Author: Janae

Mexico

Our much anticipated adults only vacation finally happened! We had a cruise scheduled for last December that was cancelled due to COVID. We rescheduled it for April this year and is was cancelled again for the same reason. We decided to push the cruise to next year for our 20th anniversary. Hopefully in a year cruises will be back and running. In the mean time we decided to go to an all inclusive resort and see if we liked it verses a cruise better. We went to Playa del Carmen and stayed in the Fairmont Mayakoba Resort. It was pretty swanky. In my head I pictured it like a fancy hotel room but we had our own little apartment and traveled around the resort by walking or golf cart to do the different things we wanted. There were lots of lizards. Tiny ones and big iguanas that we saw. We had a family of them that we saw around our bathroom. I told myself that they liked to stay in the bathroom where it was the most humid and wouldn’t crawl in my bed at night. We named them Larry, baby Larry, and Lizzy. When we were home and showing the kids pictures and talking to them about our trip they were the most jealous about our mini bar/fridge that was stocked daily with sodas, candy, chips, and a bunch of other snacks.

  • Eating breakfast at one of the restaurants before heading to the pool.
  • This little guy sat by me at the pool one afternoon. There were a lot of pretty birds, butterflies, and flowers.
  • I took this picture from the restaurant. It is the infinity pool we spent a lot of time swimming in.
  • View from the gold cart on our way to some place.
  • There was lots of little rivers like this through out the resort. We had one that went along the back of our little apartment.
  • Every morning they had someone walking around with this hawk. It was his job to keep the other birds away. As soon as he went around a corner there was always some brave/stupid bird that would dive in and try and grab some food.
  • In the US we have to stay 6 feet apart. In Mexico it is safer I guess so 5 feet is good enough. Stupid COVID.
  • We don’t know what these are but they were common to see around the resort. There was a family of them at one of the holes Ryan was trying to putt into. They were in no hurry to get out of his way.
  • Ryan golfed one afternoon with his new clubs. It was beautiful weather.

The weather was about 50/50 rainy and sunny while we were there. The day we had a tour around some of the places in Mexico, including the Mayan ruins was overcast and cloudy but no rain. It was still hot but no where near what it would have been if the sun was out. It was perfect. Some friends that were there a few months ago recommended we do an LDS tour with a family that has been running their own little business for group or personal tours. There is 8 kids if I remember right and all of them have a middle name from the Book of Mormon. The youngest is named Lemuel. His mom told him it was his job to make a new path for his name from his name sake. 🤣 Our friends tour guide was Helaman. My parents actually did a tour with them years ago on their cruise, their guides name was Alma. Our guide was Mosiah. It was a pretty awesome tour. He picked us up at our hotel and took us to Chichen-Itza, a cenote, and Ek Balam. He had lots of information about the ruins and pointed out ways that indicate the original religion was in God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost and then over time when they became wicked turned them into multiple other Gods.

  • Inside the arena. You can’t see in this picture but up on the second level wall there is a small circle with a hole in the middle attached to the side. The players had to bounce a rubber ball through the hole using any part of their bodies, except their hands. The WINNERS were given the honor of being sacrificed.
  • We saw two arenas that they used to watch teams compete in with a rubber ball. This was the smaller one. We are standing up where people would watch.
  • This is considered a smaller temple but it is still massive. It is 107 steps to the top from the ground.
  • This is part of a temple that is being restored. When they were built they were all white and smooth because they were covered with plaster.
  • 107 steps. They are very steep and narrow. Mosiah taught us to walk diagonally to save our knees. It made a huge difference.
  • This tree is called a Tree of Life. The trunk is hollow and the bottom 4-5 feet is full of water. People could drill a small hole in the trunk and clean drinking water would come out. Pretty amazing.
  • Another Tree of Life. Once you knew what to look for, every now and then one would just appear in the middle of all the other trees.
  • These pillars represented the warriors. Mosiah said possible a memorial to the stripling warriors
  • The pillars all lead to this temple. The top has a statue in the middle that represents the leader of the soldiers. Mosiah thought possibly Helaman.
  • They built one tier on the temple every 50 years. They have discovered their are NINE more tiers under the ground that are not seen.
  • There are three Gods in the top of this building. They say it was the rain, sun, and I don’t remember the third one. Mosiah said it could also be God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.
  • The corners of the building make shadows on the sides of the stair pillars that start in March and are at their fullest on April 6th. The shadows make it look like the snake is slithering down the temple.
  • Mosiah said other tour guides tell people these small circles were probably baths, or aroma therapy/steam areas. If the leaves were cleaned out you would see four stone steps in the side area that lead into the circle that is about 4 feet deep. There are several spots at the bottom that would drain water out too. Possibly for baptisms.
  • Mosiah told us what a lot of the ruins on these building meant but of course I can’t remember it all now.
  • This was the observatory. Like many other buildings and temples it was built so that on April 6th the sun would shine through the windows perfectly.

Between the two ruins we went and saw, Mosiah took us to a small little town and we ate lunch at a very authentic Mexican store/restaurant. Ryan thought it was pretty awesome. It reminded him of Bolivia. The food was really good. We had black bean soup and tacos with various kinds of pork and sauces. After lunch he took us to a cenote. They are really common there. It is basically a giant hole or cavern underground that gets filled with water from under ground rivers. They come in all different sizes. He took us to a smaller town with one that is pretty quiet and for most of the time we were the only ones there.

  • This is where we ate lunch.
  • I was a little nervous about going into a hole in the ground. Ryan said it wouldn’t even really feel like that. When I got there and looked down the spiral stair case I started to doubt him.
  • …still going…
  • …it feels like I am going pretty far down.
  • Then we go through this tunnel for a while that you can’t stand up straight in.
  • It did open up into a big area with beautiful water.
  • You can see the ceiling and were the hole that you can look straight down into the cenote from the street in this picture.
  • The water wasn’t as cold as we thought it would be. It was refreshing.
  • I struggled with swimming out in the open. It felt like some cave monster would come grab me.
  • Ryan didn’t have any issues though.
  • He guessed it was about 12 feet deep right here.

We headed to the beach to spend one of our days. We had heard there was a bit of a seaweed issue. We were fine with that. We thought we would go and sit in a chair and enjoy the view and eat lunch. When we wanted to swim we could come back to the pools. It turns out a ‘bit of a seaweed problem’ means ten foot tall mounds as far as you can see in either direction and crews of people netting and raking it up out of the ocean and not even making a dent. The smell was what we couldn’t handle. We had dinner reservations on the beach one night but after our visit we decided to cancel them and eat at a different restaurant.

  • Boardwalk out to the beach.
  • The sand was beautiful, white powdered sugar feeling. There was dozens of little huts to sit under and sleep, read, visit, and eat.
  • This is after a giant tractor came by and removed the top of the mound. So sad that this is ruining their beaches.

One of the days we went into Playa Del Carmen and walked 5th avenue. Right after we got there a guy came up to us and said he was our waiter from the hotel and he wanted to show us his shop. He totally swindled us. We both thought he was an actual waiter from the hotel. We bought a few things from him and left. About ten seconds later, another shop owner came up to us and said he was our waiter. That is when we realized we had fallen for the number one tourist trick on the whole street. Amazingly we ran into 40 waiters that happened to work at our hotel. We figured out the umbrella we were carrying from the hotel was drawing all the attention. Despite that we got some good souvenirs and had fun walking around and seeing everything. The beach by the shopping area was covered in seaweed too.

We had a wonderful vacation and enjoyed ourselves very much. I got my first stamp on my pass port. We both decided that the resort was awesome and we had a great time but all things considered we like cruising a little more. There is a bigger variety of activities to do and you see more places with out having to do the traveling yourself once you are on the ship. We had fun and made some great memories together that will get us fueled and relaxed until our next trip together.

Summer Adventures

Allison went home with Grandma Jana for a few weeks after she came to watch the kids while Ryan and I were in Mexico. She loves going to visit Grandma and Grandpa and had a great time. They went swimming a lot, watched lots of movies, did art projects, she played with Aubry and she met her cousin KJ for the first time and held him for a bit while they lit of fire works for the 4th of July. She loves the one on one attention and enjoys getting to be an only child for a bit.

Matthew had a lot more baseball. They won several tournaments and came close to winning in several as well. He and Campbell like to go and watch each others games when they don’t have their own to play in. Towards the end of the season he finally started getting some of his speed back that he lost when he broke his leg.

This is some more random Summer pictures.

  • We helped watch Margarita’s dogs one weekend. They are more of the lounge and relax type then the play and move type. Emilee was trying to convince them to do something with her. She was not successful.
  • Not our usual July 4th now that Grandma and Grandpa are here. We all ate a yummy dinner together and there were a lot of fireworks to watch. Next year we will make better plans to be somewhere that we can light our own fireworks off.
  • Allison was quite pleased with how high she was able to stack her free ice cream cone at Jason’s Deli.
  • Emilee watched her friend Natalie’s hamster for her while they went on vacation. Between her and help from Allison, she was able to keep it alive and remembered to feed it. I think it also clarified for her that she might not really want the full time responsibility of a pet.
  • This is Matthew and Ethan’s idea of hanging out together. I think they are at least playing the same game as a team.
  • Allison’s chalk art.

The last two pictures are to help Allison remember that we love her and this is why she isn’t always in the pictures with us.

  • Allison was being a little grumpy and we were giving her a hard time about refusing to be in pictures or not showing her face or smiling. We told her when she gets older she is going to wonder why she isn’t in any of the pictures with everyone else.
  • This is why Allison. When we try to take a picture we have to take what we can get or we would never get a picture. We still love you, and we love the back of your head!

Dad’s 42nd Birthday

Dad wanted to have a family dinner and game night with all the KC Terry families for his birthday. He smoked some meat and Ross and him played several games. I played one too, since it was his birthday and Father’s Day he said I had to. He spent most of the day on Saturday golfing with his new clubs. He stuck with his traditional birthday cake request of “mom’s chocolate cake”. It was a great weekend. We are all very happy that he is in our family.

Summer Kick-Off

Despite the month of May having an average temperature of about 65 and 3 of the 4 weeks rainy and gloomy, we are all ready for Summer to start!

One of our first activities was celebrating Grandma Terry’s birthday! She turned 69, and is doing pretty great! She has finished 4 of 6 chemo treatments and the cancer is responding like it should and going away. She has been handling it all like a champ and taking it day by day. We are all proud and happy for her and continue to pray that she will make a full recovery. We were happy with her choice of birthday cake too-strawberry jello cake-Yum!!

The girls went to Girl Scout camp to kick of their summer. They have both been a few times and don’t look forward to it per se, but seem to have a great time once they are there. Emilee went two days this year and then got sick with a stomach bug so missed the last half. Allison was old enough to stay over night one of the nights and saw way to many large bugs and spiders in her perma-tent. I don’t know if they will go again next year but it was good for both of them to enjoy a little outdoor time.

Allison having no fun at camp.

The girls and I were planning on joining Matthew and Ryan at a baseball tournament in Arkansas immediately following their camp, but since Emilee got sick and Allison wanted to go the last day instead of skip it we stayed home for the weekend and the boys went with out us. There first two games were kind of a bust. Matthew said they were probably the worst two games they had played since the famous ‘grand-slam bunt’ disaster 5 years ago. Things improved after that though. Matthew had some person best improvements and good contributions to the team and overall the team did better and won a few games. They all had a fun weekend and made good memories together too. Including adding a sign next to the hotels “pool closed” sign that caused a little confusion. If you can’t read the sign it says “The pool is open!” It may or may not have been added by one of the parents on our team.

Next week Matthew is going on his first High Adventure trip with the Young Men in our ward too. He needs some good outdoor time just like the girls.

Wrapping Up Another School Year

Our 2021 Summer has officially begun. This will definitely be remembered as one of the weirdest school years ever I am sure. Of the three big school districts around our area, I am glad our kids were in the district we were in. They handled COVID the best as far as keeping kids in school as much as possible and getting things back to normal as quickly as possible. There was a lot of frustrations. Matthew was doing school virtually from home almost half the year and his grades and psyche struggled a lot because of it. The girls principal was ridiculous before COVID and used this as an opportunity to control and regulate EVERYTHING she could possibly think of. Compared to other districts I am glad I was in the one we were in though. I hope next year we can put all this behind us and have a good year.

Emilee finished 2nd grade this year. She had Mrs. Trimble. Allison also had this teacher and I specifically requested Emilee NOT have her. As I mentioned earlier though they have a special principal and her and I are not…fans of each other. Anyway, despite having a teacher that doesn’t seem to like kids or teaching, Emilee made it through the year without her anxiety getting to out of control. We were able to help curb her stress in the morning before going to school with a straight up bribe. A dollar each day she was able to not panic and cry about going to school the day night or morning before school. Best dollars I ever spent. The last week of school I went to a nail appointment and guess who I ran into?! Mrs. Trimble getting her nails done in the middle of a school day because she “just had to take a break from it all.” She didn’t see me, I just overheard her talking to the person doing her nails. I digress though. Emilee is done with second grade and is looking forward to 3rd!

  • Award day.
  • Field Day
  • Last day of school.

Allison finished 5th grade this year and is moving onto middle school next year! The dollar bribe worked so well with Emilee I bribed Allison a dollar each day that she got up in the morning and ready and made it to the bus on time without blowing up on anyone. We had a 50/50 percent success rate but I will still count it as a win. As per usual Allison had a love/hate relationship with her teacher, Mrs. Brown. I liked her though and thought she understood Allison pretty well. She also helped us realize that Allison was literally ‘gating’ her performance instead of performing at her top potential. She talked with us about this and we ended up getting her tested and she is now in the gifted program for math, science, and reading which I think will improve Allison’s attitude toward school a lot as she will not be bored out of her mind anymore. We had several meetings and talks with teachers and counselors (oddly never the principal) and were able to get her evaluated without her knowing-and purposefully sabotaging herself. After the fact, when we were discussing all of this with Allison and trying to explain what the phrase ‘shooting ones self in the foot’ means, I would say we didn’t get a full representation of her capabilities but enough that she is now on the school radar and we can challenge her better. I am hoping she will thrive in middle school with a little more freedom and more variety to her day. She is looking forward to it a lot.

  • 1st day of 5th grade
  • Graduation Day!
  • Graduation Day
  • Award Day
  • 80’s Day
  • Hawaiian Day

Matthew finished 8th grade this year and will be starting his first year of high school next year! Between mask requirements for school sports, and breaking his leg Matthew didn’t play any school sports this year- which is very unusual for him. Luckily he still had baseball and basketball outside of school (before he broke his leg) but he is excited to be able to be more involved next year. Despite COVID changes and no matter how ridiculous they got at times, he was able to finish the year on a positive note. I am nervous and excited for him to start high school. He is a good boy. If I can help guide him through the next 4 years of his life without huge mistakes or permanent scars and a strong testimony of Christ I will be a happy momma.

  • 8th Grade Awards
  • Jack and Issac
  • Matthew and Ramy
  • Campbell and Matthew
  • Matthew and Coach Pipkin

A Visit to Sandi’s Farm

One of my co-workers lives on a small hobby farm. She has a pig, lambs, calf, donkey, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, bees and probably a few more animals I am not remembering. We were talking at work one day and decided that we should all go visit her farm. Emilee was the only one of my kids that was able to go, she brought her friend Summer. They loved it. Emilee is an animal lover and isn’t afraid to jump in and do whatever when it comes to animals. She loved the baby lamb and the baby ducks and chicks the most. One chicken in particular took a liking to her and followed her around and wanted her to hold it. Sandi let her name it, she decided to call it Ruby.

  • Sandi being followed by her animals
  • snuggling with the lamb Jovi
  • The lambs named Buddy and Jovi from Elf
  • Feeding the donkeys.
  • Very vocal turkeys
  • Clifford the Pig
  • Holding the baby ducks

Now What…

At their first meeting, Sherrie said one of the things that she was worried about was that he would just want to meet her once and then never see her again. Her family told her that was a possibility but she would at least get to meet him this time and have that memory if he decided he didn’t want to see her again. I was touched by her honesty and vulnerability. Ryan told her he didn’t know how the future looked or where to go from there but he did want to see her again and wanted to get to know her and her family better.

It has now been a few months since all the pieces of finding and talking to Sherrie for the first time fell into place. Sherrie and Ryan talk or text fairly often on the phone. Ryan has video chatted and or texted with all of his half siblings. I went to Utah to see my Grandma Jones and spent an afternoon meeting David, his wife Jen, and Giselle. Sherrie and Genevieve, her son Eric, Grandpa Perry and Sherrie’s husband David have stopped by our house at different times when they were coming by Kansas City.

About a week ago all of the siblings came out to have a vacation together in Branson Missouri. David and Austin stopped by our house on their way. We went to dinner, they came to one of Matthew’s games, and we had them and David and his wife and kids at our house for dinner. Ryan and I went to Branson for a day and met them all together. It was a little overwhelming for Ryan but he was glad to finally meet all of them in person and spend a few hours with them.

The following weekend we took the kids and went to Sherrie’s house and spent the weekend with them. David’s family was still there, our kids seemed to get a long with his kids pretty well. The kids loved having cousins to play with and lots of fun activities to do. We were able to meet Vanitta, Sherrie’s mom. The person that Kenny found and was able to finally find the link to Sherrie. We played games, grilled food, Ryan went golfing, we drove around Dardanelle, went to church with them, and took pictures on the top of Mt Nebo. It was a fun weekend. I felt like I was just meeting my in-laws for the first time even though I have been married for 19 years. Not quite sure how I fit in yet. Sherrie and her whole family are so kind and welcoming though. I am excited to have them added to our family. Ryan is too. I love the changes in him the past few months. I have always loved him and he has always been a good man. He has grown spiritually and emotionally the past few months and I love him even more.

It feels like all the ice has been broken now. Everyone has met and the initial relationships have started to form. One of our concerns when Ryan was debating on looking for his biological mom was how it would affect our family. We didn’t know all the possible scenarios but we had many that we came up with-good and bad. We decided to trust that Heavenly Father would guide us and things would happen the way that would be best for Ryan, our kids, Rhonda and Roger, and the people we discovered along the way. We had no idea how it would turn out but so far it has been pretty amazing.

  • Vanitta
  • Robert, Gen, Kit, Eric
  • Scarlett, PJ, Lizzy, Jen, David, Maggie, Parker, David
  • David, Ryan, Sherrie, David, Gen
  • Lizzy, David, Emilee
  • My Monkey’s
  • Mount Nebo
  • Austin, Giselle, Gen, David, Ryan, Sherrie, David

Grandma Jones

My sweet Grandma Jones is 89 years old and has had some health complications the past little while. I decided to take a weekend to go and visit her in case she isn’t with us to much longer. She is not very comfortable and in pain most of the time but she still did her best to talk and visit with me. Sometimes her memory is bad but it was pretty clear when I was there this time. She told DeAnna and I stories about growing up and through out her life. I have been blessed with sweet grandparents and I am grateful for them. I was named after my grandma, Annie Joy Pinegar Jones. I have a lot of fond and happy memories from and with my Grandma. I am so glad I got to go see her and my grandpa for a few days.

I stayed with DeAnna and one of the days I was there we drove up to Idaho to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Call as well.

The Meeting.

The first phone call, then video call was pretty nerve racking and intense for both Ryan and Sherrie. It took Sherrie several hours before she felt like she could even talk on the phone with Ryan let a lone meet him. Ryan had started looking in December and new the possibility of finding her was on the horizon at some point but from Kenny’s call that he found her to them talking was less then 16 hours. Sherrie had resigned to never knowing about Ryan in this life. She didn’t know his name, if he was alive, or that he had decided to find her. From the time she got the call from Perry it was about 7 hours later Ryan and her talked on the phone.

I sat by him the first few minutes of their first conversation. It was a little weird and awkward, neither one was exactly sure what to say. They both expected that though. The first thing I noticed was her sweet Arkansas accent (that I have a hard time not falling into every time I have talked with her since) and the kindness of her voice. I left shortly after they started talking when Ryan gave me the ok node and they talked for about an hour.

Over the next while they continued to text and occasionally talk on the phone or a video call. Eventually they decided they were ready to meet in person. Ryan said he wanted to meet more of the family eventually but he wanted to meet just Sherrie first. Instead of meeting at one of their own homes they got it worked out to meet at Genevie’s house. Her and her husband would both be working all day so they could have the house to themselves. She lives about 3 1/2 hours from us and 2 hours from Sherrie. Ryan asked if I would go with him but wanted the first meeting to be without the kids so Ross and Lauren helped us out and watched them. We were going to go down the night before and stay in a hotel but things didn’t work out so we left early that morning. We planned to stay a few hours then head home. On the drive down Ryan was a basket case. He kept saying he was hungry, then not hungry, then nauseas, then hungry. I told him I thought he was just very nervous-and he was. We had to switch drivers the last little but because he couldn’t sit still or focus.

We got to Genevieve’s about 11am. On the drive down I asked Ryan if he wanted me to discreetly record their first meeting. He said no because he thought it would make it more weird and awkward then it was already going to be. I said ok and decided I was still going to do it. We got out of the car once we got there and Ryan walked up to the front door, I walked behind him recording without his knowledge. He took several deep breaths and said he might vomit or pass out then range the doorbell.

It was a pretty awesome meeting. Sherri opened the door and they gave each other a really long hug. I got one too. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking. I mostly listened and filled conversation in when there was a lull. I am not usually the one with this job so it was a little weird but I enjoyed watching them get to know each other. Ryan loved hearing about similarities in looks and likes and traits that he had with people in his family. At one point they were exclaiming how excited they were to find out Sherrie has asthma just like Matthew since it is genetic. They talked about lots of different things. Sherrie kept apologizing for giving Ryan away and he kept reassuring her that he was happy and loved his parents and his life they gave him. I brought some pictures for her to look through. There were a few tears from everyone but overall it was a very happy meeting. Sherrie made us lunch and before we new it, it was 4 pm. Ryan was a little more comfortable so he suggested that if Perry and his wife (who lived a few minutes away) wanted to come over he would be fine with that. Robert, Genevieve’s husband and their son Eric also came over because he finished work. At 7pm we decided we had better get home. The day went by really fast and was really nice. Ryan told Kenny and Sherri about it on the way home and then we just reviewed the day and talked about it the rest of the way. I also told Ryan that I had decided to record their first meeting even though he told me not too. He had no idea I had done it and was glad I had.

I haven’t been to many meetings of a birth mom meeting her son she gave up for adoption 42 years after the fact for the first time. I think it couldn’t have gone much better though. It was an awesome experience I was happy I got to witness it. I am excited for Sherrie and Ryan to get to know each other.

Sharing The News

Telling his parents weighed the most on him. The night after he talked to Sherrie for the first time he went over to talk to his parents. Rhonda was having a rough day health wise so he decided to wait. He went over for the next several days in a row to tell them but Rhonda seemed to be getting worse. She ended up being checked into the hospital and we found out she had lymphoma. Ryan wanted to share the news but didn’t want to stress his mom out more. He knew she would be emotional about it and was worried about the stress it would cause her. She ended up being in the hospital for over a week. One of the evenings he spent in the hospital with her they had a talk that ended up leading towards Ryan finding his birth mom at some point. Ryan didn’t tell her then because he didn’t want to tell her while she was in the hospital but he was able to talk with her and let he know that some day he wanted to meet her. He felt it was a blessing to prep her a little before he told her when she felt good enough. A few days after Rhonda got home from the hospital Ryan and I walked over to see his parents and Ross was there. Rhonda was having a good night and Ryan decided to tell them. Ryan said he thought it went as well as he expected it would. I think it went a lot better than I expected it too. Ryan did an amazing job of sharing his story with them about why he finally decided to find his birth mom and how he found her. Roger was very receptive and seemed happy for Ryan. Rhonda was sad and made a few comments about Ryan leaving her. Ryan assured her she was his mom forever and that would never change and he never wanted it to change. Over the past several weeks since he talked to his parents he has talked with them several more times about his experiences. At some point Ryan hopes that his mom and dad will be able to meet Sherrie. Rhonda wants to wait until she is better and everyone understands that. He is looking forward to their meeting and thinks they will be great friends. Sherrie has told Ryan many times that Rhonda is her hero. She has thought of her as that from the day Ryan was born and she is so happy that she is such an amazing mom to Ryan. Thinking of her taking care of Ryan over the years and loving him brought her a lot of peace.

Ryan has spent a lot of time thinking and processing his thoughts and how others might feel or react. I have been touched by his concern for others while he has been navigating all the emotions he didn’t expect at the same time. He has been open and honest with everyone and has wanted to help his family understand he loves them and finding his biological family doesn’t and won’t change any of that. He has no doubt that Heavenly Father was guiding and helping him get to the family he was supposed to be with and everything worked out the way it was supposed to. There have been many things that have happened through this whole process that have shown him that God is still watching out for him and his family and guiding him to find people and tell them at the right times. I have seen a lot of spiritual and emotional growth in him the past few months.

Shortly after Ryan and Sherrie spoke on the phone for the first time, her husband Dave sent Ryan an email. The first week after finding Sherrie Ryan was extremely emotional and had a lot of mixed feelings about things. He found Dave’s email very comforting and was appreciative of him sending it to him. It helped him know a little more about who Sherrie and he were.

Dear Ryan:

I just wanted to say thank you for your courage and boldness in reaching out to Sherrie.   This was the secret desire of her heart to know that she could know that you were safe and happy, and getting to hear from you and meet you is wonderful.

I thought I’d just share a few things with you concerning Sherrie.

She is a fiercely devoted mother and Grandmother.  Her children and grandchildren are constantly calling her.   The grandchildren are always asking “Meme are you going to be at my…(birthday party, school lunch, sacrament meeting, tomorrow…)?”  It is really delightful the way they seek her out.

We live in a somewhat economically depressed area of Arkansas in Yell County.  The county covers 927 square miles.  In 1992 we were formed as a Branch and started with a regular attendance of about 18 people.   There have been times when our attendance was only 11.   That said, we are still a very small Branch, and as you can imagine, the few active members have always had multiple callings and assignments.   Throughout the years, Sherrie has held every possible calling and has been enthusiastic in serving in whatever calling she had.   In our Branch we have seen a lot of people join the Church, embrace the Gospel, improve financially, then move on to better opportunity.    We have birds that regularly build nests on our windows.   They build, raise their babies, then fly off.   We often feel that’s the way our Branch operates.   

in July 1998, Eric, our middle son, was diagnosed with cancer.   On April 7, 2000, just 3 days before Sherrie’s Birthday, Eric (10 years old) passed away in Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis.  We buried him on April 11, 2000, the day after Sherrie’s birthday.   That was a very difficult event for our entire family, but especially for Sherrie.   However, we know that families are eternal, and we will be with Eric again.

Sherrie and I met in August 1979, and were married January 18, 1990.   She was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I was not.   Shortly after we met, she told me that she had a child and had delivered the child for adoption.  I know that it hurt her tremendously, but we couldn’t discuss it.   I know that it was always her desire to be assured that you were safe, that you would have grown up strong with Faith in Christ.  However, she knew that she couldn’t seek you out and threaten the family and your mother by just popping up.   So she silently hoped the best for you in her heart.

Imagine the joy that you have brought her by reaching out.   Imagine her joy in knowing you have a strong family, and you have a wife and children of your own.   By your reaching out to Sherrie has freed her to be able to openly and honestly discuss this with her children, parents, brothers and sisters.   

I want you to know that this is a great blessing you have given us by reaching out to Sherrie.

Thank you.

May Heavenly Father Bless your Mother and Father, your sisters and brothers, your wife and your children.   May your children’s children remember your gift and blessing.

Respectfully, and Sincerely

David E. Torgerson

The day Sherrie found out about Ryan, she immediately wanted to tell her kids. She told Giselle and Austin together at Giselle’s house. After she told them Sherrie called David and said she had something she needed to talk to all of them about and they were all coming over to his house that evening. When David hung up the phone, he told his wife he had something to tell her. He said he had an older brother that his mom gave up for adoption before he was born. He said his mom was coming over and he knew it was about his brother. She either found him, or found out that he wasn’t alive. While David was waiting for his mom he then got to explain to his wife of 17+ years of marriage why this was the first time she was hearing anything about an older brother that had been given up for adoption.

Sherrie and Dave’s oldest son is named David too. He first learned about Ryan on his mission when he wrote her a letter and said he wanted to know, not if, but who his older brother was because he knew he had one. Sherrie told him about Ryan through letters. She didn’t know anything other than he was a boy so other than her experience she didn’t have much to share. When David was talking with his mission president at his exit interview from his mission he told his president about Ryan and that he was planning on going to find him and meet him. His mission president told him that while he understood his desire, he didn’t think it was best for him to find Ryan. He told him Ryan had his own life and they didn’t know anything about it and it wasn’t fair to disrupt it. Ryan might not even know he was adopted. David decided to not try and find his brother at that time. When Sherrie called David the day she found out about Ryan and said she wanted to come over and talk with him and his family, David said he immediately knew it was something about Ryan. He knew Sherrie had found him and he was reaching out to her or she found out he had passed away. Once Sherrie confirmed that Ryan had reached out to her and wanted to connect with her and her family, David immediately texted Ryan and said he had been hoping to meet him for years and was looking forward to getting to know him.

Giselle and Austin had no idea about Ryan. The first they heard was the day Ryan contacted Sherrie. It was a shock to them but they seemed to take it in stride.

Austin said hi over text but there wasn’t much more communication until they met in person a few months later. Being 25 and not married his perspective of the situation was a little different then everyone else. It might be a while before he realizes and processes all the baggage that goes with this. They have a similar sense of humor and many interests that are the same. I think they will have a comfortable relationship in the future.

Giselle went through shock and acceptance of having a ‘lost brother’ pretty quick and reached out to Ryan and zoomed with him pretty quickly. Shortly after they talked she had a lot of emotions set it and has been a little overwhelmed sorting through them. She is excited to meet and get to know Ryan but feels a sense of loss at the same time. She told him she missed him after they talked and was sad that she had missed out on his life even though she didn’t know about him. She had the most trepidation in meeting Ryan. Sherrie and David have a son named Eric that passed away when he was ten years old from cancer. Eric was a few years older than Giselle and Austin. I think a lot of the feelings of losing her brother Eric have resurfaced since finding Ryan. Everyone agrees that Ryan looks the most like Eric and it would be strange to have a brother that entered your life years later that looked so much like a brother you had lost. It is a lot to process. I think they will be able to have a good relationship at some point but it will take a little time.

Genevieve, like David, somehow new that she had an older brother besides David when she was younger. When she was 13 she cornered her mom and said she wanted to know about him. She never knew if she would meet him but she hoped someday it might happen. When Sherrie told her about Ryan she asked where he was and immediately wanted to meet him. Several weeks later it worked out that she came to visit our house with Sherrie and was able to meet Ryan. She is a sweet person and seemed to immediately be ready to have Ryan in her life.

Ryan had been talking with Ross and keeping him updated on the search and finally finding Sherrie. He was excited for Ryan but also had a little worry for a minute when he found out because of the possibility of change. He was at Rhonda’s house when Ryan told his parents and helped her understand that finding his birth mom didn’t mean she was losing or even changing the relationship Ryan had with his family. I was glad he was there, Ryan told me later that he was glad he was there too.

We waited to tell our kids until after Ryan had talked to his parents. We didn’t want any chance of one of them letting it slip before Ryan could talk to them first. We were unsure how they would react and nervous about telling them. Our concern was unfounded though. They new Ryan was adopted and seemed to take it completely in stride when we told them that he had found his birth mom. Emilee in particular was tickled pink that she would have even more cousins to play with. Allison told us that she wasn’t going to call Sherrie grandma because she had two grandma’s already but didn’t seem opposed to someday possibly meeting her. Matthew was a typical 14 year old teenager and said. “Ok, can I go back to playing basketball.” It was a relief to know (other than Allison stating her loyalty, which we told her was just fine and her grandma’s would appreciate her devotion) they didn’t seem to be rocked or concerned when we told them. Kids are pretty great at accepting and embracing changes.

When Ryan found out about Sherrie and contacted her it was a crazy overwhelming experience. He was able share it with a lot of his family and close friends over the next several weeks. I am writing this to help him remember the experience and feelings he had. He recorded some on his own as well. Some people have said what amazing coincidences have happened over the years but we know it isn’t coincidences. This whole experience has been and continues to have amazing little miracles happen that confirm to us that Heavenly Father is so aware of each of us. It has left Ryan without a doubt that his mom and dad were meant to be his parents and the way he got to them wasn’t the conventional way but Heavenly Father guided everyone to help not just Ryan but Sherrie, Roger, Rhonda, and their families. It is a pretty amazing story.

I am so grateful for the family and friends that have shared the excitement, concern, and dozens of other emotions that have taken turns at the front of the line the past few months. Kenny spent hours and hours finding the right person that linked Ryan to Sherrie. Ryan followed the prompting to reach out to Perry who facilitated and prepared Sherrie to find Ryan. My family, Ryan’s family, Sherrie’s family, and our amazing friends the Dunn’s, Johnson, Sam, the McDonald’s and a lot more have been nothing but supportive of Ryan as he has started navigating through all of this. It is pretty incredible how everything has turned out.