Memorial Day 2026 Weekend

Over Memorial Day, Stephanie Vohwinkel was in town and we were excited to be able to have her spent the weekend with us.  Her daughter Sophia was in the AdventHealth summer RN internship here in town, so Stephanie was enjoying some time with her after spending a few days here on work business. 

We took Sophia and the Zs out on the boat - what a lovely day!

Sunday saw Kaleb packing up his car, and heading out to Camp Kulaqua to be a junior camp counselor.  It was his first time, and it was for one month.  Sneak peak, he had a great time and handled the kids fantastically!  He was a relief counselor (2 hours rotating around cabins each time), day-off counselor one week (where you take a different cabin every 24 hours) and then the last week he held a cabin of his own. 

We will miss you!

On Monday Memorial Day, we had Addison's friends over to tube, including the 8th grade girls and then invited the parents over that evening for burgers.  It was a great evening and we laughed and visited and got to know the parents a little more

Penny, Alison, Lele, Lily, Addison, Raylin, Alexa, Amaya (and Taylor was not in the picture)

Emy is Alison's little sister, and she had a great time with the big girls!

This week also saw Amy and Karis both having a birthday. 

Mexican food

Culver's Ice Cream for Karis

Graduations Galore & Menopause (the Comedy Show that Is)!

With Kaleb being a Junior, Orangewood includes the Juniors in their Senior graduation ceremony.  It is held on Friday before Sundown, and we were able to head over there to the Northland Church to watch.

Juniors walk across the stage and are handed a candle from the Seniors as the proverbial "mantle" is handed from the Senior class down to the Juniors.  The juniors wear a black cape and the seniors wear red.

Friends Becca and Ashlynn. We couldn't find his male friends in the mad crush of people

The FLA graduation was the same weekend, so Sabbath we were delighted to be able to head over to Biris to celebrate the graduation of Jonny Biri, Kieran Cochran, Andreas Mayr and Max Genanian.

The Saturday night FLA graduation is the major event, and Heather was able to get 2 extra tickets so Amy and Kelli could attend to support Kieran.  Congratulations Kieran!

Kaleb, Cameron, Becca, Leticia and Lily

Micah Hillmon

John Mark Touchard

Jackson Holland

Jonny Biri

And one of the moms!

The same week on Tuesday was the FLEC 8th grade graduation, held at Spring Meadows church.  We headed over to support Addison's 8th grade girl friends and of course Devin Cochran and Blake Holland.

Devin Cochran

Amaya, and 7th grade friend Penny

Blake and Raylin

And another 7th grade friend Lily

On Sunday, Amy and some lady friends went out to the Samantha Bee Menopause comedy show at Dr. Phillips.  We went out to eat lunch at Thrive beforehand.  It was very fun and we laughed a lot - it is better to laugh then cry 😂

Maria, Kayleith, Olesea, Erika, Kelli and Amy

On Sunday, Addison went to Disney with Alison S in order to see the Christian artist Joshua Queen - it was a fun time!

And in a random picture, how sweet is it that Addison still likes to hold a parent's hand!  Love this!

Happy Mother's Day & School Year Starts to Wrap Up!

May is always busy with lots of fun activities, and we enjoyed a new restaurant for this year's Mother Day breakfast!  We went out to the Peach Valley Cafe, which was pretty good.  Grandma, we love you very much - you are a blessing to us and we are so happy that you live in town with us and that we can see you often!

Happy Mother's Day!

Waiting for our table inside where it is cool and not humid!

The church always does a nice set-up for pictures on Mother's Day Sabbath so we took the opportunity with at least one of our children who was in the vicinity!

We hung out with the Js for a bit and the boys were able to go out on the jet ski which was neat for them to be able to experience that.

May finds the end of the FLEC school year and therefore the flag football also came to an end.  Addison was on the co-ed varsity team and they had a fantastic season and won the finale!  Congratulations team!

Catching the ball

One very sad farewell that we said in May was to Ms Esther - the choir director for Una Voce.  She has been amazing but made the decision that it was time to retire and move up to Tennessee in order to take care of her aging parents.  We will miss her greatly - what an amazing experience to be able to participate in the musical plays and the trips over the years with both Kaleb and Addison.

Aletha, Ms Esther, Laura the choreographer and Eric the AV expert!

The final concert at Apopka SDA, what a pretty church with the glass windows behind!

The 7th grade culminates in the science class with the pig dissection.  Karis always helps volunteer so it was his chance now this year with Addison!

She got the pig brain out intact for extra points!

2026 FLC Church Retreat & Sports Banquet

With the arrival of May comes the arrival of the Forest Lake SDA church retreat at Kulaqua.  This year it was just Karis, Amy and Addison as Kaleb was taking the ACT that Sunday so wanted to not have to do so much driving in the prior 24 hours.  The weather was drippy wet all Sabbath, but it cleared enough that we could enjoy the grounds and the boardwalk around the springs.

Speaking of the springs, the water was extremely low - apparently the lack of rain this year has really made an impact.  The kids were able to still do the blog on Friday afternoon, but the dock had to be shifted over onto the other side of the springs area.  Addison went up with the Bergherms so that she could have more time on the blob which was perfect!

Addi is on the blob, but you can see in this picture how long the water is, it isn't even up to the stairs on the right-hand side and the dock is over on the left-hand side.

This year we were able to get one of the new Villas - quite lovely and new.  There is a king bed, two murphy twin beds and then two twin beds in the loft.

The villas were definitely a do-over!

Sabbath afternoon we walked around the boardwalk with the Js in between the rain showers.  

 That evening we held the annual potluck - this year a lot of families weren't able to come as kids start to age out as well as other commitments, so it was a smaller group - maybe 40-50 instead of the 90 that we've had in the past.  Still very fun to visit with a wide group of people.

The kids enjoyed playing some board ball - a new game that is similar to Spike ball but has a larger ball, similar to volleyball.

Folks from the potluck stayed around to play cards -- it was CHILLY that evening as you can see with all of the jackets and towels being used to warm up!

On Sunday morning, Addison went horseback riding.  Amy and Addison didn't sleep that great - we both had a cold and the pollen over the course of Sabbath outside really did a number on us.  It was about 1A as Amy tried to figure out what to give her and finally dug through everything in our backpack and found Amy's inhaler that was from YEARS ago, but it still did the trick to let Addison's lungs relax from the pollen coughing spasms, so it was about 2A when we were finally able to drift to sleep.

That Sunday afternoon FLEC held its annual sports banquet in which certain athletes received awards and the coaches received a thank-you trophy.  Karis coached flag football so went ad received a thank-you.

Addison was exhausted from the fun....and from definitely not getting enough sleep Saturday night so she conked out on the couch when we got home for a nice rest