Tuesday, March 3, 2026

March.

March is here!!!!  Hello more sunlight days!  Hello spring blooms!  Hello garden seeds.  Hello baseball gloves and muddy spikes.  Hello Spring!  Hello robins and green grass!  Hello daffodils and pansies!  Hello March!

 

I'm so excited to flip the calendar page over to March!  This year is going fast and we are ready for our very cold winter to end!  We are ready for spring time!  

I don't follow politics closely.  I don't watch the news regularly.  But when there a moon phase coming up or a hurricane roaring in the south ... I look into it.  I was really hoping to watch the Blood Moon turn red early this morning!  I woke up to watch it but when I stepped outside, I couldn't find the moon.  It was too cloudy to see this happen at my house.  Bummer.  I did look it on up on Fox News and watched it live with their camera views but it would have been so cool to watch this happen on our front porch!  Maybe in 2028 Ill be able to witness this live!


Enjoy this new month of March!


Snow and sports.

 Winter is still here and something I wanted to do for a few years is go to Lititz to see their Fire and Ice Event.  In the past, we are on vacation or it just didn't work out to go but we had one night open and we went!  Austin wasn't into it at first but he ended up liking the ice sculptures and enjoying the fire show!



I finally finished this winter scene puzzle and this book.



More snow is coming and I made a quick stop to buy the essentials.  Milk, bread, eggs, heavy cream and Florida strawberries.  The kids came over to watch it snow but went home to sleep on Sunday night.  Austin was found doing school work on Monday morning because school was canceled.  We got about 4 inches and not 12 inches like they predicted.



Fresh snow was scrapped off the back porch.  Mike started the campfire on the back porch and made some shrimp and smash burgers!  






Mike and I have been having a lot of heart to heart conversations and sometimes our differences need to be worked through.  We never intend to hurt each other but it happens in moments.  When I got into my vehicle, the radio was turned on and this sermon was being preached.  I know that God put this sermon into my lap for me to hear!  Loud and clear!  I came home to look up the sermon and listen to the entire sermon.  Then I realized this is a series and I listened to every single sermon (seven sermons) and it's like every sermon here was written for me!  Going through hard talks and challenges DOES NOT have to be in fights or arguments.  This has been convicting to me and the Lord is working on me!  Maybe you would also like this sermon!





My family loves these and it's my favorite food art!


I was looking up some quotes on Pinterest and this one hit me!  I printed it out!


I was so happy that I may have done a happy dance when I saw these peony plants at Costco last week!  I love these flowers and wish for more plants in my gardens and now I can!!!!  Let's bring on Spring time!


I love when I get to hang out with little buddy!


We are in the home stretch on basketball and we cheered for the girls in this district game!


The Warriors ended in second place but still moving on to States!  Mike and I love to turn these game nights into date nights!  


On Saturday, it was time to cheer for Ashlyn at her volleyball tournament.  We met the team at Crumble Cookie to start things off sweet!  It was such a beautiful, sunny day and Mike and I grabbed some hot dogs and ate outside to let the sunshine hit our faces!




On Sunday, we had day two of the tournament.  I try to not feel like a twisted pretzel with sitting in folding chairs for two days straight but it gets me!  This time it's just me cheering for Ashlyn.  Mike and Austin stayed home.  It was another day of sunshine and the snow is melting.






The girls had some wins and some loses.  It's all this practice and all these games that will help Ashlyn grow in her volleyball skills and ultimately help our school team bring more wins!


February is closing.  Winter is ending soon and I'm so excited to have March arrive and let Spring begin!


Friday, February 20, 2026

Returning home from Belize.

 

Woke up to the beautiful Coco Beach Resort view and this morning we were not going to town for breakfast.  However, Matthew was not hearing that!  He went all by himself into town, got himself a big breakfast fry jack and Daisy a burrito and juice and came back to the resort by 7:30 AM!!!!  I wanted to go along but was nervous about making Mike nervous.  He did not want to be late for any flight and neither did we but Neri's was open at 5 AM, so Matthew went for it!!!!

The rest of us settled for leftover bananas and peanut butter and one passion fruit.



We packed everything up and were off to the cold north.


Gunnar did so well the entire too!  Hopefully this last travel day will go well!



We had 55 steps up to our room.  We got our exercise each day and here Mike and Matthew were trying to figure out who pays for what.  When we booked our stay here at Coco Beach, we told the kids that we would pay for the flights and rooms.  They were to pay for all the food they ate.  That made it really nice to deciding what they ordered or how much or if they wanted just water or sodas or dessert.  Each family on their own with food cost.  At the resort, we did not have an all inclusive but you could charge your room with any food you got at the resort.  



Belize is not that far away but it does take a day of travel.  We were escorted to the little airport in San Pedro to take our first flight out.  Funny, the airport is really close to Neri's so Jeremiah ended up going over and grabbing them some breakfast burritos before take off.  We are gonna miss this place!


The airport is really small here and simple.  You were given color coded passes for your boarding pass.  We were all on flight red!



We flew over the water to main land Belize for our next flight.  This took about a ten minute flight.



When we arrived at Belize National Airport that is bigger airport but still nothing like Philadelphia or any big US city airports.  We went through customs and had to fill out another immigration paper to come back to the USA.  While we were doing this, we were all sitting on a bench in the airport and Ashlyn decided to take Gunnar for a short walk.  She laid her phone on the bench next to me and strolled around with Gunnar.  When she came back, her phone was missing.  Where did it go?  Meanwhile, a family came and sat on the bench right next to us so we asked if we could look around them for the missing phone.  They were not impressed and hesitantly lifted up their luggage off of the floor after we asked them to look for the phone.  No phone anywhere and it was time to go through security.  I asked the lady at the check in/out if there's a lost and found anywhere and she said to check with security.  So, off we went.  Without the phone.  We all said a prayer that it would turn up before we flew away.

We went through security and I asked the man at the end if there's any way there was a phone brought up here and that we were missing a phone.  He asked a few questions and shock his head no.  Ok .... lost a phone.  Just then another foreign man came up to me and said he heard that we were looking for a phone and asked me if this was Ashlyn's?  He had her phone in his hand!  He said he saw her leave it on the bench and was going to bring it to security.  How weird is this?  I hugged him and thanked him and he said, "God works in mysterious ways."  I still don't know the whole lesson in this answered prayer but we had the phone, an answered prayer and now we were ready for our next flight out!

We had a layover in Charlotte for three hours.  The kids got a bite to eat together while Mike and I stayed with our luggage.  Then we went for greens!  I was craving salad greens and really missed raw carrots and celery on our trip!  We ate so good and had so many nachos and it was time for raw food and not raw conch!  A salad and a big coffee and off we were!


Our flight into Philadelphia was late.  Gunnar barely slept but when we were on the highway and in his normal carseat, he was out.  All our flights went well!  Thank you, Jesus!


We came back so tired but feeling so blessed to do a trip like this with our family!

Seeing the snow on the ground was not that welcoming and I had so much laundry to do with no washer and dryer for a week!  Everything got washed, cleaned and folded!



And the groceries were restocked and it's good to be back home!  I didn't know it was gonna be faschnaut day when we returned home!
 


This will be a memory of a lifetime.  We don't do vacations like this every year!  This was a special time and I just really enjoyed all the time we spent together!  Thank you again Lord for your many blessings on us!

Final Belize days.

 The view from our porch was worth a million bucks!



Iguanas were everywhere at the resort.  Nothing to be afraid of though.  But seeing their tails and feet print in the sand was funny to me!



We tried another breakfast spot so that it wouldn't get so late for Gunnar's first nap.  After breakfast, Jere and Hadassah went back to give Gunnar a nap while the rest of us still ended up at Neri's for fry jacks and to see the local church.  I really wanted to sit in on some island worship but after finding the church, we realized they only had an evening service.  Bummer.  

We went through town again and almost got hit by a soft ball.  Where in the world did that come from?  Mike and Matthew had to find out!  Sure enough, there was a ballgame going on right in town.  No grass but sand and bases and guys wanting to play ball!  


Matthew asked for a side of hot sauce at Neri's and we laughed at the tiny two bags they sent along!


We had one more day in the sun and at the pool before we had a travel day back North.  I love these people with all my heart!


Famous hot sauce on the island and available at every place you ate!


We told the kids to pick at place for dinner on our last night and Matthew remembered seeing this when we ate breakfast that morning.  We drove our golf carts to the Rum Dog and really liked it here!  It was a three story restaurant right out on the water.  Our waiter was a real trip and he reminded us of my Uncle Alvin!  We ate good food!  Took some photos on the dock leading out to the restaurant and loved the fun vibe here!





Thatched roof and string lights for the lighting and eating good food and drinking great mocktails ... just lovely!!!!


It was time to end our vacation here and tomorrow we were heading back home.