Yes we are alive!

Sorry no picks right now, been crazy busy. Hopefully I'll get to it soon!

Crazy Day

Hi, my name is Clint. This is my first attempt at blogging, I hope I don't mess it up!

I'd like to fill y'all (a throwback to our Georgia days) in on what is going on in the Z-family these days. Rather than starting at the beginning and trying to explain the last few weeks, I decided to just tell y'all about today. I felt like today was a microcosm of our life: busy, fun, and a little crazy!

December 17, 2009: I started work at 6:45 AM, I love Thursdays because they are my half-days - I only work until noon (I work 7 to 6 the other 4 days of the week). Today was a busy day - I had a crazy hour where I somehow ended up with 5 patients at the same time, 3 of them in various phases of rotator cuff repair rehab. It was a fun group of patients (one of which was a professional baseball player and played on the Atlanta Braves with Dale Murphy!) and it actually went quite smoothly.

Then just before I left I got a call from the Bishop and he wondered if I could go make a visit with him to a family that was having some issues. It turned out that the family was unable to meet with us at that time but the Bishop went with me to Costco for lunch and returns. I had a bunch of returns to make: Costco, Old Navy, Target, Kohl's - apparently Santa bought some gifts too soon and some children changed their minds in the eleventh hour!

Then it was off to pick up JT and Brevin from school. Kadie was unable to pick them up as the windshield in our Pilot had finally been replaced and she wasn't supposed to drive the car for a few hours to allow the glue to dry. We'd had a crack in it for a long time and it was growing - we wanted to get it done before our trip to Idaho and Utah. We can't wait for our Christmas trip!

We got Brevin's report card in the mail: 2 A+'s, 1 A-, and 4 A's. We are very proud of him, he works hard and is doing great. JT is doing great also, he told me he got to be the teacher today - teaching the other students how to do some kind of art project. Zack is starting to read! (At his recent parent-teacher conference his teacher gave him "Outstanding" marks in every aspect: reading, writing, math - which she said she has very rarely done in the past).

I then had a short moment at home and read Brett's blog - what a great story - and I guess that was my inspiration for doing this now. Then it was off to the Batting Cages. Brevin, JT, and Zack will all be playing baseball this year and tryouts are January 9th. They all were hitting the ball well.

Then I came home, changed into my church clothes and made the visit with the Bishop to the family in need. Which I was only able to do because my doctor's appointment was canceled at the last minute (nothing wrong, just a check-up). The visit went well, but it made me a little late for a tennis game with some church friends.

The tennis match was the first that I had played in since my surgery and there was no problems. Then I left early and went back to the apartment and picked up Kadie and the kids to go make a visit to a less active family and then to my home teaching family. In the meantime, Kadie had received a call from our realtor that our offer on the house was accepted! We're excited, but not counting our chickens yet.

Our visits went well, and then it was bedtime for the boys and I finally had time for dinner. Kadie had made some homemade noodles that tasted delicious over mashed potatoes. A great way to end a busy day!

Merry Christmas from Jeret

Here's Jeret preforming at a Christmas Concert at Saint Mary's. This is his favorite Christmas song that they play. Merry Christmas everyone!

What's going on?

I haven't made the time to update our blog lately. So here's a little info for you all. We have sold our home, which means that we are packing like crazy. All the paper work should be completed this coming Monday. We have to be out by Dec 4th which is the week after Thanksgiving. We will be moving into a 3 bedroom apartment while looking for a new home. We were hoping to have something already but we haven't found "Our" home yet. The boys are not looking forward to the change and to be quit honest I'm feeling a little sad leaving our home. This was our first home and have lived in it for almost 8 yrs now. I will miss the raspberries and grapes that Grandpa Minick planted for me. I will miss all the other things that we have done to make it our home. We know there is a bigger home out there so we look forward to when we find it.
We love you all and hope everyone has a safe, fun, joyful Thanksgiving!

Halloween Day

We began our Halloween very early in the morning. Brevin was up at 5:20 getting ready to be picked up by his coach at 5:50. He had a baseball tournament at Twin Creeks in north San Jose. Luckly his coach gave him a ride so that we didn't have to have the whole family ready that early. We got him out the door and then got ourselves ready. Brevin played very well and pitched 4 innings between the 2 games they played that day. Between games we did a little birthday shopping(he got money for his birthday and it was burning a whole in his pocket). We went to a fun baseball store and he left with a really nice baseball glove. It's been quit cute, he has that glove in his hand constantly trying to break it in. He even lays in bed with it on. After some shopping we made it back to the fields for another game. They didn't win either, but still had a great time. Hopefully this weekends tourney will go better.

I thought this was a really cute picture of Brevin. Sometimes he looks so grown up it's scary!

After baseball we made it home in time for our ward Trunk or Treat. Zack had fun collecting candy from all the trunks. He also came back with these funky eyes, kind of creepy.

Here's the group. Just in case you can't figure out the costumes, Zack is Darth Varder, Jeret is a tree(funny), Clint is a pirate, and Brevin is a MLB player.

We decorated our trunk with the boyz pumpkins. They all came up with their own designs and dad helped with some of the craving. Note the glove in Brevin's hand! :)
What a fun Day!!!

Happy Birthday Brevin

Brevin decided that he would like to go to the Exploratorium in San Fran for his Birthday. We couldn't go on his actual Birthday so we went the Saturday before. He had his friend come with us and went for it. We spent about 4 hours there and needed more time. :)

Yes this is Zack drinking out of a toilet. It was pretty funny, he was laughing so hard I don't think he actually drank any water.

The thing I love most about the Exploratorium is that the boyz can touch and do everything. It's so fun to be able to try everything yourself. They had hours of fun and would of kept going except that they closed :(

After hours of exploring fun, we were all starving. We got on the road and found a Chevy's. The boys ate very well and even had room for some Birthday Ice Cream.

On Brevin's real Birthday, we celebrated with a caramel apple. Yummy....
Happy Birthday Brevin!

Boardwalk

We were lucky enough to have some friends that had extra passes to the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. They offered the tickets to us during the summer and never had a chance to go, crazy I know, but true. So anyway I got a phone call saying they were going to expire soon so I better use them. We kept checking the calendar and decided we could go after Brevin's flagfootball game. Clint couldn't go because of Scout Training stuff :(, but we decided we could go without him. We did really miss him, but still managed to have a lot of fun. The boys went from ride to ride and we never stopped until we went home. The only time someone was sad was when Zack wasn't big enough to go on the big roller coasters. I'm always amazed at his lack of fear!