Friday Fun

Daryl and I snuck off to Disney for a little bit of fun at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival on Friday while the boys were in school. 

And then the whole family spent Friday night at the Leesburg High Homecoming Football Game. Parker's middle school band played alongside of the high school band (Swarm of Sound) before and during the game.

Sick Baby

Davis spent most of the week home sick out of school - with something that started out viral and ended up as an ear infection. We tried to trade off and keep him home, but some days the sick baby had to crash in our office.

Trick or Trot!!!

Saturday was the 3rd annual Trick or Trot 5k to benefit Fruitland Park Elementary School! 

Wesley with some of his school buddies before the race. Three of the boys in this picture finished in the top four!

Here we are after the race. Wesley finished fourth overall at 27:33 Parker was 20th at 36:32 and Davis RAN with Daryl - no jogging stroller this year! They finished up in 22nd and 23rd place at 38:57. I walked this year and wasn't last so "Yay me!" 

Davis' Robin costume also matched his teacher - Miss Dietrich was BatGirl! 

Wonderful Wednesday

With all of our wonderful retired volunteers in the Villages, we end up with some interesting hobbies as classes at Wonderful Wednesday. Wesley took one of the newest classes this year - Cardio Drumming! They performed last week in the parent show. 

Going Deeper in Discipleship

After Grandmommy's retirement party, we raced home because the following morning we had a big discipleship event at church planned by our associate pastor Loida. She brought in the Rev. Jim Harnish, who retired recently after 40 years in ministry. He was instrumental in starting St. Luke's UMC in Orlando and revitalizing Hyde Park UMC in Tampa. We had a great time worshipping and all learning together about discipleship and then Jim preached all the Sunday services that week as well. 

Disaster Relief

Before we left for Cuba, we spent a large part of a day with volunteers in our Family Life Center sorting through all the flood buckets that were brought back for UMCOR and making sure that they all had the right numbers/items. So thankful for all of the wonderful folks who came out to help sort - and who shopped and came back later to finish packing everything up!!! 

While we were away in Cuba, Pastor Loida and another set of volunteers made sure to get all the supplies to another Methodist church in the Villages, so they could be taken up to the dropoff point in Gainesville - we sent 263 completed flood buckets plus 200 hygiene kits! Great work Community UMC!!!

Lake Wales Memories, Old and New

When we returned from Cuba, the family dropped me off in Lake Wales for the rest of the week so I could lead at the Residents in Ministry Personal Growth Conference. I'm the new chairperson for the RIM process after being on the team for several years and this conference I designed and taught a new segment on Clergy Self Care. The setting for this particular conference was historic Bok Tower Gardens. I loved visiting here as a child with family and with our youth group - every year we went to Bok Tower, ate a picnic lunch and then visited Spook Hill and the Passion Play. 

I had a great week getting to know the new provisional elders and deacons in our conference and spending time with them. One of the things we did during our time on spiritual practices was to walk this prayer labyrinth I had brought in from the conference office. 

The view from my conference room in the visitor center. 

More views around the visitor center. 

The other new meeting space used by the pastors for the preaching segment of their conference. 

The "Singing" Tower remains gorgeous as ever and the original gardens continue to be beautifully maintained. But what I love about this place is that over the last several years they have found ways to continue to upgrade and improve the grounds, making Bok Tower relevant to changing tastes and super appealing to families. The last time I was there was in 2014, for another pastor conference. Since then they have put in a gorgeous outdoor eating area and edible gardens - they do cooking demonstrations here and food tastings - and recently opened a whole new hands on children's area. Can't wait to bring the family back here soon! 

The new children's play area has climbing "spiderwebs", hammocks and much more. 

And the awesome outdoor kitchen where we ate all our lunches!