Jack and Beverly Rienks Home Page

These wonderful holidays, Christmas especially, are upon us again (thankfully). Here it is the end of 2023 and I haven't posted since 2022. We are fortunate to report no major bad medical news, and that we are happy as larks doing things around our home, and enjoying the luxury of still being able to stay in our house on the channel. Just got our brand new Florida driver’s licenses renewed (good “old” Florida)! We (mostly Jack) have taken care of all the maintenance of our home, car, van, garden, sail boat and yard ourselves. We do have a most appreciated A/C man come in to check things out every six months. The glory of the wonders of nature that we are able to be in and watch, continues to astound us, and brings us much happiness. We celebrated our 39th anniversary and our 27th year here in Florida. We at 88 and 87 years are such simple folk, and easy to please!

Jack keeps up with his major volunteer work at our church with kitchen and dishwashing for Wednesday eve dinners, Christmas dinner for over 2000, and Saturday pancake breakfasts. He also works all year on collecting, sorting, and stashing furniture and goods for the yearly rummage sale in February, which usually brings in about $100,000 for our church. Bev keeps the flow of home cooked meals, housework, financial checks and balances, and medical information going. We make such a good team. She still watches all the international and national skating competitions on TV, Peacock, and Youtube. We stay attuned to national affairs with our hopes, dreams, and realizations frustrating and thrilling us. Hope still abounds.

After all the hype, work and devastation of hurricane Ian last year, we seemed to skirt major problems with hurricane Idalia. What’s with these storms starting with the letter “I”? Water came over our dock and up several feet toward the house, but did not cause real concern. Great when that season is over!

Bev’s daughter Kelly, lives close by. Her husband, Victor, has retired, but she is working as a LPN with the State of Florida in a clinic in Northport. She has fragile health due to compromised immunity, but stays strong. Their daughter, Kara, was married recently to Caleb Dean' and they live just a few miles north. They have a new cavipoo. Bev's son, Rob with wife, Linda, live in Plainville, Conn. Rob retired from The Hartford a couple years ago and now is a tutor and teacher's aide in the school all his kids went to. Linda is a medical tech still working in two hospitals. Their son, Matthew was recently married in Sedona, Ariz.to Erika, a teacher. He is a policeman in East Hartford, Conn, and they have a lovely new home in a nearby town and a new golden retriever. Rob's youngest, Lauren, has graduated this year from a masters program for Occupational Therapy, passed the registration exam and is currently working as an OT in Norwalk, Conn. Eldest, Sarah, after a separation from her husband, Sam Coba, has moved from Boston to New Orleans, but is still in finances for CRISR Therapeutics. Bev’s son, Larry, with Samatha, has moved from San Diego to Lubbuck, Texas. They bought a franchise for Teapioca and are considering another one soon. His son, Joel, is going to college aiming for marine biology in San Diego. Jack’s daughter, Danelle, is still in SF and finding it more and more difficult to live there as an organic person. She has several jobs and is always busy. Her daughter, Dana, goes to SF State University. Darin, Jack’s son, is as elusive as ever, but is still in the Aspen area working his remodeling and construction, dumpster and porta-pot businesses

We so enjoy our home on the channel and a birdbath just outside our kitchen window where we have our meals. It 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 resident bunnies that are 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 at dawn. 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. TV does carry some events.

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's Physical Therapy background and knowledge has saved us a lot of grief in several situations. We have a great chiropractor who makes house calls for our monthly tune-ups. For 30 years, Bev has used the Pilates reformer, and Jack bikes, gardens and does all yard, car, and house repairs, and uses the Pilates reformer. We don't travel anymore for multiple reasons.

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.

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.

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. We had been considering getting a pocket cruiser for some time, and now are proud owners of a 1981 Com-Pac 16. Jack 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. We thought about naming it Finale, but Encore seemed more appropriate. We also have a Hobie Kayak.

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).

Since we joined the Englewood Methodist Church we have become quite active in renewing our faith and serving in our church where we can. Jack has taken all four Disciple courses. Each required 35 weeks of meetings and homework every evening.They stream their services online which we have been using through most of the past year. Both of us are quite hard of hearing and this allows us to hear it all. We have really found a home at this church. The pastors and music director are exceptional. He has worked with the annual rummage sale program for the last several years (they took in over $100,000 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 or when ever needed. He also maintains their converted Penske truck box truck and works special projects as needed.. He runs the dishwashing crew at the Wednesday eve dinners and 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!