Spiritual Events

 February ended with some very special events - starting with the Jenny Allen annual Christian event - it is very powerful with multiple speakers and it is such a great way to stay connected to one's faith.  Vasti opened her home for the small group of women and we had a lovely day - it was Andrea, Dawn, Neida, Jessica, Kelli, Amy and Vasti.  Thanks Vasti - what a beautiful day!

Speaking of spiritual retreats, Kaleb's Forest Lake Church youth council (which he is part of that leadership group) had their spiritual retreat for high schoolers in February as well.  Someone caught a lovely picture of Kaleb during his reflection alone time. 💗

Addison also had a lovely event as part of a pop-up community choir and orchestra.  The Una Voce choir participated, and it was a packed event full of beautiful music and all range of ages.  It was a neat experience for her to be able to sing with a full orchestra accompanying the choir!

Hard to see her, but she is near the back on the right hand side of the picture (kind of where the violin bow is pointing)

The church AV team was able to get a better angle.  Not sure what was making her smile, but always love to see the dimples come out!

Addison also signed up for Risen to be an actor "extra" as part of the Last Supper as one of the servant girls - so there are practices now each Sunday.  Her friends signed up as well, so the three of them are standing behind the "disciples" against the wall in this picture.  Proud of Addison for trying new things and being willing to put herself out there!

And in a random picture - Amy went to have lunch with two of her CFOs and they chose this quaint restaurant in College Park that makes fresh pasta where you sit just on the other side of the glass and can watch them, how fun is that?

And in a random picture - Karis entertaining himself as we sat at the church for Addison's concert.  Probably texting one of the boys to say that we wished they were with us!

Happy Birthday to You!

February had some fun birthday celebrations starting with our friend Vasti.  We headed out with some lady friends to enjoy Mexican food - yum, good food and good friends!

Happy birthday beautiful friend!

We also enjoyed Blake Holland's birthday - they did minute to win it style games - how fun is that!?    Happy birthday Blake, thanks for including Addison!

Picking up skittles with chopsticks (can we just eat them instead? 😋)

Blowing ping pong balls across the floor

Enjoying her friend Taylor

Visit with the Shepherds, Valentine's Day & a Pampering Sunday!

Stacy Shepherd (Lyle's daughter) and family came back into town from their grand RV life adventure as they travel around the United States with their kids, seeing all of the neat things along the way (kids are homeschooling).  Amy and Stacy have worked together for years, so we wanted to be sure that we were able to get together with them while they were back in Orlando.  So fun to catch up!

Stacy and her family plus sister Amy, and Mom and Lyle

Goodness, these two kiddos are growing so fast!  

We enjoyed some time out by the fire doing s'mores with them as well.  The new gas firepit is much more useful than our wood-burning solo stove as it doesn't create smoke in your face and looks so nice!

That weekend, we also went over spontaneously to the Js as it was Valentine's Day (we always do a take-out dinner with our family and we were hanging out together in the afternoon and it just morphed into the whole afternoon & evening) so we did a leisurely boat around the lake and then got Crepevine! Yum.

A real treat came on Sunday when Amy headed over to her friend Olesea's parents' house for an afternoon of being totally pampered.  We went into their steam sauna (followed with of course a jump in the cold pool - hot/cold being so good for a body!), massage and then tea afterwards.  Kayleith was there too, so the three of us enjoyed lots of visiting and relaxing.  Thank you Olesea!

Cold Snap of 2026

February started off with the worst cold snap in Orlando that has been experienced in decades.  Karis was gone for his annual ski trip, which meant that Amy and Kaleb were holding down the homefront.  We had to traipse around every night making sure that our hoses were dripping (of course, how much dripping is the right amount of drip Amy kept asking herself!!?) and praying that our pipes wouldn't freeze and burst.  Thankfully they did not, but all of our landscaping definitely did NOT survive.  Boo, that is a bummer.

During that same freezing weekend, we had the annual Kids House Clay Shoot.  Very fun, and the fundraiser for the abused kids is always worthwhile.  We bundled up (seriously, including hats as you can see) and headed out.  Our team won the "first place" of the group C (aka lowest grouping of amateurs.....so we were the best of the worst! ha ha ha ha!)

Work colleagues - Jorge beside Amy, Kevin's head behind Jorge on the left side, then James' head behind Jorge on the right side and Jeff on the far right.

Hey - we know Brandon!  

Here is our trophy!  Another work colleague Amanda that was on Amy's team

Superbowl of course always comes at the beginning of February as well - Karis was back in time for this.  Poor Karis came back early from skiing because the snow was so bad!

The prize table

She chose the Seattle Seahawks blanket because it is Zach's favorite team to give to him - sweet sister!

Random picture:

Addison seeing if she is strong enough to give Alison a piggyback ride.  Yep, she is. Other friend Penny laughing at their antics in the background