19 Year Anniversary

We celebrated our 19th anniversary in October. Yay!! Hard to believe! Time really ticks along quickly. We had a busy month and couldn't squeeze in a trip this year but we went out to a nice dinner and talked about the places we could go for our 20th next year! We have a good life together and feel lucky and grateful to have found each other.

 

Ivy's First Concert

Heather and Porter had 2 extra tickets to the Ben Platt concert and invited Ivy and I to go with them!! Ivy was thrilled!! It was a lot of fun! I hadn't been to a concert in a really long time. We had a great time!

She might have wished she was there for a basketball game as well!

October Fishing

After Hurrican Ian blew through our area experienced quite a bit of flooding. Because of the excess of water, South Florida Water Management tried managing the flow of the water by diverting it to different chains... one of those chains being our chain of lakes. This resulted in some serious water flow through the canals and created an interesting phenomenon with the fish. Apparently they love running water and so the fishing at the opening of the canals was quite remarkable. You found us fishing just about every day, sometimes twice a day, and we caught hundreds of fish. It was so fun!!

And Rosco became a boat dog!!

 

Miscellaneous September Stuff

This boy is a mama's boy and I couldn't be happier about it!

Chopped my hair off!!

I taught Ivy how to make crepes... she's a pro!

Love getting pictures texted to me from my boys.

Fun little find on the back porch one Sunday. Rosco is the ultimate rodent chaser. He loves chasing squirrels in our front and back yards and sometimes, he catches them!! Not sure where the rest of the squirrel is but here's a leg and tail. 

The fierce hunter.

I hope this video loads. It's a little clip of Ivy singing a Bruno Mars song for everyone at Ryan and Heather's house one evening. My girl can sing!!

Hurricane Ian

Hurricane Ian showed up the end of September and gave us 1 full week off of school! He was projected to hit us on Wednesday so they gave the kids Tuesday off so everyone could prepare. We didn't have a whole lot of prep... just moving things off the back porch to some place secure. We had plenty of water, gas and supplies. The kids enjoyed the free day with their cousins. 

Wednesday was pretty overcast, a little windy and rainy but we had the best family day! Ian slowed a bit and wasn't projected to hit us until the early morning Thursday. So we played pool football and fished and swam. I made a yummy dinner. We invited Heather and Ryan and the kids over to eat, puzzle and play. The kids were in the pool until 11:00pm!! It was a fun day. 

We slept through the worst of the storm. Daniel headed out to Wild Florida to assess early Thursday morning and the kids slept in from the late night. We had a decent sized tree branch down in our driveway and a lot of moss, sticks and tree debris everywhere but all-in-all we fared well. We lost power for about 45 minutes and our generator kicked in without a hitch... didn't skip a beat! So I was able to still cook breakfast without another thought. 

Most of Thursday was mildly stormy so the kids had round 2 of the pool, fishing, swimming, etc... 

Friday could have been one of the most beautiful days I've ever experienced in Florida. It was a fresh, cool day, clear sunny skies and you'd never think a storm just crossed over us, leaving destruction in its path. We utilized the good weather and did a day full of serious yard work. Lots and lots of raking into piles all over and then collecting the piles. Took us all of Friday and half of Saturday but we finished!

Sadly, the worst of the storm happened after the fact when we (meaning Osceola County) experienced some fairly severe flooding. Our lake came up super high... submerged our neighbors entire dock but ours was fine. Wild Florida's dock was completely submerged and their store/gift shop flooded. Their gator park was completely underwater as well. Luckily the safari could remain open but airboat rides closed for weeks. You never know what hurricane season will bring!

Fun Spot!

The week before school started I had asked the kids what kinds of fun things they want to do before summer ended and Ivy wanted to go to Fun Spot. Well, we didn't make it happen before school and she never stopped asking to go so one Friday night in September we went! We actually just took Ivy and the girls and left the boys behind and the girls had the night of their lives. Daniel and I had dinner across the street and enjoyed the night out also. He's a trooper for going and doing one of his least favorite things to do of all times (amusement parks). 

Sophie didn't care for all the spinny, upside-down, make-you-throw-up rides, and I don't blame her! 

The good sport!

Go Karts!

The girls...

New Church Family

When we moved we also happened to move out of the boundaries where we attended church and we are part of a new congregation now. The kids dreaded this and I was a little worried about how well they would acclimate, but it has been a really smooth transition and we absolutely love our new church family. The kids have all made new friends and we absolutely love it. I get less complaining from Jackson about attending his activities (which is so nice!) and we feel right at home. These pictures are from Ivy at her activity. 

 

House Pictures

We are still working on a few projects over here... After pricing out decorative shutters for our windows we decided it was waaaaaay cheaper to just do them ourselves... so we did! Daniel bought the wood, measured and cut the planks. I did all the staining. He nailed/screwed them all together and I put on the decorative iron clavos. I am so so happy with how they turned out!! Exactly what we wanted. And now I think the exterior of the house is officially done!

I cannot resist taking pictures of the beautiful sunsets and sunrises lately. If only the pictures were half as pretty as the actual thing!