March 2024

March 2024
Over the years, we've always compared our family life to a wagon train heading west. Just as everyone had to do his part to get to Oregon years ago, so everyone in our family must do his/her part to make our journey through life successful. If somebody climbs in the wagon and lets the others do the work, we just don't make any progress. We all have to pull our weight and work together. Along the trail we find lots of pebbles that make for a smooth ride and some bigger rocks that jar us a little; we hit the occasional pothole that can slow us down. But if we purpose to search diligently, there are countless gold nuggets and precious gemstones along the way as well. This journal is an attempt to preserve some of those precious moments for our children, and our children's children, as together we travel this trail called life.

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Psalm 16:11


Monday, March 1, 2021

FL 2021 Part 2

by Sarah

Tuesday was a beach day. It was a funny misty/hazy/cloudy day although it was very warm. Px didn't turn out great. In the picture below, we were building something out of sand, but it wasn't anything dramatic. Not like what we proceeded to build later...


….when I started building a detailed castle. At the same time, Jacob was helping Jewel and Josh build a large... castle? (it looked like a giant grain bin at first). The sculpting quickly turned into a unspoken contest, of one side trying to outdo the other. Kaitlyn started helping me when she arrived from the condo where she was in a zoom class. 


Busily working. 










This was the almost-finished result of Jacob, Jewel, and Josh. It's hard to see, but there are steps carved into the pathways. 


These were the steps leading up to the guard towers. 




At some point we sort of joined teams, and came up with the idea to build a wall connecting them. So we did. Sometime around the time of this picture, we had a large cave-in while trying to build the tunnels, and certain people were pretty mad that it had collapsed, so that certain person went ahead and quit the project...only to come back a few minutes later and start again with much determination. After all, when you've already spent five hours sweating over the giant castle, then you can't let a dumb little wall get the best of you, right?






Some friends from home came down and joined us for awhile. Ben also came down just as we were adding the final touches to our castle. He had been in zoom classes all day so had unfortunately had to miss most of the day. He started on a pretty impressive space shuttle, but unfortunately it didn't survive to completion.
Notice all the people standing around admiring the castle😀


We found this picture quite amusing😁


After Andrew and Ben built a sandman (they built it so they could send pics of it back home to where everybody else was building snowmen in the tundra arctic of Illinois), then we buried Ben in the hole they had created. It was very funny watching him try to get out. 



And so ended an amazing day on the beach! Some people had already headed back to the condo to swim in the pool or to relax.  We just ate in that night, and then that evening we walked down to the Siesta Key Village to get ice cream; but it turned out nobody was hungry so we just walked around and bought souvenirs. We then headed back to our condo, watched a movie, and headed to bed. 

Wednesday, February 10, found Dad, Mom, and the three littles headed to DeSoto State Park. The ferry to Egmont Key was full so we didn't head out to that island like we did last time we were here. 



This cute lil' shark was about three feet long. 




Then we headed to Fort De Soto. 


Fort De Soto is an old fort that was used to defend the island from sea-faring invaders. The fort is no longer in use (obviously) but the remains are open for public exploration. 







There were a lot of people fishing off the pier. We stopped and talked to these two guys for a few minutes before heading on. 




Note the ferry and Egmont Key in the distance.










Looking across the way at the Sunshine Bridge. 


On the Sunshine Bridge. 


Back at the condo, we swam for awhile before supper there.


After supper we played catch in the yard for awhile before walking down to the beach to watch the sunset.




Which is where we randomly ran into Mom's cousins Troy and June. We stayed and talked with them for awhile before we parted ways. We headed back to our condo for a movie and beds. 



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