Kianna's 12th Birthday

Kianna is a sweet girl with a great heart for Jesus. She loved playing with all the little girls on her mission trip. She loved letting them play with her hair. They didn't want to let her go when the time came.

Kianna has lots of determination, lots of spunk and lots of interests:

• Slime- She is currently obsessed with making slime. She can make butter slime, glitter slime, floam slime, flubber slime, and the list goes on. She enjoys playing with it, watching videos about it, and particularly enjoys making it. She has always enjoyed mixing soaps and shampoos together, to make her own concoctions, so this makes perfect sense. We are encouraging her to use these skills to develop her cooking and baking skills. She made us chocolate chips cupcakes with homemade cookie dough frosting, which were amazing! She also helped me make dinner recently. She loves doing things on her own without my help. 
• Animals and Dinosaurs- Kianna loves animals. She loves to cuddling with Rizzo and teaching him new tricks. She enjoys giving him baths and often get in with him. She enjoys watching animal videos and as a result is quite knowledgeable. She still loves dinosaurs. She currently wants to be a marine biologist or paleontologist when she grows up.
• She loves stuffed animals, especially the big eyed ones. She has quite the collection going on.
• Shopping- Kianna loves to spend money. She doesn't like to work or save money, but loves to shop. Especially when she knows she gets to buy something. It doesn't really matter what she buys, she just loves to buy things, especially little squishy trinkets. 
• Singing- Kianna has a beautiful voice and can often be heard singing around the house. She loves singing on her karaoke machine. She led worship on her mission trip, which is pretty cool. She enjoys choir at school.
• Music- Kianna has decided to give up the clarinet, so she can have time for theater at school. Kianna is very dramatic and enjoys performing, so we think this will be a great fit for her. She did show choir last spring at Vernon and thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately, her new school doesn't offer it. Kianna also wants to learn how to play the piano. Our rental house has a piano, so we'll see how much time she dedicates to learning to play it.
• Sports- Kianna's favorite sport is soccer, followed by basketball and volleyball. Kianna and Trace had soccer tryouts for a travel team called Jupiter United. She is excited to get plugged in with a new team here in Florida.
• School- Kianna's favorite subjects are Math and Science. She is not a big reader, but occasionally enjoys reading books about animals. She read "My Life in Dog Years" over the summer and really enjoyed it. 
• Friends- Kianna doesn't really have a best friend. At Vernon, her closest friends were Amory and Ella. At church, she enjoys Christian, Isaac and Zoey. In our neighborhood, she enjoys playing with Claire. We are praying Kianna will develop some good friends here in Florida.
• Food- Kianna loves sushi, hamburgers, ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese, Takis (a spicy rolled chip she introduced us to), and cookie dough.
• Allergies- Kianna has been getting allergy shots since last summer to help with her oral allergy syndrome. Thankfully she can now eat all of her favorite fruits and vegetables again. She still occasionally complains of a food upsetting her stomach or making her mouth itch, but the reactions seem to be much milder than before. She is currently in the maintenance phase of her shots, where she gets a shot every 3 weeks.

It was important to Kianna that we celebrate her birthday with family in Iowa before we moved. We ended up celebrating at Osaka Japanese restaurant with The Langfalds, Grandma Becki, Grandma Sue and Grandpa Wayne. We followed that up with Angel Food Cake and gifts back at our house. 

We also celebrated all of the summer birthdays with a farewell party at Aunt Stacie and Uncle Patrick's house. Aunt Stacie ended up cutting Kianna's red tips off her hair, which was a little bittersweet, but necessary to comply with the new dress code at JCS. We had buster bar for dessert. Yummy!

In order to celebrate the actual day with a bang, we invited the Wenzel's over to celebrate Kianna's birthday with us. We hadn't seen them in a little over two years, so it was really fun to spend time with them again! We took them to the Loggerhead Marine Life Center to show them the sea turtles. The kids were able to participate in one of the Junior Vet Labs again. This time they learned about sea turtles nesting habits, since it is nesting season. Sally and I enjoyed listening to the lesson too!

We spent the rest of the day at the beach, had a nice meal and frozen yogurt for dessert. I'd say our little lady was well celebrated!

Jupiter United Soccer Club

Before we arrived in Jupiter, Trevor researched soccer clubs. He found Jupiter United and contacted the coaches. The kids missed tryouts in June, but based on their experience they each made a team. Practices literally started the day after we arrived in Jupiter. The kids were excited to meat their new teammates and begin making new friends.

Roadtrip to Florida

We decided to break up the 22 hour drive to Florida into two, 11 hour days of driving with a pitstop in Chattanooga, TN. The first day of driving went really fast. I had planned several games we could play in the car, audiobooks to listen to and movies to watch. We played the license plate game, car bingo, a traveling scavenger hunt, listened to the third Harry Potter book and watched movies. We stopped for dinner at a dog friendly restaurant in Nashville, TN. Did you know there is an app called Bring Fido, which helps you find dog friendly places around the country? We landed at an awesome barbecue restaurant, where we sat outdoors and Rizzo was given a bowl of water.

We rented a dog friendly house in Chattanooga, TN. We spent the following day at the local tourist attractions. We went to Rock City, Ruby Falls and took an inclined railcar up the side of Lookout Mountain. However, despite the nice scenery my highlight was our yummy dinner where we had a delicious meal. I got to try creamy grits, which was amazing. We ended our day with ice cream at one of my all time favorite ice cream shops.

The last day of driving, didn't go quite as fast, but we made it here safely, so all is good. We ended the trip with all but 8 license plates. Rizzo was an amazing traveler. He did his usual cuddling and napping. He was terrific. We were greeted with a welcome balloon, key lime pie, a cookie cake and a few groceries all provided by our awesome realtor Lori. Trevor's car and a few boxes arrive in the morning. The rest of our stuff is still back in Iowa unpacked until the merger is official and our house sells.

Mission Trip and Camp Table Rock

Kianna spent the last week with the preteens from church on a mission trip to Kenosha, WI. Sharon, Zoey, Kianna, Evan, Christian, Tory, Kim and Tina all attended. They served at a local YMCA helping out with day camps. Kianna had a blast and had quite the following of little 5 and 6 year old girls. She let them play with her hair. They loved her and didn't want her to leave!

When they weren't serving, Kianna volunteered to help lead worship each evening during their lessons. They also toured the Jelly Belly Factory and spent some time at a beach. She also participated in a talent show where her and Tory Slippy, our children's pastor, lip-synced to "Love is an Open Door" from the Frozen soundtrack. It was adorable. She is quite the actress. They even did a fake face slap at the end that looked very real.

While Kianna was on her mission trip, Kaylee was with the youth group at Camp Table Rock in Southwest Missouri. Kaylee had a blast with her friends, as there were over thirty kids from our church who went, mostly 7th and 8th graders. Her week was spent attending worship services, tubing, cliff jumping, and playing in the water. She had an awesome time. Both girls trips were a bit bittersweet as they had to say goodbye to their friends, as we were leaving the following morning for Florida.

Lots of Goodbyes

The last couple of weeks have been filled with lots of fun and lots of farewells. We let the kids each choose a friend and went to Lost Island Waterpark. Kaylee took Brittney Comer, Kianna took Tiffany McCarty, Trace took Zach Flender, and I took my mom and Rylan. We had great weather and lots of fun! Unfortunately we did not take any pictures...

Kaylee had a summer bucket list filled with must have sleepovers, which she had fun fulfilling.

Trace and I had lunch with Grandma GG and Grandma Jacque. Then Trace had fun entertaining Grandma GG while my mom and I went to the spa for a facial and massage. It was awesome!

The Langfalds had us over for some homemade pizzas on their grill, which was fun. Grandma Becki made an awesome brown sugar cake for the occasion. Trace had several sleepovers with Bryker and Bruxen while his sisters were gone. We also celebrated the end of his summer reading and math book with a trip to Skyzone with his cousins. Kianna got to join in the fun too, as she returned from her mission trip during all the excitement.

Bree had us all over for a bonfire and smore's before we left, which was super fun! We even busted out the glow sticks. Stacie hosted a nice farewell meal. She and I also biked and had breakfast together before I left.

We also spent time with Grandma Sue and Grandpa Wayne playing ping pong and Up and Down the River, one of the kids favorite card games.

My last day of work was the 13th. My coworkers planned a special salad bar luncheon for me and had a basketful of gifts along with kind words to send me off. I had several patients give me cards, as well as, one patient who made me some beautiful quilted pot holders.

All these goodbyes are very bittersweet. We are excited for the future, but sad to leave our friends, family and church behind. We were content and happy here in Iowa, but apparently God has new plans for us. We look forward to seeing what new things are in store for us. One thing we have to look forward to is that Stacie is coming to visit us Labor Day weekend and Grandma Jacque is hoping to visit too. We love visitors and look forward to hosting them!