Committed To Compete

Wesley has qualified for Adidas Outdoor Nationals in Greensboro, North Carolina in June. He will be competing in Truist Stadium at North Carolina A& T University. 

 We will be hitting the road for Father's Day weekend to watch him compete! 

A Magical Internship

Parker got an acceptance email this week for his next step - he has been accepted to the Disney College Program for the fall! He reports in August and will live at Walt Disney World in the special housing for the college program participants. He will be able to do this while finishing up his last year of MBA classes online. We are so excited for this next step for him! 

 

Commitment Time

As a family, we are pleased and proud to announce that Wesley has committed to attend St. Leo University in San Antonio, Florida, as a member of their 2026-2027 track and field team!!! Go Lions!!!

Nationally only about 5% of the 650,000 male track and field high school athletes in the United States go on to compete in the NCAA (Divisions 1-3). We are thankful to IMG and Coach Iryna for working with him to develop his skills as a student athlete this year. And we are looking forward to seeing what he can do next year under the direction of St. Leo's jumps coach, Emily Olson. 

St. Leo is an NCAA Division Two school in the Sunshine Conference with Florida Southern, Embry Riddle, University of Tampa, Lynn University, Eckerd College, Florida Institute of Technology, Rollins College, Nova Southeastern, Palm Beach Atlantic and Barry University. They frequently attend track and field meets at a few Division One schools like USF and UCF. 

 

Mother's Day Part Two

On Sunday morning I preached at Trinity UMC in Sarasota. And then in the evening the guys took me out for Mother's Day. My gift was a surprise sunset cruise around Siesta Key and Sarasota Bay. It was awesome to hang out in the Intercoastal and see the islands in a way that we usually don't get to. 

The dolphins were out to play a lot which was fun! 

Going under the north Siesta Key bridge. 

The white house on the left was owned by Andre Agassi. 

A view of the Ringling Bridge from Sarasota on the right to Bird Key and Lido Key on the left 

The house on the left was the childhood home of Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman). The house on the right belongs to Urban Meyer. 

 

Mother's Day with Grandmommy

We spent time on Saturday with Grandmommy for Mother's Day. We took her to the new Mote SEA Aquarium in Sarasota by the mall. It's such a beautiful space! 

And then afterwards we went for lunch at Yard House nearby. 

 

Here, There and Everywhere

This week I spent Monday in the office in Zoom meetings. Tuesday I was back at the Conference Office to work with the large church pastors who are moving this summer and teach about self-care in the midst of transition. The two pastors on the ends of this picture are leaving our district for other appointments and the pastor with the beard next to me is joining our district this summer. 

Wednesday involved a lot of Annual Conference planning meetings online and then Sandy and I set up two canvas labyrinths on the floor in the fellowship hall to take pictures. The district office bought these and is loaning them out to churches for special occasions. We needed the pictures to make up the fliers about them and type up the instructions. The large one was so big we could only assemble two of the sections. 

Thursday was out district clergy gathering, this time at Gulf Cove UMC in Port Charlotte. We had a great teaching time about the 6 Types of Working Genius. And their pastor made up some awesome AI graphics to welcome us and say goodbye. 

I finished the day up with a drive down to Pine Island for a meeting and then home again! 

 

St Leo Campus Visit - Round Two

We made a second campus visit to St. Leo University today with Wesley. This time to meet the jumps coach and tour the athletic facilities. They have some great spaces and we were very impressed with Coach Emily Olson. This next year will be St Leo's second year with a track and field team and they already invested 1.4 million in building a new track on campus. 

Weight Room - there is a specific lifts coach for the track team and specific work out time. The jumps coach works directly with them on the workouts. 

We also got to visit the Business Building because Wesley is thinking of majoring in business in college. 

It was a good day and Wesley is getting closer to a college decision everyday. 

Commitment Day is coming quick on May 20th.