Spring is in the air!

The Azalias are blooming...

Our newly planted strawberries.

Well we have had spring fever here. The past few days have bben gorgeous. We got out in the yard this weekend and planted some stawberries and got our garden ready for round two. We needed more dirt so as Zach likes to say we bought some "cow poop". Yep we did. Our garden was still a little sandy so we had to add some things. Now it is ready to go- we will be buying some plants here soon. We look forward to what is to come. Dan likes to say that I do not have a green thumb so here is my chance to prove him wrong:) Here are some carrots from round one. the kids were sooooo excited.

In school we just started our Bugs and plants Unit. Perfect timing for spring. so our garden will play a big role in school, and look at this crazy leaf bug we found. It landed on Syd's booty- she freaked a bit, but luckily I had my camera so we got up close and personal with the bug. His portrait will be a part of our bug board!

These are pics from our most recent adventure to the MOSH. Museum of Science and History.
We had a blast. We went with some homeschool buddies, and basically had the place to ourselves. we wentin the afternoon when all the school field trips were done, it was great. We just finished our study on the planets, so what better than to see the stars in the planetarium! It was cool.

We got to walk through the human body- Ewww!

Dan and I all dressed up and ready to go. Doesn't happen very often so I thought i would document it- and of course, it is the perfect picture. Captures the true Dan and Kel.

Oh, how this brings back some chilhood memories. I have so much fun watching Syd's new activity. Zach and Ash are both taking guitar lessons, and when Syd heard us talking about it, to make arrangements- all of a sudden she wanted to take guitar too. Well tht would have lasted about 5 minutes. so i told her you don't want guitar lessons, lets do something you want to do, and she said gymnastics. So here we are. We are starting out at the Y, and it is great. We also just started all 3 in soccer at the Y too. I look forward to connecting withnew families and being apart of our little community near our home.

The big race is this weekend! My last day of training is tomorrow. So, for the second year I will be running the biggest 15k in the US held here in Jax. It is an awesome experience- and i am looking forward to it. I feel ready, we'll see how I feel Saturday morning :) Last year there were 50+mph winds- so hopefully that won't be the case this go round.

We are back!

Okay, so it has been a few months- I apologize! It just seems to have gotten busier and busier since the holidays, if you can believe that. Life in the Abel household is exciting. We took quite a bit of time off during Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year.

We had a great time in North Carolina. We headed to the mountains for Turkey day. We had a wonderful, relaxing time with good friends. Our dinner was out of this world, everything turned out just right and on time. We were so organized I think we surprised ourselves. We hoped to see snow while we were there and some of us did! Lauren, Ezekiel and the kids and I stayed an extra day to close down the house for Lauren's parents and the night we stayed it snowed all night, so when we woke, we were stuck! We had already got rid of all our food, kept snacks of course for the ride home, but other than that we cleaned house! Well then we found out we couldn't go anywhere. So Lauren got bundled up and went on a hike to raid a family friend's cabinets. She came back with canned salmon, frozen corn, refried beans and a single serving of pizza. Needless to say- we got creative with meal time! We had many funny stories throughout our day, but the best was seeing the kids faces when I said we can go play int he snow. We had a snowball fight and even tried our hand at a snowman. We were able to leave a day later and literally had to dig our way out of the driveway- I haven't had to do that in YEARS. Good times!

Christmas was wonderful. We love celebrating our Lord, Jesus Christ! It was nice and relaxing. Dan's dad and step mom made it down to celebrate with us. It is hard because we miss family so, but it is really important to Dan and I to be home on Christmas morning with the kids. We implemented new traditions, brought back some new ones. The kids love making Christmas Operation Gift Boxes to be sent out to boys and girls all over the world, so they have a gift to open and have the opportunity to hear the Gospel. We were also given the opportunity to contribute in helping a local family have an awesome Christmas. We love getting into our PJ's and hopping in the car to go look at Christmas lights. There are few neighborhoods known to tour. Our neighborhood has a contest each year along with putting luminaries out Christmas Eve. It is really beautiful. Doing these things as a family really makes our holidays special. So, if you asked our kids what was the big gift this year, it would be the Wii. We have had a blast having family game nights.

Now that the New Year is here we have gotten back to reality- school, and work. Business is slow for Dan right now, but he is hanging tough. School for kids, and I, is back in full swing. We are studying the Solar System right now and Poetry. Poetry is a bit difficult to get through- so I have had my challenge to make it interesting, so we are finding our way:) Learning about the planets and watching the moon every other night and documenting the phases has been so fun. Our character study is Orderliness. God has a specific order to all things! It is amazing the wonderful creation He has given us. ( We will be learning shortly about rock classification, bugs and plants. We will be working on our very large garden which right now only has carrots growing).

It is also amazing the opportunities we have had to serve lately. Dan and I had taken a break from serving, we have felt now it was time to get involved in some cool things happening in our church. This is probably why it seems we are more busy now, but we both are loving our new journey. We look forward to what God has in store for us.

Who's that Girl???

Is it Gabriella? oh...no...wait that's Syd!

Could it be Sharpay???? Oh...no that is Ashley, not Ashley Tisdale- Ashley Abel!

Darth Vader???

Nope, Zach!

The girls hanging out Community Fest 2008!

The Abels in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere- well actually Hilliard, Fl.

Some of our great friends- we were waiting on a hay ride.

The farmers lost their cows- so we got an extra long ride to try to find them!

The bull ran through the fence and the women followed.

Our friends, Alex and Micayla- Syd, Ash and Zach

Went throught the a-maiz-ing corn maze with the Millers and the Gentges.

We are trying to find our way. It was suppose to take us about a half hour, we picked the long side. We got through it in about 40 minutes. Not too bad!

Kids in corn!



We have had an exciting week, A Corn Maze and Halloween in the same week! We had such a good time. Dan took the day off to spend with us at Conner's Farm. What a day- it was perfect because it was actually cold! Yes, I said it, COLD. Whenyou don't have any warm clothes, and it is 50 degrees and the wind is whipping- it is cold! We even had to stop for hot chocolate! It was great- I would much rather that than going through the maze in 80 degree weather. We had a blast with our family and friends!

Community Fest is held at our church every year on Halloween. They have all kinds of jumpy things, hayride, train ride, bumper cars, cotton candy, snow cones, real food (yummy Hawain cooking by our very own Pastor T), a boardwalk thru the portables where the kids experience all kinds of fun, AND lots, and lots, of candy!

We get to be with all our family friends, young and old- it is so much fun- it has been our halloween traditon.

As you may know High School Musical is very popular among the youngs ones- my young ones included. We had Sharpay and Gabriella represented, probably could have had Troy, but Darth Vader won out. Zach is way into Star Wars and I am not even really sure how. So many people didn't even recognize Syd, with her dark hair wig- it took moments for someone who had stopped to talk to me to realize Syd was standing next to me- many assumed it was another child not related to me :)

We are headed to visit Aunt CC this weekend and then our

next school venture is going to take place at a Pioneer Art Settlement next week! Then we may go see the space shuttle take off from Kennedy Space Center, we have friends coming in town for that AND after that, and then for Thanksgiving we will be traveling to Blowing Rock North Carolina! We'll have a long weekend in the mountains and we hope to go horseback riding there as a part of our Unit Study on Horses! What great fun we are having!!

Pumpkin Patch

HAY FIGHT!!

They were all jumping, Zach was doing cannonballs at one point...

We had our annual stop to the pumpkin patch this week. This is the first time in a long time we did not go with friends, but we had fun as a family picking out our perfect pumpkins. The kids found the hay stack and went crazy throwing , jumping and diving! Syd had so much on her head at one point it looked like her hair. We have not carved them yet with the kids, we will do that at the beginning of this week. Dan and I however, did carve ours for our pumpkin competition. We did win a lovely prize for the "scariest" but we did not get the overall 1st place ribbon. It went to our friends Pastor T and Noelle- who won first place the only year Dan and I were not entered- so we were a little bummed- but they did a great job! We still love our creation and we have it in our front yard for all to see. I think it will be an added accessory for the coming years.

Kings and Queens

The Royal Family

Our Burlap Flags we sewedAshley's Castle
Sydney's Castle Zachary's castle
Ashley's armor
Sydney's Armor (it's pink of course)
Zachary's Armor Our Vocabulary Words



Queen for the day! Ashley's 9th Birthday party.

10 girls...what was I thinking??? was I thinking??

Rock climbing at the Y

Zach didn't want to climb, so he played Star Wars instead.

Our Homeschool Group

"All About Me" presentations at our Homeschool Group activity

Syd playing soccer with Upward- she is scoring machine this year!

Ronald McDonald House 5K

ran with my friends Lauren and Noelle.

Well we have been very busy this past month. We started our new Unit Study on Kings and Queens, we celebrated a birthday, we have done some cool things with our homeschool group, and all the while I have been running- literally!

Our king and queens unit has been pretty good- we have made crowns, scepters, drawn castles and armor. We have been reading the "classic" - 'Door in the Wall'- the kids are struggling thru this a little :) but we are getting thru it. We have read biographies, Ash wrote her first paper on Queen Victoria- exciting stuff I tell you! The next two weeks we will be focused more on knighthood, and medival feast. We will be having our own feast, dress and all at the end of our two weeks.

One of the pictures above, of the drawings on the dry erase board, Ashley drew those after I put Vocab. words on the board for the next day. I walked in and saw the drawings and thought to myself she already knows what they mean! It was so cool. The drawing were in such detail- it was crazy.

Some of the other pictures are from our homeschool group we are involved with. Every Friday there is an activity planned we may choose to go to. The first activity was the "all about me" presentation. The kids had to make a poster about themselves then get up in front of the group and speak about it. I was so proud of all of them! They only know a handleful of kids in the group and they were all very brave and spoke very well- even Zach!

We had the most fun so far rock climbing at the Y. The girls did great- Ash made it to the top a few times and Syd kept on trying. I loved watching them trying to figure out what to do next, seeing them determined and not giving up! Zach on the other hand wanted nothing to do with climbing. That surprised me, but he still had a good time- he eventually found some boys who had enough, and ended up playing Star Wars with him.

Then, stuck in the middle of all that, Ashley celebrated her 9th birthday. She was "Queen" for the day, which went very well with our study, and had her first sleepover party here at the house. There were a total of 10 girls and 9 slept over. We thought we were a loud family- but NOTHING is louder than 9 screaming 3rd graders :) Thankyou to my friend Michelle that waded the rough water with me! She was a trooper. Ashley had her mind set on hairdos and fancy nails, and thats we did. Ashley loved every minute of it and that is what counts. The girls stayed up til about 1 am and we wide awake by 7am easily! Then we had a day full of soccer games.

Our Soccer season is almost over and all 3 kids are doing awesome. They are all scoring goals almost every week. Ashley is beginning to really understand positions and technique, Syd is beginning to even find the basics work- along with being aggressive. Zach has come a long way- last year he hardly put a foot on the ball- he just ran around it and fell because it was the cool thing to do. But now- he is a scoring machine right along with his sisters- he is making purposeful plays and man can he run! Dan and I love watching them- we get a little excited. Dan is helping in the coaching of Zach's team, and I am helping out with Syd's. It has been a lot of fun.

Well, as you know we have been consistant in our daily workouts. We go to the Y 4 to 5 times a week. So I have begun to concentrate on running again. In a matter of no time it will be time to get serious- training again for the River Run in March which is a 15k. So in doing so- trying to get ahead of the game a little I want to get some 5ks under my belt. I ran a feew weeks ago with some good friends in the Ronald McDonald House 5k. It wa great. The weather was perfect, and not only did I get to run with friends but as a family we able to serve the community. Dan got Clearwater involved and the kids were busy the whole time handing out water! It was so great to do something like that as a family. We will hopefully be doing more of it very soon.

We can't wait for the weeks to come- we have lots of things planned- we'll be visiting a corn maze, of course Halloween, so a trip to the pumpkin patch, and finding costumes, and Community Fest at our church. OH and we can not forget our friendly annual Pumpkin carving competition at the Zelenkas! We can't wait!