favorite places

A beautiful day dawned in South Florida, and we enjoyed the morning at Patch Reef Park playing tennis with Rick and Linda. Afterwards, we drove over to Palm Beach to have lunch at… Bice!

We enjoyed a stroll along Worth Avenue. The flowers and architecture stunning as always.

 

 

 

 

The Breakers,

   where Doug bought me Victorian Birdhouse to add to my collection.

We made this same get-a-way last year. Although normally, I am not a fan of taking the same vacation again and again, I am more than willing to make this the exception.

I’ll carry these wonderful memories with me and look forward to next March.

sony ericsson

This is not what you want to see when you arrive at Key Biscayne.

We had hope early on. There were huge fans out blowing the courts until we almost believed they could begin play. Then the torrential storms began. We ran to the bus stop for the hotels and caught the first one, which happened to be going to the Hyatt.

We had a delicious Cuban lunch and then took a taxi back to Crandon Park… to watch some amazing tennis…

 

because the sun did decide to shine after all.

 

 

 

 

 

catching up with the currents

We have great memories with Bill and Susan and tonight we spent time catching up with them. We are staying at their house while to-ing and fro-ing to the tennis tournament in Miami. We always have plenty of fun chatting…in fact, Bill and Doug couldn’t manage to drag themselves to bed until 2 am.

We are grateful for their friendship and hospitality!

young women’s broadcast

If you didn’t see it last night, or if you weren’t invited, you won’t want to miss it. Brianna and I watched it after church today. We both thought that President Uchtdorf’s talk was amazing. In fact, when it was over, Brianna said, “WoW.”  And she meant the good kind of wow.

You can go to this link and skip right to his talk although the whole session was very good and worth watching.

http://www.lds.org/move/index.html?type=conference&event=april180&lang=english

basketball buzzer

Last Saturday our stake began a tournament that was completed today. One of the great things about our stake center is the full size court with an electronic scoreboard. Doug refereed four games and kept the scoreboard accurate for the others.

sarah shines

We loved watching Sarah sing and dance tonight in The Sound of Music. She was fabulous!

In fact, it was a production well done by the entire company!

census 2010

I love the census.

I am sure that one of the reasons I love the census is because I have spent considerable time looking for and  finding ancestors on previous censuses. While living in the UK, we joined with other members of our ward spending considerable time transcribing the 1881 census. Nowadays, it is a little easier because you can just go to the church’s indexing website and transcribe from the comfort of your own home computer.

I know the census is actually due on April 1, but I just couldn’t wait and filled mine out today.

 

And doesn’t Lake County have the coolest census logo?

popcorn and daffs

Courtney and I ran around the Charlotte suburbs on Monday running various errands. All of the kids were off school for a teacher workday, much to our delight. The blossoms were just beginning to burst forth with all their showy wonder.

I couldn’t have been happier than I was, having a wonderful companion and enjoying the morning together. Scattered among the curbs and gardens, the daffodils were also making a tremendous show.

Happy Spring!

carter’s baptism

 

Carter was baptized today. It was a wonderful and spiritual blessing to be able to share the day with him. He is an amazing boy! 

 

 

 

 

After the baptism, Tricia and Dan had a luncheon at their house. I was especially impressed that his school teacher (and her fiancé) from the Socrates Academy took the time to share a Saturday with her student.

 

His best friend, Alex, came with his whole family, and there were lots of other friends from the neighborhood, as well as church that came to share his joy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love you Carter

friendly competition

I played in my first ever tennis meet today. I was very nervous because Tricia really likes to win. We played against a group of Japanese ladies that Tricia’s tennis coach works with on a regular basis. It was a very gorgeous spring day in Charlotte and a blessing to be able to be outside enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

At one point, I looked at Tricia and said, “What is the score?”  (Her teacher had led them to believe that the competition was not going to be challenging. Those ladies were good tennis players and a couple of them had wicked serves!)  She answered, “Two-Love.” “How is that possible?” I responded. It was possible because Tricia kept us in it, and, in spite my nervousness, we won all three sets we played in this round-robin style tournament.

happy birthday carter

After a quick trip to Five Guys

 

and a stop off at the office for our visitor passes,

Tricia, Dan, Doug, Brianna, Izzy and I

 

celebrated a very special birthday at the Socrates Academy. Courtney used her Socrates dollars to buy the privilege of eating lunch with her brother. I think Jonah was in the right place at the right time.

 

Carter enjoyed helping his mom and dad pass out the cupcakes. We thought it was hysterical listening to the kids sing:

Happy Birthday to you….cha, cha, cha

Happy Birthday to you…cha, cha, cha

Happy Birthday dear Carter

Happy Birthday to you.  Eat More Chicken!

 

getting ready

  

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s go, adorable Izzy!

handmade

Tricia told me that her friend Shanda had left a magazine for me.

I was surprised to find that it was a Vogue knitting magazine. I think the last time that I knitted, was a sweater for the infant Courtney, which would have been about 8 years ago. However, I had seen a sweater that Shanda-the-knitter had made. It was great, and she had kindly left the magazine that included the pattern for me.

Tricia and I then took an outing to someplace she had never been…a knitting store. I felt it was quite lucky for me, although very sad for the proprietor, that the store was closing. The prices for their wares were fabulous. I bought some “sublime organic cotton” figuring that it was my only hope of actually being able to wear the sweater, when and if I ever did finish it.

 

That was quite a long time ago…maybe last spring? 

Cherylyn helped me pick out some fabric for a complementary skirt during another adventure to a fabric store. I decided that I would try and make it without a pattern, since I only wanted a pencil skirt. That whole experience gave me a creative thrill. I loved figuring it all out.

Well, I  finished the sweater today. I decided that it was clearly outside the field of my experience level to take on this task. Brianna encouraged me during the “finishing” which I found particularly arduous. It’s great to have a cheerleader in the house.

Now I am looking forward to wearing it!