Where Have We Been?

Once we got back from our vacation in August we hit it hard looking for a new apartment in our complex since our landlords had told us in July that come next July we needed to move out.  This caught us off guard we were not planning on needing to move for a while.  We decided to start looking now since we really wanted to stay here and literally the day after we got back from vacation we began the week long trek of looking at apartments.  Thankfully on Friday of that week when I thought we were going to have to settle on one I just wasn't sure of we found one.  We found an apartment one building away from where we use to live which was also on the second floor and it has almost the same floor plan.  We jumped on the apartment but the master bathroom had never been completed (it was just a concrete shell) so our landlord quickly started working on fixing it up.  That was finished in 3 days.  Then we cleaned and prepared the house for it to be painted.  It got painted and then we cleaned after that and were able to move in two days later.  We didn't really start packing until the day before we moved since you never know when you can get things done around here and so it was fast and furious but we got moved on Wednesday and completely out of our old apartment in the next couple of days.  We had our handy fix it man come and install light fixtures to every room and fix other odds and ends.  We had him take out the kitchen cabinets we had bought for our old house and had him reinstall them in our new house.  And we had our Internet company come out and install our home phone and Internet in our new house.  Things went amazingly fast.  From finding our apartment to being fully living in it it was about two weeks.  We didn't have home school last week due to moving so this week I've been working hard to get to it done each morning.  So that is why I haven't taken any pictures yet, hopefully I can find some time tomorrow.  Be looking for those pictures to come soon! :)

 This was downhill so she was really just coasting here

We got this back a little while back from a friend.  It wasn't exactly working correctly so Todd took it to a bicycle store to fix it up and they fixed the main problem but made another thing not work.  So the bike has been sitting in our house instead of being used.  Oh well maybe for her birthday we'll buy her a new one. 
The boys were very encouraging to Ev as she attempted to pedal.  Something was wrong with the chain and it made the bike not really go anywhere but the boys kept telling Ev, "Good job Ev, you can do it!" Priceless.

Vacation

The kids and I flew to another city to meet Todd as he was coming back into the country.  We stayed in our friend's apartment and enjoyed good food, being able to sleep in and some fun things around town along with being reunited as a family. This city has an amusement park/water park so we went with some friends our first time and then we thought it was worth going back again so we did a few days later.  The kids loved the rides and since the city is pretty hot they had fun things like snow cones and water fountains to play in on top of the water park/ wave pool/ water slide area.  The first time we stayed at the park past 7pm and we wore the kids out.  I didn't take very  many pictures while we were on vacation but this is one of the few I did get.  All of the little boys crashed when we ate dinner at the Mc Donalds in the park.  We really enjoyed having a break from our normal routine to hang out in another city and enjoy good food.  When we came back home it was about a 30 degree difference from the steaming hot humid weather to 60 degree dry weather.  My kids immediately put on their long sleeve shirts!  Looks like summer weather is over here.   Even though the kids were able to go swimming, go to the amusement park, go to an indoor playground, go to a toy store, eat lots of good food including ice cream when we asked them what their favorite part was they said it was having daddy with us. 

First Day of School

We had originally planed to start school a few weeks from now but since daddy is gone for a while we decided to bump up the start of school to give us all something to schedule our days. 
The kids were so excited that they immediately came into my room this morning after they woke up asking when we were starting school.  It is very fun to teach them when they want to learn so badly. 

Zoo Pictures

 It looks funny seeing people in a moving cage... but hey that's how we get to see the animals up close!

 We just had to bring Ayi along with us!

Todd is going on a trip for 10 days so we've been trying to take advantage of the warm weather so yesterday we took the kids to a large park that has a lot of things to do including roller coasters and the circus is in town.  Our kids love the rides and so we spent about and hour doing that and then enjoyed our first circus.  The kids had a blast.

Then today we went to the zoo!  Hobs has been talking about the zoo for weeks and wasn't disappointed.  Our zoo has this part where you get into a van that has bars on the windows and drive into the areas that have lions, tigers and bears.  Today as we drove up a black bear got of a water area and stood there just inches away from me in the van.  He sat there and literally smiled at us for a long time.

 The kids love this ride.  If you shoot the animals they will make noise, move or shoot water. 

 As I was taking pictures everyone was telling each other to look at the foreigner !

 There are some crazy fun rides but we stick to the kid ones :)