Ferrara's in Florida

Aunt Vennie treated Joel to his first taste of nachos and he loved it! And no Gator sports event is complete without orange and blue GATORade.  Record breaking two-time Olympic triple jumper Christian Taylor experienced another great moment—meeting our sports enthusiast! Olympian for the Bahamas, Levaan Sands, met Joel then introduced him to his fellow athletes as a future Olympian ;) 

He says it will make him strong 

Galaxy is about to have his 1st birthday at the Ferrara home. The kids celebrate birthdays of all their living creatures (and a stuffed animal sometimes), so it’s a big deal around here. —HOWEVER— We shall see if that happens as James just announced that he fed the fish his butterflies (that is, toast cut in one of Paw Paw’s styles). Sure enough, crumbs were being devoured by our beta. Not one crumb was left floating. It’s a waiting game now.

We visited an apiary where honey bees make honey. This was one of my fave field trips, perhaps because we studied honey bees for the last two weeks, it was a beautiful spring day (aka under 90) and Aunt Marlene joined us. I’m pretty sure that’s when Ruby decided I deserved lavish praise for being the best mom—that is, after Marlene accepted our invitation to come. Sable F. opposed the wearing of the “dorky” beekeeper uniform; therefore, she is not in these photos.

Courtney heads overseas for missions work in May and upon her return to the States, she begins her final university coursework which includes an internship. With all of that plus her involvement in the community, she gave me a two month notice and recommended a replacement. I’m happy to say that we just hired a young woman named Katarina: a newlywed married to a local youth pastor. She heard about us from Courtney and came with knowledge of some tidbits about our family. She brought to her interview a gift for Ruby -- an autographed FCA card by a UF gymnast. All 4 kids interviewed her before I did. I sat in on their interviews. Some of their questions to her: Sable: How many seats are in your car? Do you have a dog? Ruby: What sports do you play? (Come to find out, she’s an athlete, the  youngest of 5–4 girls and one boy, her dad was a semi-pro boxer and she prefers to be outside...a perfect match for all 4 kids) Joel: Can we play with you? James: Where do you live? ...