2021 – Page 3 – Terry Family Shenanigans

My Birthday Trip

For my birthday this year everyone was sick or quarantining in case they got sick. That was not the original plan but that is what happened. So we put a little pin in my birthday and bumped it out a week and a half until everyone was better. Ryan cooked me many yummy meals- spaghetti and meatballs, steak, and my favorite chocolate layered cream cheese cake. Ryan remembered to cook the crust this year. Allison made me a cute birthday sign and the kids got me a sweet gift basket with lots of fun surprises in it.

Ryan decided to surprise me for my birthday with a trip to Chicago. He confirmed my availability without setting of any suspicion. Then he booked our hotel and flights. He even checked my email and filed the flight information into another folder so I wouldn’t see the confirmation. He was pretty proud of himself and I had no idea. Unfortunately, he was unable to out think all of the Google software data gathering (straight up snooping) even though he hid the emails, my calendar found them and the next time I checked my calendar a little message popped up asking me if I wanted to add my flight to Chicago to the calendar. I tried to act like I didn’t know but when Ryan straight up asked me if I knew I told him my calendar betrayed him.

As I said we ended up having to postpone the trip a bit but shortly after my birthday, we flew to Chicago and spent a long weekend there. We had a fun time with each other. We stayed at the Palmer Hotel. When we got there we decided to go to the Magic Show that the hotel is apparently famous for and has been showing since the 80’s. It was pretty fun. I love stuff like that. During the day we toured the city by foot, subway, or boat. In the evenings we went to shows. We ended up doing two different magic shows, a comedy show, and an old timey piano bar that played requests. The atmosphere was early 1900’s but the music was modern. In the mornings we slept in as long as we wanted. Glorious. It was a great weekend and I’m glad we squeezed it in because it is trade show season for Ryan at work now and since we have been back it seems like I haven’t seen him for a few weeks. We pass each other on the way to work or taking the kids somewhere, one of us is asleep before the other gets home and one of us is at work or taking Matthew to seminary before the other one is awake.

Fabulous 40’s-Here I Come!

Well, I crossed into the next decade of my life! It is a little weird. I remember my Grandma June in her 40’s. I remember my mom’s 40th birthday, several of my aunts. For a while as a kid, all adults were in their 40’s. Now I am. So far when I have entered a new decade it hasn’t bothered me. It bothers Ryan and he is two years older so maybe I have a few years to prepare myself because he does it first.

There was a bit of a minor mid life crisis for Ryan. It is part of the reason he now drives a Tesla. I think I feel it a little bit too. It is hard to explain. I am not panicking about my age but I feel like I have moved into a different stage of my life. I find myself thinking and considering things differently then I used to. I’ve noticed it enough in myself to say that there is definitely something to a ‘mid life crisis’. It didn’t happen over night of course, I feel like the past year or two I noticed a few subtle shifts and changes in myself. Here are some of my thoughts as a 40 for one month year old.

Emotionally and socially I have become more comfortable with myself and settled more into knowing what I am and want. I definitely feel plenty comfortable cutting out the crap and negativity I don’t want in my life. I am a people pleaser and I still like to please people but I am much better at not expensing my desires and wants ALL the time. My confidence has increased, would be a good way to say it in one sentence. I have solid friendships that are into their second decade. For me this is quite a feat since until 2008 I moved a minimum of every 2 years my whole life. I can be social or be alone-by myself or in a group. I am comfortable with myself and I know more of what I want and don’t want to spend my time doing and who I want to spend that time with.

I am no longer the young person in the room in anyone’s opinion. I have enough life experience to not be ‘just a baby’ or ‘just getting started’ or whatever else other people say. Instead people ask me how I did it when I was younger. In my head I’m thinking, “When did I not become younger?” I know enough to know I don’t know it all or even very much. I realize all the things ‘I will get to someday’ are going to be off the table at some point instead of forever available. Youth and health are not a given and guaranteed permanence. When I see someone the age of 30 they look young, 25 year old’s barely look like adults and 18 or younger look like a baby.

Physically my hair, skin, nails, and a dozen other things have changed a bit at some point in the last few years. I get a glimpse of what ‘old’ people mean when they say ‘my (fill in the blank) isn’t like it used to be’. Instead of my hair just being healthy and shiny, I have to condition it more or pick a new style because it is thinning. Instead of washing my face and throwing on a little moisturizer I have to use a toners and serums and twenty other products to help maintain, shape, elasticity, smoothness and firmness and whatever other properties my skin maintained on it own until now. Moisturizer is now bought in bulk. It is like magic that you start noticing aches and pains when you exercise…or don’t exercise.

I can see how these things and more cause someone to want to do a dramatic change around this time in their life, whether it is plastic surgery, or a trip, or buying something extravagant. I get it. Maybe in five or ten years my thoughts and opinions will change-actually I am sure they will but for now my plan in to live and enjoy my confident 40 self and age naturally and gracefully with the aid of topical creams. 😂

As I mentioned earlier, Ryan’s mid life crisis manifested as a new car. Mine will be manifesting itself in 25 days and I am VERY excited! Stay tuned!

My mom sent me a card with this button in it. I forgot I had it on and wore it to the grocery store.

My New Wheels

After almost ten years with my van, I decided it was time to get a car with a few less miles and years on it. For the past year I have been researching and keeping my eye out on what I might want. I haven’t been able to decide if I wanted to get another van or an SUV.

Hands down a van is the best family car out there. There isn’t an SUV out there that can compare to the amount of people and luggage space plus comfort that a van can. The sliding doors on a van alone are worth their weight in gold. SUV’s are going to be good for people hauling or stuff hauling-not both. The “mid size” SUV’s are basically a tall car, which is fine but I need something a little bigger still. That narrowed my search down quite a bit right there. Van, or three row SUV. I don’t want a suburban or the huge SUV’s either. I don’t want to feel like I am driving a tank. That narrowed my field even more. There were really only 3-4 SUV’s that fit my criteria. One of those was a Tesla which of course Ryan was promoting. It had a third row but when I sat in it myself it seemed like a pretty liberal description to call it a third row. I am only 5′ 5″ and my knees were under my eye lobes. The lifting side doors while they sound cool, were not as cool in functionality. To finish narrowing it down I picked based on reviews, price, and looks. It left me with the choice of a new Honda Odyssey van, or a Honda Pilot SUV.

After a few more months of debating, I ended up going with the Pilot. If my kids were younger I would have gone for the van again, but since they are bigger they can get in and out on their own and sadly, it won’t be to many more years before they start driving themselves places or going on missions, or college. It was a little weird while I learned all the new buttons and things for a week but I have now adjusted and am comfy and loving my new car.

We didn’t trade the van it. We decided to sell it on our own and get twice what they were offering us for it at the dealership. We debated making it Matthew’s car but I would rather find him something a little smaller. So it hung out in our drive way for a week or two while we decided what to do with it. This past Friday I caught up on my other things and getting the van ready to sell moved to the top of my list. Coincidentally my neighborhood was having their annual Fall garage sale weekend. I decided that since we would have a lot of people driving through the neighborhood I would put a sign on it and see if I could sell it that way before I put it online. I cleaned it out, took it to vacuum and wash it and put the signs on it. On my way home from washing it, I decided to see if Roger and Rhonda would mind if I parked it in their driveway instead of mine for the weekend because they live on the street that leads into the neighborhood. I parked it in the drive way and went inside to ask. We were chatting and less than 5 minutes after I arrived someone rang the door bell. Roger said he didn’t know who it would be and I said it was someone wanting to by my van. It was! They asked to look at it, drove it around, and then said they would buy it! They left to get a cashiers check and two hours later I met them at the house again and they drove off into the sunset with it.

I was pretty excited. I thought it would take a little more effort and work to sell it but it didn’t. I wouldn’t even say I cleaned it all the way. It was neat, but I wouldn’t call it clean until I had worked on it a few more hours. Instead of that, it was sold in about 5 minutes.

Later that night I had a similar experience like I did when I donated my blue rocking chair. I didn’t cry but I had some nostalgia while I remembered all the trips and things we did together as a family in the van. It handled a lot from us. It took us all around KC, Florida, Alabama, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Tennessee, South Dakota, Nebraska, some of those places many times and others I don’t even remember. We sang hundreds of songs, played games, caught up on our days, ran errands, watched Christmas lights, plowed through snow, splashed through huge puddles. It handled our dirt, food, crayons, markers, vomit, spilled milk, soda, water, slime, pee, poopy diapers. It had countless names, words, hearts, stick figures and boogers smeared on the windows. It was a great little van. It never broke down on us. The alarm system was a bit touchy. I had to DRIVE home from a baseball practice once with the horn honking none stop because it didn’t like that I unlocked it with a key instead of the key fob. Much to all of our embarrassment it honked over and over none stop until I got home and found said key fob. Despite my best efforts sometimes it only locked me out of it 1-2 times. It was a good little van. I sold it so fast I didn’t even think to take a final picture of it but I will have fond memories of my black Honda van.

Life at the Terry’s

Ryan and Allison planted a full salad/salsa garden this year. The salad stuff didn’t do to great, we got a little lettuce but it was kind of bitter. About mid summer the salsa stuff started growing. The first time they made it I called it our $100 salsa. It has continued to produce and they have made lots of salsa, even canned some to save for later. Our tomatoes are still going strong, they are debating canning some spaghetti sauce as well. We have definitely made at least our moneys worth that it took to plant the garden if not more from all the stuff. It is a nice change for us.

One of our many harvests from our garden.

A few months ago I took Emilee and her friend to my co-workers hobby farm. She had a great time and has been begging to go back ever since. Allison wasn’t able to go and she wanted to go too. Sandi had added a few more types of animals and was excited to have the girls come see them. We made it out to see the farm again a few Saturday’s ago.

Ryan went to his half brother Austin’s wedding out in Utah in August. The kids had already started school and it was in the middle of the week so he was the only one who ended up going. He had a fun time getting to know everyone more. After the wedding festivities he did a mini man trip in the mountains with his buddies Sam and Mike. They did lots of manly things together like ATV’s and shooting. He did not get any pictures of the reception for me though.

Sam came to the wedding and Ryan introduced him to Sherrie.

Ryan and I found ourselves at Home Depot a little while ago. We had gone for one thing but decided to get a few fence pickets while we were there because we have a few broken ones. We weren’t positive on the size and shape so we texted Matthew and told him to send us a picture of THE FENCE. He sent us this picture.

Kids his age use an app on their phones called Snap Chat. They send pictures of what they are doing to each other and they usually look pretty much like this. Half of their face is in the picture and the back ground of where they are. I rolled my eyes and told him I didn’t need a social media head shot, I needed to know how tall the fence was. He wrote back that was the reason he put himself in the picture…for perspective. 😂😂🤦‍♀️

Matthew and Emilee came down with COVID the first week of September. They both recovered pretty quick but were down in bed for a few days. They still had to stay home and mostly in there rooms for a few days after they were feeling better. I helped Emilee brush her hair one day-which she hates. I told her we could do some silly pictures while we did it so it would be more fun. She didn’t seem to love it that much.

BACK TO SCHOOL 2021

Well, unlike last year school started one the original day it was supposed to. That was a plus. To make a long story short our school district said it was up to parents if their kids wore masks or not. I think that is a great idea because 1-they are my kids and I should be the one making decisions for them. 2- there is no mask mandate anywhere in our entire county right now. 3-Despite the news and politicians making it look like people are dropping dead in the streets and hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID patients, its not. One hospital (ironically Children’s Mercy) has made a public post TWICE saying they are not full and have very few COVID patients. However, the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners decided they know better (despite ZERO children’s deaths in our county and very low infection rates for children since all this started in March 2020) and made an order requiring all K-6th grade students to wear a mask. Our school board found a way around it by providing a mask exemption form for parents and/or doctors to sign but it has caused quite a tizzy. It is all kinds of crazy. The world and people are getting crazier everyday. But my kids are back in school, mine have the option to wear a mask ONLY if they want and unlike the other districts around us they did not have to define their sexuality and declare their pronouns the first day of school. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Emilee is in 3rd Grade. She has the same teacher Allison had in 3rd grade but her name is different because she got married. Mrs. Dechant. She is a great teacher and even though Emilee isn’t a huge fan of school I hope she will have a good year. I need to work on raising my expectations for her and helping her out of the “youngest child please do everything for me” funk.

Allison is in 6th grade and is ready to conquer it in a blaze of glory. There is a lot of cello players this year and they tried to persuade some kids to switch but she wouldn’t budge. She has been waiting a year to get to learn to play the cello and be an “Orch Dork”. She has a lot of classes with her friends and has organized and re-organized her locker multiple times a day since school started three days ago. Her friends and her make towel tents for each other to change in for PE and she can get seconds at lunch if she wants. Other than her mom making her ride the bus instead of personally delivering her to the front of the school each morning, she is loving life. If Allison is happy, the rest of us are even more happy. Doing the work won’t be a problem for her. Staying on top of things herself and being responsible will be her mountain to over come. She can do it!

Matthew started 9th grade this year, making it our first of many years to have a kid in each school. He got the classes he wanted but doesn’t have any close friends in any of them. He sees his besties in the hall and in a few weeks at lunch when they switch to the open hour lunch. He is a little bummed about that but his dad and I are encouraging him to meet new people. Good new people. So far he has a very good track record of picking friends that are good people and steering clear of the ones that aren’t as nice. He is starting to get some height going so that is exciting for him and he is hoping to bulk up a bit with weights as a class this year. His teenage laziness is effecting his motivation levels for school but he has always been good at staying up with assignments and managing it on his own. He told me he was looking forward to his retirement the other day. I rolled my eyes and told him to enjoy the phase he is at in life now. He takes drivers education soon and as soon as he is 15 he can drive by himself in a car to and from school if needed. He does have the slight problem of not having a car yet. They school had a gas leak 20 minutes after it started on the first day and everyone had to evacuate for an hour and a half but since then it has been pretty low key at the high school.

First day, catching the bus with neighbors Jack and Finn

Farewell to Summer Break

As the end of Summer approached we did our usual back to school shopping and registering and getting ready to start back into the routine of school. Ryan has been toying with the idea of getting some kind of property by a lake. His brother and him have been talking about it for the past year or two and they are trying to convince their dad to join them. Matthew was still on his high from boating for the first time this Summer at High Adventure. When August arrived he doubled his efforts and focused his ideas and requests to do it again on Ryan. Between that and a client of Ryan’s offering to let us use a time share of his we decided to squish in one more fun Summer trip before school started. We invited our cousins and Grandpa Terry even came down for a day and played with us.

We went to Branson Missouri and Table Rock Lake. Branson is very similar to Gatlinburg Tennessee. There is a touristy main street area with lots of fun shops and museums and things to do. Gatlinburg is more Dolly Parton themed, Branson seemed more Elvis Presley. A lot of the places are in both locations, one of them being the Titanic Museum. We didn’t have the chance to go to it when we were in Gatlinburg so I made it a must for Branson. My children rushed me through it a little faster then I would have gone on my own but it was a very interesting museum.

The place we stayed was basically a two bedroom apartment. The adults each took a room and we had air mattresses all over the place for the kids to sleep on. Roger just came up for one day and didn’t stay the night because Rhonda wasn’t up for traveling and he didn’t want to leave her alone. We played games and ate dinner and checked out the pool the day we arrived. The next morning was our boating day. I went boating a lot when I was growing up. My grandparents had a cabin and boat and we spent many weekends playing at the lake. We rented a pontoon boat that all 11 of us could ride on at the same time and did the tube, knee board, and wake board. I’ll tell you what. It was pretty awesome to show up and have a boat already in the water, fully fueled and ready to go with any toys we needed on board. I did the math roughly in my head and for how often our family would likely go boating if we made it a thing in the Summer it is well worth it to rent verses buy our own boat. I’ve tried to get Ryan to go boating several times in the past and he said he wasn’t interested and wasn’t a boat person. About 30 minutes into our day he came over and told me he loved it and we need to do it more often.

It was a great day. We packed a few coolers of food and drinks and we were on the boat from 10-6pm and didn’t get tired or bored once. Everyone had a great time. Everyone took a turn on the tube, some of us tried a few other things. We found a little cove around lunch time and thru the anchor and the lilly pad out and ate lunch and swam for an hour or two. Grandpa even got on the paddle board and did a flip off the boat with the kids. The lake is really nice, the water is pretty clean for a lake (I think because it is mostly rock on the bottom not mud) and the water is perfect temperature. Ross, Grandpa and Ryan were all pretty comfortable driving the boat by the end of the day. We all want to do it again and more often. The only bummer is that it is a three hour drive to get there from our house.

After we got back to our place that night everyone took a quick shower and then headed to Lambert’s for dinner. They have home style country food and they throw the rolls at you whenever you want one. The kids really liked it. Sherrie and Dave and Genevieve and Robert and their son Eric were close to Branson so they met us there for dinner. Roger and I stopped by to say hi. He met Sherrie for the first time. (It went well 😊) We didn’t stay long, he wanted to get home to Rhonda and I had to work the next day so we went home while everyone else ate.

The next day everyone that stayed went to Silver Dollar City, which is an amusement park. It was another fun and successful day. There were rides and food to please all the people. There were different level of thrill seekers that could pair up and have fun together. After a full day at the park, they played games and played one more night at the time share. The next morning they headed home.

It was a pretty fun, basically spontaneous, farewell to Summer trip. We have already talked about making it our Summer kick off next year too. Ross and Lauren’s kids started school the day after they got back. Our kids still had a week- the final count down to back to school begins!

August Festivities

We packed in a lot of fun activities the last few weeks of Summer.

First up was all my children returning home from their visits to se Grandma and Grandpa Jones. They were all happy to see each other and be home together again. It took them about 5 seconds to remember how to push each others buttons though. 🤦‍♀️ I put a few of the pictures grandma and grandpa sent from their adventure in an earlier post but here are a few more they sent after I wrote that.

Ryan and I went to the Garth Brooks concert with some friends and a couple people from his work. It was the second time we have seen him. It was his first concert since COVID and I think Garth was pretty pooped. He usually sings a lot longer than he did. It was still a great concert but between the ridiculous heat and not being used to it, it felt a little brief. Martina McBride made a surprise appearance. That was cool. It broke back memories of listening to her while we painted our house one Summer in Wyoming.

Our favorite neighbors through a party-Jeff and Margarita-so we attended that. We usually try and get out of neighborhood shin digs but we made an exception this time.

All the kids find school supplies that they really need for school when we go school shopping-that have nothing to do with school. Emilee tried to sell me on this, but settled for a picture instead.

We squeezed in our 3rd (maybe 4th) annual cousins trip to World’s of Fun and Ocean’s of Fun. We are now only one kid away from having no height restrictions on any of the rides. Jovee is 2 inches away from 100% ride qualification. We have it down pretty good now on what rides we have to hit for each person and then head over and spend the rest of the time at Ocean’s. We did come back for the evening to World’s this time. The kids liked the lights and music they turn on at night for the rides. The night ended with fireworks at closing time, that was fun too.

Emilee was really excited to get back to horse lessons when she got home from Grandma and Grandpa Jones’. I caught a picture of her taking a little break and stretching for a second during her lesson. Her and Reese are becoming quite the horse lovers. These two have been besties since birth and they were born two weeks apart. After their lesson one day Reese told Liz and I that they would skip their birthday presents and just get a horse for Christmas since it was ‘kind of a big present’. Emilee looked at Reese and said, “Well, maybe less birthday presents but not NO birthday presents!”

Allison’s 11th Birthday

To help you remember, last year Allison brought me the plan for her birthday party she wanted to have when she turned 10 a few weeks before so I had plenty of time to prepare. Her original party spanned several days and two nights with several outings planned each day. After some negotiating we chiseled it down to a full 24 hour party with two outings, and just one night of sleeping over.

Usually we do a bigger party every other year and then keep it to a little smaller family party in between with a little bigger present. Allison came to me with her birthday brainstorming before getting to into her planning to determine what I considered a ‘big party’ to be. I believe she clarified by saying, “What is the number of days difference to you for a big party or a small party?” She is a funny girl. I told to keep it small and she would get some cash for her present. Nothing motivates Allison more than cash money.

She was happy to oblige and she helped me plan a pool party with a few friends. They ate pizza, opened presents, had a silly string fight, swam while listening to music, then everyone went home. Except for Leah, she spent the night. I think it was a very successful birthday for her. The next day we went to a few stores to release some of the heat from Allison’s pockets because she had money burning a hole in them. She added to her pop it and fidget collection that is getting pretty large.

We had a family dinner with local Terry’s on Sunday as well, which she loved. She is now 11. Going to be starting 6th grade and ready to take on the next year of her life. Happy Birthday Allison!

Allison

This girl keeps our life from being dull. Allison just started 6th grade this year and she is loving it. She is one step closer to being an adult which she has been looking forward to since she was 2 years old. Allison sees the world differently then the rest of us. She is creative and smart and keeps us on our toes.

At the end of last year we had her tested and moved to a more advanced Math class. Her brain loves math and she incorporates it into anything she does from planning her day to doing the dishes. She is learning the cello this year in orchestra. She is still doing gymnastics and moved up to level six this summer.

She can be one of the wittiest and funniest people I know, or one of the grumpiest. Whatever emotion she is feeling is level 10. There is no lower gear for her. For a while it seemed like her and I just butted heads constantly but I see more and more of Allison’s pleasant and reasonable side lately.

Allison loves a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich. She is my only kiddo that will eat a fruit or vegetable without any prompting-just because she likes them. She is amazing at making cookies and brownies. She usually keeps our house stocked with them, which is awesome. She has a tough outer shell but her inside is sweet and caring and very thoughtful. When we are driving around if we see any cat or dog without a leash on-even if it is most likely in it’s own yard-she wants to stop the car immediately and save it from whatever it needs to be ‘rescued’ from. She is very responsible when she wants to be. She takes care of Peanut her guinea pig everyday without any reminding. When we go out of town she arranges for someone to take care of him and leaves them copious amounts of notes on the proper way to feed him.

Crafting is another thing Allison enjoys doing. She is often decorating or creating some art for her room (or Emilee’s if it doesn’t meet her standards when she is done 😂) If I have something I need to make or get ready for Primary she is always willing to help and does a great job at it.

It is a treat to watch her grow up. Allison will be a mountain mover in whatever she decides to invest her time and energy in.

Matthew

Matthew, Matthew, Matthew…what can I say about Matthew. I could say he is the spitting image of his dad is looks and personality. That would be the quickest way to describe him. Every year those two become more and more alike. Matthew tries to deny it sometimes but he can see the similarities. They are a fun pair and I love watching Ryan guide and teach a younger less mature version of himself. So do his parents.

Due to Matthew getting a little older and closer to adulthood we picked a few activities to help him develop his more mental, emotional, and spiritual side, disguised with lots of physical fun too of course. One of them was High Adventure with the boys at church, and the other was FSY (For Strength of Youth) a church camp with most of the boys from church. They were both very fun activities and very good for him. One was a little more obviously fun to him but he did enjoy both. High Adventure was boating, zip lining, and camping. He has told us no less than 5 times week since he has been home that we need to go boating, get a boat, or make friends that have boats. Along with our trip to the beach where he body surfed as much as possible he tells us we can move to a beach at any time and he will support it. Since those activities he has loved going to YM activities and a lot of the boys hang out together on the weekends.

He is almost 15 so he does have some teenage brain development going on but so far I still really enjoy him and his company. Along with the teenage stuff he also has his dad’s iron will, and it does show it self more and more often. Just. Like. Ryan. His voice takes on a certain tone, and his jaw sets and his eyes lock and there is nothing you can say or do at that point to change his mind. Ryan will look at me and say something about how ridiculous and stubborn he is being and I say, “Yes you are, I mean, yes he is.” Also like his dad when he gets like this he usually goes off somewhere and mulls over whatever the issue is privately then comes back and is more reasonable. Until then you will have more luck paddling upstream with a fork.

He really enjoys watching and playing sports. His favorites to play are basketball and baseball. He likes watching football too. Most of the time when Matthew is talking to you it is frustratingly quiet. The exception to this is when he is watching sports or playing video games. Then you can hear him anywhere.

Matthew is quiet and a little shy when you first meet him but once he feels comfortable he is a fun kid, he likes to joke and tease. We like to joke and tease him too. Being a teenager he is a little more concerned with appearance and ‘image’ than the average person. Ryan often likes to get photo evidence of him looking like a dork to pull out when its convenient. These pictures of Matthew playing with the VR glasses is a good example. He has a pleasant and witty sense of humor.

He starts 9th grade at the High School this year. He says he is excited and looking forward to it. He has always done great at school. Last year with stupid online learning and his particular math teacher (she was fine just taught differently than Matthew learns) he struggled with math. Since kindergarten I have never had to check his work and make sure he turns stuff in or even remind him to do his homework. He stays on top of it and keeps things organized. When he started middle school he came home overwhelmed about keeping track of so many different classes. I showed him what a binder and dividers are and he has continued to do great since then. He has a good singing voice but doesn’t want to do choir. Or theater. He has taken several art classes and enjoys them. He also humored me by taking a cooking class/sewing class. Right now he thinks he will go into something sports related like a trainer or physical therapist. He can’t handle even talking about blood so I wonder if he will change when he realizes how much anatomy and physiology there is.

He takes drivers education in a few weeks. It is still a while before he gets his drivers license but I am looking forward to it. Him being able to drive himself to weights, practices, seminary, and everywhere else he goes will be awesome.

A new hobby he just discovered thanks to his buddy Carter is fishing. They have gone a few times together and Matthew caught a fish within 2 minutes the first time. He hasn’t caught one since but he still really likes it. He even asked for fishing stuff for his birthday.