?
Will: Yeah. Mine.
Me: You have a boat?
Will: Yeah. Two. (While holding up two fingers.)
Me: You have two boats?
Will: Nods head emphatically and yells "Boat" again.
My mom bought this pudding dirt cup thing a couple of weeks ago and her and Kenzie put it all together during Will's nap. Again, thankful for the easy going kid. I told him it was nap time and he ran right into Nana's office where his pack-n-play was set up. He made sure Monkey was in it and then asked to be picked up so I could sing to him. He sang with me and then went into the bed. He fussed for about 3 minutes and then was out. He woke up once about 30 minutes in and called me but then went back to sleep. He ended up napping for over 2 hours when I had to go in and wake him up because it was just going on too long and we had other things to do. As for Kenzie and the pudding cups, Kenzie thought it was awesome to make, but wasn't as into eating it. She isn't really a super sweets kind of kid and took a couple bites before declaring that she was done. She also sometimes seems to have aversions to some food textures and this might have been one of them. Either way, Nana and I thought they were awesome.
Steven stayed with his parents Saturday night and Sunday morning after an early breakfast, they went out to Jungle Hut Beach. That has quickly become our favorite East coast beach (north of John Lloyd). He said it was low tide and super nice. They even had a crab digging right next to their tent that morning. Somehow he got his mom to get in the water. Sort of. Up to her knees or so at least. Steven went in the water (of course) and his parents went for a walk on the beach. His mom and him did some shelling and he ended up coming home with a number of nice shells for our ever-growing collection. Pretty soon we are going to be able to add a bunch of sand to the floor and just pretend that we live on the beach with as many shells as we have in this house. He ended up going home shortly after the beach because he needed to get some work done (as in, real work... for his actual job) since he has been so busy lately. We figured it was easier for me to keep the kids out of the house and out of his hair so he could actually work. If we are home, he doesn't get anything done because they are constantly trying to "help" him work. It's been a very rough work week for him (and then consequently a long home week for me). It's going to be a rough couple of months coming up as he has 3 full time projects going on right now (which I mentioned earlier) and while two are in Florida, one is in Oklahoma which means more phone meetings, probably some travel, and dealing with a time difference. Plus, of the two in Florida... both are an hour or more away. Plus, he has another in South Florida starting up here soon. I need to figure out how to get him on a project in the Keys. Then we could try to tag along on one of his work trips. Haha! Though, I doubt that would ever work out with Kenzie starting up school here soon.
Back in Palatka we ended up needing to make a pitstop at a shoe store because Kenzie messed up her sandals and living in Florida means living in sandals a lot of the time. We found some fairly easily and then the kids and I went with Nana to Wendy's for dinner. For some reason, Kenzie was on a Wendy's kick all weekend and kept asking for it. We wanted to get something easy anyway before heading home. After dinner we loaded up my car, put the kids in pjs, and I headed out. Kenzie made it about 15 minutes down the road before she told me she was going to close her eyes since the sun was bright and then snoring less than 3 minutes after that. Will made it all the way home talking to me periodically because he had such a great nap. My favorite part was him yelling "Sissy!" at Kenzie and trying to wake her up. Not because I wanted her woken up but because she tries to do the same to him if he is sleeping in the car. It serves her right. She was so exhausted though that she never even stirred. Haha!
I can't believe we are finally entering into the final week of July. Homestretch!!! Haha! We are almost there. While our bucket list items will not stop until Labor Day, once July is over, we are a bit calmer. I'm also getting super excited to celebrate Kenzie's birthday this weekend when she turns FOUR!!! We have such a fun party planned and I think she is going to have a blast. I can't wait to see her face when the bounce house shows up. It is a surprise for her so I think she is going to be ecstatic. So, here we go! One more week and we have quite a lot of fun stuff lined up for the week/weekend to celebrate Kenzie's birthday. So excited!
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