Motto for this quarter: Get Organized – -any day I’m not volunteering, I will work on organization.
Happy New Year to all. Since I have a lot of routine activities, I have decided to start posting quarterly.
I do volunteer work every Tuesday morning either in my church office or at the North River Care Pregnancy Center. On Friday afternoon for several hours for the distribution of food. I also have Worship Team practice (aka choir practice) on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings in addition to singing during the service. After the Sunday service, granddaughter, Emma, and I usually go to visit my Dad (Emma’s great-grandfather). I attend monthly meetings on the 2nd Tuesday afternoon at Dad’s Freedom Plaza Memory Care Center in Sun City Center; and the 3rd and 4th Thursday evenings at the church’s Senior Saints and the pregnancy center’s board. In addition to these regularly scheduled items, I will also be seeing a doctor three times.
Special recognition for family events this quarter include: 1/3 – Niece, Shay Cambre’s birthday. Shay is the daughter of my brother Bill. She lives in San Diego.
1/25 – Nephew, Mat Butler, aka Robmat. Mat’s mother was my husband’s sister, Eileen. He lives in Bend, Oregon, and is my Godson. (This is a significant “ends with a ‘0’ birthday”)
2/1 – Niece, Connie Cambre’s birthday. Connie is married to my brother Bill’s son, Tim. They live outside of Atlanta.
2/13 – Sister-in-law, Tammy Cambre’s birthday. She is married to my brother, Rick. They live near Geneva, Florida (wouldn’t want you to think it was in Switzerland!)
2/21 – Brother Rick Cambre’s birthday. (This is another significant “ends with a ‘0’ birthday”)
3/2 – There are two events for our family today. My daughter-in-law, Kellie’s birthday; and my great-nephew, Michael Frantz is marrying Brooke. Michael’s mother is my niece, Reverend Melissa Cambre Frantz and she is my brother, Rick’s daughter. Many of my extended family will be traveling to Florida’s east coast to attend the wedding.
3/25 – My niece-to-be, Lindsay Patterson’s birthday. She is engaged to Mat Butler.
January– I had a traditional Southern New Year’s Day dinner of collard greens, symbolizing money or wealth; ham, representing progress or forward movement; black-eyed peas with rice (aka hoppin-john), signifying coins or luck; and cornbread, with its golden color, which stands for riches or prosperity. After lunch, following another tradition, I took down my Christmas tree and put away the manger scene that Rick and I made/painted about 50 years ago.
1/11 – I put together one of the two file organizers that I bought on Sale at Michaels. I am using one for filing and the second one for paperwork I work on for church.
February
On the second, Emma and I attended a chili cook-off and cake auction. This is an annual event at church to raise funds for the youth to go to a summer camp. I usually make a cake to be auctioned and I did again, but this year Emma (who is 10) made a cake as well. With donations for the chili dinner plus funds raised in the auction, the youth now have about $3,500 to help fund this summer’s trip. I made a heart-shaped strawberry cake with vanilla glaze and Emma fashioned a white cake into the Old Rugged Cross (including the nail holes).
On Saturday, 2/17, Emma and I attended a fundraiser fashion show in support of the North River Care Pregnancy Center. Emma was in the fashion show along with several other granddaughters of people associated with the center. We each bought $10 in raffle tickets, and both won very nice prizes. From the second picture, you can see that the event was well-attended (including a number of “Red Hat” members).
On Friday the 23rd, I visited my doctor where I was told that not only was my sugar too high, but my blood tests had revealed a high level of potassium which could indicate a problem with my kidneys. She adjusted a couple of my meds and put me on a low-potassium diet.
The next day, the pastor and some of the participants of a recent mission trip to Cuba, sponsored a Cuban pig roast to make money to help fund the next Cuba mission trip. I brought home a pork dinner for both me and Kellie – but I only ate the pork.
March
On Friday, March 1st, JP, Kellie, Vannessa, Emma and I drove over to the East Coast of Florida where we checked into an Air BnB in Edgewater (which is in the greater Daytona Beach area.)
That evening, we attended a Welcome Party which included family and bridal party members.
If you are familiar with the Daytona Beach area (where Rick and I grew up) you may know that there are certain times of the year that the Daytona International Speedway has racing events. During the beginning of March every year, they celebrate “Bike Week” which brings in thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts and includes several different type of motorcycle races. This weekend was the beginning of bike week to play miniature golf at a course in Port Orange on the beachside (about 30 minutes from where we were staying.) I suggested that she count the motorcycles she saw while we were driving to and from the golf course. When we returned to the house to get ready for the wedding, she told her parents that she had counted 405 motorcycles!
The groom, Michael Frantz, is my brother Rick’s grandson. Family members from Rick’s branch of the family included his wife, Tammy and daughter, Melissa (the mother of the groom-not pictured here.)
I attended along with my whole family, son, J.P with his wife, Kellie (who was also celebrating her birthday) and their two girls, Vanessa and Emma. I don’t put pictures of our children on this site, so the picture above is the bride, Brooke, with Michael, and me flanked with both of my brothers and sisters-in-law.
My brother, Bill and his wife, (Mary pictured on the right above), were joined by all three of their children along with their spouses and three children. Tim and family came from Georgia, Christina and family came from Nebraska, and Shay and Kasey came from California. It is very rare that so many of my extended family are together, so we were all thrilled that this came together and that it was a joyous, happy occasion.
If you’ve been counting you may have come up with a total (counting Brooke and Michael) of 21 of us. Pictured below is the large wedding party.
On Sunday, before we went our separate ways, my family was joined by Bill & Mary and Mellissa for brunch at the “Aunt Catfish Restaurant” at the foot of the Port Orange bridge. It was a nice way to end this special weekend. I then went to Ormond Beach to spend the evening visiting with my brother-in-law, Edward Hoffmeister, before returning home on Monday.
On Saturday, March 9, I met sister-in-law Mary for lunch before attending Jesus Christ Super Star at the Straz Theater in Tampa. We enjoyed the show very much.
On Saturday, March 22, I participated in a “church clean-up” day in preparation for Palm Sunday’s events. This was Emma’s first day of spring break.
The Palm Sunday, March 23, morning service was well-attended. I drove back to church at 4 p.m. with Emma and her friend, Brooke.
Today, Palm View First Baptist Church is celebrating its 66th birthday (aka Homecoming) with a family picnic including an Easter Egg Hunt and many other games as well as a cookout with potluck sides and deserts.
Face painting and arts and crafts were already underway when we arrived.
Pastor Jonathan welcomed everyone; and his wife, Krystal, told us what was on the schedule.
About 4:30 there was an Easter egg hunt for the children. This was followed by our “dinner on the grounds” picnic under the pavilion behind the church.
At 5:30, Julie led the children’s games which included a sack race and egg toss and more.
Everyone seemed to have a good time.
I was summoned for jury duty on Wednesday, the 27th; but when I checked in the night before I learned that all jurors summoned for that date had been released from service.
Easter came earlier than usual this year on March 31st. There was an Easter surprise waiting for Emma when she came over for breakfast before going to church.
After church, we took a small “basket” of candy to Dad. It was filled with Miniature Snickers bars, individually wrapped M&Ms and some other candies that I know he likes. He seemed pleased that the Easter Bunny remembered him. About 6 p.m., JP, Kellie and Emma came over for our Easter Family Dinner of ham, asparagus, macaroni and cheese, and some delicious cheesy hash browns before desert of angel food cake, peaches & whipped cream. I always love celebrating holiday using my mother’s china.
I do feel like a got some organization done – that was mostly getting everything together for the CPA to complete both mine and Dad’s tax returns for 2023.
