Well I must report this weekend has been one of seafood gastronomic delight's with grilled salmon on Friday night, Yellow Fin Tuna on Saturday night and mussels, shrimp and clams yesterday for lunch after church. Yeow!! Anyhow there goes the spare tire once gain but what delicious "high on the hog" eatin' as we country folk like to say.
The morning started out with my internal alarm clock waking me at 5:30 to quarter to 6 which unfortunately is now a constant with my body. Getting up that early never really bothered me as I use to get up about that same time every day before leaving the farm to milk cows and feed the farm animals and then while flying with the USAF we were up at all hours with mostly early morning take off's and then with the FHP I was "on call" which meant being called out many times during the night for fatal crashes, oh well I would like to know what it feels like to just sleep in one morning especially now that I'm retired over 11 years from all of that "having to arise". Oh well!!!
We got ready for the "gathering" at Element Church in Tampa after our quiet times and car pooled with Dan and Carol. While the crowd numbers were small we still have a core group and the doors are still open for now. Bobby led the praise music today and Erin brought a nice message as well. There were lots of hugs and handshakes and we still have a great number of kiddos as now most of our attendance is from millennial's who are the 30's in age with lots of kiddos. I'm the dinosaur in the crowd as was I on Saturday night at the birthday party for Kathryn, yikes!!! Anyhow after church we headed to the Olive Garden for a sumptuous lunch which held us for the rest of the day except for a lite snack for Nancy so she could take her scripts. I even pasted up the cookies and ice cream at the social after the musical; at times I'm incredulous of my will power to forgo these delight's and other times I buckle with just one small taste. Is this a sign I'm maturing???
I tuned into the Ray's baseball game during the afternoon and watched them destroy the Twins in a 11-3 shellacking at their home field and then we got ready to head to our old church at SFBC to watch our oldest grand daughter Ava, participate in the summer children's musical. We picked up GG and she went with us and afterwards there was an ice cream social. The attendance was near capacity and the musical went well. We once more were warmly greeted by many of the old members and were asked several times when we were coming back. Element we feel is like being on the mission field for that area of Tampa and while we are small in numbers GOD is still using us in many special ways as we partner with the foster kids village as well as a missionary family in Peru, South America who by the way need some special considerations as their oldest daughter has contracted a rare form of malaria. Please keep the Rice Family in your thoughts and prayers.
Well we got another strong thunder storm with heavy rain just before dark which should help with the grass to grow and cool things down just a bit. It's been in the 90's the past couple of weeks and we are so looking forward to those cool mornings in the mountains which have been down into the 40's and 50's to start the day. Well as we draw closer to our departure we are trying to wrap up some last minute doctor's appointments as well as decide what to pack and take with us. We always over pack just in case we might need it "says Nancy", oh well!!! Next Sunday will be our last Sunday with our Element Church family and we are already close to tears.
We did hear from our newest mountain friends Sam and Marcia and learned they have left our Cornerstone Church family to attend another church family where our "mountain mom" attends. They still want to socialize with us on Sundays after church as well as during the week. Seems Marcia is in a regional hand bell choir and several of those members attend the Sparta Methodist Church plus they have a Sunday School hour which Cornerstone doesn't have. They grew up with this type of church functions at the corporate worship on Sunday's as did we at one time.
Well that was about it for the day and now I must get back on the pickle ball court this next week and cut down on those foods which has a tendency to puff up the spare tire, LATER
