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Lloyd's Life 2007 |
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Today's Date: Thursday, 12/20/07 The Time: 1:06 p.m. Looking Forward To: Spending the holidays with family!
On the 26th we'll be loading up the van again (hopefully Santa will be kind and bestow small gifts like DVD's and/or video games!) to head over to Memphis, Tennessee to visit Carrie, Lisa's sister. Of course, Memphis is the location of Elvis Presley's Graceland so we might try to visit there to see it decorated for Christmas. We should be back home on the 31st to spend New Year's Eve with Derek and Chantelle in Gainesville. There will be a lot of miles put on the van, but it will be worth it to see everyone! I hope each of you has a Happy Holiday and even better New Year! See you in 2008!
Today's Date: Thursday, 10/25/07 The Time: 11:21 a.m. Looking Forward To: Going camping with my family this weekend!
The awards were to be handed out at the bonfire that night, but Jordan wasn't feeling well and we just knew we were not going to get an award, so we stayed at our campsite. At about 9:30 p.m., in the middle of washing the dishes (with water that was almost scalding hot - we had to heat the water over the campfire and I guess I left it on a little too long!), a truck pulled up to our campsite and a lady gets out saying "Congratulations, you won second place in the campsite decorating contest. The judges loved the live interaction in the display with your children." Well, needless to say, I was a bit stunned. I shook her hand (mine was covered in soap suds - she said don't worry about it) and she presented us with a free weekend stay at their campground. Does recognition work? You bet it does! And that's why I urge you to practice those Competitive Events, so that you can be called up on to the stage at SLC and experience the same feelings my family and I did, only much bigger!
Today's Date: Friday, 10/5/07 The Time: 3:43 p.m. Looking Forward To: Going fishing with Christian this weekend!
Since returning to the office from the WLA and the State Advisor's Management Conference (which was a chore in itself with my original flight departure time delayed, then rescheduled, then delayed again, then rescheduled again, and finally delayed for two hours! I almost forgot whether I was coming or going. I finally got home at 3:00 a.m.) and answering all my e-mails and phone messages, I have been working on the LDC. I almost have all the Advisor's breakout sessions organized and the State Officers assure me that they have been working diligently to polish their workshops for the members. We have our last planning meeting in two weeks when all plans will be finalized and the State Officers will be doing a lot of rehearsing; they will probably be hearing "We're All In This Together" in their sleep for the next few weeks after that! Lisa's birthday is Wednesday. I have a good idea of where I will be taking her for dinner and what gift I will be giving her. However, if anyone has a suggestion, please feel free to share it. Just think of the most beautiful/handsome person you can and how blessed you would be to share your life with him/her, and that should put you in the right frame of mind to make your suggestion!
Today's Date: Friday, 9/21/07 The Time: 10:27 a.m. Looking Forward To: The WLA and SAM Conference in Washington D.C.!
Overlapping the WLA will be the State Advisor's Management (SAM) Conference where State Advisors will get caught up on new partnerships and initiatives by the National HOSA Office. We have a great time at this conference extolling the excellence of each of our State Associations (Florida HOSA is the best, of course!); but we also have the opportunity to share valuable and timely information to help our members and organization as a whole. I know the Florida HOSA State Officers that are making this trip will be anxious to share their experiences with you too, so be making plans to attend LDC where they will be more than happy to talk with you!
Today's Date: Friday, 8/31/07 The Time: 11:53 a.m. Looking Forward To: Another great football season for the Gators and the Buckeyes!
Labor Day Weekend - the end of summer (unofficially, of course; summer isn't really over until September 21st - ask your science teacher). I had a great summer with NLC, going to the movies, cook-outs, etc. However, the highlight was our family trip to Colorado. Lisa's Aunt Sally and her family live in Elizabeth, Colorado which is about an hour south of Denver and 9 miles past nowhere (actually it's approximately 16 miles east of Castle Rock, but it sure seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere!) on the Rocky Mountain Front Range. Aunt Sally played the tour guide one day during the week and took us to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, as well as the Garden of the Gods nearby. After being thoroughly impressed with both of these places, she took us up to the top of Pikes Peak; one of Colorado's Fourteeners. The Fourteeners are mountains in Colorado that have elevations over 14,000 feet; Pikes Peak is ranked the 30th highest peak in Colorado with an elevation of 14,110 feet. Before driving up (yes, we drove; we just didn't have the time to climb up the old-fashioned way - dang nabbit!) we each guessed how cold it would be at the top. Having been on a mountain before, I had a slight advantage so I guessed 48o F while everyone else guessed in the 60'sand 70's. They actually made fun of me! When we finally got to the top after successfully navigating the major switchbacks on the road without plunging over the side to our certain deaths (no guardrail, barely enough room for two cars to pass, and drop-offs of about 500-600 feet), we got out of the car to take in the sights (and calm our nerves!). There is a small cafeteria and gift shop at the top so we went in to look around. After we were inside for about 10 minutes I looked out the window and it was snowing! I grabbed Lisa and the boys (who have never seen snow) and went back outside. Christian and Jordan were amazed. We broke out the camera, but we couldn't capture the snow flakes in a picture. Even I had a hard time believing that it was snowing on July 2. After about 45 minutes, we climbed back in the van to head home. As we slowly made our way out of the parking area and down the road, we watched the van's thermometer slowly decrease until it hit 47o! That's right, I won the contest! Unfortunately, there were no prizes...but at least I was redeemed. The next day we went to Glenwood Springs for the Fourth of July holiday where there is a huge geothermal pool. I took the opportunity to visit a well-known resident of Glenwood Springs - Doc Holliday. You might be asking yourself, who is Doc Holliday? If you've heard of the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, Doc Holliday was on Wyatt Earp's side - the winning one (the good guys!). Holliday suffered from tuberculosis which is what made him decide to come west from Georgia in the late 1870's. A few years after the famous gunfight, and in deteriorating health, he came to Glenwood Springs hoping that the geothermal spring would help his ailment. It didn't, and he passed away in bed at 36 years of age on November 8, 1887. The day before we left to come home, we traveled into Denver to see the Capitol Building, the Colorado History Museum, and Molly Brown's house. Now you're wondering who Molly Brown is, I'll bet. You probably know her better as the Unsinkable Molly Brown who survived when the Titanic went down. After touring her home, we drove out to Golden, just west of Denver, for a look see. Aunt Sally and her gang treated us very well while we were there; so much so, that we didn't want to leave. But, all good things must come to an end. Plus, I was excited to get started on the new HOSA year. I hope you had as much fun as I did this summer. Now let's make this the best year Florida HOSA has ever had!
Today's Date: Tuesday, 8/14/07 The Time: 10:53 a.m. Looking Forward To: Cooler weather!
I just posted the updated Florida HOSA Brochure to the website for prospective members to download and print. On the brochure, I have included the new Competitive Events. You didn't know there were any new events? Well, there have been some major changes in the HOSA Competitive Events Program for this school year. Five new events have been added, including our own - Public Service Announcement. For those teams that participated in PSA last year, there have been some revisions to the event so be sure to read the guidelines carefully. A new category of events has been added also, Emergency Preparedness Events which includes the new event CERT. Forensic Medicine, Biotechnology, and Home Health Aide are the remaining new events. You can check out these new events, as well as all the others, on the National HOSA website at http://www.hosa.org/natorg/sectb/index.html. I'm putting the finishing touches on the Welcome Back issue of the Florida HOSA Newsletter; that should be on the Florida HOSA website later this week. It takes quite a while to type in all those Florida HOSA National Winners' names!!
Today's Date: Friday, 8/3/07 The Time: 2:09 p.m. Looking Forward To: Tubing down Itchetucknee Springs tomorrow (maybe)!
For those of you wondering why I am growing banana peppers (which is most likely everyone), when I moved my mom to Ohio last September, I had the opportunity to try some of my dad and Uncle Neil's Pepper Mustard. It was superb! So I snuck a couple of jars (actually, they probably let me have them) - one mild and one hot (with a jalapeno pepper mixed in!) - and brought them home for Lisa to try. She loved it (the mild, not the hot - I wound up eating that jar myself). We told my parents how much we liked it and the next thing you know, we got two more jars in the mail. Not soon after, Lisa's family was visiting and we offered some to them and they loved it! Needless to say, those two jars did not last long - and then pepper season was over. It was at that moment when I said to myself "This tragedy can't happen again, we must not run out of Pepper Mustard" and I decided to make my own this year. I got the recipe from my dad, planted my banana pepper seeds towards the end of April and now I'm finally beginning to see some results. I need at least 36 peppers to make a batch of the pepper mustard and that should produce about 10 pint jars when we can the mixture. I suppose now that Lisa's family likes it, I'll have to share a couple of the jars with them; but the rest is mine (or rather, mine and Lisa's - maybe Christian and Jordan, we'll see)! This blessed rain, however, may eliminate any chance we have of tubing down Itchetucknee Springs tomorrow. I know - we're going to get wet anyway, so why not go ahead and tube. Well, if you are familiar with spring water, you know it is cold; and with no sun to warm us up it would not be a whole lot of fun. I'll let you know what happens.
Today's Date: Thursday, 7/19/07 The Time: 10:49 a.m. Looking Forward To: Putting up Christian and Jordan's new basketball hoop this weekend!
We celebrated Jordan's 4th birthday last month with a Cars themed party and a trip to the theater to see Surf's Up. Of course, when given the choice to obtain either a Surf's Up Happy Meal prize or a Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer Kid's Meal prize, Jordan chose the Fantastic Four prize at Burger King for his after movie dinner. Christian just turned the big 1-3 yesterday; yes, I am now the parent of a teenager (somebody help me!). We went bowling in the morning and saw Transformers in the afternoon, which is now his favorite movie of all time. After the movie we stopped at Sports Authority to let him choose a new basketball hoop that we will be putting up in the driveway. We can't adjust the height of the old one anymore (of course, it probably didn't help that I filled the pole up all the way with concrete thereby eliminating any future possibility of changing the height, but we won't go there) and we decided to get this new one so both Christian and Jordan can play by simply raising and lowering the rim (at least that is what I am hoping the kit directions will help me to accomplish!). Right now, I am finishing up the revamped Florida HOSA website with the newly elected State Officer's profiles; be sure to e-mail them and let them know you are looking forward to the new school year and getting involved with HOSA!
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επίσκεψη -
7/19/07
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The
Vault
We're packing up the van and heading to Belmont, Ohio to spend Christmas with my
parents, brother, niece, aunt, uncle, cousins, etc. I don't know how we are going to fit
everything into the van, so it might prove interesting. We are hoping for
some snow; Christian and Jordan have never seen it. In case it doesn't
snow at my parent's house, I have scoped out some
snow tubing resorts in the area and the closest one is about an hour away.
The forecast for Belmont is calling for showers this weekend, but the resort
has a machine to make snow so maybe we'll be able to have some additional fun!
My family's annual trek to the great outdoors has finally arrived! For the
past few years around this time, we have headed up to Georgia to go camping at
one of their State Parks. We'll be going to Red Top Mountain this year.
Last year we stayed at Mistletoe State Park which is northwest of Augusta.
They have a Fall Festival there every year and we decided to join in the fun and
decorate our campsite. The park hands out first, second, and third place
awards for the best decorated. Lisa came up with a great idea after our
first stay there two years ago - a Great Pumpkin theme (of Charlie Brown fame).
I was in charge of cutting out the plywood shapes to resemble the pumpkin patch;
Lisa was in charge of painting said plywood to look like pumpkins (which she did
a phenomenal job); and Christian and Jordan were to stand in the middle of the
painted plywood pumpkin patch dressed up as Charlie Brown (Christian) and Linus
(Jordan) just looking cute. The day of judgment finally came and as the
judges rolled down the gravel road in their golf cart, we quickly sprang into
action to get Christian and Jordan in their proper spots. The judges
looked for approximately 30 seconds and moved on without a comment; oh well, at
least we had fun putting the display together. We drove around the park to
see some of the other decorated campsites (there were probably about 15) and
after seeing the competition, we knew we didn't measure up.
If you
haven't been to the Washington Leadership Academy webpage yet,
Tomorrow morning I have to leave the house at 4:00 a.m. to get to the
Jacksonville Airport for an 8:00 a.m. flight to Washington D.C. The
National HOSA Office has organized the first annual Washington Leadership
Academy (WLA) for HOSA State Officers this year. Several of Florida HOSA's
State Officers will be joining me during the academy as we talk to some of our
elected officials. I have confirmed appointments next Tuesday (9/25) with
the offices of Representative Ander Crenshaw (FL - 4th District, Jacksonville),
Representative Ric Keller (FL - 8th District, Orlando), and Senator Bill Nelson.
We will be talking with them about our organization, its mission, its impact,
and presenting additional information to them regarding HOSA's future. It
should be a very exciting conference for our State Officers as they will also be
able to network with other State Officers from around the nation!
No tubing down the Itchetucknee; we got rained out. However, we did take
the family to the University of Florida Museum of Natural History to see the
Megalodon Exhibit (Megalodon was the largest shark that ever lived, about 60
feet long and 77 tons - I knew you were wondering).
As I look out my office window right now, the rain is coming down in sheets; in
fact, it has been raining for most of the past few days. I like the rain,
especially now that my banana pepper plants are finally beginning to put forth
some fruit. For a while there, I didn't think they were going to make it
(of course, remembering to water them might have alleviated that concern), but I
just noticed today that there was a pepper growing that was about 2 inches long
- HALLELUJAH! Upon closer inspection, I noticed three other peppers on
some of the other plants just starting; they were about half an inch long.
Banana peppers are harvested when they reach about 6 inches, so I'm still
waiting.
Apparently there are more than two people reading this blog. I have been
asked numerous times by the State Officers, some Florida HOSA
members, and even an advisor from Texas at the National Conference, (I hope this
doesn't bore you too much, Anne) when I would be getting back to posting.
Even my brother-in-law Derek and his wife Chantelle are riveted to their home
computer (unless they've found something better to do than read this - like
watching ice cubes melt) waiting for my next entry. So, for all 6
of you reading this - I'm back.