We've been living in Gainesville for 5 1/2 weeks already!! We arrived on December 16th and got happily caught up in the Christmas holiday festivities!

We joined Joe, Angie, Lucas, Ty, Lytha, Will, Brian and Melissa (Jason and Joe's step siblings and spouse) on Christmas eve day for the 4th Annual Disfunctional Family Olympics. Jason started this tradition and creates 5 or 6 fun activities for people who range in age from 9-72! We played softball, concentration, the Dating Game, had a 3 legged race + carrying raw eggs on spoons and pie/ice cream eating contests and more. It was great fun!

Shared secret Santa presents and then Bill and I went to Holy Trinity for carol singing and 11pm eucharist. We had helped decorate the church the week we arrived so it was wonderful seeing it all lit up at night. The music was wonderful!!

Since Christmas, we have gone to Lucas' basketball games, seen both University of Florida women's and men's basketball games, gone to several movies and walked a lot! From our apartment we can walk to church, the UF campus, lots of restaurants, a theater and Starbucks!

On Saturday 12/29, Bill and I visited the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in Cross Creek, Florida. She lived there for 25 years and that is where she wrote her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Yearling. It's a state park and offered a fascinating view of her life. We learned that she had lived in Rochester, NY where she and her husband, Charles Rawlings wrote for the Rochester Journal and Marjorie wrote a syndicated column called "Songs of the Housewife". While living in Rochester, she visited Cross Creek and fell in love with it.
http://www.floridastateparks.org/marjoriekinnanrawlings/

Then on 12/30 we celebrated Bill's birthday with pizza and ice cream and a trip to Micanopy with Joe, Angie, Lucas and Ty. Micanopy is a little town just outside of Gainesville which is known for antique shops.

Around the 2nd or 3rd of January, the students started returning and the city got a lot busier. We have 2 small children living upstairs so we often hear the patter of little/big feet!

I've started attending Bible studies at Holy Trinity and some women's groups and have met some nice people whom I'm hoping to get to know better. Bill has found some tennis groups and could play tennis every day of the week if he wanted to!

Ty and Lucas had a day off from school on Friday, 1/18 so we took them to St. Augustine, Fl. Founded in 1565 it is  the  oldest continuously occupied  European-established city and port in the continental United States. We visited the pirate museum and fort and had lots of fun.

Oh no! We moved this anchor to the wrong place!

Yikes! They caught us!

Pirate Papa Nick looking good!

 

Tomorrow we're going to the first Friday of the month City of Gainesville Art Walk and then Lucas' basketball game in the evening.

 

More later,

Cappy



The Saturday before we left Marco Island, we met Karen, Johnny and Tommy in Ave Maria. They surprised us with a tour of the Everglades! It was a beautiful day and we saw lots of alligators sunning themselves.

Some pictures of the alligator explorers!

We left Marco Island on Sunday, December 16th and arrived in Gainesville around 3pm in the afternoon. We're living in University of Florida graduate student housing in downtown Gainesville called The Continuum.
www.thecontinuumforufgrads.com/ 

We have a small 2 bedroom/2 bath roomate apartment which works great! More about our life in Gainesville in my next post.

Cappy

I can't believe it but we're almost at the end of our time on Marco Island! We move to Gainesville, FL this Sunday, December 16th!
It's been a busy time bringing our lives here to a close.
Saying good bye to new friends, women in St. Mark's weekly Bible study, fellow students
in my Spanish class and the Collier County Habitat for Humanity team.

This past Tuesday, I got to go on a field trip with Tommy's class. We went to the children's museum and had a great time!

Here is Tommy with Nana Cap on the bus.

Tommy and Ms. LeCompte playing catch with a clementine at our indoor picnic.

 Tommy LOVED the Igloo because there was a wall of ice which felt good!

Yesterday and today, running errands and getting the cars ready for the trip. We'll pack up tomorrow, have one last visit with John, Karen, Johnny and Tommy and then hit the road on Sunday after the 8am service.

I will miss this beautiful place and the ocean which has been such a gift!
Cappy

WOW! It's been 30 days since my last post! Lots has been going on starting with
volunteer orientation at Tommy's school. This was required for me to visit with him
in his classroom. I got to participate in a Fun Friday where we made edible pumpkins and
to his speech therapy and OT classes. I'm happy to be getting to know Tommy better!

I've been going to a wonderful physical therapist 2-3 times a week and she's really helping
me with my back!

Bill and I had dinner with some Kodak friends, Jim and Linda Moxley. It was fun to
catch up on "the old days".

On November 10th, I went to some Collier County Habitat dedications. There were 6 home
owners, all of whom had been in their homes for some time. They dedicated all of the homes
at the same time in one of the homeowners' back yards. It was very sweet. Part of the dedications
were translated into Spanish and Creole.
Along with lots of other volunteers, I helped get out a major year end holiday mailing for Habitat and
am helping to make some corrections to their database.

We went to all of Johnny's football games which was great fun! And Bill (sometimes with my help) helped get Johnny to and from football practice.

Then on 11/17, Jocelyn, Dan and Talli arrived for a 6 day visit! We had lots of fun some of which you can see in these photos.

It was great for Talli and Johnny to have another young person! We spent a lot of time doing skits. Two people would be given a scenario and the acting began! It was obvious very quickly who had and didn't have acting talent! Lots of laughter and fun! We rented bikes including a 4 person surrey and biked around Marco Island.

The cold water didn't keep Talli from boogie boarding. She even caught a few waves!
I prefer the pool which is much warmer.

We spent Thanksgiving together and had a delicious meal and, of course, more skits!

(Johnny, Jocelyn, Dan, Talli, Bill and Karen)

The week after Thanksgiving, Bill and I went bike riding again. I love spending so much time outdoors!

I'm off tonight to St. Mark's for the third class in the "Bad Girls of the Bible" series. The first class was about Eve, the second, Rahab and tonight is Potiphar's wife. Between my weekly bible study and this class, I'm sure learning a lot!

Bill and I are starting our preparations to leave Marco Island in less than 2 weeks. We'll depart on
Sunday, 12/16 and move into our student housing apartment in Gainesville, Fl the same day.

Stay tuned!

Have a blessed Advent season!
Cappy

During the past two weeks I've been having coffee dates with some of the wonderful women I've met at St. Mark's. I've really enjoyed their company and felt so welcomed by them!

Bill and I installed a basketball hoop at John and Karen's. There were at least 10,000 parts and pieces but after 4 hours we completed our project!!!

Here are the proud installers and Bill, John and Johnny are happy to have a place to play basketball!!!

 

 

Football update: Johnny's team the Broncos won their last two games! Gramma Lytha was in town for a week with some friends and got to see these two games. Here are the proud Grammas and proud Dad with Johnny!

 



 

Then my sister Sara and her husband Michael joined us for a weekend. Lots of walks on the beach, laughing at the same silly jokes over and over again and good food. The weekend was colder than normal because of Super Storm Sandy which brought huge waves and winds even though it was on the other coast. Here's Michael staying warm on our porch and Sara checking out the kite surfers who took advantage of the wild winds!

 

 



 

We had a great visit to the Naples Art Museum which is fabulous! Several amazing Dale Chihuly glass sculptures one of which you can see a little bit of behind us.

 

 

St. Mark's Episcopal had a wonderful All Saints Day service today with soloists and string instruments. When we sang the powerful hymn "For All the Saints", the familiar words really touched my heart as I remembered lots of saints who are no longer with us in person.

Love to you all,
Cappy

Last weekend, after Johnny's football game (which they won!) the three of us had dinner at Snook's, a restaurant on the Marco River. It was a beautiful evening with less humidity so we ate outside with lots of folks and a guitar player. Here are Bill and Johnny enjoying our dinner.

During one of our morning walks, we saw a baby alligator in the ocean.

All of the adults including the Marco police were trying to figure out how to capture the "gator" while the birds seem completely unconcerned!

Then last night, we picked up Johnny and his friend Presley from the movies. Took them out for ice cream which they seemed to enjoy immensely! Then a walk on the beach in the dark and watching the taped U of Florida game!

More later, Cappy

 

 

 

 

Here is a snail carrying all of her belongings everywhere she goes just like us this year!

 

and another beautiful sunset complete with sounds of waves!

 

 

More to come! Cappy