Family Time in Florida

Life is a hard road at times, my friends.

I’ve shared much of my family with you all over the years, including the fact that my parents are both native Floridians.  That means that as children, my sister and I spent a lot of time in Florida, visiting both sides of the family.  Mom grew up near Plant City in a little community called Durant.

If you know where Durant is, you get a gold star, since it’s a tiny spot on the map that you will miss if you blink. The girls in my family just got back from there a couple of weeks ago.  We went down for a visit to see family and while it was an enjoyable visit and one we always look forward to, it was bittersweet as well.

I’m at the place in life, like many of you are, watching my parents and their siblings get older and health beginning to fail.  It’s not a fun place to be, sandwiched in between generations, seeing our parents grow more and more frail with each passing year.  Watching Parker grow has been such a joy to all of our family, but on the other hand, the older generation isn’t faring so well.  And that is the sad part of life. We are so thankful that my parents are still in good health (as far as we know), but there are still things that change and deteriorate with aging.  Dad deals with memory issues that we get concerned about and mom has degenerative back problems that she didn’t used to have.

I know that many of you have lost your parents and it’s one of those things that we all have to face. I’m  not looking forward to losing ours and there’s no easy way to prepare for it.

My mom’s brother, Uncle Eugene, has been married for many years to Aunt Mary. Almost as long as my parents have been married, which is 62. We have spent so much time with their entire family over the years, from them coming to Georgia to see us, with multiple trips to Six Flags for us kids, to heading up to NC and spending time with all the extended family up there.  It’s been a joyous time of family activity and even though we didn’t grow up around all of them, we love them dearly.  Our family is like that, extended folks and all.  We stick together through thick and thin.

I’ve shared our fish fries over the years, this one at my parent’s mountain house in 2014. You all loved this family post and left a lot of comments. We had another mini-family reunion in 2011 down in Florida that I shared too.  Most of our gatherings involve fish fries and this visit was no different.

Aunt Mary, in the green shirt, 2014 in the mountains

So, it’s been with a sad heart that we’ve watched Aunt Mary fight colon cancer for over a year and 1/2 now.  We thought she had beaten it, but in the last 2 months, we’ve found out differently.  It’s back with a vengeance and unless the Lord heals her soon, there won’t be a happy ending to this story.  And that makes our hearts hurt SO badly.  Aunt Mary is one of the Godliest women you will ever meet and at no time does her faith wane. She trusts God with everything in her life and clings to Him completely.  She’s not giving up without a fight and we aren’t either. We will continue to pray for her and hope that God will remove this disease from her body.  It was so hard seeing her so frail and weak.  She hasn’t been out of the house in a month and is failing faster than we’d like to see.  She just turned 80 and we thought we’d have her for many more years.

We decided that we needed to get down to Florida to visit her and let her know how much she means to us, so I, along with my sister and mom drove down for a long weekend.  Lauren flew in from New Orleans with Parker and it was a sweet family time together.  We did nothing but visit with our family, eat, and just spent time together.  My uncle has always had horses on his property, as well as a few cows and other barnyard animals and going out to the barn and riding horses in the pasture has been part of our lives over the years growing up.  Lauren spent lots of time visiting here as a child as well and has such fond memories of our family gatherings. She was excited to introduce Parker to the barnyard fun and Parker loved it!

Cousin Layna rides horses and has been since she was two and also does barrel racing in the area.  Parker loved Layna and her daddy, Dennis, and especially the horses.  She tried to pet the baby chicken that Layna has, but the chicken was having none of it.

Lauren’s baby bump is getting much bigger and she has about 4 weeks to go, due at the end of April. She is ready for baby Iris to arrive.

They have a few cows to take care of and Parker loved petting the cows and horses.

You would think she would have been scared of these big horses, but no, she was not.

She got up close and personal and loved being around them.

Layna and her horse, Faith, are quite the duo on the barrel racing circuit.  We got to see her in action while we were there at a local rodeo in Hillsborough County.

It’s been almost 5 years since I was here last and rode horses, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to do it again.  Parker got up here with me for a photo opp, but she rode with my cousin Dennis, who is a very experienced horseman.  Parker loved being on the horses!

Dennis rode her around the pasture several times and we all just walked.  No running for me at this stage!

It was great fun being in a saddle again, but my bones could feel it.  I’m not a spring chicken anymore.

Parker adored cousin Dennis and especially riding those horses. We got to ride 2 days and she absolutely loved it.

When she had to get off the horse, the tears flowed (both days!).  It was so cute!

She wasn’t scared of them at all.

Parker and the cows.

Lauren and Parker, experiencing a little bit of country life.

Me on the horse the 2nd day.  I borrowed some boots from Layna.

The sun was about to set and we all 3 rode out to the end of the pasture and back, Parker loving it once again.  She sat up there as pretty as you please.

Layna leading the way, we crossed the creek over and back on horseback which was fun.

My horse was a sweet girl named Maggie and she was very gentle, just the way I like them.

Putting the horses away for the night at dusk, such a beautiful sight.

Mom really enjoyed getting to see her 2 brothers that are still down there and she got plenty of strawberries to bring home.  They always look out for her during strawberry season and when the fields close down, many of them go in and pick the strawberries that are going to waste.  For free!  They have connections, so it’s always nice to get strawberries straight from the fields.

On the day before we left, we got another huge tub of strawberries to bring home and we all split them up. We were determined to make room and bring them home and we did.  I just made another strawberry cake and I’ll share the recipe again soon, but it’s one of my most clicked older recipes (from 2010) that I put together a few years ago.  It’s delicious and uses a white cake mix!  I used the same recipe and tweaked the icing this time.  The icing is runny, but very delicious!

One of our favorite stops when we are there is the Strawberry Hut in Plant City.  It’s so good!

Here’s 1/2 a Cuban sandwich from the Strawberry Hut. It’s always a treat to get a Cuban while in Florida.  Our cousins also love Brocato’s in Tampa, but we didn’t have time to make it over there.  Plant City is closer and we love these Cubans too!

As usual, we got in on a fish fry at their church this time, which was another treat.  Mom grew up in this church and she loved getting to see relatives and friends that she has known her whole life.

Layna and Parker at the fish fry.  It was so cute hearing Parker say “Yayna”.

I love the live oak trees with hanging moss all over the trees in this area.  I remember growing up and getting excited when we were driving down I-75 and would start to see trees with moss hanging on them. I knew we were getting closer to family.

Mom’s home church, Pleasant Grove Assembly of God in Durant, had to be torn down a few years ago because the building was unstable.  It’s been recently rebuilt with the help of RVer’s who spend time down here working for free on the church to get it back up again.  Mom and dad got married in the original church and it was a beautiful old church.

Now, the new building is metal, but it’s looking beautiful and they are doing a great job with the rebuilding process.  This made my mom’s heart happy too.

This little Children’s Church as been on the property for many years, since my mom was growing up there.  The church has a campground where many seniors live and it’s a really nice community.  Many of my relatives have lived or still live on the campground here.

Parker was her cute little self the whole time and we had a blast with her.  She makes everything more fun now.

She is talking up a storm and it’s fun to interact with her.

As I mentioned, Layna rides horses and does barrel racing and we got to see a real live rodeo at the Hillsborough County fairgrounds.  Bull riders and barrel racing!  Parker loved that too!

I captured a few shots of the bull riders.

And Layna doing barrel racing, which was a treat to see in person.

Lana captured this photo of mom and her brother napping on the couch (maybe they won’t shoot me for posting this!).  Mom stayed with Aunt Mary both days in the afternoon when we went back to the hotel to let Parker nap and I know she cherished the time with her brother and sister-in-law.  They have all been close for so many years and the 4 of them traveled across country together and all the way to Alaska over a decade ago.  Mom and Aunt Mary are especially close and both of them are mighty prayer warriors and Godly women.  The best you would ever meet, those two women.

There were tears, hugs and prayers before we left.  We hugged Aunt Mary and told her how much we love her and how much she means to us.  She spoke words of encouragement to us and uplifted our spirits. We don’t know if it’s the last time we will see her not, but we are SO glad we went.  Family is so important and we treasure all of our time together. Life is precious and short and I realize that more and more the older I’m getting.

Treasure your loved ones and let them know how much they mean to you.  Thank you for going on this family journey with me today.

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