January 2013 to September 2013

Below is a photo synopsis of what has been going on with the Lazar's in the last nine months:

On January 17th, Alabama got snow.....crazy weather!!!

On February 9th, Ella participated in a fan dance with her classmates from Birmingham Chinese School to celebrate Chinese New Year at Boutwell Auditorium.

 

 

 

A special valentine art project Ella did in 1st grade at school.

 

 

 

In February, Evan came home from college for a weekend. He and Ella rode bikes on the trail near our house....Ella had the best time with her brother xoxoxo!!!

 



    

Celebrated our "6th" Gotcha Day Reunion on February 23 & 24 at the Wilderness at the Smokies in Sevierville, TN.  We had a fabulous weekend with the Mcfee's and Mulligan's!! Congrats to Ken, Teresa, Mollie as they have an addition to the family...Sean Mulligan (Teresa is holding Sean in pic)!!  He is such a special gift and blended in perfectly with the girls during the reunion. 

Morgan and Reagan Dance came to visit us....Thanks Lisa!!

 

 Happy 7th Birthday to our sweet Ella!!!!

 

 

On May 11th, we attended Jiselle Havas's batmitzva in Orlando Florida.  It was a beautiful celebration!!

 

Ella enjoying some pool time with Reese and Rowan....sweet girls!

 

First day of summer vacation....swimming at the pool with friends!!

 

Cousins (Alex, Sydney & Alex) visiting Georgia for the weekend in June...xoxo 

 

 

Ella and Stella (and Stella's friend)  participated in Summer Showoffs Camp (singing and dancing camp that teaches children confidence and stage presence).  They did a fabulous job!!

 

 

 

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Addison came to visit for her 7th birthday.... best friends!!!  So sweet of Addison wanting to spend her birthday visiting Ella in Alabama!  They had a fun-filled weekend (thx De De )

We went to New York for a week at the end of July.  Pic above is from West Hampton beach out on Long Island....so beautiful!!!

Visited Grandma Sally (96 years old) at nursing home in Delaware

Dinner with Aunt Ray, Uncle Morris, Cousin David, his wife Robin and their son Jared in Delaware

After we visited relatives in Delaware, we took a drive to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to visit our ex-neighbors (Rochford's moved to Carlisle, PA )! We had a great day exploring the Amish country

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Evan, Alex, Ethan and Ella playing in mom and dad's pool

The day before we flew back to Atlanta, we spent the day in Brooklyn at Coney Island. We all ate lunch at Nathans Hotdogs and then walked on boardwalk. We also drove around the Brighton Beach area while mom and dad were reminiscing and also stopped by the house that Paul lived in until he was five years old.....it was a great day!

August 19th -First day of 2nd Grade!!!

We participated in a Fairy Tale Ball benefiting childcare resources here in Birmingham.  Pic above is of Ella, Mary Candler and Abby.

Labor day fun at Lake Allatoona with friends!!

Ella found this note that Evan wrote in her piggy bank with $5 attached to it. (note reads: Ella, today is 20th of January 2008.  When you open this note you may be able to read this and I might be in college. I love you very much!  Your brother, Evan)...precious!!!!!

April 2012 to December 2012

First I need to apologize for not updating this blog for such a long time.....Alot has happened in the past nine months so I will attempt to update you all:

April brought us birthdays (Paul turned 47 years young ha ha and Ella turned 6 years old...).  We celebrated Paul's birthday with our fabulous neighbors with a bon fire at our house.  Ella celebrated her birthday at World of Gymnastics with 12 of her close friends.  May was a momentous month as Evan turned 18 years old and graduated high school!!!  Paul's parents came down to Atlanta for Evan's graduation ceremony. It's so crazy to think that our baby boy is all grown up!!! 



In June, Ella and I decided to go to Minnesota/South Dakota for a few days. We visited my sister, Lisa and her daughter Jaden!  We had such a great time!  Jaden is so cute and Lisa is doing a great job as a first time mom!!  We also got to spend couple of days at the Morton's.  We really enjoyed our visit :)  Paul got a promotion with Wells Fargo!  He took a job managing the insurance offices in Alabama and Tennessee.  This promotion meant that we had to move to Alabama.  In July, we bought a house in Hoover, Alabama and sold our house in Woodstock rather quickly. The transition moving from Woodstock was difficult since we spent the last 15 years there.  Our lovely friends put together a beautiful going away dinner for us which was amazing!!  We finally got settled in Alabama the end of July. 

Back in January, we planned a family vacation in August to Alaska with our dear friends "The Havas's"!  We have always wanted to see the north west area of the United States and what a better way to do that with wonderful friends!  We flew into Seattle, took amtrak train to Vancouver then boarded Princess cruise ship where we cruised the inner passage of Alaska for seven days.  This vacation was sooooo much fun and unbelievably BEAUTIFUL!!! 

A week after we got back from our Alaskan vacation, Evan and Ella had to get ready for school.  Evan started college on August 20 so we moved him into the dorm on Saturday, August 18th.  It was an emotional day for all of us (specifically Ella because she cried for twenty minutes after we left his dorm)!!!  I was very strange to come back home and Evan was gone.....but him going to college and maturing will be good for him and it will be good for me to allow him to do things on his own :)

In mid october, everything was going along well until we got "the call"....Paul got downsized from Wells Fargo.  We were shocked to say the least.  Paul took the news fairly well and jumped right into finding a new job.  He accepted and started a new job January 2nd!!  His new job is a recruiter for Vaco Resources.  Unfortunately, his new job is in Atlanta.  So for now, he will be communting to Atlanta on Sunday evenings and coming back to Hoover on Friday nights.  He is renting a studio apartment which is two miles from his office so not much of a commute during the week :).  Vaco Resources has an office in Birmingham also.   We hope that eventually, he will be able to work out of Birmingham too.  We will keep you posted. 

Evan completed is first semester of college and came home first week of December. Since Paul had not started his new job yet, we decided to visit his parents in New York for the week of Christmas. We spent special Christmas Eve dinner with family hosted by Uncle Arther and Aunt Millie (thank you both for always welcoming us).   Mid week, we drove to Delaware to visit Grandma Sally in the nursing home and had dinner with Aunt Ray and Uncle Morris.  We ended our visit with a trip to dad's office getting our teeth cleaned, xrays, cavaties filled etc.....fun fun!  As usual, we had alot of laughs, played games, watched our new favorite show "impractical jokers" and ate way too many bagels....yummy!!!

2012 has brought us many, many changes but we are a strong family with faith in God knowing that He will provide! Wishing you all the best of what 2013 has to offer!!

Love,
Paul, Laura, Evan and Ella

Ella's cookie cake at her 6th birthday party

Evan and I had lunch with Ella at her school on her birthday

Ella's kindergarten class at Bascomb Elememtary - May

Evan's High School Graduation - May 26th

Ella 6 yrs. old and Cousin Jaden 6 months old

Ella, Whitney and Preston enjoying the pool at Waterpark of America in Minnesota

Enjoyed some girltime while in Minnesota with Dawn, Krista and Missy

 

Going away dinner with our Woodstock friends

Enjoying the lake with Dance Family and Nickels Family....lots of fun!!

Celebrating Addison's 6th birthday!!

Ketchikan, Alaska

Whale watching....sooo amazing!

View of ice glaciers from cruise ship...beautiful!!

Took train to Yukon territory in Canada with our friends the Havas's....

Another great pic from the cruise ship



Evan's dorm room at college





While in Delaware we visited Nona (95 years old) in nursing home... xoxo

Christmas day dinner with family

Clearly, Alex and Evan won this poker game....ha! ha!

Playing checkers with cousins

 

 





Ella, Abby, Mary Ruth, Ms. Jessica, Seanna, Anna Leigh and Brooke



(Gymnastics class)