Hello October 🍂

Hello October 🍂

Hello October,

2024 has been going by so quickly. It’s already October, and so much has happened!

January and February were filled with a lot of university visits and auditions for Christina to attend graduate school for violin performance. And as a reward to herself and a vacation after her last audition, Christina and Victoria took a trip down to San Juan, Puerto Rico in early March for spring break with friends. They enjoyed much needed beach time, good food, and ATV riding. 

A couple of weeks later, Chris and I had the opportunity to go to Edinburgh, Scotland. He was there for a work trip and I met up with him afterwards because we had never been and we thought it would be fun. We were right. I arrived the last night of his work trip, making it just in time to see him in a traditional kilt. We did a lot of things, but I will just share a few of the highlights. While there, we went to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and Edinburgh Castle. We also had high tea at the Caledonian Waldorf Astoria. Based on our experience, we are definitely looking forward to visiting Scotland again, and were told by the wonderful staff at the Waldorf Astoria that the next time we should go to the Highlands. 

On the way home from Edinburgh, we had a layover in Paris that was only supposed to be for an hour or so, but our flight from Edinburgh was running late, and we missed our connecting flight home, so we spent the night in Paris and had a nice dinner and a moonlight boat ride. 

A few days after we arrived home, we flew out to Arizona to see Christina’s Senior Recital. She did an amazing job! Chris and I are so happy that we were there because we found out later that the livestream of her performance was not working. All of the family and friends watching at home could see her, but were unable to hear her performance. I was able to get a little bit of the performance on my phone, but not enough unfortunately. 

To round off the adventures in March, we celebrated Chris’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in Savannah, GA. We are so grateful for their example of God’s love. 

In April, Chris and I saw Ledisi in concert at Atlanta Symphony Hall, thanks to my sister. She gave us tickets for Christmas. 

In May, Christina celebrated a huge milestone and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Arizona State University with a degree in Violin Performance. Thankfully, we had the opportunity to share this occasion with all of our children, and our parents. A few weeks later on Memorial Day weekend, we held a graduation celebration at home with friends and family. That was just the start of our summer.

Right after the party, everyone in the house was on the move. Joshua went to Detroit to go work with an organization called The Yunion. While there, he put his photography skills to use, tried out some food spots, and had a great time with our extended family. Around the same time, Chris and I drove Christina to Staunton, VA for her summer job at a music festival. And for Victoria, both her social life and work started to ramp back up.

In July, Victoria went to visit one of her college roommates in San Francisco to experience the not-so-warm weather. Later that month, we were blessed to celebrate my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary in Detroit, MI. It was such a blessing to be able to celebrate the union of two of the most influential people in my life, aside from my own parents of course. On the way home from Detroit, we drove to Staunton to pick Christina up from the music festival. Not even a week later, in August, we moved Christina to Tampa, Florida, where she is attending Grad School. 

After that, we found ourselves in September celebrating Joshua’s 21st birthday! Due to hurricane Helene, Christina was here in Atlanta and was able to celebrate with us as we went out to dinner. 

And now here we are in October. So much has happened in this month already including the fact that we celebrated Chris’s birthday. Our children blessed Chris with tickets to go to the Reunion Tour with Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond, the Clark Sisters, Yolanda Adams, Marvin Sapp and Kierra Sheard.  Christina was able to celebrate with us again because hurricane Milton was due to hit Tampa, and although her area was not on the evacuation list, the Holy Spirit prompted her to leave. I’m so glad she listened because had she stayed, she would have been in the middle of a hurricane for the first time in her life.  

By God’s grace, we were able to serve alongside some friends of ours in ministry for about two years and that season has now come to an end. We thank God for the relationships we have cultivated and are looking forward to all that is to come as we continue to be intentional to walk out the plans that God has for us. 

We’ve lived a lot of life in 2024 and there’s still so much to come. So, hello October. Hello Autumn. We’ll continue to document and enjoy all that God has in store.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *