ALEXANDER ADVENTURES
~2023~
JANUARY
The beautiful wintry sky enjoyed from our little "beach house"
(affectionately named since it's located on Beach Road),
marked the beginning of what would be a year of gratefulness for our humble,
finally-finished home.
FEBRUARY
Happy birthday to our sweet 16 Sheridan!
For many years of Sheridan's young life I tucked her in at night and said,
"I didn't think God was going to give us any more children, but He gave us YOU!
I will never stop thanking Him!"
Has it really been 16 years since my kind Father gave us this precious gift
of one Sheridan Anna Claire?!
She has brought immeasurable sunshine into our lives.
Every day with her has been an unexpected, underserved gift.
Tucker, Sheridan's cousin, was in town and helped us celebrate her birthday with a trip to Starbucks.
Sheridan had a birthday dance at the house. What sweet memories were made.
MARCH
The four of us that live together still, for which Harrison created a texting group called
"People of the Beach House," enjoy impromptu vacations.
Here we're visiting Busch Gardens Tampa while staying at one of Disney's resorts.
My longtime friend, Beth, happened to be in town so we met up for a visit.
With Beth, it's like we just saw each other yesterday,
and the conversation gets to the real stuff of life in no time.
I'm forever trying to think of a way to disguise the well *eyesore* in the front yard of our house. Harrison was so, so kind to help me bring to life my camouglage creation - a fountain. It only lasted a couple of weeks before I confirmed that my idea was a fail. I never could get enough water pressure to make the fountain look pretty.
Like last year, it worked out to take the Hammer-grands to
San Antonio's Sea World during spring break. What fun!
Phil Wickham, Matt Maher, and Leeland were in concert nearby in Richmond.
Awesome concert!
Just a fun afternoon with the local grands.
MAY
We are so thankful that our kids want to vacation with us. We enjoy being around them so much and love making memories with them and the grandbabies. We went to Vero Beach for a week with all the kids and grandkids and then spent a second week at a house in Orlando where we invited the great grandparents to join us.
Evenings are usually spent playing games, eating ice cream, chatting and laughing.
The kids blessed us tremendously by having a professional photographer take family pictures
while we were at Vero Beach.
For the second week of the vacation, we invited Oma, PatPat and PaPa to join us. It ended up being the most memorable vacation ever, but not for the reasons we'd hoped. We all got a terrible stomach virus, some of us with fevers, some fainting...it was horrible!
JUNE
For the third year, Sheridan maintained the neighbor's lawn. It's such hot, sweaty work - usually one long 8 hour day - but she gets in her groove and knocks it out week after week, month after month.
This year she added a battery-operated blower to her equipment inventory.
Harrison finished renovating the two tiny houses he had been working on. They turned out great!
JULY
Harrison has been on staff at our church for a couple of years.
This summer, Sheridan was offered an internship in children's ministry.
It felt really official to get a key to the church!
JULY
After seeing a nice house for sale across the street from my sister while attending Tucker, our nephew's graduation, Oma decided to move to Pensacola. We will miss having her so close by.
My aunt wanted to bless my mom by giving her furniture to take to her new home in Florida.
We picked it up from Nana's in Virginia Beach, then took a picture and sent it to Oma to tell her about the surprise.
AUGUST
Sheridan insisted we get to the Phil Wickham and Brandon Lake concert in Norfolk early enough to get a good place in line. We arrived MANY hours early but were still surprised to see we were the first ones there!
Timmy drove to the nearest Chick-fil-A and brought us all supper to enjoy while we waited in line.
It was a beyond-amazing concert! Just wow!
Timmy and I both had health incidents this year
that pushed regular trips to the Y a little higher on our priority list.
After Timmy and I drove my mom to Florida and moved her in,
we enjoyed an extended layover in Fort Lauderdale before we returned home.
Smoothies and good books make for a perfect get-away.
SEPTEMBER
We enjoyed a week at Daytona Beach with Harrison and Sheridan
before they headed out for a trip to Dallas.
They were met by Tucker, their awesome cousin, and Amanda, their longtime friend from church. They all stayed with Meredith while touring large churches in Dallas and exploring ministries that are making a huge impact for the cause of Christ.
They made some sweet memories with the Hammer crew...
attending one of Margaret's volleyball games,
Tucker so thoughtfully reading to the younger Hammers,
and Tucker and Harrison considerately working on a plumbling issue.
It sounds like it was a great visit for all of them.
John joined the crew at the end of their Texas trip and flew back to
Virginia to complete a school project.
He learned about construction while helping build two decks on our house.
The uncles were so kind to help with the project,
and they even brought little cousin helpers too.
Allison and John used the wood scraps to create an entire village, complete with a Wawa.
John also spent time at the farm learning about milking the cows,
and later he learned how to use the lab to test the milk.
John was a big help as Sheridan's second season of "Pumpkin Spiced Porches" was just beginning.
The little cousins love John. He is so kind to read to them,
and feed baby Jonas his bottle.
On Sunday after church and before John flew home,
we all went to Powhatan State Park for kayaking and tubing.
What fun!
OCTOBER
We're really proud of Sheridan's creativity and hard work with her porch pumpkin decorating business. She increased her customer base significantly this year, and became very comfortable running all aspects of the business.
Nana, who was like a second mother to me, passed away in October from cancer. We thought it would bless Christine, my cousin, to have her porch "pumpkin spiced" while everyone was at the memorial service. Oliver, Sheridan, Jensen and Jonas worked quickly to get it all set up.
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Christine said that in the weeks that followed, she'd just look at all the pumpkins on her porch and it brought her so much joy.
While Oma was in town, she was able to enjoy some time with William and Henry.
NOVEMBER
We went to see Chris Tomlin and it was a great concert.
Sheridan was SO excited to shake his hand!
Sheridan and I went to see Brandon Lake with Benjamin William Hastings and Pat Barrett.
We waited outside for hours, sitting on the cold, concrete sidewalk, but we were so, so blessed to accidentally get the most amazing seats ever once we got inside.
After 3 1/2 years, we finally finished our Beach Road house!
Incidentally, the water feature intended to cover up the well didn't work out
so I turned it into a big planter instead.
The "after" pictures
A cruise was the perfect celebration for finishing the house.
DECEMBER
The house is so sweet with live,
boxwood wreaths decorating the windows for Christmas.
We were very excited to be in on the surprise of Harrison and Megan's engagement, and were all waiting for them at Maggiano's after Harrison popped the question.
This year we hosted the Alexander Christmas meal at our house.
I found this "amazing" Christmas suit for Timmy on clearance at Sam's Club for $10.61.
He works on our church's parking team and commented that more people smiled at him than ever before as he parked them for the Christmas Eve service.
After the Christmas Eve services, we headed to the mountains to celebrate Christmas.
We loved that the married kids and grands were able to join us.
They began trickling in on Christmas Day.
We had the most relaxing week imaginable as we just played games.
Timmy made us a delicious meal with a rib roast.
Of course, no Alexander vacation is complete without a complete ice cream bar.
There was a playground just behind our condo with statues of children. Oliver told all the little boys, when it was time to go back to the condo, that these "frozen" children told their parents they wanted to stay at the playground forever and this is what happened to them.
A gingerbread house decorating contest is becoming a tradition.
It was decided that a game of musical chairs would be necessary to determine who would get the gingerbread house kit that had cracked.
The Gingerbread House Entries of Christmas 2023
The "marshmallow baby Jesus" on a "Rolo" manger received mixed reviews.
As I think back over 2023, I'm overwhelmed with gratefulness to God.
That He would allow Timmy and me to still be here together, when some of our friends' spouses have already gone to Heaven, is something we talk about often and are thankful for. In these 39 years of marriage, God has given us immeasurably more than we ever asked for or even imagined. Children that have become our friends, grandchildren that bring laughter and joy into our lives - these are unexpected, undeserved gifts lavishly given to us from our good, good Father.
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