making friends

We have had some awesome days of play around here! Two kids, just Kaiden's age, moved in across the street. There is Joshua, 4, and Sienna, 6, and of course their mama, Amy, who I am so happy to have around. The kids get along beautifully and can play for hours and hours. They've taken over the street with their bikes (all three kids have learned to ride at the same time which is kind of neat), toy trucks, balls, skateboards, sticks and swords. The neighbors now drive so slowly down the street(we live on a short dead end road) watching and laughing at what our little rascals have come up with this time.

Amy and I park ourselves in the yard chatting, eating, laughing, yelling...we have our chairs set up like two old women keeping watch over the neighborhood gossiping. I'm so glad this family has moved in. It makes our days a little more fun and exciting wondering what kind of adventures the kids will come up with next.

We also have 3 other children on our street - Big Seth, 8, Little Seth, 3, and Baby Rose, 1. Sometimes we have all 7 of them in our yard - talk about insane - each child being a different age!

men at work

We've been doing some more work to the bathroom and luckily Randy has a good friend, Adam, to help and really knows what he's doing! Randy ripped up the old nasty green linoleum and found very old terracotta tile. The tile was in horrible shape so he removed that found the original wood floor underneath. The wood was covered in a tar material they used to glue the tile on and couldn't be sanded down. So Randy and Adam tore out all of the tar covered wood to find yet another wood floor! And look at the shape of this floor! UGH!!!

And yes, this is a HUGE hole in the floor that goes straight through. That is the earth underneath our house. A lot of the floor was termite eaten and rotten from water damage.

But these two fools have it all figured out. They worked so hard today cutting new wood for the floor! It's going to be gorgeous! Randy's going to sand, stain, and seal the floors tonight. I can't wait!!!

Next project? The abandoned furnace area in our kitchen will become a much needed closet!

egypt expedition

Archaeologist, Dr. Kaiden, invites you to join him on an archaeological expedition of ancient Egyptian civilization for his birthday...

Kaiden was chief Egyptologist at the dig site. He even had an official "EGYPTOLOGIST" t-shirt specially made.

Many artifacts and treasures were unearthed. Jewels, bones, sculptures, pottery, mummies, treasure chests, and daggers were a few among of the discoveries.

After a hot afternoon of digging the crew cooled off with a water balloon fight.

Innocent bystanders beware!!!

When the balloons ran out buckets and mud worked just fine.

All cleaned up and pizza'd out, an ensemble of 16 gathered to sing and celebrate Dr. Kaiden's big day.

A Nile crocodile was seen near the site and needed to be removed and terminated for the safety of the crew. But the bugger just wouldn't die.

Thanks for all your expertise and hard work team- it was a successful expedition!

indianapolis

i went to indianapolis for a few days to visit my old college roommate. this is brandon. he hates the cold, he hates the snow, and he hates the outdoors. but i drug him to this state park where we hiked through the snow, climbed down to a half frozen waterfall, and saw some wolf caves. he was sore and complained for two days afterwards. them colts fans are out of shape! after i showed him what i like to do, he took me to a dueling paino bar in down town indianapolis. it was surreal. thanks brandon and jena!

day 10

greyson, ethan, and justin welcome kaiden

saturday crystal had to work, so kaiden and i went to our friends house, THE DE VANEY'S, to play for a while. greyson (3), ethan(5), and justin(7) welcomed kaiden as one of their own. the boys played for hours swimming, sword fighting, 4- wheeling, wrestling, pretending to be power rangers, and watching part of the fantastic 4-rise of the silver surfer.

adam and i were exhaused just from watching the boys, but they were effing funny! adam and i had lots of laughing, eating, drinking and yelling while the boys did alot of crying, laughing and fighting and raina was left to making things better, and bringing adam and i more drinks! stepping in poop, cooking...you know all the things women are supposed to be doing...lol. (JUST KIDDING) i had to promise raina i would make crystal call in sick to work next time we go over.

when we left i asked kaiden what his favorite part was, his response was funny. he said: "when i was on the 4 wheeler, and greyson wrecked it into the wood, and i flew over the windsheild and hit the wood with my head!" (the wood being a fence post adam had cemented into the ground earlier in the week) WTF?! crazy child!

(i laughed at it when it happend though...does that make me a bad dad karla?) haha! i thought of you and lee.

randy's thoughts of lee and karla handling the situation, after i found out k was fine;

lee; "HAHAHA! u ok tard?"

karla; "she's fine, there is no blood. f*cking kid!"

kid; "WHAAAA!"

lee; "whats wrong with you honey? u ok? awee.. your ok."

karla; "your fine, go away."

LOVE IT!

Sept. 25

You can find this flickr speller here.

Kaiden and I have been a bit sick this week (fever, aches, pains). The two of us have been laying low watching lots of movies, enjoying the sunshine out back, and making some new things to freshen up the house (pics coming soon). But Randy has been busy busy! Mike, and old friend from his high school days, needed a little vacation and decided to come down to Florida for a visit. He's been showing Mike around town and taking him to all his favorite spots.

Siesta Key of course.


Check out this sea weed! Randy said the piles were enormous and covering the entire shore. I've never seen such a thing before!

Kaiden went out last night with Mike and Randy to see the sunset. We thought he could use some fresh air after being sick at home all day. It did seem to help because he's almost back to normal today!

Yesterday Randy and Mike went fossil hunting at the Peace River in Arcadia.

I'm not sure what the plans are as of yet today. All I do know is I'm getting a little break! Randy will be leaving to visit his folks in Phoenix this weekend for 4 days so I'll be all by myself with Kaiden (which means no BREAK!). So he's being a darling and giving me a day to myself. Thank you love.

Congratulations Ashley and Rudy!

Ashley and Rudy's wedding was wonderful! It was absolutely perfect in every way. We are so happy for the two of you!!!! Don't they look gorgeous?

Here is Kaiden protecting the rings along side his partner Kendall. They did surprisingly well standing up there for nearly 20 minutes. The two boys were giving us "I love you's" in sign language while they were up there - too cute! A little fidgety? Yes, but its to be expected right?
There was lots of family dancing and Spanish music at the reception. And for those of you who know that I NEVER dance - I did!!!!! Shocking, I know. But it was a really good time and perhaps at the next event that requires dancing I will break out of my shell once more.

But seriously, the wedding was simply magical and things like that always get me worked up and emotional. Congratulations guys! We love you!

the rehearsal

Ashley and Rudy's big day is tomorrow! The two of them looked perfect practicing their vows, gazing into each other's eyes, being absolutely in love. I started tearing up at the rehearsal! How will I make it through the actual wedding?

Kaiden caught a bit of the love bug today! See the little lady, Brooke, sitting beside him looking adorable? That's Kaiden's new crush. I saw him a number of times rubbing her back, running his fingers through her hair, and gazing into her eyes. He couldn't stop talking about her on the way home either! Sweet innocent love...

This is Rudy's family. I love this photograph bigger so I can really see all their faces. Most of his family didn't speak English but were so sweet, especially great grandma sitting in the front right corner! Kaiden really took a liking to her. Early in the evenning her arm started to really hurt her. Kaiden saw that something was wrong and tried so hard in his sweet way to make her feel better. He definately brought a smile to her face!

While we were leaving the rehearsal dinner, belly's stuffed and soaking wet from swimming, I saw this at the front door and had to capture it. I wish we could have stayed longer but "ring security" has a big job tomorrow!

August 29

This is what adventure looked like yesterday...

Kaiden wanted to know how to make a "real" bow and arrow so we spent most of the morning researching and collecting supplies. The first bow we made busted from the string not being strong enough and we had a hard time finding the perfect arrows. But after much trial and error we made 3 awesome bows and Kaiden found that old bamboo makes amazing arrows!

I loved their adventurous spirit - exploring in the woods, fighting off dragons and snakes, and of course perfecting their aim!

Kaiden, Connor, Brian