My sister DeAnna gave everyone a puzzle for Christmas with our pictures from last Thanksgiving on it. We put it together a few weeks ago. I enjoy doing puzzles, I have never done one with pictures of people I know in it. It made it even more fun! It was a very cute idea!
Allison has been working hard at wrestling. Her meet tomorrow is for Regionals. I haven’t been at her last few meets so I am excited to see her.
She took 4th at league. Here are some pictures with her and her team. We are proud of her for how hard she works at wrestling.
One of the fun things about our new house is its location is out far enough away from the city that we see lots of wild life. We see lots of animals in the flesh around our house. We also see evidence of them, or hear them, or smell them. Some of the most common ones are deer, coyotes, racoons, opossums, snakes, mice, horses, cows, donkeys, chickens, skunks, and all kinds of birds. I think we have even had a bear wander through our front yard as it was passing through but I am shunned when I say that by certain family members.
I believe one of our regular animals we see has already made an appearance in Terry Family Shenanigans. Thomas the hawk. He likes to perch on the peak of our roof over the back deck and then dive off and catch food when small animals come out of the tall grass into our short grass. The past few weeks he has been around a lot and we have seen him in action. He is beautiful and big. It is hard to say but I bet his wing span in between 3-4 feet. We think he might be a Thomalina instead of a Thomas. There is a very young hawk that has started hanging around too. He looks like a minature version of Thomas and usually perches on the rim of our trampoline net or the rail of our deck. We haven’t gotten any pictures of the new friend yet but we have a few of Thomas. Someday I’ll get out my real camera and stalk him a bit to get some good pictures but we took these really quick when we saw him hunting.
I went to the chiropractor and when I got out of the car I was greeted by these two ducks that were hanging out on the sidewalk. I had never seen them before but I am guessing they are local residents because they had a food and water bowl our for them.
But, the big surprise of a new animal we saw the other day was on our way to Emilee’s softball practice. We were passing a field with a bunch of donkeys in it and Emilee noticed one of the donkeys looked a little different. We don’t know how this guy made it to Olathe Kansas but we hope he is enjoying life with his donkey friends.
Emilee had her first school dance. Her middle school has a dance for the 7th and 8th graders in the winter each year. She looked beautiful and is growing up way to fast. She picked out her dress, she wanted it to be purple and she decided how she wanted her hair to be done. She originally thought a bun but changed her mind and went with curls, half up, half down. She went with a group of her girl friends. A few of them came over to our house to take pictures before and then arrive together at the dance. Emilee said she wanted to go in her dads car so she could arrive at the dance and have ‘drip’. I am not sure I said that correctly. But we took her and her friends to the dance and we had the song “Shut Up and Dance” blaring on the speakers when we arrived and they made their grand entrance. They had to run because there was a blizzard happening and it was a freezing 15 degrees at the time but it was still a grand entrance. It was pretty stinking cute. They all had a fun time. Emilee said they danced a lot and they had good snacks to eat.
Here we go! A new year of experiences, growing, changing, learning, and memories to add to our lives.
Emilee went to Arkansas for the last part of 2025 and spent a few days with her cousin Lizzy. They had a great time and loved getting to be together. She was with them for New Year Eve and we picked her up New Year Day. We hadn’t opened presents yet so when she got home we opened some with her. Our family pajama pants this year were Dr. Pepper pants. Some of us are very big fans of Dr. Pepper. And speaking of things that people are big fans of, Emilee is also a big fan of Bluey…the cartoon for preschool kids…but there is apparently a big following of middle school kids that love it too. She got a pair of Bluey pajama pants for Christmas and she got her dad a pair for Christmas so we had to get that on camera.
A few days after the New Year it was warm enough to practice shooting her bow so we went outside and used the new target she got for Christmas.
Matthew is now in his Black Out Year. It is a term missionaries use for the year of their mission that they are gone from home for the whole 365 days of the year. The crappy part of that is the definition I just gave you. The silver lining is when it is done it will be just a few more months until he comes home. He is doing really well. His Portuguese gets better everyday and he is learning and growing a lot. We are proud of him and excited for the opportunities he is having. He is missed a lot. We went to dinner the other night at Costa Vida where he used to work. He called us while we were there and talked to some of the people he used to work with which he thought was awesome. On the way there we made this video for him so he could hear one of his favorite songs and see some of the Kansas sunset. Allison was in the car with us but didn’t want to be in the video.
Allison is working hard at wrestling. She is doing early morning practices and spends most of her weekends at meets. The most recent meet at Blue Valley North West she took 3rd place. Here is a video of her at a match in Topeka.
Emilee is still doing her weekly riding lesson. She moved to a new barn this year. She is getting pretty good and comfortable on a horse. It is fun to watch her.
