Our First College Graduate!

On Saturday, May 3, 2014, Landon graduated from the University of Central Florida (UCF) with a Physics BS and a math minor.  We're very proud of him.  As of now, he's not sure what he's going to do next.  He always thought he'd go to graduate school and has applied to UCF and FSU, but he is really tired of school right now and doesn't really want to go.  So,  he is going to find a job instead.  He is still waiting to hear about graduate school as well.

 

Landon and his roommate, Andrew, both graduated today.

Tamar (Andrew's girlfriend), Andrew, Landon, and Dave (their other roommate)

April 2014

April was an incredibly busy month.  We had our church Easter event the Sunday before Easter on April 13.  We met at the Lacefield's house and had a service outside followed by an Easter egg hunt and a potluck dinner.  It was hot and the girls and I got slightly sunburned.

The Lacefields have a horse!  Carys' favorite part of the day!

Resurrection Eggs

 The girls and I left the Lacefield's and hit the road for Illinois to see my dad who was not doing well.  When we got to Belleville Monday afternoon it was 39°.  Sheesh!

My poor sweet dad was not responsive most of the time we were with him.  These pictures are from the first day we were there when he was the most responsive.  I kissed him and said, "I love you, Dad" and he said, "I love you" very clearly.  On the morning of April 18, Good Friday, we went to see him one last time before heading back to Florida.  He would not wake up or open his eyes, so I started singing hymns.  His eyes popped open and he started tapping his foot.  It wasn't long before he was trying to sing along.  I probably sang for 30 minutes, and Dad was aware the entire time.  It was a very sweet time that I will remember forever.

Mom told Dad to say cheese and he actually did

While we were in Illinois, we took a day and went over to see Gerren in Sedalia, MO, which is close to Whiteman AFB.  Grandma Epie went with us.  Gerren to us to lunch at an Asian buffet.  Then we did a little shopping at Penney's where he bought Chase some tops for her birthday.  Then we found a park so Carys could play for awhile.  Finally we went to Panera for coffee before heading back to Belleville.

Beautiful old church in St. Louis

Guess which one of these people has been up for 36 hours?

It was windy!

On Easter Sunday evening at 10:45 pm, Dad went home to be with the Lord.  What a wonder to think that he celebrated the resurrection face to face with Jesus!

March 2014

At the beginning of March, my dad was moved from Sycamore Village, an assisted living facility specializing in memory care, to St. Paul's Nursing Home, as he just needed more intense nursing care.  This picture of him with my mom was taken that first weekend.

We got to attend Tom & Christi Sharp's wedding on March 15.  Gerren hated to miss it, though.

Here comes the bride

With this ring

Landon's 21st Birthday!!!

I cannot believe that my baby is 21!  Where has the time gone?  His final spring break of his undergraduate career at UCF began on the evening of his birthday, so we got to celebrate the actual day.  He chose the Thai place for dinner again this year, and of course, strawberry shortcake for dessert.  :)

Carys made Landon this picture from the kit she got for Christmas

A little pillow Chase made and embroidered

January 2014

 This month is the reason that I found it impossible to blog for the past few months.  Our lives were thrown into turmoil when Greg's boss at the county fired him for refusing to add something to the minutes of a meeting that didn't actually happen in that meeting.  There was a recording of the meeting that proved it.  The boss tried to get Greg to resign so that "it wouldn't be on his record", but we did not feel that was the right thing to do.  So there was a termination hearing in front of a Human Resources employee.  Greg won this hearing because he had received a positive job evaluation 6 months earlier and a performance bonus a few months earlier and his boss had not followed the employee handbook of steps that should be followed when an employee has unsatisfactory job performance.  We figure that he's just managed to intimidate everyone into resigning in the past.

He was reinstated to his job and the boss waited 2 days to write him up twice (!) and terminate him again.  This time the HR person upheld the termination.  Greg appealed to the county administrator (a good buddy of his boss), and he also upheld the termination.  Of course there is much, much more to the story, but I'm summing it up here.  The boss who fired him is a bully who is liked by almost no one at the county but is the longest employee there.  If HR and the county administrator hadn't upheld the termination, they would have been admitting that the boss was wrong.  So, I guess that would have made them liable for his actions.  We considered suing the county for wrongful termination, but Florida is a right-to-work state.  Greg did not have a contract, so he can basically be fired for any reason.  We felt that pursuing a lawsuit would not benefit us in the long run.  So, we didn't.  We're counting on God for justice whether that's in the short term or the long term.  In the meanwhile, God has provided for us.  Greg has been working more hours at his second job, the Hampton Inn, and he's had all kinds of other work passed on to him by his brother (which actually pays better than the hotel does).  However, he's gone from home as much as he always was, and we'd really love for that to end and for him to get one full-time good-paying job.  I've pinched the pennies about as tightly as I can, so there's not much to be done there.

Thankfully, we had health insurance through the end of January, because Chase dropped a coffee cup and cut her hand so badly that we had to take her to an urgent care place for stitches.

Dad removed her stitches as he had for me, Landon & Carys as well.

We celebrated Carys' 8th birthday on January 17.  We ate out at Bubbalou's BBQ in Orlando.

Then we went home to open presents and eat cake.  Yum!

My Little Pony Monopoly from Gerren

A slinky!

December 2013

This year was my 51st birthday.  Ugh!  Oh well, I guess it's better than the alternative. :)


This was the very first Christmas without one of my children at home.  So strange!  We got to Skype with Gerren later in the day.  He worked all night Christmas Eve but had Christmas night off.  We opened gifts to/from each other via Skype as well.

The annual photo - we managed to get Gerren in there!

Carys LOVED these boots!

Chase embroidered these designs from some Anime they watch onto kitchen towels for Landon.

 

Landon didn't have many requests, but black socks was one.

Landon gave Chase a Samsung tablet!

Chase asked for a silver watch and actually liked the one I picked out!