Top Ten Things I Will Miss About Florida

While my primary emotion during thus move has been excitement about going 'home', I have made enough memories and connections in Florida to find sadness in this departure too. Here are the top ten things I have come to love about the temporary home God placed us in!

10 - Lizards!

These little creepy crawlies gave me fits when we first moved here, but they became a regular sight and kind of fun to watch!  It is amazing to me how creative our Creator is and how many different critters you can find in just one day's drive across the country!

9 - Swimming Pools!

It seemed so luxurious that every place we looked at for an apartment had a pool, but after living here I understand that its like having a swing set in the North!  The heat is so oppressive and persistent that in order to enjoy being outside it almost has to involve water!

8 - Orange groves.

Not only do I love the delicious citrus that comes from these trees, the perfume from their blooms is heavenly!

7 - Dr. Seuss flowers

              
So that's not their real name, but it's what they remind me of! These little flowers helped me mark the seasons in Florida, popping out as the temps cooled.

6 - Sun, sun and more sun!

I am sensitive to day length and as days get darker and shorter my mood and energy often reflect the shift. When we lived in BG and it became dark at 4 in the afternoon, this necessitated at least weekly trips to the tanning bed just to get UV rays to perk up my system. Not so in the sunshine state! SAD never came knocking while there!

5 - Free, Fresh Produce!

Between the classes I taught, my research, other's research and helping others harvest we had an abundance of seasonal produce at almost any time of the year - except middle of summer.

4 - Summer afternoon thunder showers

Almost as dependable as the sun during the wetter summer months were afternoons thunder showers. I loved them, especially when I could sit in our balcony and enjoy them. Large clouds would start brooding about 12, burst about 2 or 3, and clear out for a beautiful sun set in the evening.

3 - Live Oaks dripping with moss

These amazing trees never cease to amaze me. Our apartment was surrounded by them and they strike such a unique profile as to be unforgettable. Surviving hundreds of years in ever changing surrounding, they are true symbols of endurance and vitality.

2 - Convenient access to everything!

I was so spoiled! I was 15-20 minutes max from anything and everything my heart desired. Wanna get a movie? No problem! Forgot to buy bread? No big deal! Wanna get Chinese? Here's a huge list of options! Now the closest Walmart is a good 30 minutes - and not much else is around that Walmart!

1 - Abundant Grace Christian Church!

We love these people! The church welcomed us from day one and we found community, support, fellowship and family through the church at large and our Bible Study specifically. If one thing were to tie me to Florida, and even make me desire to return at times, it would be our precious church family. We miss them so much every day and can only pray we find something close at our new home!

Enjoying Florida

Before we went out Eb caught a nap with Daddy!

Since we are getting so close to our move date Chris and I are enjoying some of the fun little things Florida has to offer while we still can - like swimming outdoors in April!  While it was still too cool for me to feel comfortable taking Eb in the water, he had fun rolling around the pool with Mom or Dad while the other one swam!

My handsome happy boy!

Figs!?!

There were figs on the ground around the pool!  I am still baffled as to where they are coming from because none of the trees around the pool look like a fig tree!

Yay! Pool!

I love his little hat!

Gorgeous Day!

Enjoying the sun!

Konked out after a big day!

 

Great is Thy Faithfulness!

Do you ever feel like God is in control of the big things, like moves, job choices and children, but leaves the details, the 'little things', up to us and chance?  I do on occasion and I love it when God corrects me by showing how He wants to care for me through the 'little things' too!

We are going to be moving in about a week and as things pile up we try to prioritize and knock down what is absolutely necessary, saving what we can for after the move.  Knowing what a planner I am it has been stressful not knowing exactly where all the tasks were going to get accomplished - then drama hit! (Que the dramatic music!)  While chomping away on some Easter gum I felt an unusual crunch and then something came loose... that something was this...

... my crown I had done in Bowling Green probably five years ago.

Stress does not begin to cover the emotions that raced successively through me at that moment.  The internal montage went something like this...  "We do not have a dentist in Florida - for that matter we hadn't been to a dentist in YEARS.  Where do we go? How much is this going to cost? When I got the crown originally it was quite expensive - and time consuming.  We don't really have a week to repeat that process all over again.  Do I wait until we are in Indiana?  Can I get a temp here and finish up there?  Its seven o'clock at night, I can't call any dentists to get these questions answered - and Chris made some wonderful lasagna, am I going to be able to eat it?"

I Facebook-ed some of my Gainesville friends and they came to the rescue with local dentist suggestions and called Mom to pray that this could be solved quickly and cheaply.  Chris called the next morning and found a dentist that could see me in a few hours.  They said as long as the crown wasn't cracked all they would have to do was re-cement it.  Praise God it wasn't cracked!  He cleaned out the old cement, dried off my tooth and cemented the crown back on!  No needles, no waiting for a new crown and a bill we were able to pay without much stress!

How cool is it that we have a God who cares about the details - including our teeth?

Just strolling along...

Until it is time to leave for IN I have been watering on campus once a week.  During this time Chris hangs out with Eb in the car, and if Eb is doing good we take a walk around Lake Alice.  This last week (3/31) I got to play around with a new application my friend Adrienne gave me called Hipstamatic, and below are the fun results!  Can you believe my baby is 10 weeks old!?!

Imprints in the side walk around the church...

I didn't know Florida could grow these kinds of Irises!

The beautiful chapel near Lake Alice.

Walks make Eb sleepy...

Trying to decide if we were going to get rained on...

Yummy finger Mom!

"Why do you keep pointing that at me?"

Time for a change...

When I got pregnant I really thought I could finish the PhD.  I only would have two year left and only two classes, so most of that time would be research and writing - shouldn't be a problem, right?  Well that plan hinged heavily on me being able to have Eb with me most of the time.  I knew I couldn't have him in the lab because of policy and chemicals, but I thought I could have him in the field with me.  Over the last few weeks it has become apparent that isn't technically allowed, and my adviser is not okay with it.  

So a cross road presented itself to us.  Start pumping and seek 'alternative care' for Ebenezer so I can spend the amount of time I would need to in the field and Chris can do his internship or... quit.  It wasn't quite that straight forward at first, but that is what it came down to.  

Chris and I have always felt passionately that it is our responsibility from God to train and raise our children - personally.  We don't feel like we can fulfill that responsibility by placing our children under the care and authority of others.  So daycare was out of the question, even if we could afford it.  Chris needs to continue on to his internship if he is to graduate in a timely manner, so he would not be available for the amount of time I would need to be occupied.

So, we decided it was time to quit.

This isn't as traumatic for me as you might think.  It has actually been an extreme relief.  I have felt torn between the full time responsibility of the PhD and the full time responsibility of being a Mom and wife since I knew I was pregnant.  There has been tension between these two for months and it multiplied exponentially after Eb was born.  I wasn't keeping up with my one class and I wasn't getting the necessities done with the project.  What little I was doing took time away from Eb that I didn't want to give, and the whole aura of the PhD tainted the time I did have with him with stress and guilt.  I was beyond tired of that tension, and quite honestly my loyalties had moved from this program to Ebenezer long before I saw his face.

Some things that have further eased this decision are the conditions I came here under, the assumption I have always tried to have about the PhD and some things that just didn't go as planned with the project.  This was a job to me, not something that I had to, or really wanted to, commit my whole life to.  It was a blessing that God provided a way to provide for us that I found very interesting and gave Chris the time he needed to work on his Masters.  I have always held it loosely while still trying to do an excellent job.  I planned to complete it if nothing better came along - fortunately for me something better has come along! Some things in my project haven't gone as planned which has kept me from being as endeared to it as I could have been - I came on the assumption that I would at least be able to incorporate organic research into this and was never able to.  Additionally, the load continues to get heavier and heavier as my adviser added things that were of interest to her and chucked my interests out the window.  Finally, as you all know, my dream has always been to be a wife and Mom, and Chris and I agreed if the PhD interfered with that, it was disposable.

Now that there is a conflict between the two the time has come to cut our losses and dispose of what isn't necessary - me becoming a doctor.

I had a lot of fear in this decision (Surprised?).  Not for my personal goals or desires, I am thrilled that I finally get my heart's desire!  No my fear involved much more tangible things, anger from my adviser, disapproval and misunderstanding from other and finances.  There was the possibility that I would have to pay back all of the aid I had received so far (well over $60,000 including tuition waivers).  But God has been faithful and tangibly confirmed to us that this is a good path (why am I surprised?)!  Not only will I not have to pay anything back (except loans of course) but I will continue to get paid to the end of term, with less responsibility, my adviser took the news beautifully, so has everyone else, we already have a place lined up to live back in Indiana and Chris found a new internship within a week of calling around!

While I am going to miss the church family and friends we have made here, I am beyond excited to move back to familiar ground and start this new chapter of life!  

Winter in Florida

It is amazing how many birds can congregate in the pasture!

There is a University beef unit near our home and during the winter months we have a bunch of sand hill cranes that like to hang out there!  They are so funny looking and sounding!  It is amazing that critters so tall can be so skinny!

Peach Update!

Last year I started part of my project with some mature trees that were already planted at the farm.  The second half of my project requires young trees and we finally got those planted this Fall.  In this part of the study we will be able to compare nitrogen rates and nitrogen application forms (granular versus fertigation), along with leaching potential of the different rates from a very early stage of growth.  We will eventually be able to compare production rates and quality on these trees but the biggest advantage of the young trees is the ability to measure leaching.  With measuring leaching we are observing how much nitrogen is actually being used by the tree and how much is being lost through the soil profile.  One of the concerns with increasing the nitrogen rate on peaches in Florida is that the tree may not use that extra nitrogen and that extra may end up in the water table as it filters through the soil.  Since we can't see the water table directly we can hopefully monitor the movement and estimate how much is being lost among the treatments.  We don't want to do this with the mature trees because we don't have a good way to apply fertigation and a big part of the study is comparing the two application types (granular and fertigation).  In order to accomplish this we have installed a whole new orchard, including irrigation and injectors for fertigation and then planted our young trees!  In order to do everything we felt necessary we have planted 200 trees total!

Baby trees all in a row.

These are the sprinklers for each tree.

Hard to see but here is all 200 new trees!

I will be starting the second year of research with our mature trees and when we went to check on them earlier this week I was really surprised to see some of them already blooming!  There weren't enough blooming to be concerned about the upcoming freeze (yep, we got down to 20 degrees Fahrenheit here for two nights!) but it was still crazy to see peaches bloom in January!

While it is still down time as far as production goes, there is a lot coming up to do for the project and hopefully I can do a better job keeping you all up to date!

A Monumental Christmas

After Christmas Eve service at church.

This is Chris and my 5th Christmas together - wow sorry, seeing that in text just blew me away!  We have celebrated Christ's birth as a married couple Five times!  However it is a Christmas on the verge of change.  This is our first - and last - Christmas with just the two of us.  Every year before now we have made the trip North to visit lots of family on both sides and to ultimately spend Christmas day with my immediate family.  With Eb so close (we are 38 weeks now!) we didn't feel like it was safe to make such a big trip with the risk of him arriving early.  Also with Eb so close our families wanted to wait to come and visit until after he is born.  So that means Chris and I are having our first Christmas with just the two of us.

So what are we going to do with this once in a lifetime Christmas?  Well we have been discussing traditions we want to implement in our little family for a while and thought this would be the perfect year to start some!  While we haven't quite settled the 'Santa Debate' (more to come on this later!) we do know that we want to focus ourselves and our children on why we celebrate Christmas in the first place - the birth of our savior Jesus!  We have lots of big goals in mind, one I'm really excited about but didn't have time to start this year is a Jesse Tree.  I just learned about this option a few weeks ago and love it!  It helps the family to focus on the reason for Christmas by recounting the story of Christ - starting all the way back in Genesis!  Every day in December you read a passage that helps recount why Christ came and the saga of Israel through history as they anticipated the Messiah's arrival, after reading the passage you hang an ornament representing the passage on the tree - and if you have time and eager little ones you can make new ornaments every now and then too.  The tree itself is also a representation of Christ because it is supposed to look like a cut off stump with a new shoot growing from it - like the sprout of Christ from the stump of Jesse (David's family line).  As I said, we didn't get to start this one yet, but I'm excited to lay it out next year.


This year we did start some smaller traditions.  We decided we want to go to Christmas Eve service every year is the church we attend offers it - and the one we are at does!  It was a sweet surprise to find they do a candle light service, I haven't been able to attend a service like that since high school!  We decided our 'traditional meal' will be a ham and are tackling preparing one on our own today!  Sweets are a must and we started making some great ones earlier this week and decided whether we do Santa or not we are definitely still baking/decorating cookies on Christmas Eve.  To help us focus on Jesus' birth we started singing Christmas hymns last Monday and tried to sing one a day all week leading to Christmas.  Of course decorations are part of what make Christmas so festive and exciting for me, and while we tried to stay small since we have a new little person on the way decorating with Chris was still very precious for me this year.  Because we don't have much room we decided to decorate a (fresh) Christmas wreath instead of a tree (I love the smell of fresh cut conifers and Chris found us a wreath at a bargain price!).  Finally, it's not Christmas without the nativity.  My mother in law got us a huge beautiful nativity for our first Christmas present as a married couple.  It is the full (and I mean FULL) Willow Tree set and I adore it!  We never would have been able to afford this set on our own, but if you know me it is exactly the kind of set I would want! While I didn't feel like I could get the whole set out this year, pulling out the basic nativity always brings joy to my heart!


Here are a few pictures of our Florida Christmas.  What made your Christmas special this year?  Do you have any special traditions?

NOM!

Nom, nom, nom!!!

A Blast from the (not so distant) past!

Back in October one of my little brothers was able to come and stay with me while Chris was in Virginia for a class he needed to be on his campus for.  We had so much fun hanging out and it was so nice not to have to be by myself for the whole week!  While he was here we got to check out the Florida natural history museum, go gator watching, work at the farm and put together Eb's crib!

Here we are Gator Watching at Lake Alice on campus!  Yep, that's a gator in the water!

 Having fun in the stadium!

Giant moths at the butterfly museum!


It was so nice to have Bubby here to keep Pandora and I company!

Blooming Florida!

A unique summer sight in Florida for me is lily pads blooming!  There is a little water hole near the street we drive to school every day, and it is full of aquatic plants, including lily pads.  We would see lily pads all the time when we would come to visit Granddaddy in the winter, but we seldom got to see them bloom, it is so exciting for me!

This is the water hole full of lily pads and other aquatic plants.

These are the seed pods they leave behind when they are done blooming, they are really fun to use in flower arrangements! (-> )

The way God created lily pads and other aquatic plants to survive with their roots completely submerged is amazing to me.  All plants need water and usually take it up through their roots, but most can't survive having their roots completely submerged for very long. (They use their roots to pull oxygen from the pores in the soil, if all those pores are filled with water they basically suffocate after a while.)  I find it so cool that God made these beautiful plants to survive in water logged soils that would otherwise be bare!

Learning Something New: Segways!

We got to hang out with some friends from our church this weekend and learn something new at the same time! Our campus provides lots of free entertainment for the students on Friday night and as long as you have an ID you can get friends in too!  We got to watch a movie, have popcorn and soda, and pretend we were seven by sliding down a giant inflatable slide, all for free!  In addition to this we all got to learn how to ride a segway! I've seen these all over the place and always been fascinated that people don't fall over on them.  I was excited but also hesitant.

Turns out its a lot easier (and more fun) than I thought it would be!

To keep everybody safe the instructor had turned down the speed of the segways, they can go a lot faster than we were able (which was already pretty fast!).  Because of the slower speed though we joked that we were all moving in 'turtle mode', John decided demonstrating was better than describing!

When we were finished I was so excited to get a segway... until I found out what they cost.  I wasn't that excited I guess!

All in all we had a great evening that needs to be repeated soon!