Category: 2022

Emilee’s Events

Emilee had to find a new place to ride horses. The barn she was riding at had a few of their horses pass away and the owner wanted to take some time off from teaching. It took a bit of time to find a new place. Part of the issue was that she only wanted to ride with Reese so we had a find a place that had room for both of them. We finally found a place that wasn’t to much farther away. It seems a little more organized and stream lined than the last barn. Hopefully they will continue to progress in there riding.

While she waited for me to find a new barn for her, she filled her time with playing with her horses at home. She is pretty cute. This heard of horses, barbies and random other stuffed animals can be found around the house in various stages of their daily trek from the fireplace to the office and and back to the fireplace. They always travel together in a pack and they seem to have a fairly organized rotation for taking turns riding on all the different horses. If you are lucky you will catch a little bit of conversation between all of the animals but if they know you are around they move pretty quietly. I love her imagination.

She has also become one of her primary teachers helpers with her baby on Sundays. She loves holding her. The babies name is Maddie and as you can see she is fond of Emilee too.

February is usually parent teacher conferences. For the winter conference they have the students come with their parents and talk with them about what they are doing and learning. Along with her grades (that were very good!) I was sent home with a few of Emilee’s self portraits. One of them was her before she got glasses and the other was after she got them. She has done much better in school and seems to feel more confident going now that she can see. Imagine that. She reads a lot without being asked too. I asked her how she read the board to know what to do. She said, “I just guessed.” I’m glad we figured it out so she can work and learn at her full capacity. Poor girl! She looks pretty cute with her glasses I think!

All three of my kids needed glasses when we went in for this years annual eye check up. Apparently we didn’t eat enough carrots last year. Matthew and Allison only need their glasses in certain situations, Emilee needs hers all the time.

January 2022

This January was a typical January. Not a lot going on. A good month to rest after all the holidays and re-group and plan for the upcoming year. It is a long slow month. I don’t mind though.

Ryan’s work did there usual January Christmas party for the company and their spouses. This year was a little different though because it was also the 10 year anniversary of the company starting. Ryan has been with them since they started so he made a little party planning committee and they put together a fun night for everyone. It was at a hotel in Lawrence Kansas. They had meetings Thursday and Friday and then Friday evening all the spouses came and joined for the party. They had a dinner followed by a casino night. They gave you fake money to play with and you won tickets with your money that you could bid on a bunch of prizes at the end. They did a good job. It was a fun night. Everyone stayed the night in the hotel and went home the next morning. I am glad he works at a company he enjoys and works with good people.

That is about the only event worth reporting in January. February came with a couple good snow storms this year. Ryan’s parents went to Idaho for a while to see Becky and her new baby boy Kaden. We took care of their house for them while they were gone. Ryan told the kids to go over and shovel his driveway. I am a sucker and they talked me into driving them over. Then they found his snow blower and asked if they could use that. I pulled it out and it was easy enough to use so I started using it and told them to shovel. At some point the new phone in my pocket that was less than two weeks old wiggled its way out of my pocket and fell on the ground. The snow hid it and the next time I came around I snow blowed it right up. I thought I had hit a heavy part of snow for a second and then didn’t think much about it. Matthew was standing at the top of the drive way in front of me and noticed a black object flying through the air land at his feet. He looked to see what it was and picked up my phone. It was no longer straight but had a nice arch to it. The phone did not survive its run through the snow blower. The case however came out with barely a scratch on it. I was pretty annoyed. I got to spend three hours of my day to go buy a second new phone. I got the special one for the price of two deal this time.

Fire Alarms and Cocoa

All the Christmas stuff is put away. We have had a few snow flurries, the new year is underway and the long month of January is about half over.

Last week after the kids had started back at school about the time that both Ryan and I were headed home from work last week the girls called him. He answered the phone and Allison said, “Dad, the fire alarms are going off in our house. There is a weird smell. I took Peanut and Emilee and we are walking to Grandma’s house. I made Matthew come with us but he is a jerk and wouldn’t bring the crabs.”

Ryan asked if he could talk to Matthew. He didn’t see or smell any smoke so he didn’t think there was a fire but he was going with the girls to grandma’s because the alarms were going off and obviously really loud. He also confirmed that the crabs were on their own if the house was on fire.

Ryan decided to not have them call 911 because he was only a few minutes away from the house and hoped/assumed at 15 years old Matthew was somewhat capable of knowing if there was a fire in the house. He told them to go to Grandpa’s house until I came and got them just in case it was a carbon monoxide leak or a fire.

Roger and Ryan went over to check the house. The alarms would go off for a minute or two and then stop for a bit then start again. As far as they could figure there had been a short or something that set the furnace room alarm off. No smoke, no gas, and the battery was still good. Weird. I will take weird over a fire any day. As far as the weird smell Allison smelled, we think it was the smell of something that burned in the dishwasher on the heat cycle. It washed them while we were all at work and school and when Emilee opened it after school to empty it, the kitchen had a little bit of that weird burning smell.

Ryan called me and told me what happened so I went to get the kids. I was glad to see all three fire trucks at the station by our house when I drove by and no pillar of smoke coming from the direction of my house. When I got to Grandma’s house Matthew was playing a game, she had already gotten a snack and a craft out for the girls to work on, and Peanut was in his temporary home (a box from Grandma’s garage) with several towels to snuggle in. Allison was still annoyed at Matthew for abandoning the crabs and not feeling bad about it at all. When dad and Grandpa gave us the all clear we went back home and had some hot cocoa.

The take aways from our exciting evening were:

  1. We are really glad we have Grandma and Grandpa close by. When in doubt, go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
  2. In an emergency Allison will take charge and make sure everyone is safe including the pets.
  3. Matthew will assist Allison in saving human beings but is out when it comes to pets-especially crabs (unless we get a dog). Matthew is also happy to let Allison run the show.

As I am typing the last few sentences, it reminds me of the time the kids came home from school and there was some ‘strange men people’ according to Allison that were climbing around on our roof. I have probably blogged this story before but I will review it again.

At this point in time Grandma and Grandpa didn’t live in Kansas yet. When Allison got off the bus and saw the unexpected people on our roof she later told us she couldn’t recall any conversations about people coming over to fix something and was unaware of any roof issues that our house had so she was immediately suspicious and told Matthew they should all stand by the mail box until dad or I got home. Matthew looked around for a second then said, “No thanks, it is cold.” He then crossed the road and entered the house through the garage like any other day. 🤦‍♀️Emilee followed him because, “It was cold.” 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ They left Allison at the mailbox. As they were closing the garage Allison ran across the street and ran into the garage. Matthew and Emilee went inside dropped their stuff all over the floor and got a snack and went on with their usual after school routine. Allison grabbed the phone and a BAT from the garage and walked out the front door and stood in the middle of the front yard to stare down the strange men while she called Ryan to tell him what the situation was.

Ryan was actually surprised and didn’t know why people would be on our roof either he told Allison to get herself back in the house and lock the door and he talked with her while he came home immediately. A few minutes later she said they were putting their ladders away and leaving. She sat by the front door looking out the window with her bat in case they decided to come back until Ryan got home.

Turns out, it was a Christmas light company that puts lights on your house for you. They had gotten the wrong address and put lights on our house by mistake. They figured it out eventually when whoever’s house they were supposed to put the lights on never got them. A few days later when we got home they were gone.

I think Allison was 8 or 9 when this happened. We recommended that in the future instead of going home they go to a neighbors house if someone is at our house unexpectedly. We know that Allison will take charge and let us know if something isn’t right.