Our 19th Anniversary

                                          

We celebrated our anniversary by Trevor taking the day off work and going out to breakfast together and then to the beach for the afternoon. It was a very relaxing day spent enjoying each other. The kids made us homemade cards, my favorite, and Kaylee surprised us with homemade chocolate covered strawberries. We decided to let the kids join us for dinner and ate at Tommy Bahamas for the first time. It was a great day spent with the love of my life! 

 

Jennifer Thullen

Sadly, on the way home from Gainesville, I learned that my childhood best friend, Jennifer Thullen had died of a drug overdose. She struggled for years with fibromyalgia, several head injuries and survived several unsuccessful suicide attempts that left her in bad shape both mentally and physically. Despite all this, the news hit me hard. I had an excellent conversation via text, a few weeks back, where we had laughed together, as she shared a ridiculous dream with me. She was hopeful about her temporary job turning into a permanent position. It was the best I had heard her be in a long time and now she is gone...

I wrote the following Facebook post:

"My dear friend, Jennifer passed and since I won't be able to attend her memorial, I thought I would share a post here:

Jennifer and I met in 2nd grade when walking home from school. One of us, I can't remember which one, shouted across the street, "how old are you?". We quickly learned that we were only four days apart in age, we went to different schools and lived two blocks away from each other. We were friends ever since. Growing up we were the best of friends. We speed skated together. We played together in the amazing tree house her dad built. We went to vacation bible study together. We skied together. We camped together at Kent Park and Backbone State Park. So many of my childhood memories include Jennifer including some of my most embarrassing moments, which I enjoy sharing with my kids.

Jennifer went to Florida with my family on several occasions. On the drive there, we sang Garth Brook’s Greatest Hits, on repeat, at the top of our lungs. We got burnt to a crisp, walked the beach, were silly, and laughed so hard. Life was simple back then and filled with laughter.

I know the years since high school were tough for Jennifer. She had several car accidents that resulted in undetected head injuries, followed by fibromyalgia, which kept her from working and doing what she enjoyed. However, that’s not the version of her I want to remember. I want to remember the lightheaded, silly Jennifer.

A few weeks before her death, I unknowingly had my last conversation with Jennifer. It was a very uplifting conversation where she was excited about a permanent job opportunity and shared a couple funny things with me. One of those was a super crazy dream, where her and I were together at Olive Garden with the rest of my family. Somehow her bra kept popping off and her butt was in her purse and it wouldn’t stay inside. The dream when on and on. I laughed so hard and shared it with my mom and sisters and they laughed with me.

The conversation continued with Jennifer telling me about a recent experience she had:

“So you know I swim at the gym…I have waterproof headphones that attach to my goggles over my cap. And also wear webbed gloves which is super hot. There is no mirrow in the locker room but you can see yourself in the reflection of the sauna room door. I’m always alone in there because I go so early, and today I was all geared up waiting for the shower to warm up and dancing along to Eminem like a gangster in front of the sauna and oops the room was full and they were all laughing super hard. I gave them a nice little aqua dork gangster comedy dance show”. I laughed so hard!!!!

I’m glad that these were the last conversations I had with Jennifer. I choose to remember the good memories and not the bad, the laughter and not the tears."

Rest in peace my friend,

Keri Cook

Spring Break in Central Florida- Part 2

 

On Wednesday, Kaylee had her first college visit to the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. Kaylee and I had the best day touring the campus. She declared "I'm in love" when referring to her #1 school of choice. Kaylee wants to attend a big university with big time college sports, as she wants to be able to attend the games as part of her college experience. She was impressed that the students get free admission to games. I was excited to learn about that some of the 1000 organizations available include bible studies and other Christian orgs like Young Life and FCA, that gave my mama heart some peace.

When we returned we took our birthday boy out to a dinner of his choice. We had a yummy meal and the following day continued the festivities by watching Batman at the Ocala Drive In Theater. We sure love our birthday boy!!! He's the best!!! 

On Thursday, we visited Silver Springs State Park near Ocala. This park proved to be our favorite. We began our park tour by kayaking through the Caribbean blue waters, which was absolutely gorgeous. After kayaking we hiked through the park, which was pretty great too. 

On Friday, we drove to Orlando, so Kaylee could meet up with Lily Ford, one of her BFFs from Iowa. Lily was traveling with her choir group from Marion High School to visit all the theme parks in Orlando. Friday was her last day and it was spent at Universal Studios, our favorite!!! Kaylee had a great time with Lily and her friends exploring Harry Potter World and riding a few rides. Unfortunately, given that it was spring break, everyone and their brother, sister, and cousin were there. The lines were extremely long, so the kids were only able to ride a few rides before it was time to leave. We did manage to squeeze in a meal at our favorite City Walk restaurant, Cowfish. We even splurged on the milkshakes. After dinner we headed back to Gainesville, for the girls basketball tournament.

Honestly, I don't even remember how their teams did, what I do remember is that Kianna ended up spraining her ankle badly. She wasn't able to bear weight on hit for three days, so I had to take her to urgent clinic. The x-ray was negative thankfully, but she did a job on her ligaments and even her tendons, which led to her being out for five weeks...

It was a busy, go go go, type of week, but we saw the beauty of God's creation, had a first college visit, had a bad injury, and made some new memories together. All in all, it was a great week!

Spring Break in Central Florida- Part 1

Snorkeling Excursion

The Shed...

Our backyard for the week

Rainbow Falls

We began Spring Break on Saturday by celebrating Trevor and Patrick's birthdays boating with our old friends, The Flesner's. We had a great day on the water with Patrick as our captain. 

On Sunday, we met Kaylee up in Traveras, FL at her basketball tournament. After a nice meal, we headed to our rental house in Hernando, FL. Hernando is a hole in a wall location, that is equal distance from the springs we visited this week. The house itself was beautiful, but we couldn't help but laughing, as we approached the house passing by a trailer park, dirt lot next door, and a shed the kids swear holds dead bodies. Thankfully, once inside the house, their faith was restored in me, as the house itself was fully updated and perfect. The backyard was gorgeous, so peaceful with its fire pit, lake and Spanish moss. 

Our first destination on Monday was to Crystal River, where we had the privilege of swimming with manatees. The water was not the crystal clear water we had hoped for, but regardless the manatees were amazing! One even bumped into Kaylee. Such a unique experience! After snorkeling, we enjoyed a meal at a local joint where Kaylee braved the fish bowl.

On Tuesday, we took a day trip to Rainbow Falls. Unfortunately, the weather was rainy and cold, so we decided not to brave another snorkeling excursion to Devils Den. Instead, we hiked at Rainbow Falls State Park, which admittedly was a bit underwhelming.

 

Grandma Russell's Funeral

 

My beautiful Grandma Russell passed away 12 days shy of her 101st birthday. I had the privilege of flying back to Iowa to celebrate her life and spend time with my dad and Sue. It was great to see my cousins and spend time with family in general. Grandma Russell was a lovely lady and will be missed.

Shelli's Birthday Bash

Stacie planned an amazing day to celebrate Shelli's birthday. She made her a fill in the blank puzzle to solve. Once solved it led us to Fort Lauderdale for an amazing lunch on the river, followed by a gondola ride through the canals. It was a gorgeous day. Stacie was so excited to bump into two costars from one of her favorite shows, "Below Deck". Once back in West Palm, we went and had appetizers at the Okeechobee Steak House. Another great day with my sisters!!!