The Zorio Family: May 2022

I recently heard another parent refer to the month of May as May-vember meaning it's become just as busy as December, and I tend to agree. I will say 99 percent of our "busy" is self-induced, fun activities, that we actually really enjoy. May was the compilation of celebrating Dawson's birthday, wrapping up the schoolyear at homeschool and at the building, band concerts, several Boy Scout activities, baseball games for two boys, soccer games, end of year programs in various things, Mother's Day, a girls trip for me, and more-as I said, all fun stuff-but the calendar sure was packed full!!

These pictures are not in chronological order, but all happened in May 2022!!

For this to have been Carter's first ever season playing baseball I have been very impressed with him!

Best part-he is really enjoying challenging himself to be great at a new sport!

We spruced up with back flower bed a month or so ago, and I'm thrilled with how the greens and pinks look now that everything is so full of color!

Dawson hiking with scouts, and bonus-getting to use his new birthday present of a nice hiking backpack!

Every May we have to put up the white pvc and net to keep the birds out of the berry garden.

Well I ran out to do it before I left on my girls trip because the berries were just starting to ripen up, and look who was slightly disgruntled that he was now also prevented from accessing the juicy ripening strawberries!! He sat unhappily by the net staring at my like this for several minutes.

Duke LOVES sneaking a strawberry or two from the garden.

Picnic lunch on Mother's Day

My sweet family with Mother's Day goodies for me.

My very favorite flower-blue hydrangeas!

Mother's Day with these sweet 4.

So my friend Kelly turned forty this month and to celebrate we went to the beach for a long weekend!!

It was fantastic-girl time and relaxing and tanning in the sun!

We ate most meals on the balcony.

LuLu's for lunch one day.

Girls Trip for Kelly's Birthday!

Nana and Grandad came down to help out with the kids while I was in Orange Beach on my girls trip. The kids enjoyed their special time with them!

Dawson and Grandad.

We are desperately trying to finish up school.

I don't know who is more ready, me or the kids!

Dawson had band rehearsal for graduation, so we tried to wrap up a few assignments at the Dinosaur Playground while soaking up some of this beautiful weather.

Field Day and friends!

Duke loves John!

Mother's Day

Time for the orthodontist appointment which means....new colors!

WE MADE IT! LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

The first strawberry from our garden this season!

Then in a few days we had this many ready, then more!

Dawson got to play his trumpet with the band at the ARS High School graduation.

Nora Kate's Spring Season on the Golden Girls came to an end.

Nora Kate played phenomenally this season.

So proud of my girl!

The first Mother's Day we were in this house John and the kids gave me six Shasta Daisy plants for Mother's Day (perfect since we are a family of 6), and I absolutely love how they blume each year for over half the year?! Isn't that incredible! They start blooming in April (although I took this picture in May) and bloom typically all the way up to the week before Thanksgiving.

Dawson got a ping pong table for his birthday and he loves playing!

More Strawberries from the garden.

And more baseball! That's Carter up to bat.

And more ping pong!

The pool is open!!

And we are so happy!

Clayton played AWESOME this season on the Cardinals.

I enjoyed watching him play so much.

Here he is after his last game!

School is out and Summer Reading has officially kicked off!

AND they've already earned their first reading reward which was a cool treat from Dairy Queen which was perfect for this hot day!

Playground fun

After an exhausting morning swimming it's best to use your dog as a pillow and lay on the cool leather sofa.

Driving Range

I was cooking dinner and look up to this guy bringing this inside and saying, "Look what I caught!"

All boy

Our golden girl!

It's summertime and so we have to eat on the patio as much as possible-or so the kids think!

Pool picnic

Swimming time

Family movie theater trip!

So many daisies we clip some and bring them inside to enjoy!

She's fast, she's tough, and she's our girl!

Nora Kate built this dog house fort for Duke, of course he humored her and immediately went in and laid down.

The kids thought the lizard (Rolo) would enjoy walking around in a hamster wheel-fact:the lizard did not like it, and didn't move for the full 20 minutes he was in there.

For Memorial Day Dawson's Scout Troop worked to put out flags on the graves of Veterans.

I have actually always wanted to help do this so the rest of the kids and I showed up to help, and got to do it too!

Fridays After Five on the Square have started and we are pretty happy about it!

Friday's After Five

Nora Kate at her friend Madalyn's birthday pool party!

One of our family's favorite events every year is the Hot Air Balloon Festival at Point Mallard

Twinning with Nora Kate at the festival

On the 4th of July we got in a 8.25 mile family bike ride!

At the very end of the month, we took the kids for the annual eye dr appt. Surprise, Nora Kate needs glasses. After explaining to the dr how active Nora Kate is, he said that if Nora Kate could learn to take out and put in her contacts that very day while we were in the office and demonstrate it with one of their staff watching he would write her a prescription for contacts. Well I may have never seen her so determined, BUT we left with a prescription for contacts (and glasses for backup)

Learning about contacts

Although she is mostly going to wear her contacts we got her two pairs of glasses too.

Here she is in her clear frames.

And this is the other pair we ended up going with.

Well the reading challenge had barely just begun but Carter, ever competitive, was determined to be the first kid in our family to reach the big prize and have read 1,000 pages...so here he is with his big treat from The Yard!! Proud of him!

Everyone else got a little something from The Yard, just not the mega!

This summer you will see about a million pictures of us at the Botanical Gardens I'm afraid.

After a pretty extensive interview process, Dawson was awarded the position of a summer volunteer position at the gardens! He is required to sign up for and work various shifts for a total of at least 30 hours thi summer. So here is the first of many trips to the gardens for us while Dawson's working his shift.