Janae – Page 22 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Kayaking

We got a new neighbor last August right next door to us. They are a nice family. I chatted with them a little but when COVID quarantine was going in March and April her and I got to know each other a little better. Her name is Margarita. We started going on walks together and then she asked if I wanted to play tennis with her on the neighborhood court.

When we started playing I was only half interested. We plan on playing for an hour and after 40 minutes I was ready to be done. My endurance has improved along with my skills so I enjoy it much more now and look forward to going. I even asked for a new racquet for my birthday. I also got a brace for my elbow because I am old and got tennis elbow. Maybe in a few decades we will be in the Senior Olympics together in tennis. She is a good friend and we have fun together. We can share our woes of children with each other too when we are on our walks.

She got into kayaking this summer too and invited me along with her. It is very peaceful and relaxing and we enjoyed the sunset.

Butterflies

We made it to Powell Gardens again this year with the McDonald family to see the butterflies and walk around the gardens. It is always beautiful. With the COVID restrictions we had to wait in line a bit to go into the conservatory but it wasn’t to bad.

The kids played in the fountains for a little while. There was a new kid area for them to dig in the dirt and plant stuff. There was a second monarch butterfly house as well. The weather was not ridiculously hot so it was a nice day.

It was nice to get out and have something to do. We usually go to the Cultural Festival with the McDonald’s in August as well but that has been canceled this year.

Allison is DOUBLE DIGITS

Allison had her 10th birthday. Double digits for her is a big deal! She has told us that her standing in the world is basically an adult now that she has two digits in her age. She is beyond excited to be able to say, “I am 10 years old!” Instead of the slightly less dignified, “I am basically 10.”

She originally approached me with a three day two night party plan with her closest 20 friends. After some negotiating we were able to get it narrowed down to something a little more manageable for her no fun mom. She helped plan a very good party for herself. She invited a few friends over to watch a gymnastics movie about mid afternoon and play some games. Then per her request we had Wendy’s for dinner. Of course their was blowing out candles and a cookie cake and opening presents. Then they went not just swimming, but swimming at the end of the day so it was dark and the pool lights were on. It is fun to swim in the dark.

After swimming they cleaned up and watched a movie outside in the driveway with lots of movie snacks. Then they goofed around in the basement until they fell asleep. The next morning we had donuts and juice for breakfast. After breakfast they all piled into the car for the last activity of the party, open gym at the gymnastics gym. When that was over everyone was pretty tired and went home to hopefully take a nap.

It was a fun group of girls, I think Allison had a fun time and loved celebrating herself. Her dad and I gave her a hover board which she was beyond excited about. She zips around all over the place with it.

Just Going to Leave This Right Here.

All right dear Allison. This post is about you. Maybe no one ever reads it again. Maybe we laugh about it together in the future. Maybe it is just for immediate therapy.

You are a strong willed, determined, passionate human being. I love those qualities in you but I admit they are also sometimes difficult to help you learn to manage and direct. I know sometimes I am to overbearing and short and impatient with you. I promise it is something I work on daily. Darn it girl! You don’t make it easy sometimes. We seem to struggle more sometimes than others with getting along with each other and lately it has been more struggle than not.

Yesterday we had some dentist appointments and then were meeting some friends at the Butterfly Garden to spend the afternoon. The dental appointments went a little quicker than usual, we had an hour drive and were still going to be a little early to meet our friends. There was a McDonald’s right next to us so I asked the girls if they wanted to get a little snack to eat on the way at McDonald’s. This is how the next few minutes went.

Me: Ok, I will swing by McDonald’s and you can each get something.

Allison: Is there a Wendy’s? I like Wendy’s better.

Me: No, there is not a Wendy’s around here. We are by McDonald’s already, that is why I said McDonald’s.

Allison: We passed a Burger King on the way here. Can we go there instead?

Me: (deep breath- 9 out of 10 times when we have any plans or decisions made Allison will request they be changes for her convenience- we have time to kill, it isn’t a big deal) Sure, it isn’t on the way but since it is pretty close and we have a little extra time we can go to Burger King instead.

A few minutes later pulling into BK I ask the girls what they want. Emilee wants french toast sticks and Allison requests mozzarella sticks. It is still early so I ask the employee if they are making mozzarella sticks or not. They say they are not but will make them ‘special’. I look at the menu and it says 4 or 8 sticks, and ask Allison how many she wants.

Allison: I want 5.

Me: They don’t do 5. You can do 4 or 8.

Allison: I only want 5. I will eat 6. Can you ask them for 6.

Me: (deep breath-Allison often likes to ignore facts, rules, or guidelines and will just keep repeating her question/statement to see if the answer will change) 6 is not an option. 4 or 8 is the option. If you want 6 get 8 and share the rest with others.

Allison: Uugg. I will do 4. Ask them for extra mozzarella.

Me: They are already made sticks, you can’t add mozzarella to them.

Allison: Why can’t you just ask. It doesn’t seem hard to add cheese to something.

Me: (deep breath) Tell the person we are ready to order and ask for 8 mozzarella. As I do this Allison repeats over and over in my ear from the back seat to just ask for extra mozzarella. I ignore her.

Allison: Rolls her window down (which I usually have locked for reasons just like this) and interrupts me and asks the employee if she can change her order to 6 sticks and add extra cheese.

I take another deep breath while the employee says, as you might expect, “We only have 4 or 8 sticks, and we can’t add extra cheese but we can do extra sauce.” Allison then changes her order to 4 sticks and NO extra sauce. I take another deep breath and pull forward to get the food. As we wait she repeatedly asks in my ear from the back seat to ask for extra sauce because she now wants extra sauce. They hand me me the bag and there is a large container of sauce-easily plenty for 4 sticks. She insists it is not enough, so I ask for an extra sauce and we drive away.

Allison ends up eating 4 sticks with no sauce because ‘it tastes weird’.

I have had several conversations with Allison in the past when my patience is better about doing things efficiently, or easily, or conveniently, or considering others time or preferences. When I finish she explains to me that efficiency, ease, and convenience are below zero on her scale of importance when making decisions and other peoples needs she will try to consider more often but by her tone are barely above the previous reasons. Her desires, interests, aesthetic appeal, and fun are what drives her decisions. So we continue our daily interactions with very different approaches. One thing is for sure, we will both help each other build our patience and endurance.

It is STILL Summer

Since school ‘ended’ after Spring Break in March, it has been a LONG break. I started working a few days a week in May and the kids are technically old enough to watch each other but to be blunt, they aren’t very good at it. Maybe because they aren’t old enough after all, or because like me their patience with each other is low after being together 24/7 for months. Whatever the reason, it was causing me some stress to come home to arguing kids that had eaten junk food all day, a destroyed house. Ryan’s boss has a daughter who is in college that was not supposed to be home but like everyone else, her plans were canceled when COVID started. We asked her if she would come over on the days that I work and help keep the peace and sanity of the kids. It has worked out great. The kids get up and get ready and do their jobs and then she comes over from 11-5 and takes them to the pool, or does things around the house with them. Matthew is more on his own and can do things with them or go hang out with friends. The girls love her though. They ask if Claire can come over everyday. I am glad it is working out for all of us.

After two years I am signing off as the Girl Scout Leader for Emilee’s troop. She is old enough for Primary Activity Girls now and enjoys going to that. I don’t have as much free time once all the kids activities get going too. We had one last activity together this past week to celebrate the year and their hard work selling cookies. I rented a big blow up water slide, set up the slip-n-slide and they played on those for a few hours. We had pizza for dinner and played some more. Then when it got dark we watched Aladdin on an outdoor screen in the back yard. It lasted about 7 hours. It was exhausting, but the girls had a blast. They were a really good group of girls. I had fun being the leader but I am ready to pass the torch.

Girl Scouts watching a movie in the back yard.

It seemed like things were slowly getting back to normal and school was scheduled to start August 12th. Then the Kansas Governor decided to make an announcement saying that she was issuing an executive order to post phone school starting until after Labor Day. I am not going to lie. It was a big mental blow for A LOT of people, and while she had her ‘reasons’ they seemed unfounded to me. The Kansas school board voted against her executive order, which meant each school district could decide when to start for themselves. The two biggest districts around us decided to just do what the Governor said so they could be better prepared. I am not sure what that means…did they not know they were going to start school on August 12th when they made the calendar and gave it to everyone?! Everyone seems to be sitting around waiting for someone to tell them what to do instead of making a decision and moving forward. Anyway, our school district is having a meeting soon so decide when we will start. It will be Aug 12th as planned, Aug 26th to allow ‘a little more preparing time’ or September 8th. I think if they delay it once they will just continue to delay it and dig the COVID recovery hole deeper and deeper. We need to start and get society and life back on track. A regular school schedule will help with that A LOT. Unless you think I am insensitive to the pandemic, I am not, I check the numbers, I know the risks, I am just in the opinion that we mitigate the risks (reasonably) and keep life moving.

Fourth of July

We thought last year would be our final year in Lincoln Nebraska for July 4th. However, Roger and Rhonda dragged their feet and delayed long enough to get another one in. This one will be the last though because right before the weekend they bought a house in Olathe, right down the street from us actually. Then shortly after the weekend they listed their current house and it sold in less that 24 hours. They are set to move mid August and will be Kansans again.

The Fourth in Lincoln is always a great time though. I will miss our gatherings there. Neighbors all around us do amazing fireworks for hours and we get some good ones of our own. It is just a nice relaxing holiday. This year I asked Ryan to blast some patriotic music while we lit them off, that was inspiring.

It will be better to have a Grandma and Grandpa closer all year round though.

Spring Baseball 2020

Spring baseball for Matthew didn’t end up starting until June, so it was more like REALLY HOT SUMMER BASEBALL but Matthew and the rest of the boys didn’t care. They just want to play and have fun. We did lots of tournaments and played League games so we were able to get plenty of games in. The girls have a good group of friends that they run around with during the games (other players younger siblings) so they love it just as much.

Matthew likes to wear silly socks to games and practices. These are the best ones.

We had a fun tournament scheduled in Branson Missouri in June. We decided to post phone until July to have more/better competition. Then to make a long story short a few lame parents were able to manipulate the head coach into canceling it all together. Instead of Branson Missouri we went to Liberty Missouri which is not the same, but we tried to make the best of it and planned some team activities to get the boys together on the days we were supposed to be in Branson. They had a sleep over with the whole team and basically stayed up all night. We went to a baseball museum and lunch at Chicken-n-Pickle were they could play pickle ball for an hour or so. We also scheduled a parent vs player whiffle ball game but that hasn’t happened yet because of weather.

One of the highlights of this season for Matthew was his double that ended the game with a walk off. I made a little ‘news shot’ from the Game Changer recap of the game. I was the one keeping score and I know the score would actually be 4-3 since it was a walk off hit, but since he hit a double the App recorded both runners that came in. Anyway, it was an awesome hit and the boys were pretty excited to win.

Matthew just his a double and they won with a walk off.

The parent that takes all the awesome pictures for us is moving so this is probably the last season she will take picture for us. After this the quality of pictures will change drastically because I am the one taking them. I am trying to improve my photography skills though.

Another big change for baseball is that Ryan and Coach Jimmy Adams didn’t like the way the 14 year old program is run so they have decided to leave NBA (the academy Matthew has played for the past three years) and do their own team for at least the next year. They are combining teams with another coach and are planning on having two teams that will practice together and mix and match through the Fall then be divided into more permanent teams in the Spring. Matthew will now be on a team called FBC (Fire Birds Baseball Club). We played a tournament with some of the boys on his new team this past weekend. There were a few bloopers because they had never played together but they ended up winning the tournament. Matthew is pretty excited, they will be a pretty competitive higher end AAA team. Ryan likes to say, “They will be a really salty team.” Once they practice with each other and get to know each other. I think it will be good for Matthew because instead of being closer to the top of the team talent, he is more mid range so he will have to challenge himself more to get better and have more kids to learn from.

This is a tournament that his new team FBC played and won together.

Emilee and Allison have a group of friends they hang out with during the game. The younger siblings of players group. They all have a good time together. At one of the last games, the boys dugout had some weird holes in it, probably for drainage, but the girls decided to make good use of them.

The last two league games for NBA were back to back. The first game was a blow out. The final score was 18 to 3 or something like that. One of their players ended up getting hurt and they didn’t have enough so we lent them one of our just so we could keep playing. The coaches let the boys try spots they usually don’t play, one player even tried batting left handed and got a double. Matthew got a chance at pitching, which he has been begging for all season. While he was warming up the score was 17-0 us, the catcher and him were joking around that hopefully their lead was big enough Matthew didn’t blow the game. He only gave up 3 runs though.

The last event of our season and time with the NBA-Adams team was a parent vs player wiffle ball game. It was a lot of fun. A lot of cheating from the parents, but a lot of fun. For example, after each hit I relocated second base to give us the advantage of them not knowing were the base was to get them out.

Dad’s Birthday

Dad turned 41 this year! We went out to one of his favorite restaurants, Sake Lounge, and had a lot of yummy sushi. In the past he has requested his mom’s chocolate cake but this year he changed it up and asked for a lemon cake. I only have one cake recipe that has lemon in it so I made that. I nailed it. It was delicious. Not what he wanted, but still delicious. The cake I made had a glaze instead of a frosting and he said he had envisioned frosting. It was still delicious though.

We were a little short on gift ideas so he got some new pajama pants and some snazzy socks. I remembered him mentioning that he wanted a good chopping knife, ours are getting pretty dull. I found him one, and it is definitely sharp. It has cut all of us that have used it. Apparently we need to work on our knife safety skills. Allison decided it needed to be named so we now refer to it as Kevin.

Emilee Starts Softball

Thanks to her friend Stella, Emilee was willing to try a new sport this Spring. We signed her up for Softball. It ended up not starting until June but we were still able to do it.

Practices were fun and she liked going to those, but once games started it was a little trickier to get her there. I ended up bribing her with an ice cream cone from McDonald’s after each game she went to. We still missed a few but she got to most. She did really well too! She got a few good hits in and ran the bases. She chased the ball down and threw it to first a few times and got two outs. She learned a lot about how the game works and what you are supposed to do on offense or defense. They usually got a team treat afterwards to that was a motivation for her to go. I didn’t know that until after promising her an ice cream cone so she loved getting a bonus treat.

She loved when we would come watch her too. Allison and I made it to most of the games. It was a bonus when dad and Matthew came, his baseball overlapped a lot.

Dad and Matthew tried to help her practice hitting and play catch with her during the week too. Emilee is naturally athletic but she is averse to sweating so we are hoping she will push past that and try again next year.

Family RV-cation to the Ozarks

We are in the process of dissolving our RV business. As that process has continued to play out we have ended up with one of out RV’s here in KS. Li’l Sebastian is enjoying the heartland. Ryan decided that if we are going to have it here and are paying for it we might as well use it and enjoy it. He planned a quick family vacation to the Lake of the Ozarks. We loaded up Sebastian and drove down Friday night to the KOA. Ryan has been there many times for work, none of the rest of us have ever been.

It is a nice little town. There are all kinds of things to do. The KOA was pretty new and updated. The first thing we did upon arrival is light a fire and roast some smores. We explored the campsite a little. Then it was pretty late so we started a movie together in the RV then went to bed.

The rest of the weekend was pretty packed with cool activities. We went to a water park, toured Bridal Caves, hiked a few trails including one that had castle ruins to see, we also went to the lake and swam for a few hours. We cooked over the fire for dinner each night and had smores. There was park and a pool at our camp site that we swam in too.

This is a peak at one of the huge underground lakes in the cave.

There was a lot fewer people than usual because of COVID still but that made it not as crowded when we went to all those places. Ryan and I have decided we are ready to pretty much go back to our normal lives. We understand the risks of being in public and getting Corona and we are fine accepting those risks. Just like we do with the flu, and colds, and every other disease we might catch by living our lives. The purpose was to slow the spread to not overwhelm the hospitals and we did that- a while ago- somewhere along the road the goal for some became to have no one else get COVID ever and that is ridiculous. Then the riots and protests and looting has started with ANTIFA and BLM groups. Thousands have been gathering in groups to do that…it is hard for the media and liberals to convince people we have to continue to stay home for everything except protesting and rioting. Anyway, I digress. Back to our vacation.

For some reason the girls were intent on seeing a turtle. They picked their wish well. We saw our first turtle cruising across the highway right as we got to town. He was luckily on his way off the highway. On our hike there was one imitating a rock right on the trail we were hiking. The last one we found was next to our campsite buried in the leaves. He was the luckiest because the girls gave him a snack of lettuce and blueberries before he moved on.

This is the turtle we almost missed sitting on the path we were walking on.

It was a very nice relaxing weekend. I am glad that we did it and enjoyed our time together. The RV survived and is still running. We did dismantle the table because we couldn’t figure out the correct way to turn it into a bed. It is a fairly easy fix though. I followed in the van so we would have a vehicle to drive around once we got there. The first two minutes were exciting to watch as we left. The door flew open, and a couple of the side panels fell open. We had to stop once on the way there because Emilee was trying to move around when she wasn’t supposed to and crashed her face into a window and started gushing blood. Luckily it wasn’t broken and we got it under control pretty quick. After that the rest of our trip was accident and injury free.