Happy Easter & the End of Spring Break

Happy Easter! Today will be a fun relaxing day ..go to church, have Easter Dinner, and then work on work for tomorrow because Spring Break is OVER! I am cooking a New England Boiled dinner, something I used to do when the boys were younger. It is your typical ham dinner with vegitables. I am having apple pie and ice cream for desert..so it is all Maine today! Niel's dad Stoyel will come over for dinner as well. We are going to eat at noon..so Brian & Chelsea can have time with Chelsea's family and David has to go to work.

Back to work tomorrow for Niel & Me, but as the time flies out of Spring Break it does bring Mark closer to home, he will be headed home on May 1st, so it will be good to see Mark again.

Brian & Chelsea have been here for Easter Weekend. It has been good having them over, along with Throttle. He has grown so much, he is much bigger than Cody now, but Cody is still the alpha dog or is it Chewy. All three love to play together. Of course Throttle likes to play longer but the other dogs let him know when enough is enough. Brian has enjoyed his time by fishing and Chelsea has been studying...it is near the end of the semester so she had a lot to do. I think yesterday she was working on her studies and I was working on AP Government stuff.

Our College trip seemed to have been a success. We visited 5 colleges in Florida and David has found the one he wants to attend. He really like University of North Florida. He loved the "not tropical feel" which he was trying to get away from. The campus is beautiful, the academics are top notch with many different majors to choose from. He is looking into Marketing/Business which they have a great program. He has mentioned education which they also have...and they have pre-law, another idea that he has tossed back-n-forth.
University of North Florida Jacksonville:




He has decided he will apply to four colleges, hoping to get accepted by Univ.of North Florida. He will apply to UNF, New College, USF, and UCF. The New College does not offer as many major as other colleges but they are high academics and they do have an Economic major. Here are some pictures of our travels:

Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft Myers, Florida:


The New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida:




University of South Florida in Tampa:



Florida Southern College in Lakeland:


I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter Day...I love this time of years...the flowers are out, it still is not too hot. Yesterday we had a youth yardsale and it was a perfect day for a sale. The youth group made about 1400 toward their summer mission trip. David had fun holding the sign by the road and acting crazy to get people to come into the yardsale. We had a lot of big stuff so a lot of the youth group boys were also delivery guys with their trucks.

Day FIve College Tour

Well...we have finished our College Tour! Today we saw University of North Florida and David loved. We all loved it. It is not a large college yet not so small (it has 14,000 students)...no football team. It sits outside of Jacksonville about 10 miles to the OCean, yet it does not feel like a beach college...more like a college in the north or in the middle of the state.

So...now this summer, David will take another ACT test and hopefully have higher scores then before, work on his resume and essays for colleges. He plans on applying to 4 colleges: UNF (his fist choice), New College (2nd choice), USF (3rd choice), and 4th choice UCF.

TOmorrow Niel plans on working in the yard...I will break down and work on AP stuff and update my new school lap top. Right before spring break (2 hours before), our computer tech guy came and replaced my old lap top with a newer one...so now I have to play with and get things accomplished on it. That is my plan for tomorrow.

On Saturday, the youth is having a yard sale, so as a parent of the youth, I will be busy working it. If you want any junk, come to the yard sale (US 1 and Michagan Street)....Niel is excited about getting some of the junk out of the garage here.

I also want to wish everyone a HAPPY EASTER...I serve a risen Savior!

College Tour Day 4

Okay...we have arrived home for the night...sleep in our own bed! YEAH!!! and do laundry ;o( okay...part of traveling is doing laundry when one is done...so it is now done.

This morning we went over to see Florida Southern which is located in Lakeland Florida. It is a beautiful campus. I think David really liked the campus, not sure on how much he liked the college part of it. He still wants to keep it on his list. He is starting to think he wants to stay at a small or medium college.

The dogs were glad to see us. Or should I say glad to see Niel, they have been by his side since we got home.

Well...off to church, tomorrow we need to get up early to go see our 5th college.

College Trip Day Three

It is 9:46 and I am tired. We had a busy day and saw TWO, yes two colleges.

Last night we did eat at Yoders and we also saw some of the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum. We got back to the hotel...David went and spent an hour in the hot tub..Niel and I rested.

Tuesday: The morning started eating breakfast in the hotel and then hitting the road to visit The New College of Florida. I will say that it is one of the best kept secrets in Florida. Part of the campus has beautiful old buildings and the other part new. The college is located in Sarasota right on the Bay. We were there from 9:45 - Noon. We had a great talk with the admissions specialist and then a tour of the campus. The New College of Florida population is only 800 students. I will say I loved this college and if I was 17, this is where I would want to go. David also wants to keep it on his list.

After we had lunch, we headed to Tampa to help Brian purchase his new 2000 GMA Sierra 1500 SLT, it is white and he is happy. He traded his Mustang in and it looks good. Niel test drove it with him and sat with Brian as they wheeled and dealed.

After the purchase, we headed over to USF (Universit of South Florida), where we had the sweetest and prettiest guide yet, Chelsea showed us around. The campus is HUGE. David liked it though and it is on his list. He has taken off Florida Gulf Coast (the college we saw on Monday) off his list.

We are now in Lakeland. We checked into the hotel and went to find the college (Which we did); then we had some dinner (Steak & Shake). Did you know they no longer have the berry cobbler? But their steakburgers are still good. We are now all back in the room. This hotel does not have a hot tub and with the temperatures at 50 outside, David has chosen to stay in the room and watch some tv and play on his lap top.

Tomorrow our tour starts at 10 am. Tomorrow night we sleep in our own beds...i will say I am looking forward to my own bed.

College Trip Day Two

Well we have visited the first College: Florida Gulf Coast. It was an interesting experience this morning--> I had the wrong map quest address and Niel punched in the wrong address to the college...so instead of making our appointment at 10; we showed up at 10:20 and ended up doing a self tour ourself (which really was not that bad). Did I mention the college ended up only being 5 minutes from our hotel yet it took us an hour to get there with the wrong directions.

Florida Gulf Coast was okay. Nothing to truly write home about. It is small which I liked and the dorms were great (yet no one could truly answer the problems with getting dorms ones Sophamore year...which we knew personally had happened to one of Mark's friends).People did seem very friendly and both David and Niel noticed there were a lot of pretty girls on this campus.

The campus was very tropical and looked very similar to the Cocoa Beach Area, just more expensive. David did not like the fact that the college seemed to be very similar to the area we already live in and he felt it was in the middle of no where (which in reality it was but go 20 minutes in any direction, one would find the masses). Traffic was horrible though.....I do not think they know how to drive in this area.

We ate lunch at a place called Red Robbin. That was nice.

Since we are already at the new hotel...we are going to adventure out and see where the college is (we would like to make this tour). we are also going to try an Armish Restraunt for dinner: Yoders. we have heard wonderful things about it, so we are going to try.

Guess that is it for now. I will blog more about our adventurous college tours.

Spring Break College Tour Day One

Okay...we have officially started our spring break college tour. We left Cocoa after church around 1:30. We headed to Tampa and stopped for a visit with Brian and Chelsea. We had a great visit....of course the grandpuppy loved seeing me. He just gets larger and larger...but still so loving and gentle. After we took Brian and Chelsea out to dinner...we headed to Ft Myers....we arrived at the hotel around 9 pm. I will say....I am tired. David has headed to the pool and Niel just finished bringing in the suitcases. Tomorrow we will look at our first college: Florida Gulf Coast. The Hotel Clerk did make a note that we are here to see Florida Gulf Coast, yet I have a University of Central Florida T-shirt on and Niel has a University of South Florida t-shirt on....hey we are on a college tour.

The hotel is great...we are right next to a mall....but it is closed now and we will be busy tomorrow and headed to a new hotel. I think Niel is glad we got in after the mall closed. ;o)