belt test

Brendan had his 6th Kyu Green Belt Test a few weeks ago and he did great! Uncle Steve and Auntie Allie happened to be here to see it, so that made it extra special for him. He looooves Karate and has already taught Mackenzie how to count to 10 in Japanese and a few of the 27 movements. Even Kylie tries to do a few moves :)

Our Bible Scholar

Brendan was doing the dishes this morning and said, “Dad this dirty plate is like us. All dirty with sin. The water is like the old testament sacrifice. It doesn’t clean all the dirt off. The soap is like Jesus. It washes all the dirt away.”

Mackenzie Joy is 7!

Our little girl turned 7 on Sunday! So after church, we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for some swimming and cake. I'm really not big on planning parties, so when possible, I avoid them :) Instead, we got to take the kids (minus Kylie) to Disney's Blizzard Beach yesterday to celebrate. Don't have any pictures of that since we were in the water, but we had a blast. After every slide, the kids would both say, "That was awesome!" It was some much-needed family fun, even though we got the typical afternoon thunderstorm and had to head home a little earlier than planned.







Mackenzie's present from Brendan: a game cube controller, so they can now play Star Wars together. No, more like Brendan directing, quite forcefully, Mackenzie's playing.


Mackenzie's gift from Mommmy and Daddy: a hand-me-down nano and dock since Kylie has destroyed every CD that she had. Now we have to figure out how to keep her from getting to the iPod!


And Mackenzie's gift from Grandma and Grandpa: a used Gameboy, just like Brendan's. She was most happy about that as you can see

field trip

We took an end of the school year field trip this week to the Holy Land Experience in Orlando. Once you get past all the cheesy parts, there are some good things. Brendan and I have been studying ancient history, so I wanted him to see the Jerusalem model and the Tabernacle. It's great to get a visual on what we see in the textbook. We also visited the Scriptorium and got to see a collection of Bibles dating from the B.C.'s until the present time. It was incredible to hear the stories of the godly, courageous men who gave their lives so we can read our Bibles today. We were struck at one of the Bibles that had the blood of the martyr who owned it on the pages-someone who died for owning the earliest version (Tyndale's) of the English Bible. Made us examine ourselves: what are we willing to do for the sake of the gospel?

On a lighter note, they had a kid's section of the park where we played a bit. Brendan got to try rock climbing for the first time and did a great job. Here's just a few pics from our day:

9th birthday

Well, I'm a little late posting this, but we celebrated Brendan's 9th birthday a few weeks ago. We just had a few of our good friends over to Grandma's house to go swimming. Almost everything Brendan received for his birthday was Star Wars related, because, of course, this is the new phase. Long gone are the days of Thomas the Train and pirates... Almost every conversation in this house revolves around or digresses to light sabers, Jedi masters or X-wing fighters. Even Mackenzie joins in on the lingo because she wants to play with her brother. And Kylie refers to Darth Vader as the "bad guy." There is an entire fleet of Rebel and Republic lego spaceships in Brendan's room and every day he has a new one to show us. Oy. I am happy to say that Brendan started karate last week and loves it, so at least he escapes from his space world sometimes :) So here's just a few pics from the day:

tampa get-away

So we decided to do a field trip/Brendan birthday get-away this week. We headed over to Tampa, camped in a state park, visited the Florida Aquarium, toured the U.S.S. American Victory, and played at the beach. Since Grandpa was out of town, Grandma got to come with us and join in the craziness. Kylie only had one major meltdown, so we count ourselves blessed! Brendan is studying marine life this year and we enjoyed seeing all the creatures we have looked at in our textbook.

On the suspension bridge at Hillsborough State Park




Playing at the beach. We're not used to gulf beaches with no waves!




Kylie ringing the ship's bell








At the water play area at the aquarium






Our little hermit crab


She loved the fishies, especially the Dory and Nemo variety (or Meno, as she calls him)


Brendan feeling a stingray in the touch tank


Breakfast!