February 2022

 Micah joined the Northwestern Trojans for track!  The first day of mandatory practice was January 31.  And by Thursday (February 3), Micah tested positive for Covid (again!), so he had to miss 10 days.... which stinks because it was very mild for him.  :(  (Abby had tested positive for Covid 10 days before that.)  Ben ended up getting Covid (for the first time) Monday, February 7th, and had a pretty good cold for over a week.  Caleb and I escaped unscathed. :)  

Team picture.... Micah is about the fifth row up on the right hand side.  

Abby was supposed to be in a Christmas production at her friend's church, but since the director (our friend Melanie) got Covid, they had to cancel it.  So instead, they performed "Random Acts of Christmas" around Valentine's Day. 😆  I went to their Sunday morning service (along with Wes and Joyce) to see Abby...

Working on the twins' room:

I ordered plates for the twins to match the plates that my other kids got from their doctor when they were born.  Since we didn't know how much they weighed when they were born, we chose special Bible verses to use for the "weight" portion.

Thanks to Covid and all the time Ben had at home, he cleaned the garage! :)  The motivation was to make room for a ping-pong table.

Caleb getting fitted for his Invisaligns....

The chair for the twins' room came folded up in a box and was almost impossible to get out!

And here is the long-awaited ping-pong table.  Technically, it can fold up so we can still pull the van in the garage, but realistically, it stays put.  Ben went to Academy Sports to get the ping-pong table, and after he bought it, realized it wouldn't fit in his van.  So he went and got Mike Zieber's truck, but it wouldn't fit in there either.  He could have rented a small moving truck, but he finally decided to look on Amazon.  The exact same ping-pong table was on Amazon for $100 cheaper with free delivery.  So after a few hours of wasted time, he got a refund on the ping-pong table, ordered it from Amazon, and 2 days later, it was delivered right into our garage!

Fort building 

Party at Nathan's house...

Micah's first "I.E." (Individual Event)... he memorized and recited "That's My King" by Dr. S.M. Lockridge:

Packing for Florida!

We drove to Orlando on Saturday, went to Universal Studios Sunday, and then the kids and I hung out at the hotel Monday while Ben met a couple of his big clients who lives in Orlando. 

Ready to conquer Universal Studios!

One of the first rides we chose was King Kong.  It looked innocent enough from the outside... but as we wound our way through the "temple" in line to get on the ride, it got way too scary and intense for Abby.  A chanting animatronic witch was the last straw, so Abby and I left the line and went on a nice kids' "flying" ride while the boys finished King Kong.

Just entering the temple area... creepy, but not bad yet:

We wanted to catch a show over in Harry Potter world.  I was imagining shows like we saw at Disney World a few years ago, but we were highly disappointed.  It was about 5 minutes of some girls doing ballet moves that Abby could have done.

Hogsmeade!

Hogwarts!

Abby, Caleb, and I waiting in line to get on the Jurassic Park ride....

This one turned out to be a little scary too.  CALEB was NOT a big fan of the end when a gigantic T-Rex came out of the shadows as though it was going to eat us, and then we had a huge drop.  We were sitting in the very front of the boat, and got SUPER SOAKED.

Walking through Hogwarts to get on the Harry Potter ride.  (Caleb stood with us in line, but opted not to go on the ride since it was "roller coaster"- ish with lots of drops and big movements.)  It was about all my stomach could take for those 5 minutes.

Dumbledore addressing the crowd waiting in line:

Harry, Ron, and Hermione...

Harry Potter World was pretty cool, but here's the thing... Universal Studios splits it between two parks (connected by the Hogwarts train) , and we didn't want to pay for BOTH parks since it was a ridiculous amount for just one day at one park (almost $900 for all 5 of us 😩) .  So we didn't see Daigon Alley or King's Crossing.  Evidently, we chose the park that is heavy on big roller coasters... and we now know that Caleb doesn't like ANY kind of rollercoaster or big ride, and Abby doesn't like many of them.  Plus, we went to Universal Studios on a Sunday of a three-day weekend (President's Day was the next day) AND it was beautiful weather AND it was about a week after they had lifted the mask mandate... all of which means it was HORRIBLY PACKED with people.  Every attraction - even the less popular ones - were at least an hour and a half wait, so we didn't even try some of the main things we had wanted to do.  Overall, everyone kept great attitudes though (maybe because it was still a vacation/memory-making day, but probably more just for my sake because they knew how hard it had been for me to decide what to do on our one day together as a family in Orlando....AND that I had hated spending all that money on something that turned out to be less than great!)  I was very thankful for my family that day. :)

So. Many. People.

Taking a break...

While Caleb, Abby, and I went on the Jurassic Park ride, Ben and Micah headed to some big ride... only to decide the line wasn't worth it.  So they got Starbucks and waited for us.

Ben and Caleb did a Spiderman ride and met Wolverine. :)

We stood in the long line for Butterbeer!  It tasted like cream soda with butterscotch whipped cream on top.  Abby didn't like it much, but everyone else thought it was pretty good. (You don't want to drink too much of it though... it's super sweet!)

Hogwarts at night:

The "big show":

On Monday, Ben spent the day visiting a couple of big clients in Orlando, so the kids and I hung out at the pool and ordered Chick-Fil-A lunch using Doordash.  Not a bad way to spend the day!

When Ben came home, we decided to go to Disney Springs for dinner and to walk around.  We had hoped to eat at the Rainforest Cafe or some fun place there.  It was on the same exit as out hotel, so very close... but again, we grossly underestimated the number of people and the traffic!  At Disney Springs, we couldn't even get into the Lego store or a couple other stores because of how crowded everything was.  Almost every restaurant we tried either said we should have made reservations several days in advance, or they were not adding people to their waitlist anymore because it was so long. We eventually found a pub where we could order fish-and-chips to go at about 8:00 pm, and we got lucky to find a little two person table we could crowd around.  Leaving Disney Springs that night, the GPS said it would be 3 minutes to get back to the hotel, but it ended up being 45 minutes because of construction and traffic to get through one intersection.  Ugh! 

The Lego statues were super impressive...

Fire from the Rainforest Cafe's volcano in the background...

All made of Legos!

Caleb was "sensing the force", but not the bunny ears Micah was giving him:

This was a pretty impressive concert going on...

We did find some super yummy Haagen-Dazs ice cream!

The next morning, we were very ready to get out of Orlando!  We headed to Grandma & Grandpa's house in Arcadia.  We saw these tractors at a gas station along the way and took a picture for Grandpa. :)

Abby's closet bedroom... :)

Beach day!  We went to Nokomis Beach... or it might have technically been a smaller public beach right beside it; I'm not sure. It was a great beach and not horribly busy!  The water was cold, but that didn't stop anyone from getting in, especially Caleb and Abby!

Check out the awesome new lobster swim trunks!

This is why I don't have pictures of me.  Because when Ben takes them, I'm usually making faces like this...

Picking oranges in Grandma and Grandpa's yard:

Abby had been helping too... until Caleb dropped a rotten orange on her head that splattered everywhere!  So she took a shower instead. :)

This is the life... watching kids shuck corn while I read a good book. :)

Ben had driven across Florida (a little less than two hours) to meet another client that day, but the guy was a busy potato farmer, and Ben only ended up spending about 15-20 minutes there.  But he came home with a bunch of potatoes and other food!

Since everyone loves ping-pong now, we brought our portable net along to keep the fun going. :)

We also went one evening to a fundraiser dinner for the Boys' Gator Camp in Florida, and just spent a lot of time hanging out.  It was a really great vacation!!

Just because it's so cute...