SPRING BREAK / UNIVERSITY SINGERS TOUR 2009

This was actually our first stop after leaving for tour ... Hephzibah Children's Home. Reason being, one of our students got a call from her parents saying she needed to return home because her father was having emergency heart surgery. We were a number of hours away from school by now and thought the best option would be to leave her at Hephzibah until a family member could pick her up. Meanwhile, we did a quick tour and went to the stables. Thus, our first picture on tour!

Here's our tour crew in front of the stables. Pretty nice barn!

Believe it or not, this is not real food, it's just a picture of food taken at STEAK & SHAKE, where we ate our first dinner. Yes, things got a little out of hand. We requested hats and they graciously gave them to us. We pretty much were the entertainment for the entire restaraunt. You can only see a snibit of Bob's face on the left. After numerous attempts at trying to get us all in the frame, we gave up and just took a picture of Bob. See below. Yea, so this was pretty much it.All the girls - Sarah whom we left at Hephzibah.This is Ben. He totally fits into the 50's diner scene.

Ben, Amy and I stop for a quick picture on the beautiful beach of Casey Key. We had about an hour here. Not near long enough.

Tiffany, Ashley, Colicus and I are on a pier. The colors were so beautiful. This picture kind of washes everything out. A passer-by felt sorry for us and help us get this shot. As sometimes happens on tour, you run into people you never expect to. This is Joanne Drury Cutler and her husband Dwayne. They went to a church we had a concert at (Cape Coral) and we got to go home with them and get caught up on the last 30 years. Joanne's first husband, Elmer Drury, was our boss at United Wesleyan College when we worked there.Me and Joanne before taking off the next morning. What a great night with them!Saturday of the tour was Tiffany's 21st birthday. We started the day by celebrating with humungous sunglasses and banners. Bet you can't guess which one is Tiffany! Then we went to Plant City to visit Parkesdale Farms and enjoy some fresh strawberry stuff! It was only 10 am and we really didn't care. We just wanted the goods! Now this was the really fun part. They had this huge cut out strawberry for a throne, with tiarras there and flowers. There was a little sign that said, make yourself queen or king for a day. So, this was our strawberry Princess for the day. She had a blast! It was great that her birthday was so much fun for all of us. Her first birthday away from home too. Another fun thing at Parksdale Farms was this big map and these straight pins. They wanted you to mark where you were from. So, Colicus did it for all of us ... Central, SC. Sadly, this is the only picture of us singing all week. This is at Brooksville, Fl. The kids really enjoyed singing there and meeting so many wonderful people. I was singing for Sarah all week - so I'm on the far left side.

MARCH SNOW 2009

It was Sunday, March 1, 2009 when it began snowing in the late afternoon. It had already rained steady for 2 days and I didn't think there was any chance that even if it did snow that it would actually accumulate! I thought all the water would just soak it up. But it snowed hard and long enough for us to have a little winter wonderland for a day or so. My little frogs had snow caps as you can see!

Our back yard. Really it's beautiful! The next day, the sky was that gorgeous Carolina Blue again, making a great backdrop for all that white stuff!!

This picutre was actually taken during the snow storm on Sunday afternoon. I was outside on the porch and Bob took the picture from inside the house. Here comes Devin with his laundry and stuff to spend the night. He wasn't real happy about the snow at the time ... guess he had his fill in Indiana. But here's HAPPY BOB with a snow shovel! Yes, we actually own one. He uses it to shovel pine straw. I think this is the first time it was ever used on snow! Again, this was taken while it was snowing. You can still see the grass a little bit. But by the next morning, all hint of grass was buried in that soft white blanket.

FEBRUARY VISITORS 2009

Emily came for a weekend visit in February. We sat through a couple of cold baseball games together. We had a propane heater the first day at the games and then we were informed they weren't allowed on campus. BOO!! Emily looks good in SWU BLUE!These are our precious friends, Gordon and Frances Miller, from Kernersville, NC. We say they are Devin's special Godparents. Frances got to hold Devin in the hospital when he was born. They were on campus for Board of Visitors meeting. SWU is very special to them and they are so happy their "perfect" Devin is a student there!

Devin was upstairs in the dining commons - so he was easy to find to grad a couple of pictures. Gordon and Frances were absolutely delighted to see him.

Frances ADORES Devin and told EVERYONE that he was just PERFECT! I love this picture. So, they would probably not appreciate me saying this, but Gordon will be 90 this year and Frances is in her 80's! Aren't they just glorious??!!

Frances liked that Devin was so much taller than her!