Steve and Becca Hendricks: Florida Living.

We’ve been in our new home for over a week now. The days on the road and the preparation to get here is all just a memory. It almost feels like this past week has been the way our life has always been. It feels like home. For the first couple of days, we spend a lot of time unpacking and organizing, but now we are in a lull, waiting until we can start the next big project, which is to convert the garage into Sara and Zach’s bedroom, we’ll start that project next week. Until then, we’re looking for jobs, doing little household projects (Sara mostly) and hanging out with the kids. On our first Saturday we took a drive down the coast, just Steve, Allie and I. We drove through Tyndall AFB and into Mexico Beach, so we stopped for lunch at a little diner, then walked across the street to the beach and walked along the beach picking up seashells and playing in the water a little. Then we got back in the truck and continued South down the coast through Port St. Joe and into Apalachicola, when we got across the bridge to the East of Apalachicola, we decided to turn around and head home. It was about 70 miles away from home at that point, so it was a pretty good little drive, on a nice sunny day. We definitely saw some other turn offs and things we’d love to explore some time, if we are able to take that drive south again. I love getting in the car and driving with no agenda in mind, I remember doing that with my mom and dad when I was a kid. When we got home from our family drive down the coast, we left Allie with Sara and Zach so that Steve and I could go on a date. We went to Panama City Beach and had dinner at Schooners and then we went and bought Allie a bike. Steve was eager to put it together and the first thing out of Allie’s mouth on Sunday morning when she saw a pretty purple princess helmet laying on our bedroom floor was “did you buy me a bike?” So we fed her breakfast and then let her meet her new bike, the dragonfly. OOOOH boy, she was so excited to see that bike and by the end of the day she was pedaling like a pro. Sunday, after introducing Allie to her new bike, we went to church and signed up for a small group for Steve and I to go to together. I’m really looking forward to making some connections and start getting involved Northstar activities. I also signed up to start helping in Children’s ministry, you’ll hear about my first day in Children’s ministry in my next update.

On Wednesday was our first big day at the beach. We decided to take advantage of a beautiful 70 degree day. I wasn’t sure the water would really be warm enough to get in but we suited Allie up anyway, even if she was just going to play on the beach. When we go there, the first thing we did was walk on the pier. It goes out pretty far and we were really surprised that as far out as the pier goes, we could still see the ocean floor. The water is a beautiful emerald color and very clear. As we got down to the beach, Allie was full of excitement about getting in the water. She wasted no time before she was soaked, and even I walked in as far as I could with my pants rolled up as high as they would go. I had my camera so I had no intention of getting in the water but the end our visit to the beach I told Steve that I would be bringing more appropriate beach clothing the next trip to the beach, I had felt a little tied down to my camera and my jeans, and wanted to take advantage of the surprisingly warm water. I’m curious what the water temperature actually is. I know it’s not bathwater warm yet, but it’s not at all the icy Pacific coast water I experienced last August.

Thursday I talked a little about suspending my facebook account for a bit so that I wouldn’t be distracted by it. However, I began adding a few people from Northstar and now I’m feeling like it could be a good way to get to know some of the people at my new church, so I’ll be praying about it and we’ll see how it goes. I do know that since I realized I was distracted by facebook, I’ve been on about half as much, so maybe I just needed to refocus.

Friday was a bit chilly, but the Sutton kids had been asking to go to the beach, so Sara and Zach invited us to join them and we spent a bit of time with them playing in the water and completely ignoring the cool breeze. I don’t know how that works, but it didn’t bother any of us that it was cool and cloudy. Zach found out that he can throw peanuts into the air and seagulls catch them. Pretty cool trick, until there’s 50 birds circling around your head…. The dogs liked it though; Boston continued to jump at them and run around under them, just waiting for one to get close enough to catch. Boston even swam a little, once because he was forced, but then he followed me out into the water by choice. Steve went pretty far out to investigate something we saw in the water, probably a couple sting rays, we knew it wasn’t a shark because as close to the surface as it was we never saw a fin, so there was no big worries about getting eaten. After a couple hours of that, we headed home. But first we stopped at our favorite bike selling source, a Kmart down the street that is closing out everything. It’s where we got Allie’s bike and we agreed that once our federal tax return was deposited into our account that we would go ahead and get our own bikes, so Friday was the day. I knew I wanted a beach cruiser, I’ve been asking Steve for one for a couple years now and in the beginning stages of talking about moving to Florida, I jokingly told Steve that I would only move to Florida if he’d buy me a beach cruiser. So the first one I picked out was the lowest priced one, but after sitting on it for a second and seeing that it had been a little abused in its time on the rack (confused face), we went with the next one, which happened to be a pink Schwin, with a men’s counterpart in blue. So needless to say we rolled out of there with matching beach cruisers. I think Allie was more excited than I was and she even offered to teach me how to ride my new bike. I am surprised at how accurate the statement “it’s like riding a bicycle” is. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to ride the bike, that my weight and lack of experience would keep me from enjoying my new ride, but after my first 10 minutes or so of getting comfortable on my bike, I’m now pretty confident, but not enough to venture out of our neighborhood just yet. Maybe in a couple weeks, Steve and I can take our pretty matching bikes down to Mexico beach or something. If we do, you’ll hear all about it I’m sure.

Panama City’s Mardi Gras celebration was on Friday and Saturday so on Saturday we loaded up Allie and Jeremy and headed to the St. Andrews area (old Panama City) for the parade. It was a little chilly but it was fun to people watch the locals and wait for the parade to start. The floats were fun to look at, and there was so many beads being thrown out that I wasn’t even trying to get them and they were hitting me on the head and landing on my lap. Jeremy had a great time and filled his backpack full of beads. Allie didn’t really want any part of the waving and asking for beads, I think she just didn’t get it. We scream and yell and they throw us beads….don’t you send me to my room for that? The parade was over pretty quickly and we headed over to the festival. The first thing we saw was the food, which we had no intention of buying, until we saw the sign that said “fried gator on a stick”. Well being newbie’s to the area, how could I pass up the opportunity to try gator? We got 2 sticks to share between the 4 of us. It was pretty chewy, a little fishy and tasted kind of like chicken. Figure that one out. After Allie had a short ride on a pony we decided to just head home.

That’s how it’s been and I’ll try to update a little more frequently so that the updates are not so long, also as we get more settled, I’m sure we won’t be filling so much of our time playing. Let’s hope not though.

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention. The bugs are ruthless. I have some small itchy bumps but Steve is covered head to toe in itchy welts. For some reason he has had a horrible reaction to them and he can’t stop scratching, which is making it worse. Please pray that we figure something out to keep him from getting bit.

I've added some pictures but they are not in order, for some reason, the blog doesn't allow me to put them in here how I want like it used to so I'll just add captions.