Easter Weekend

Julian's Spring Break started Thursday before Easter so we took off to the park that day and I took some photos. We had missed his school picture day, and to be honest, my photos are always better anyway. He doesn't mind posing for photos so we walked the trails by the river and on the dock and took lots of photos. This is just one of many that I took. You can see the rest of them online here.

After we left the park we went to Moe's to meet some of the Youth from church to eat lunch. Then I took Julian to his elementary school to visit his 5th grade teacher, Mr. Gibbons.

On Good Friday, Tim had to work but got home a couple hours earlier than usual. We decided to head out to the Clay County Fair and enjoy the evening. I wish we had found a friend to take along for Julian, I'm sure it would have been much more fun for him. We had a good time though and Julian rode quite a few rides, although he doesn't do any of the scary ones or anything that goes upside down. Tim and I didn't ride any rides, we just watched. My stomach got queasy just watching the rides. We watched the K9 Frisbee dogs while we were there. They were great! Since Julian watched the show he has been wanting to play Frisbee all the time. He's actually getting pretty good at it for someone who's never really thrown a frisbee much!

Saturday we headed out to to the Mandarin Arts Festival to look around. I'm fortunate that Tim likes to go to Art Festivals. We enjoyed looking at everything but didn't end up buying anything. As usual we were lookers but not buyers. :)

On Sunday morning we went to a Pancake breakfast at church, then church services and communion. Afterward, we came home and changed and headed out to Ronnie Van Zant park to meet up with all my cousins who were gathering there for a covered dish lunch and an egg hunt for the kids. Since Mom is out of town at Shelly's and KD went to her in-laws for the day, we didn't have any plans so I was glad we were invited to join them. I'm sure Julian had a good time having someone to play with.

These were all Aunt Eileen's kids, grandkids and all their families. Aunt Eileen just passed away last month, so I'm sure this was a hard holiday for all of them. I'm glad I got reconnected with them though, just sorry it had to be under the circumstances it was. Too often it takes a death to make us appreciate the life we have and love those around us a bit more.

Here's a photo of the kids just before they headed out to hunt for eggs. I loved just watching the kids run around excited, looking for these little plastic eggs like they had never done it before.... knowing that everyone of them probably had already done it at least once this weekend! I snapped alot of photos too, because that's just what I like to do. You can see them and the rest of the Easter photos here.

We had a good day and I was glad when I got home and got to put up my feet and relax! :)

It was a busy weekend, but a good one. Now, if I can just survive the rest of Spring Break with Julian at home! :)

Found Relatives!

My father, Edward Stewart (1930-1983), passed away due to lung cancer 26 years ago. I was 21 years old at the time and never had the opportunity to get to know my father as an adult. Dad was a quiet man and didn't talk much unless he had something to say. I didn't know much about his childhood, but I had heard at some point that he had a sister that was taken away by his mother when she was about 1 year old and he was around 10 or 11. He had several brothers he grew up with as well as 2 sisters and a brother from his father's second marriage. She was his step-mother but the only grandmother we knew on his side.

Over the years I've wondered about my father's birth mother and his sister and what ever happened to them. Mom and Dad never told us. So, October 25, 2009 with the resources available on the Internet, I decided to see what I could find out. I didn't know their names, so I did a search using my Dad's name and birthplace on Ancestry.com. I was amazed to find that without much work at all, I found my father's name in someone else's ancestry tree. Their branch dead-ended with my father's name which told me they also had no information about him. I could tell from some of the other names though that this was definitely someone in the family. As luck would have it, it wasn't just someone in the family, it was my first cousin Victor Ritchey, son of my father's missing sister! Within minutes, I had found my father's sister's name, her 3 son's names and my father's mother's name. Vic had done alot of research and had traced our family tree back for generations... but never had the information on my father and his family.

With a little more poking around, I found Vic's website and his Facebook page and saw a photo of him. I saw the family resemblance right away. I wrote him a message introducing myself, hoping he would be receptive to getting to know us and share some information about his mother and grandmother.

It wasn't long before I heard back from him, he shared photos, genealogy information and the stories he had heard about his grandmother taking his mother away from the rest of the family. We've connected on Facebook and I and my sisters have all gotten to know him a bit as well as Aunt Edna, my father's sister. She's 70 years old now and I am thrilled we found her. I think she was just as thrilled that we found her too. I shared all the information with Shelly and Karen as the emails and photos came and now we are all Facebook friends and hope to get to know each other better as well as meet some day before too long.

I think my dad would be very happy that we found each other. Mom said that anytime dad talked about his sister he would get teary eyed because he missed the relationship they never got to have.

Here are a few photos we received. After seeing my dad's mother, it's quite obvious who Karen looks like!

This is Vic, the cousin who did all the research that allowed me to find them. He's an artist so I'm guessing maybe that side of the family is where all us girls got our artistic abilities from.

This is my grandmother Alpha Mae Buchanan when she was young and then again with Vic (above) and one of his brother's Doug in 1961.


This is my Aunt Edna Deloris Stewart Ritchey in 1957 and a photo of her and her husband and sons, Victor, Doug & Stewart now.

Aunt Edna also has another sister from her mother named Janis who would be my father's half-sister. He also has his half-sisters Janice and Debbie and a half brother Patrick from his father & Mary. Unfortunately, other than a couple of times I contacted Janice, we've lost touch with all of them since he died. My father's other brothers, Lloyd, Bill & John have all passed away. I wish we had kept in contact with their families so we could know those cousins. It always makes me sad that losing dad meant losing his side of the family as well.

That's probably why I'm so happy to have this connection with Aunt Edna. It's also given me the opportunity to share with her some information about my father, her brother, that she never knew.

Many thanks to Vic for doing all that research on his family which allowed me to find them!

More photos of the rest of the family can be viewed here.

Walk in St. Augustine

Julian went camping with the Boy Scouts this weekend and we had actually planned on pulling the trailer to Faver-Dykes State Park and camping while he was with the boys. Unfortunately, it rained so much that the park closed due to flooding and our plans were canceled. The Boy Scouts ended up going to a different camp and we decided not to try to make new reservations so we stayed home.

It was a beautiful day today and I've been cooped up in the house sick for a few days so I was ready to at least get outside for awhile. I wanted to head down to St. Augustine to walk around, take photos and just enjoy the beautiful day with Tim. We got lucky and found there was a festival going on, so we got to walk around and look and some arts and crafts there and then we headed for a walk.

I wanted to take some photos of the 208 foot Great Cross and the surrounding grounds. Unfortunately, even though we saw a bunch of people walking in the grounds, there were chains and gates in the places we tried to get through that said "no trespassing" so we didn't. I got a few shots from where we could. We'll have to go back another time and try again to see everything.

It was a nice walk, a beautiful day but quite windy. We need to do stuff like this more often rather than sitting at home. It was nice to just spend time alone together. The rest of the photos I took can be viewed in our Picasa album here.

Boy Scout Family Campout

We went on the annual Scout Family Campout this weekend up near Blackshear, GA. A couple whose sons used to be in the Troop invite the Troop up every year to campout on their 300+ acre tree farm. The boys enjoyed fishing and shooting off rockets they built. We had great food and fellowship with other scout families. The boys pitched their tents a couple hundred yards away from the parents so we weren't subjected to as much kid noise. The Webelos that are coming out of the Cub Scout pack also joined us.

The weather was beautiful during the day, but the temps dropped down to about 36 at night so it made for a bit of a cold night. We didn't get a lot of sleep, but it gave me a deeper appreciation for my bed and the warmth of a home. The homeless crossed my mind and made me feel a little more compassion for them.

The owner took us on a tour of the property 3 -4 at a time. The property was beautiful with a little bit of everything... lakes, swamp, trees, open fields and lots of wildlife. We heard a pack of what I'm assuming was coyotes in the middle of the night which was a little unsettling, but they didn't sound too close.

Part of the time around the campfire on Saturday night was a flag retirement ceremony put on by one of the Boy Scouts. I really enjoyed this part of the weekend and the way the ceremony was done.

We're looking forward to going back again next year.

Here are some of the photos from the weekend.

Jacksonville Zoo

We headed to the Zoo today after being asked by a friend from karate to join them. It was a bit chilly, but it was a beautiful sunny day nonetheless and a great day to go to the zoo. They came over to our house and we all drove together. That's Cindee and her daughter Breanna in the photos.

So often when we go to the Zoo it's so hot that the animals are hidden in the shade and not moving around very much. Unfortunately, this means we don't get to see as much of them as we'd like. This time, with the weather being cooler, they were out and about. If they weren't moving around, they had at least found spots of sun to lie in so we could at least see them better.

The big gorilla pulled his favorite trick while we were all staring through the window at him.... he jumped up all of a sudden and banged on the glass and sent all the people screaming and running. It was hilarious and I'm sure he gets the biggest laugh out of it every time he does it!

The Jacksonville Zoo has been undergoing a 10 year renovation so each time we go there is something new to look at. It has gone from being a very small, unimpressive zoo to a gorgeous zoo that makes it fun to go back to each time.

The rest of the photos can be seen in our Picasa photo album.