My Saturday Trip to the Zoo

Here we are at another of our family's favorite fall spots: the zoo. It is hard to go all summer without a visit, but now that the weather is good again, we're back.

There are four monkeys in this picture. Can you find them all?



This little girl loves reptiles SO much, you would think she has scales. Btw, there IS glass between E and the gator.


I love this picture mostly because out of the blue, Z decided to put his head in the snakes mouth and it is just so funny.

Here is Z and the flamingos. As some of you know, Z and E assigned animals to each of us. I am the flamingo. Z is a hippo. E is a cheetah and T is an elephant. We don't know how this originate. Unfortunately, this zoo has all these animals except the hippo.

My Husband's New Car

It was finally time to trade the good old blue truck in! The children no longer fit in the backseat. We had to get a larger vehicle. I dreaded taking the kids car shopping, but they really loved it. I thought it would be a real pain to load car seats to test drive cars. But it wasn't that bad. The kids really loved checking out all the cars. E wanted the Toyota Sequoia (too expensive!). After much research and negotiation, we settled on a Honda Pilot. We are very happy with it. Here is the proud new owner.

My Kids Love Watermelon?

T went out of town for the weekend and on his way back he stopped at a roadside stand and bought a watermelon. The kids were excited to cut it and eat it. Here they are enjoying it!

My Kids' First Baseball Game

The other weekend we took the kids to their first major league baseball game. It was great fun. They really enjoyed it. Z learned how to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" so we were excited to take him to a game.

Here is T and Z doing the "wave".

E really loved doing the wave and did it all three times it came around.

My Husband's Dragon Boat Races

Each each T's hospital does the dragon boat races. A few weeks ago they participated again. It was great fun. The weather was mild enough for us to come out and watch. The kids enjoyed watching all the events. T's team won the competition after a grueling day on the water!

Z got a bit bored waiting around and E fell off the jungle gym and I thought she might have broken her arm (she didn't thankfully!)

My Family's Trip to the Forest

Now that the weather has cooled off, we've been able to go for our first walk in the forest since the spring. Guess who was the first one in the truck! Sydney!

After we got home, the kids enjoyed getting the halloween stuff out and jumping around.

My Daughter's Racoon

E's kindy class has a stuffed raccoon that each child gets to take home for one weekend. A few weekends ago, E got to take it home. The child then take a few photos and write a journal entry to put in a book to let the class know what Chester did over the course of the week. We had lots of fun doing the following....

We took Chester to the grocery store to find food items that started with the letter P since that what she was learning about.

Chester also went to the regional airport which has a lunch spot, where we had lunch and watched the airplanes take off and land. We always enjoy that.

My E photos

So you saw the Mark O'Shea video. Here are our own real pictures. Here is E in the CVICU when she had her surgery at three months old. Here she is with all her tubes, on the vent, with her chest tubes (the yellow ones), blood pressure cuff on her ankle and restraints. It is hard to believe that we all were there and had to do that. I thank God every day for all the doctors and nurses and staff that helped us.



And here we are today in the grocery store, doing our kindergarten homework: taking a photo of our class "pet" Chester the raccoon and finding foods that begin with the letter "P" like peaches and plums, over 5 years later. Just unbelievable. Hard to believe that it is the same kid.

There are so many emotions that go along with all of this. We are simply just thankful for each day that we have.

My Mark O'Shea Video...get your tissues out

Here is a video that I just absolutely love. The singers's name is Mark O'Shea. He was a guest at a convention that I went to a few months ago. He was so kind and nice. He sang for our group. And I'm sure that he wouldn't mind me putting his video from YouTube on the blog as during the convention performance they said they really like/need the publicity. I really just love this video and I hope that you do too. The song is on my ipod, so if you like it, go to itunes and buy it.

My Husband's New Grill

Here is a pic of T and his new grill. Our old one, which was about 8 years old, died on us. So to celebrate labor day weekend, we bought a new grill and of course christened it right away with burgers and margatitas. The burgers were excellent and the grill is great too!


We also took a picture of our catus. You can see how amazingly tall it is. When we bought it at home depot (also about 8 years ago) it was about 18" high. It is now visible from the second floor of our house. When it gets windy it sways in the breeze, but it is close enough to the house that it seems to be protected. We will be sad if it breaks, but I don't know how much taller it can get.

My Benihana Kids

For my birthday we went to Benihana's for dinner. The kids like Benihana's but Z is a bit scared because he thinks it's going to be loud. But when he realizes that it isn't going to loud and the food arrives, then he digs right in.

A few days after the bday meal, we were home and hanging out. The kids decided to play Benihana. I got their little table out. Here they are taking turns

First Z got his cart like the "cooker man" does and makes his "shrimps" for E.

Then it is E's turn and she gets the pepper going and slices some tomatoes for Z. They really had a good time.

My Daughter's Kindergarten

Here are a few shots from kindergarten. E is doing really well in kindy. She really likes it. Her hours are from 8am to 3pm. Here are some pictures that her teacher took. The first one is outside on the playground and the other one is of her reading a book during quiet time. The kids can either nap or read. It is their choice. And of course she chose to read. Why sleep when you can do something else!

My Bug Experts

Right before I started my new job, the kids and I went to the museum for some fun.

My Son's 3rd Birthday

Z celebrated his 3rd birthday/

We all had a really great time.

My New Study

We were able to turn some space in our garage into a small study. Here is T putting in the floor.

I painted the walls.

And the kids wanted to say hi.