I can't believe I haven't updated this blog since August of last year - almost a year! I'll try not to bore you with a ton of details, but I do have some pictures I'd like to share, so here we go!
Remember the orange shirts we gave to Tim for his birthday last year because he wanted us to have some family pictures taken with them? (Check out my blog post entitled June Update from last year). We finally had those pictures made just a couple of weeks ago and gave the pictures to him for his birthday this year! My how time flies!
Remember the orange shirts we gave to Tim for his birthday last year because he wanted us to have some family pictures taken with them? (Check out my blog post entitled June Update from last year). We finally had those pictures made just a couple of weeks ago and gave the pictures to him for his birthday this year! My how time flies!
Nicholas started school this past fall at a new charter school, and promptly joined the Cross Country team. Here is a picture of him and a few of his teammates at one of the meets:
He also joined the school band and started playing the trumpet. Here he is on our back wall behind our house with Nicole giving her a trumpet lesson. By the way - that building you see beyond them, is the local library! How convenient is that!
 In October Tim and I were invited to the Bucs Training facility (along with a lot of church leaders, including his friend, David, pictured on the right) for a Faith and Football luncheon and tour to promo their Faith and Football game in December. It was amazing what they have built in just the past few years there! |  |
November was a busy month, and it started out on the 1st with one of my very best friends of all times, Hollyhead (she calls me Jodiehead), who invited me to go with her to see Michael Buble' in concert! He puts on quite a show, and we so enjoyed getting that time in together!!
A few days later, Tim and I left to go on a trip to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary!! Woohoo!! We were trying to figure out where we wanted to go to celebrate this milestone, and I had a brainwave, "Let's go back to the place we honeymooned at in the Abacos Islands in the Bahamas!" So that's exactly what we did! The place hadn't changed much, so we enjoyed reliving our honeymoon there! We didn't take many pictures, so here are just a few we snapped:
Our flight back home was delayed by like 5 or 6 hours! It was a little nerve wracking because they were indicating they might not be able to get us out at all until the next day, and we only had childcare through around 2pm that day, so we already had a few hours scheduled with no one to watch the kids before we got home. Now the few hours turned to several hours, but we did finally get out that day and arrived home around 10ish that night and the kids hadn't killed each other and actually had done a fine job of cleaning the place and getting it ready for our return. The only highlight of the delay was that I walked outside the airport to stretch my legs and saw this cute little hummingbird flitting about, and actually was able to snap this picture of it! Pretty amazing, huh? The morning we left the resort we purchased these amazing cinnamon buns instead of the normal souvenirs for the kids (they're teens - food seems to be more important than things these days!) so the next morning after arriving home we heated them up and surprised them with them! Look how happy they were! :-)
The next milestone was the triplet's 16th birthday!!!!! On their birthday, they had a regional Youth In Government function right around the corner from our house. We decided it would be fun to surprise them with sheet cakes for the 100+ students there to commemorate this momentous occasion!
After their YIG event, Tim took the boys to a movie they wanted to go to, and I threw a small sweet sixteen party for Nicole at our house with a few of her girlfriends. I don't know why we have no pictures of any of that, but suffice it to say I think they all enjoyed turning 16 very much!
Finally, in December 2013....drum roll please....the last triplet, Noah, got his driving permit!! That same day Nathan took his driving test and obtained his driver's license and on that same day our car insurance went up 150%! Woohoo! And then 5 days later a lady in a van pulled out in front of Nathan (I was in the passenger seat and saw the whole thing) and he experienced his first accident - thank God it was only a fender bender! I heard our insurance would skyrocket because he had an accident, but it truly wasn't his fault and seems to have not affected our insurance rate since we renewed. (Side note - our car ratings (called ISO Vehicle Car Ratings) went up on both cars so our rates went up a LOT for that reason alone according to our provider - so I called Geico and saved more than 15% and our rates won't go up when we add Nicole & Noah! I should do a commercial for them I'm so ecstatic about that!!)
A few weeks later we celebrated my birthday, and then a week later, we celebrated Jesus' birthday, and a few days after that my sister-in-law and her boys (the cousins!) flew in from Michigan and spent the evening with us on their way to the beach! Here are a few pictures from that time period:
So ends 2013! Now onto January 2014! We spent New Years day at the beach with the cousins and had a blast playing games and sports and just hanging out. Nathan started playing High School basketball with the homeschool basketball team, and January saw them beating every single opponent they faced by no less that 15 points and usually more like 20-30 points a game! I had surgery to remove a benign tumor in my bladder (woohoo!) and Hollyhead brought me some beautiful flowers for my recovery! Towards the end of the month I visited Port Charlotte and took the picture below with my sister, Christy.
The big events for February were Nathan's team winning every game they played (again, by not less than 15 points a game!) and my sister's birthday. Another big event that I don't have pictures for was the triplet's 2nd annual visit to Tallahassee with YIG to present bills and vote on others' bills. Another great experience for them!
March 1st gave us an opportunity to spend time with my father and step-mom who came for a visit (they're from Michigan), and they even came to Nathan's final game of the season, the conference championship game in Clearwater. We won! The next day my parents took us out to eat at a local Greek restaurant - I so wish I had taken some pictures! I had re-established contact with a girl I had
met on a Club Europa trip back when I graduated from college, and she and her
husband happened to be in town that same day from Minnesota, so they stopped by the restaurant and spent some time with us, too! It was a really great time and the food was amazing! A few weeks later we left with Nathan's basketball team to go to a National Homeschool Basketball tournament in Springfield, Missouri! We had such a great time, and the boys ended up 8th out of 32 teams in their division! We were very proud of all of them!
met on a Club Europa trip back when I graduated from college, and she and her
husband happened to be in town that same day from Minnesota, so they stopped by the restaurant and spent some time with us, too! It was a really great time and the food was amazing! A few weeks later we left with Nathan's basketball team to go to a National Homeschool Basketball tournament in Springfield, Missouri! We had such a great time, and the boys ended up 8th out of 32 teams in their division! We were very proud of all of them!
 | In April, we saw our baby girl go to Prom with a boy!! Doesn't she look absolutely lovely? They met in YIG and went to the Prom as friends, and she said they had a really nice time. On a sad note we put my mom in a nursing home. It was a tough decision for my dad, but after my mom had a few falls and was trying to leave the house it became a safety issue. She is in a beautiful assisted living facility that looks more like a resort than anything else. |  |
Onto May!! I brought some flowers to my mom the Friday before Mother's Day, and then Tim and the kids gave me a wonderful Mother's Day! We went to church and then hung out together in the afternoon, and then Tim made a scrumptious meal for all of us and they showered me with cards and presents (so sorry I don't have any pictures!). Nicole played on the homeschool girls' soccer team, and I snapped a picture of her and a few of her teammates. And then it was Nicholas' 15th birthday! We went bowling and then to dinner, and then home for cake and ice cream!
Which takes us to this month!! We had such a busy week this past week! We had Nicholas' sports banquet and our homeschool group's kick off jamboree and Nathan's best friend's high school graduation (and that was all in one night!), and then Nicholas' last day of school where I put together gift baskets for all of his teachers, and then Tim's birthday was this past Saturday! Whew! I was so thankful God told us to take a day of rest because it took me until Sunday around 4:30pm after church that morning and a couple of naps that afternoon to finally feel like a human being and not a human doing!
Well, I did it!! It took me all day (with many interruptions) but I did it! Now - maybe I won't take 10 months to do the next update! I'll leave you with a few more pictures from our family portraits:
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