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! :)

God & Country

JT recently earned his God & Family Religious Emblem. This is the 2nd of 5 religious emblems he can earn while in the Scouts program. In order to earn each of the emblems, he has to complete a multiple week course of study which includes a workbook that he completes. His counselor checks it and then our Pastor reviews it and signs it.

While a Cub Scout he earned the God & Me emblem. Now, as a Webelo, he earned the God & Family emblem. He will have the opportunity to earn the God & Church, God & Life and God & Service emblems as he progresses further into his Scouting experience.

These medals are to be worn for dress only and are medals that can carry through with him as he progresses into adulthood. This is one recognition Tim never had the opportunity to achieve as a Scout.

We are proud of JT's accomplishments so far and hope he continues on the Scouting path he's on and becomes an Eagle Scout like his father. We also hope that the God & Country curriculum also helps build his faith and his walk with God as he matures into a young adult.

Florida United Methodist Annual Conference

This past week I went to Lakeland, Florida for a few days. I left on Wednesday and came home Saturday afternoon.

As one of 3 Lay Delegates for our church, I have to go to Annual Conference as a representative of our church to take part and vote on any issues that are being voted on. There is also bible study each morning, but I would consider it more preaching than bible study. The guest speakers were great though and I really enjoyed hearing Bishop Hee-Soo Jung from Chicago and wish I had not missed one of his early morning sessions.

There was plenty of singing and from a few different groups as well as a production of singing and dancing from the kids from the Florida United Methodist Children's Home. There were presentations, retirements, ordinations, calls to service and voting. Fortunately, there wasn't too much bickering about any of the issues.

There was an Expo there as well, so I made my rounds every day and picked up lots of freebies. Water bottles, thumb drives, pedometers, pens, pads, T-shirts, etc. I brought back most of the stuff JT and the ladies in the church office. They were holding a health fair as well so I had my blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and a couple of other things checked. I was very pleased with the results. All within normal ranges. My cholesterol was under 200 and I don't think it's ever been that when I had it checked before. I tried to give blood though and I was too anemic so they wouldn't take it.

Even though all three of our Pastors went for the weekend and also Howard, one of the other Lay Delegates, it was a pretty lonely 3 days for me and I tried to enjoy the time alone relaxing in my room as much as I could. I stayed at the LaQuinta Inn and was lucky enough to have a microwave and refrigerator in my room. That allowed me to eat in at night and not only save money, but also stay on my diet and eat the low calorie microwavable meals I've become accustomed to.

I discovered while I was at the conference that I still have alot to learn about the church, how it's run, the issues, etc.

I did check out the area to see how many geocaches were hidden nearby and there were actually quite a lot of them. I didn't want to go hunting for them by myself though, it's more fun with JT and Tim or at least someone. There was one close by my hotel though, right behind a 7-Eleven so I was tempted to stop one morning and I saw it almost right away. So at least I got to get at least one find while I was there!

Women of Faith, Zoo & SeaWorld

This has been a busy weekend so far for the Tungett family! Friday night and Saturday I went with 65 other women from my church to the Women of Faith Conference. I have traveled out of town to go to one of these before, but this was the first time it was held here in Jacksonville, Florida in their history of 12 years! The singing, preaching, teaching and worshiping was awesome! Imagine thousands of women in one room... laughing, crying, singing and just having a great time with their friends... that's what it was!

While I was enjoying my "girlfriend" time, my husband and son went on a Cub Scout trip out of town. Friday night they went to the Central Florida Zoo, a couple of hours away from home, and spent the night with other cub scouts in the pack and their families. They got to sleep in the Zoo and get a behind the scenes tour this morning. Then they went to SeaWorld in Orlando for a day of fun there. I would have normally gone with them and was sorry I missed it, but I wasn't going to miss the Women of Faith ... especially since I had been the coordinator who got our group together. So I spent the evening alone.... well, there were 3 men in my bed.... Balto, Kobe and Onyx. (2 dogs, 1 cat .. basically a total of about 130 lbs of hair covered companions sharing the bed with me!)

From all accounts, the guys had a great time at both places I got to hear some of the stories tonight and look forward to hearing more about it tomorrow when he gets out of bed and thinks of all the things he forgot to tell me tonight. :)

Church Leadership Retreat

My sister KD and I went away for a weekend at Epworth by the Sea, St Simon's Island, Georgia to attend our church's Leadership Retreat. As you can see from this photo and video, we Methodists are very serious people and our meetings are always straight to the point and down to business!

It was fun rooming with KD and spending the weekend together. We got to know some of the other people at the church better and even met a few for the first time. Of course, we actually did get quite a bit of productive brainstorming about the future of our church done as well.

Epworth is a beautiful campus with hotels, motels, bunkhouses, meeting facilities, a church and beautiful surroundings. We were in meetings most the time we were there, but we still got to enjoy some leisurely down time.