08/11/2026
Occasionally, we miss the beat on capturing a photo that you can truly feel—and this was one of those times.
We cannot thank our Facebook friends enough for helping us make the connection with Eli and his daughter, Elena. We’ve been busy planning for weeks! We made our list of panel questions, rearranged the dining room about 100 times trying to find the best way for everyone to see and hear, and made just about every strawberry dessert under the sun.
Seriously… please come get some. There is absolutely no way we can eat all of this. 😂🍓
And after all that planning? Our pictures just didn’t quite capture the excitement of the day. We didn’t even take ONE picture of our strawberry spread! But maybe that says something about just how much we were enjoying the moment.
Eli was everything we expected and then some.
At 101 years old, he reminded us several times that we aren’t promised tomorrow, so enjoy every single day—actually, every single second. He shared that he isn’t afraid of dying, and his next plan is to jump again on April 18th for his 102nd birthday! 🪂
He also gave us some pretty memorable life advice: everyone is in debt anyway, so spend the money and go where you want to go. 😂
Apparently a couple of our residents took that advice VERY seriously because we now have a few who are talking about going skydiving themselves. Soooo… that’s a whole new kind of field trip for us to figure out. 😳🪂
Our nurse says she’ll be back Monday. 😂
Best of all, Eli said he’d like to come back! He also invited us to visit his orchard and see the 900+ irises he has planted, so we have a feeling this friendship is just getting started.
Thank you, Eli and Elena, for spending the afternoon with us, sharing your stories, answering our questions, making us laugh, and reminding all of us that life is meant to be lived.
We may not have captured the perfect picture—but we definitely captured the memory. ❤️
