October-Jones Family Reunion 2021 – Terry Family Shenanigans

It was time for our bi-annual Jones reunion. When it is my families year to do Christmas together we plan a Summer trip together instead. The travel is easier, schedules are a little easier, weather is better, and then we can enjoy Christmas in our own homes. This year we were a little late and ended up doing our trip in October over my kids Fall Break. Matthew and even Allison have reached the point that missing school is a little bigger deal and harder to get caught up and keep grades up.

We did a repeat trip to Orlando Florida. We stayed at our usual spot- a house in the Champions Gate sub division. It is a perfect location to get to pretty much any of the big Orlando attractions. There is a big club house with a pool and activities, and we can get a house with 2-9 bedrooms depending on the number of people we have and the house has its own pool too. That is the best part. The kids can swim as much as they want. John and Rachel’s family couldn’t join us this year so it was my parents and the three girls and their families. We got a 9 bedroom house. I think some kids slept in a different room every night. I thought it was cool that a lot of the rooms had a Disney theme too. Ours was the Mickey room. There was a Star Wars and Frozen room too. Most of the kids stayed in a room full of bunk beds. That was pretty fun for them. Emilee packed all the essentials she needed for her trip herself as you can see.

Monday was day one. Arrival day. The French’s and my mom drove and my dad came late the next day. A week prior to our departure, Kenny sent everyone the info to get checked into the house. Including a passphrase “The Russian Bear Hunts at Midnight” to tell the security guard to let you enter. Sherri drove with my mom and when they got to the gate my mom pulled out a paper with the address and rental house info- including the passphrase Kenny had sent. Sherri started laughing and told my mom it was a joke. I told her I will forever hold a grudge at her for not letting mom say it and seeing what the guard did. DeAnna and her family flew and got there in the evening. We also flew. Our flight was delayed a little bit (Southwest tried to cover up a strike by their pilots- saying it was weather that canceled thousands of their flights- it was actually them protesting being forced to get the COVID vaccine against their will per the government mandate) we thought we might have to drive (and I would have done it without to much complaining because I agree with the pilots that they-or anyone- should not be forced into getting a vaccine they don’t want) but our flight ended up going through ok and we made it just a few hours later. We got our rental car, bought some groceries, and headed to the house to start a fun week.

Day two was bright and warm and sunny. After sleeping in and having a late breakfast of a ridiculous amount of Reese’s Puffs we all headed to the beach. That is the one down side to Orlando-it lacks beautiful Florida beaches. We traveled to Honeymoon Beach and spent the day there. Most of us were satisfied with the number of shells to collect, the warm water to play in, the nice sand castle building area, and the beach to lay on and take a nap. Matthew was a little disappointed in the lack of waves big enough to body surf in but he still got to go to the beach in Florida. We had a fun day but I didn’t take any pictures. I was one of the people snoozing on the beach working on my tan. The drive to and from the beach helped us get a lot of our license plate states found. I downloaded an app to help us keep track of the states we found. By the end of our week in Florida we had found 33/50 states. After the beach we all headed home, showered and ate dinner together then spent the evening playing games, working on a puzzle, or swimming in the pool on the patio.

Day three started slightly earlier then the previous day. Last time we were in Florida for a reunion we all went to Magic Kingdom together. DeAnna’s family had never been to Hollywood Studios, so we went to that park this time. Next to Magic Kingdom, it is my favorite. I like the option of lots of shows to watch, not all rides. We all arrived and went our own ways and met throughout the day. Toy Story Mania is still our families favorite ride. We did it a few times. The new attraction was the Star wars rides and areas. They had canceled the virtual que the week before we went and there were no fast passes for it. That meant if we wanted to do it, we had to wait in line for 2-3 hours. We decided to do it. It was a long brutal process. We bought 5 dollar Star Wars Cokes for everyone about half way through to boost moral. In the end everyone said it was totally worth it (even Emilee who declared no less than a dozen times that is wasn’t worth it and this was the most ridiculous this she had done in her whole entire life) and it was their favorite ride/experience of the day. I was worried we would run out of time to do the other things but we still got to do and see everything we planned on. Emilee preferred the shows, she is not a fan of rides (might have something to do with riding the Mamba at age 5 at World’s of Fun) but she liked Toy Story and Star Wars. Matthew and I did the single rider line for few things and got on rides in 5 minutes instead of an hour. He said he has graduated to Universal Studios level rides but had a fun time with us. Allison was game for pretty much anything. She got a Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwich and everything else was icing on the cake after that. It might be the last time we all go to Disney as a family before Matthew is moving out so it was a fun day. It was pretty late when we got home. People went to bed or played a game and did a puzzle while we visited about our day.

We were standing in the ‘street’ and Chip and Dale’s helpers asked us to move so Mickey and Minnie could drive through.

Day 4. We used this as a recuperating day. Everyone slept in and had a lazy morning. The kids swam in the pool and played the many games that the garage was equipped with (ping pong, air hockey, checkers, and basketball). Matthew convinced his dad to get him a fishing pole. He had tried to bring his own but it wouldn’t fit. We thought there would be rentals but there wasn’t. So with his 19.99 Walmart fishing pole in hand uncle Kenny drove him over to the neighborhood gold course where he had seen a body of water he wanted to fish in. About thirty minutes later he had walked back to the house. There was an alligator in the water that didn’t like him fishing for his food. Every time Matthew cast, the alligator would start moving towards Matthew. He moved several times but when it kept happening he decided to call it a day. After lunch we moved to the club house pool. They had a few big swimming areas, a splash pad, a slide, and a lazy river that we all ended up floating around together in at some point. One of my favorite pictures is the one of John and Joseph getting on the tube and then one lap later they are both passed out asleep along the side. We got several hours of good swimming in. My pictures aren’t the greatest but considering my camera was wet and I took them floating in a tube I decided to include them anyways. The only person I missed was Ryan.

John and Joseph boarding their tube. Joseph is already rubbing his eyes.

When we finished at the club house we went back to clean up. All the adults plus KJ went to dinner at Longhorn Steak House. The kids all stayed at the house and watched Transylvania II together while eating pizza, popcorn, candy and whatever else they to eat. Matthew told me later that Emilee and Allison got in a fight and caused quite a scene. There younger cousins gave them some advice on how to behave better. It included apologizing but still having consequences from Nathan and Aubrey told them to take their noise level down to ZERO while demonstrating with her fingers pinched together. They are a fun group of nieces and nephews. I talked with all of them and had a good conversation. Even though Joseph told me repeatedly he didn’t want to be my friend and I could not give him a fist bump he was willing to have a pillow fight with me when he realized I would help him ward off Peter. KJ is the happiest baby ever. He loves to snuggle and will let anyone hold him. We were all constantly passing him around trying to have our turn holding him.

Day five most of us headed off to the Kennedy Space Center. It was Matthew’s birthday and he had been begging to go fishing in the ocean for his present so Ryan and Matthew went on a half day fishing trip and then met the rest of us at the Space Center. The fish were biting. They caught 30-40 fish between the two of them, including a hammer head shark, a puffer fish, a tarpin, and several others I can’t remember now. None of them were huge but they had a blast together.

Back at the Space Station we were having a great time too. Allison was not to excited about going-she thought it would be boring-she quickly changed her mind once we got there though. Everyone loved seeing the big space ships and rockets and touching the moon rock and asteroids, watching videos about them. We took a bus(the sweetest bus I have ever been on) out to the Atlantis Space shuttle and saw the building they assemble the space ships in on the way. The size of the building is hard to even comprehend. They said the Roman Colosseum would fit on the roof with plenty of room to spare around it. The flag on the side took 600 gallons of paint. Everything we saw was just massive. We did a simulation of a take off in a rocket. They had a mock up of the space station up in space they could crawl through. There was tons to see and do. It was a pretty cool day.

When the Space Center closed we headed home for the evening. It was our last night so we ate whatever food was left and played games. When the kids were in bed minus Matthew we had our traditional white elephant party. Some of the top mentions were fart spray, rubber chickens to shoot at people like rubber bands, a tortilla blanket, and a mask with a face on it that had snot running down it. It was a fun last night. The week went by to fast. The next morning we headed to the airport. They forgot to send our luggage on the plane so we had to wait for it to arrive later that evening but other wise we arrived home without much excitement. We had the rest of the weekend to rest. It is always a fun week when we get together. I am already looking forward to the next time.