When we first arrived, we managed to get into town in time
to go to our nephew Christopher’s tenth birthday party.
It was a nice afternoon, and it was wonderful to be able to see our
nephew’s mother Kelli for a short while. The
party was a success; we had tired little boys afterwards!
Later that day, we went to Largo Park to see the Christmas
decorations and to meet Santa. It was a
beautiful day, and the park was festively decorated. We relaxed for a little while before meeting
Santa. Then we met with everyone in the family
at a local restaurant before saying goodbye for the evening. (And it was here that we had our first meeting with our seventeen-year-old niece Aileen, who is now living with Steve's step-mother Linda. Due to her unusual circumstances, we hadn't ever met her until this evening. She is a lovely girl, and we wish her the best future.)
Steve left the next day to work in San Antonio for a couple
of weeks while the boys and I stayed behind.
Mostly we did schoolwork (although we did hit that snag with the air
conditioners that I explained in a previous post). We did arrange to spend some
time with the family while he was away.
Also, we met up with some friends of ours whom we have known
for a long time, the Pauldings. We met them back in the
late 1990’s when we were assigned together at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota (near
Rapid City). We became friends because
they had identical twin boys who were only two months older than our identical
twin boys. Throughout the years we kept
in touch. They went on to have three
more girls, and we had four more boys. At one point they did a short duty tour
in San Antonio, and we were able to see them a few times when we lived
there. However, they are now assigned to
MacDill AFB, so we got in touch. We
spent an afternoon at their house one day, and then later in the week we met
them at the park along with some other military homeschoolers.
One other interesting fact about this family:
they always homeschooled their children, like we have. However, since their boys are slightly older
than ours, they were always one grade level ahead of our boys. So this past fall was their twins’ first
semester away at college. And that
college happens to be the same one that Ben will (hopefully) be
attending some day! We were able to
reintroduce our kids to their family, and Ben had a nice chat session with
them one evening when they visited us in our camper. (Yes, all of their family and all of our
family somehow managed to squeeze into the camper – all 15 of us!) They are a great family, and I only wish we
had more time to spend with them while we were in the area.
Once Steve returned from Texas, we invited all of his family
out to our campground’s private beach for an afternoon of visiting. Steve also took the older boys to Busch
Gardens with Grandma Linda on two different occasions while the younger boys and I
just relaxed at the beach.
Steve also had an opportunity to meet up with a friend of
his from when he was deployed to Iraq.
They met one morning for coffee before Steve headed to Busch Gardens
with the boys.
Christmas came and went.
Somehow Santa still managed to find us even though we are far from
home. We had a “fire” on our camper “fireplace”,
opened presents, and had our traditional Christmas breakfast. Later in the day we went to Grandma Linda’s house
for a family get-together. We managed to
see everyone in the family that day. While we were exchanging presents and
watching old home movies, I was reminded about how much we all miss Steve’s
mother and father, Cathie and Ed, both of whom passed away within the last few years. Their absence was notably felt, and our
memories of each of them filled our hearts.
The two days following Christmas we said our last goodbyes
to everyone and prepared to hit the road once again. We were so blessed to be able to spend this
time in Florida with the family.
