A Momentous Occasion

On May 3, 2009 Christa donned her cap and gown and strolled across the floor of the O'Connell Center. (Wasn't it just a blink of an eye ago when she was sitting in her homeschool desk agitating her sisters!?!)

Twenty plus years of schooling have come to an end, but seeing as it's called a "commencement" ceremony, a whole new life will be starting for Christa. And I really don't know who was feeling more proud...Christa or me, but she sure was beaming throughout!

A joyful look on her face turned to a frown when she realized that I didn't have my camera and she saw me taking a picture of her on my cellphone :) Moments later I received a text..."How do you not have your camera on the MOST important day of my life!" Notice that it really wasn't a question. ( And thanks, Peter, for having yours on hand...it saved me from hearing about it for the rest of my life!)

The beaming continues.....

We couldn't pass up a pose in "the swamp"!

A celebration afterwards with

family and friends was the icing on

the cake.

Deep Sea Napping

"Deep-Sea Napping"...surely I must mean "Deep Sea Fishing". Well, let me explain....
Yuriko was down from Seattle, and being the fisherwoman that she is, lured me with her wonderful adjectives and got me on a deep-sea fishing boat. Here we are (basically at the time of day where I should still be on my porch sipping tea) waiting for the first mate to get the boat ready.

The Sea Love is now prepared to take us 2 hours straight out in the Atlantic Ocean in search of a reef or perhaps a sunken ship because apparantly that is where the good fishing is to be found.

On the intracoastal now heading past historic St. A....I'm really enjoying myself at this point.

And here I am on the bow of the boat (I just googled "bow" to see if that is truly where I am), and I am really, really enjoying myself at this point of the trip. I feel as if I'm converted to becoming a fisherwoman, and in my mind I'm budgeting around 4 deep sea trips per year at a minimum. The wind in my hair, the sun glistening on the water, sea life all around (dolphins, sea turtles, schools of jellyfish visible in the clear water, sea birds) all convincing me...yep, I can do this!

Boating straight into the path of the sun!

Yuriko totally anticipating a FULL day of deep sea fishing. Her excitement was contagious.

Just a pictorial view of the wake to try to give a visual of how fast the the boat was churning through the water.

A SEA TURTLE....the first I have ever seen out in its natural habitat......now I am having a really, really, really good time.

But above is the last of my pictures on the boat during this day long trip because very soon after we anchored, I had to go lay down thanks to motion sickness medicine and feeling queasy. Approx. 6 hours later, I woke up to see the skyline of St. Augustine once again. I slept through major catches of fish, I slept through people all around me having their lunches and having a "cold one" while sitting on the mat where I was sleeping. I slept through the 2 hour ride back into shore! As one guy on the boat put it...."Well, you sure had an expensive nap...Ha-Ha!"

Well, at least Yuriko had her catch. And later that evening, she cooked up some scrumptious red snapper to my delight.

So my "I'm Converted" thoughts very quickly turned to a "Well, this was a once in a lifetime experience" thought. But you never know.......That ride out sure was exceptional!

An Unusual and Special Easter

After years of Easters under the oaks, sharing food and fellowship with so many over the years, Christa and I found that we had the possibility of a weekend to ourselves and decided to take advantage of this time together. And since the beginning of her days at UF, we have wanted to have a photo shoot meandering around campus. Here is just a sampling of our day of fun and laughter...


In front of the Swamp, the football stadium where we spent sooooo many game days with some of the best fans in the sports world. Whether we had to roam the streets pregame looking for those "right-priced" tickets, or if we had the pleasure of sitting in Box 14 (thank you, Ginn Family!), these games are memories that will never be forgotten!

And let's not forget those unforgettable basketball teams over the years. Thanks to the "Gator Kids Club", our basketball fever started many, many years ago. Christa's eye for the game came early.... so Donovan, if you need any tips, just look her up. And Tod, remember, your studies are the most important thing in life right now.

Christa is on top of things and ready to take on the world....

......however, it will be bittersweet kissing those Gators good-by!

Discovery

The space shuttle, Discovery, took off from Cape Canaveral last night. It was right at dusk, but the ship was catching and reflecting the rays of the setting sun, thus the golden glow. Always an awesome sight to see, but it's especially quite a sight a night. Christa was able to see it from her balcony in Gainesville, and Jess watched it from her yard in Jax.

My camera couldn't capture it, but you could actually see the boosters drop off of the shuttle. There was much oohing and ahhing amongst the crowd.

There is an area right down from my condo known as "the point". It's where a tributary comes in off the intracoastal, and it's the best place to view the shuttle launches. It was here that fellow condo-dwellers watched the final glimpses of the Discovery in the night sky.

Hiking

I have no idea how to add text to my pictures, nor how to add as many pictures as I want...but any way.....I finished the hike! I'll try to figure this blogging with pictures out when I'm less tired.

But to explain the pictures: The 206 bridge to Crescent Beach was the first thing we saw when we emerged from the woods; the baby eaglets!; this woman was 70 and I thought she was in her late 50's; the gopher tortoise can stop a building project if their burrow is on site; and since I made the 5 mile hike, I treated my self to some local bar-b-que!

Here we have two baby eaglets...the highlight of

the hike.

Humanity at its Best

Today I joined the search for a little 5-year old girl. Approximately 250 strangers from around the country joined together for two reasons....in hope of finding Haleigh or a clue to her whereabouts, and to let the family know that people cared.

I use the word stranger losely. Within seconds you were not a stranger to any of those immediately surrounding you. You were co-workers. The unity that occured because of the common purpose was astounding. People who you would normally pass in the local stores and not even acknowledge their presence were now asking each other "are you doing ok" and meaning it.

There was Joseph (the 19 year old slightly Gothic young man from Georgia who didn't have anything planned for the weekend so he came down to search) walking next to Marsha (the 50+ upper middle class woman who had a bad encounter with a stranger when she was 4). They were talking as if they were old friends.

Then there was Jan (the 40ish Buck knife toting, camoflage clothed, snake boot wearing, 9mm owner jokester of the group) whose motivation for being there stemmed from living in Caylee Anthony's neighborhood, who searched for Caylee and felt compelled to come search for Haleigh. She kept watch out for us less "prepared" women in the team, making sure none of us got left behind.

There was Diane, the leader of our 10 person team. Two months ago an elderly woman got lost in her neighborhood. There was an air search and a search by vehicles, but no ground search. She was found too late huddled under a bush for warmth. Diane committed then that if another person went missing within driving distance to her and a ground search was going on, she would join.

But over and over again the main motivation that was heard was simply that the person was a parent, and that if it was their child missing, they would want as many people out looking as possible.

The strategy was to stand in a long line, arms outstretched, hands overlapping your neighbors, then drop your arms. This was to gauge the distance to stay from each other. Or I should say the closeness to stay together. Then the command was given to walk forward, head down, looking for anything at all that did not belong there. We went 100 feet forward, then did an about face, and went a 100 feet back. Then the whole line of 200 plus people would shift to the left and repeat the process. I learned today that the woods that you see as you're driving down the road that look absolutly inpenetrable are not.

I also learned that in a time of crisis, the human spirit transcends all of the petty differences, judgements, and prejudices that we live with each day. The best in humanity comes out.

May Haleigh be found safe!

My Miracle

I have a friend who was in a church service, and the congregation was told that if they had ever experienced a miracle to stand on one side of the aisle and if they had never experienced a miracle to stand on the other. She was unsure as to where to stand, wondering if she had ever experienced a miracle. And apparantly, some did get up and went to the "never experienced" side. That hit me as so sad...that someone can go through life thinking they have never experienced something miraculous.

So if you are inclined to think that way, go outside in the morning and look at a sunrise, or just look down at your own fingertip and marvel at the thought that no one else in the world has that same exact 1/2 square inch as you, or witness a birth of any kind, or consider the fact that we inhale oxygen given to us by the plants, and the plants absorb the carbon dioxide which we exhale. And on and on and on. You get the idea.

Every day holds a miracle - be on the lookout for yours!