Easter Activities at the Church

 Easter is upon us and the kids have been busy celebrating our Lord.  They have been learning about the events of Holy Week in their Sunday School classes and have also been participating in Holy Week activities.  On Palm Sunday, the children of the church march in waving palm branches.  Palm Sunday was also the date of the children's Easter production.  Owen and Olivia both had a solo in this year. Owen sang "Glory Glory Hallelujah (Since I Lay My Burden Down)" and Olivia sang "He Reigns".  On Wednesday, the church hosted an Easter egg hunt.  The kids at church always get really excited about that.  We are now looking forward to worshiping on Easter Sunday  He Lives!

Gate River Run

The Gate River Run is one of my favorite annual races, and I couldn't resist running it again this year- even though I am hopelessly out of shape.  It was a hot and humid day, but I gave it all that I had.  I finished with a time of 1:38:02- my worst for this course.  Even though my time wasn't that great, I still had a lot of fun and I look forward to redeeming myself next year.

State Tech Fair

 We traveled to Macon last weekend so that Olivia could compete in the Tech Fair State Competition.  She did not place, but she did get some good feedback.  The whole Tech Fair experience has been a positive one, and we are proud of the work that Olivia put into her project.  We are also happy that she had the courage to go into a room by herself with the judges, give her presentation, respond to their questions, and receive the feedback.  Olivia has stated that she wants to make it back to the state competition next year, so she has some work ahead of her.

An added bonus to our trip was that we had to kill three hours between Olivia's presentation and the awards ceremony, so we went and saw Zootopia- at a NICE theater.

Youth Art Exhibit

The Turner Art Center is hosting a youth art exhibit this month.  As part of this celebration, students from local elementary were given the chance to submit a work of art to be hung in the museum for the month. We received a note last week telling us that a picture Owen had drawn in his art class at school was chosen to be displayed.  Later in the week, his art teacher called the house to tell us that Owen's picture was also chosen to be entered into the competition portion of the exhibit.  Of course, we had to go check this out, so we all loaded up and headed to Valdosta for the opening reception.  The museum was really crowded- tons of parents were there with their children.  After some searching, we found Owen's picture- and his art teacher.  This was such a neat event, and a great way to promote art among the next generation.

The kids were asked to draw a "spring" themed picture.  When I asked Owen what he drew he told me that his picture was of "baby animals being born".  Thankfully, that wasn't exactly correct, although his picture did have lots of animals in it.

Owen's Field Trip

Owen's WINGS class recently took a field trip to Jacksonville.  While they were there, they saw the play "I Have A Dream" (about Martin Luther King Jr.) at the Florida Theater and then they toured the Cummer Museum of Art.  Granny Mel chaperoned the trip and she reported that they both had a wonderful time.  Here is a picture of the happy travelers about to board their charter bus.

Father-Daughter Dance

 The father-daughter dance is always a much-anticipated event at our house. This year was no exception.  Olivia chose to wear one of the dresses that her Nana sent her for Christmas.  I think she was as excited about finally getting to wear the dress as she was about going to the dance.  Brian arrived at the door in the 5 o'clock hour with a corsage to match Olivia's dress.  We snapped a few picture and then the two set off for dinner and the dance.  (While Owen and I got ready to go see Kung Foo Panda 3 at the movies).

Olivia had a great time at the dance.  She saw her cousins and several of her friends from school and church. The girls (and dads) danced the night away.  When Olivia came home she was all-smiles.  I'm so glad that Brian and Olivia have this special even that they can attend together each year.

Team Special Kay

Team Special Kay

 In the Spring of last year my Aunt Kay was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She has been undergoing chemo and radiation for several months.  At Thanksgiving dinner, some of my cousins and I decided that we wanted to form a relay team to run the National Breast Cancer Marathon Relay (aka the 26.2 w/ Donna) in honor of Aunt Kay. 100% of the funds raised by this race go to funding breast cancer research and to financially helping women who are undergoing treatment. We had so many in our family who wanted to participate that we ended up forming TWO relay teams which we named Special Kay 1 and Special Kay 2.




The race day came, and it was such a wonderful experience. Our relay was made even more special by the fact that Aunt Kay finished her last treatment four days before race day. She and Uncle Bobby were able to attend and were present at the start, finish, and along the course.  I know that it meant so much to my cousins and I that we were able to do this in honor of our sweet aunt.

Leg 3 runners

Hunter and Bailey crossing the finish line