Welcome to our web site!
Last updated
01/30/2022
We are a retired aerospace engineer and a physical therapist that
have set up this site to share our retirement life with our family
and friends, and to provide a way for our kids to keep track of our
activities.
Since moving here in 1996 from Connecticut we are
located on a navigable channel on Florida's Sun Coast 45 minutes south of Sarasota.
Address: 1921 Neptune Dr., Englewood, FL 34223-1534
Lat/Long:
27° 00' North
082° 23.28' West
Phones: House: 941-473-3179
Cell:
941-786-5273 Text:
941-716-1451
Links to historical photos:
Jack
Bev
Jack & Bev
Fritz
Skiing |
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Gold Medals at the 2016 Florida State Games, Coral Springs, Fla. |
Another year passes (2021)…. jolting us, comforting us, surprising
us, and instilling a healthy, scary curiosity concerning what comes
next…..and will we be allowed to age gracefully! So far, so good.
Two of our brighter moments were trips up to Clermont (near Orlando)
in April and November, visiting with Jack’s older sister (91 yrs.)
who made the trip from Nebraska with four of her daughters to visit
the fifth daughter, who recently moved from Colorado Springs to our
area (only three hours away) for health reasons. It was so great to
enjoy the warmth of this caring family. They are so genuine. We
traveled there through very rural Florida up the middle of the state
to avoid the crowds going to Disney. The farms and orchards are so
beautiful. We are so thankful for these opportunities.
Bev
had a horrible month of September with UTI’s and trying to find the
right antibiotic. Glory to God for it to be over, and to be feeling
better than she has for years! Watching skating on Peacock and the
Olympic Channel, that both show every move of every skater, is still
a passion. Enjoying Hallmark movies with their nice endings gives a
sense of joy and peace. Jack has found a new interest, ham radios,
and has taken the rigid exam to be licensed. Now he’s building
antennas to enhance this project. Gardening, getting back into
church activities, fixing anything in our household, car and van,
and helping neighbors, keeps him stimulated and happy. He also
zooms a Disciple bible class every week for which he studies every
evening.
Bev’s
daughter Kelly, who is severely immune compromised, got covid after
being fully jabbed. She was able to get the Monoclonal Antibody
treatment, thanks to our wonderful governor, and is still mending,
but is back to work. Her daughter, Kara, has planned her wedding
for January. Our grandson, Matthew (son of Rob and Linda) proposed
to Erika on the rocks in front of the Portland Head Lighthouse in
Maine in November. He is a policeman in East Hartford, Conn, and
they have a lovely new home in a nearby town. Rob decided to retire
from The Hartford, and is now working full time as a tutor and
teacher’s aide in the school all of his kids went to. Their
youngest, Lauren, is enrolled in a masters program for Occupational
Therapy. Eldest, Sarah, with her husband, have a very thriving
photography business while Sarah also works in finance in Boston.
Bev’s son, Larry, has moved back to San Diego and his son, Joel, is
going to college aiming for marine biology. Jack’s daughter,
Danelle, is still in SF and finding it more and more difficult to
live there as an organic person. Nearly everyone there has the
covid jab, and many restaurants require it for service. She has
lost a good paying caregiver job because of it. Currently she is at
a small farm near SF tending the property and their goats, while
maintaining her house and dog sitting activities, and her part time
boutique job. Her daughter, Dana, has transferred her studies from
Mesa State to SF State University. Darin, Jack’s son, is as evasive
as ever, but is still in the Aspen area working his remodeling and
construction, dumpster and porta-pot businesses
We
are hurricane preppers so have not felt the impact of not shopping
like most folks. We are happily living in our little Florida home
on the channel with a 16 foot pocket cruiser sailboat, Encore,
on the dock 20 steps from the back door, and a newly acquired Hobie
kayak. When we were in Connecticut we had to drive 80 miles just to
look at our sailboat. Compared to our Sea Wind catamaran, this boat
is much easier for Jack to single hand, and is backyard close to
allow him to putter on it to his heart's content. The birdbath just
outside our kitchen window where we have our meals, gives us endless
entertainment with cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds, purple
martins, sparrows, mourning doves, red bellied and pileated
woodpeckers, and occasional indigo blue buntings, etc bathing. We
also seem to be the watering hole for geckoes, snakes and squirrels
and once in a while an eagle. We have a resident bunny (or more)
that is so cute. Each evening we watch the egrets, pelicans,
herons, ibises, whistling ducks and gulls fly down the channels to
the mangroves to spend the night. Of course, in the morning from
our bed we can watch the return. Nature sure is wonderful. We are
so happy we xeriscaped the yard years ago to have flowering bushes,
tall grasses, ferns, and other groundcovers which entice the
beautiful butterflies. We do express our thankfulness daily.
We
are surprised that we do not miss ice skating, and especially the
hour trips to and from the rink. It was the right time. We donated
much of our skating apparel and accessories to Bev's synchronized
skating team to help defray their expenses to get very expensive
practice ice at ISI Adult Nationals in Lake Tahoe in the Fall of
2018. Very good cause. It was such a special skating journey we
enjoyed, loving the movement on ice to wonderful music together.
Still keep the DVDs and VHS tapes and good memories of events and
fellow skaters. Bev stays involved with a subscription to Peacock to
watch all the big skating competitions. The Olympic channel carries
all the events with commentary the following week.
Jack
continues his
involvement in church activities at Englewood United Methodist
Church. They stream their services online which we have been
using through most of the past year. Things are open again in a
limited way. We have really found a home at this church. The
pastors and music director are exceptional.
We are thankful to be in relatively good health due in part to
carefully watching our diets, having a backyard garden that provides
wonderful produce almost year round (thanks to Michigan farmer
Jack), and exercising routinely. Bev uses the Pilates reformer, and
Jack bikes, gardens and does all yard and house repairs, and uses
the Pilates reformer. We don't travel anymore for multiple reasons.
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In May of 2016, we challenged ourselves for our last
competition when the Florida Sunshine State Games offered adult ice
dance events. We skated the Canasta Tango and the Swing Dance to
fulfill Jack's 80th birthday year bucket list. The event was held
in Coral Springs, Florida (next to Fort Lauderdale) and an easy
venue for us to attend. We did come home with the gold and real
good memories, as we met some old friends and a few new. We
especially enjoyed meeting John Kerr, UK Olympic Ice Dancer.
Our last plane trip was to enjoy a wonderful long weekend
in May 2015 visiting Rob's family in Plainville, Conn.. He toured
us through loads of Bev's favorite old haunts throughout Connecticut
for nostalgia value. We went to northwest Conn. to the White Flower
Farm, Bantam Lake, where she spent all summers until she was
married, and Mt. Tom State Park where she was engaged. We spent one
whole day in Springfield, Mass. for his son, Matt's, graduation from
Westfield State with majors in Criminal Justice and Sociology. We
also visited Manchester, Conn. where her kids grew up, and continued
up to Storrs to see how much the UConn Campus has grown. We got to
watch Lauren play two games of basketball. This was a special
thrill as she had major ACL surgery on her knee this year.
We participated in the US Figure Skating Adult
Championships in Hyannis, MA in April, 2014, and came home with a
shiny Silver Medal for our four Pre Bronze Dances. We were very
pleased with our performances and lost first place to a wonderful
dance team from Colorado Springs. That year the required dances
were our favorites...Dutch Waltz, Cha Cha, Rhythm Blues, and the
Swing Dance. This was one of our best and most enjoyed
competitions. Being on Cape Cod also allowed us to visit our
honeymoon area of Falmouth and celebrate our 30th year of marriage.
In April 2011 in Salt Lake City, we made our debut at a US
Figure Skating competition, the Adult Championships, entering the
Pre Bronze Dance event.
Click here for the article that honored us in Skating
Magazine for being the oldest competitors at the competition. This
trip to Salt Lake City was also part of Jack's celebration of his 75
birthday. He showed Bev where he had worked when he was test
director for the Poseidon Missile, and the homes he lived in
raising his kids. To continue that celebration, we drove from SLC to
Aspen to visit his son, Darin, and see some of the glorious houses
he has built including his own atop an 8000 ft, mountain overlooking
Reudi Reservoir in Basalt, Colorado. Then, we flew to San Francisco
to visit with his daughter, Danelle, granddaughter, Dana (turning
10) and Anthony. Danelle is so passionate about her city and loves
to show it off. We had planned to see Bev's son, Larry and family
in San Diego, but that had to be cancelled.
Bev's 75th in June 2010 was celebrated in the "highest"
fashion as she chose to tandem skydive from 13,000 ft (over two
miles) in early July. The free fall of 8,000 ft. at 120 mph was
literally breathtaking. This had been a long time dream that she
worked up to during other birthday landmarks by bungee jumping from
a hot air balloon, hang gliding, paragliding, and a flight in a
glider plane.
We have sold our
Sea Wind 24 sailing catamaran, Adrenalin, to an
energetic young man with two teenage sons. They sailed it to their
mooring in West Palm Beach via Fort Meyers and the
Okeechobee Waterway on the kid's spring break from school.
The boat performed as advertised and they had a great time.
We had been considering getting a pocket cruiser for some
time, and now are proud owners of a 1981
Com-Pac 16. Jack made a one day round trip to Key Largo to
check it out. He loved it and got a deal he couldn't refuse so he
bought it on the spot and trailered it home the same day. Left home
at 8:30 AM and got home at 1:30 AM the next morning. A long day but
it was worth it and he enjoys driving, especially when pulling a
trailer with a marginal wheel bearing at night across Alligator
Alley. Anyway, he cleaned it up, installed davit lifting points and
had it ready for his son, Darin, to help him launch it while he was
here from Aspen over Mother's Day 2017. He lifts the boat onto our
dock with the davits and enjoys working on it at his leisure. It is
very easy to launch and to motor or sail in our channel basins or
out in Lemon Bay. He can take the ICW to the Gulf but that is a
longer trip on a boat of this size. After Adrenalin and
considering our life phase we thought about naming it Finale
but we ended up naming it more appropriately Encore.
After 18 years he has officially retired from the Coast
Guard Auxiliary as a patrol boat skipper and flotilla web master
(with full pay! LOL). He continues to monitor the monofilament
line recycle bin at our housing association's dock for the Auxiliary
but no more formal duties and training courses.
Since we joined the
Englewood United Methodist Church we have become quite
active in renewing our faith and serving in our church where we
can. Jack has worked with the annual rummage sale program for the
last seven years (they took in $98,000 last year) participating in
the transfer of donations to storage facilities throughout the
year. He just retired as the co-chair of the storage transfer group
but still works with the men a couple of hours every Friday
morning. He also maintains their converted Penske truck box truck
and works special projects as needed.. He runs the dishwashing crew
at the Saturday Pancake Breakfasts.
And what does Bev do????? As Jack's secretary, she tries
to keep his crammed calendar straight, keeps the family finances in
order and the pantry full. She works to keep up with the medical
info to make the right decisions to maintain our good health. As
loving wife, she keeps his home and clothes clean, his tummy fed,
and a smile on his face! Enough said!
Contact us at:
bevrienks@startmail.com .
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This site was last updated on
01/30/22.
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