Wednesday, December 30th

These two spent a couple of hours strolling around the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve... there weren't many others there; the above picture is the result of our best effort to set the timer and take one of ourselves...

Tuesday, December 29th

They call themselves "Bird Brains"... a force to be reckoned with on the local trivia game circuit. Grace and I got to see her brother Jonathan (far left in the picture) in action tonight at Paco's... he has an amazing ability to come up with the most obscure bits of trivia, a fact that earned him three victories on Jeopardy back in the 80's...

Monday, December 28th

The run-off from the roof had been eroding a trench in Grace's back yard...

We took on this little project to channel the water underground and into her pond (a distance of 24 feet)... would have been a simple task had I not broken one of her sprinkler pipes with my shovel... good news is we "got 'er done"!

Sunday, December 27th

The scene @the Baxley's Sunday afternoon...

Grace and I packed away the Christmas tree and trimmings while son Nathan and three of his friends jammed away on "Rock Band"

Saturday, December 26th

Grace's battery finally "gave up the ghost" after five years of faithful service... some industrial designer had a funny sense of humor when he came up with the layout of that particular Saturn engine... just getting to the terminals of her battery was "no walk in the park", but the challenge paled in comparison to that of actually replacing it... thankfully, the technician at Walmart did that!

Jesus' Birthday

One of our stops Christmas Eve was to the Parrish's (my nephew Jason's high school sweetheart's); the photo shows Lauren (in straight blonde hair) "skyping" her brother Steven, a navy P-3 pilot currently serving in Iraq... not all that far from where Jesus entered this world in human form a couple thousand years ago!

This from the Managua paper; the quote is Matthew 1:22-23
"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at "the Rah's" (my sister Susie's); Jason was over at his girlfriend, Lauren's house, so we walked over and spent a couple of hours crashing the Parrish Party. Grace and I will be in three cities tomorrow (Davenport, Gainesville and Jax)!

Wednesday, December 23rd

Mom volunteers at Bok Sanctuary... today's outing included a tour.

Above is our crew (including my brother Mike and his kids) waiting for the shuttle to the Pinewood Estate;

Among the Christmas decorations was this "Santa's list" showing Grace to have been "nice" this year...

Tuesday, December 22nd

Tim, Nathan and Will spent the day at MGM Studios; Grace and I did a little late Christmas shopping... she humored me in trying on this French beret, though it was not one of our purchases ;-)

Monday, December 21st

There was a packed house at Disney's Animal Kingdom... didn't keep us from having a good time. Here are 7/8ths of our gang waiting for the parade to pass by!

Tomorrow Grace and I are going shopping while our boys sample the rides at MGM Studios...

Sunday, December 20th

Lots of driving today... church in Jax, dinner in Gainesville, overnight in Davenport (my mom's) in anticipation of our day at Animal Kingdom (one of the Disney parks) tomorrow.The dinner crowd at "Grandma's": (L2R) Laurie & Mary Brady, Susie (Heather's mom), TK, Katie (Mitch's daughter), Mitch, Heather, Grace & GK

Saturday, December 19th

Finally got to meet Grace's brother Jonathan... dinner at Seven Bridges was delicious, the conversation and fellowship sweet.
Tim and I spent last night in Gainesville; he stayed with his Grandma & "Gumpa" today... just a great start to our break!

Friday, December 18th

We got our "snow day", although it wasn't official until the white stuff began to fall around 5:00 this morning, so we've slept in and plan to hit the road around 11:00, which should put us in Gainesville around 10:00 p.m. We'll be taking our time on these mountain highways...

Thursday, December 17th

Another picture from the CB... this one of Tim with his good friends Becca Clark and Philip Richardson.

We're both getting ready for our trip south tomorrow afternoon... the forecast calls for snow in the morning; there exists the possibility of a snow-day, which of course would get us on the road a few hours earlier...

Wednesday, December 16th

People have been asking how my daughter is doing...
Last e-mail I got started out, "Dad I'm in love...



(big space)



...with Australia!
She's obviously doing well; thoroughly enjoying her adventure...
I'm sure it'll be tough for Tim and me to be without that curly-headed sister of his at Christmastime this year; she might even miss us a tad, who knows?

Tuesday, December 15th

Tim's been back in the weight room MTuTh trying to put on a few more pounds of muscle in preparation for high school baseball and college soccer... we're both ready for Christmas break, however, and our two weeks in Florida!

Monday, December 14th

We've had a group of five Guatemalan middle and high school exchange students at ACA for eight weeks...
They left last Saturday; today was the first school day since and I miss 'em!

Below (L2R): José Pablo, Alex, Ramiro, Katia & Carlos

Sunday, December 13th

Pastor Bruce talked us through Elijah's flight to Horeb/time of despair as recorded in I Kings 19, asking us to consider how we get in similar "pits of despair" from time-to-time... He proposed that a combination of physical depletion, emotional detachment and spiritual exhaustion are a dependable formula... Good thing Christmas break is right around the corner!

Saturday, December 12th

Here's footage from last night's Virginia (in white) versus Wake Forest NCAA Division I semi-finals (won by Va. 2-1 in OT)...
Tim is hoping to be playing at this level next fall with UNCA; must've been a little inspired today, scoring a really nice goal in our 1-1 tie against the Fredericksburg Elite (Va.)...

Friday, December 11th

Tim and I are in Raleigh where he's played a couple of games with his new club team (as a guest player) and getting to watch the NCAA Division I Semi-Finals, the first of which featured a Wake Forest center-midfielder who played against Tim his sophomore year of high school. The video clip is the Carolina pep band ushering in the second half of the UNC v Akron match...

Thursday, December 10th

Opening night for our fall musical "It's a Wonderful Life" was an unqualified success... so much talent in our student body. Here's a clip of the actors taking their bows at the end of the show:

20 Months

19 Christmas' have passed since this photo was taken... 20 months since that little four-year-old's mother got to go Home! Christmas is the season in which we celebrate the arrival of the Christ Child... hard to imagine the Creator of the Universe coming in such a fragile state! The fact that He did and that He overcame the grave 33 years later makes all the difference for those of us who know Him and have loved ones where Lana resides today!

Tuesday, December 8th

The most we've ever had representing ACA during swimming season prior to this year is three... we have THIRTEEN this year, which means relay teams!
The tallest member of our team (Eric Shuman) already has a couple of state championship in individual events to his credit, so we have a good chance of being competitive from the get-go... I got to pray for them today as they left for their first meet... so exciting!

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

68 years ago today, in the words of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan"...

The warm relationship we now share with Japan is testimony to the wisdom of our leaders in seeking to be "gracious in victory".

Pictures from the Christmas Banquet are starting to trickle in... here's one from the shuttle the guys hired to take them from their meeting place to the banquet hall on the Biltmore Estate... they described it as "kind of like a limo, but a lot less expensive and with room to stand up" :-)

First Snow of the Year

You'd never know it now, but we got a little snow yesterday morning... I got in a little time on the trail just as the white stuff began to fall, then captured this little video clip as proof for the rest of you...
By the time Tim woke up it was all but gone!

Christmas Banquet

Here are Tim and Becca all dressed to match for the annual Christmas Banquet, which by all accounts was a lot of fun. The main event was a formal dinner @Lion Crest (on the Biltmore Estate)...


I don't have a picture yet of the banquet hall last night but here's a file foto of it ready to host a wedding... quite the place!

Saturday, December 5th

Tim Tebow is wearing John 16:33 at this evening's SEC Championship Game pitting his #1 ranked 12-0 Florida team against #2 Alabama, also 12-0. As I make this entry, the Crimson Tide leads 19-13 at half-time... was Timmy foreseeing "trouble" in this game?

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Friday, December 4th

There's been a group of us getting together every Friday morning at 6:30 for a little excercise on the basketball court... Here's our Athletic Director, Joe Johnson, putting on a little shooting clinic to wrap things up in today's final game! I was odd-man-out this round, which is just as well, because these guys are way out of my league!

Thursday, December 3rd

Success!

Not so much fun when things break down, but having a home repair project actually work does bring a measure of satisfaction... Tim really enjoys fixing things, so I usually let him be the brains of the operation...

Today he replaced the ballast on the flourescent light in our kitchen!
Today is also Tim's good friend Becca Clark's 18th birthday.
The picture was taken at last year's "Junior-Senior"... Tim & Becca will be going to the Christmas Banquet together this Saturday.
We don't have a prom at ACA, so the CB & Jr/Sr are the big social events of the year for our students... pictures will follow!

Wednesday, December 2nd

Yesterday's anniversary girl (my sister Susie) snapped this picture Thanksgiving day at her house in Dr. Phillips, Florida (near Disney World)... it was fun watching my family finally get to know Grace in person... she has now met all my immediate relatives with the exception of Steve, Betsy and their families (in Montana and California)... we'll have to see when we can make that happen!

Tuesday, December 1st

Two occasions for celebration:
1. My nephew Jason (a.k.a. G-5, a reference to his birth order among the grand, or "G"-babies)'s 23rd birthday... he graduated in May with a Bachelors in Economics, and starts work on his MBA @UCF next term. He was born 16 days after his cousin Kara (G-4)...
Happy Birthday, Jason!2. My sister Susie and her husband Jay are celebrating the 26th anniversary of the day they pledged to love each other through thick and thin... and they seem to have done an exemplary job of that, raising a terrific couple of Gator alums in the process!

Monday, November 30th

It's probably high time I made a public confession of my affection for the little red-headed Math teacher I've been courting down in Florida, and if spending five days with me and my family hasn't chased her off, there might just be a future in "us"... I love you, Grace!

Sunday, November 29th

Tim and I holed-up here... we left Jax just before 3:00 for our seven-hour (450 mile) drive home... six hours later, we had travelled 160 miles and just endured a seemingly-interminable stretch between the last exit in Georgia and the first in South Carolina... plans are to get five or six hours of sleep and hit the road around 3:00 AM, hoping that will give us enough time for me to make it back for work @8:30...

On a much more positive note:
Tim and I got to go to church and lunch with Grace and Will after a thoroughly enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend!

Saturday, November 28th

Gators took care of business against their in-state rival Florida State today... the highlight of the 37-10 victory for Grace and me was the fact that the CBS commentators looked up and read the Scripture verses Tim Tebow had on his eye-black to all the viewing audience!

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Fort Lauderdale

Mom fixed us turkey and ham croquettes this morning (a family favorite way to recycle the main-course Thanksgiving left-overs)... they did not disappoint!
We're headed down to spend a little time with Grace's newlywed-daughter Bonnie and her husband Drew at their place in Pompano Beach... I'm really looking forward... haven't seen her since her summer of 2002 visit to Managua, and it will be my first chance to meet Drew!



Snapped this picture this evening during a rousing game of "One Versus One-Hundred"...

Fun times!

Thanksgiving Day in Orlando

Some of today's fare at the Rah's... Jay and Susie always do a first-class job hosting.

Everyone had a great time meeting Grace, and she them... so much to be thankful for!(L2R) GK, Grace, Jason (Susie's son), "G-Mom", Nicholas (Mike's son), TK, Kailey, Mike (my youngest sibling), Suzanne (his wife), Susie (my sis), Jay (her husband/chef supremo)

Thanksgiving in Gainesville

We had a great time at Lana's mom's... early Thanksgiving... as always, she treated us to a feast! Other highlights: "catching up", piano concert by Laurie, including Grace in the festivities...(L2R) Mitch (Lana's only sibling); Heather (his wife); Katie (Mitch's daughter/Tim's cousin); Laurie (Lana's mom's husband); Mary (Lana's mom); TK, Grace, GK

Tuesday, November 24th

Tim and I had a full day starting with a campus visit and meeting with the three coaches at UNCA, who seem very interested in the prospect of having Tim "sign" to play with them in the fall... and ending with our 11PM arrival in Jacksonville to begin our Florida Thanksgiving. I'm posting this picture of Kara and Bonnie (taken in Nicaragua at the end of their sophomore year)... they are the only ones of our kids not with us now. We are scheduled to spend Friday in Fort Lauderdale with Bonnie and her husband, Drew... Unfortunately, there will be no quick-trip to Australia to see Kara :(

Monday, November 23rd

Hanging with Tim is fun!... that is not to say I don't miss my daughter...

I think she wasn't more than a week old when she took her first trip to the beach (Longboat Key); that's where she was in this first picture with her grandma (Lana's mom), who incidentally is hosting us (Tim, Grace and me) for an early Thanksgiving dinner this Wednesday!

A couple of years later with her dad...
At her graduation from Sonshine Day Preschool...With her new friend "Billy"...With classmates at the first wedding performed at our school in Nicaragua...Backstage at the Franklin Graham Crusade in Managua with Jaci Velazquez (February 2000)...At Joanelle's (Lana's favorite beauty parlor in Managua) getting ready for the graduation of the NCA Class of 2002... Incidentally, that's Bonnie (Grace's daughter) in the white blouse next to Kara (she came to visit us in Nicaragua at the end of her sophomore year)... Tim and I will be headed to Florida tomorrow to spend time with Grace and our families... figuring to put about 2000 miles on the car (Jacksonville-Gainesville-Orlando-Fort Lauderdale)!