Our Christmas was a little different this year. Things had to be moved around and done in a different order or way than we had planned. It wasn’t very merry. But we all love and care for each other and we are all working on things that will hopefully help us have a more Merry Christmas next year.
Matthew is going to have to go through these pictures and label them with names and places when he gets home. He tells me about them when we talk on the phone but by the time I get the picture downloaded and on here, it is hard to remember all the details. These are more pictures of his time in Escada. The Bishop and his wife are really good at taking care of them it sounds like. They make sure they are fed each day. On Christmas and New Year Eve day they went to the Bishops. For Christmas Eve they went to another members house for a celebration. It looks like a beautiful area. They have Cana (I believe that is what he calls it) here. It is pure sugar water squeezed from sugar cane. Matthew-our soda addicted child- loves it and likes to stress me out by telling me it is healthy because it is ‘natural’ and even better than soda while he drinks a 24 ounce glass of it for dinner. I told him it is like getting hit by a truck or a car, it doesn’t really matter, neither is good for you.
We got to video call with him a lot on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Years Eve and Day. That was nice. I think he was a little lonely and home sick so I am glad he could spend a part of his day talking with us. Since he is three hours ahead of us we actually got to celebrate midnight with him on New Years. He watched a lot of fireworks from his apartment. They live on the third floor so they had a good view. Time zones are a weird thing. For three hours, he was not just three hours ahead of us he was in a different year than us. Isn’t that crazy?!
Matthew said there was a mini Zone Conference they went to in Recife this week. The current Mission President- President Martins and his wife will be done in July. The new President and a member of the seventy came to this meeting to introduce themselves and see some of the mission.
We are lucky to have a pretty good view of the sunrise and sunsets from our house. They are beautiful the whole year but this time of year seems to be extra vibrant and colorful. I came upstairs the other day and the whole upstairs floor of our house was a pretty pink color. I went outside and watched a gorgeous sunset. The pictures have a little more orange look to them, it was actually more pink, but they are still pretty.
This is a sunrise picture I took when I left for work. It gave everything a purple tinge. My camera doesn’t do it justice.
Allison had a meet for wrestling in Basehor. This wasn’t her best meet as far as winning her matches but I am impressed with her dedication to wrestling and how much time and effort she puts into it. It is fun to watch her and cheer her on.
I love Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. I have several books of them. Every few years I come across them and decide to read them again. I did that about a week ago. This one makes me laugh, and I remember reading it with Matthew when he was 6-7 and he thought it was hilarious too. I sent him a picture of it in his missionary photo album that our family has for him.
Emilee is still doing her riding lessons once a week. She is getting pretty good. She is still doing English riding style and does 1-1 1/2 foot jumps. I don’t know a lot about riding but I have been watching her enough to be able to tell who can ride a horse and who is sitting on a horse bouncing around. Emilee definitely looks like she is confident and knows how to work with the horse.
Since it is close to the end of the year my phone is putting collages together and showing me ‘a year in review’ or ‘people over the years’. It showed me this one of Allison and I thought it was pretty cute. She is a funny, sweet, fierce girl. I sure do love her.
Emilee has a Bluey (kids cartoon) shirt that she got this year and wears to school. It is a little bit of a thing for middle school and high school kids to wear/have items that are kids cartoon stuff. Allison has a Barbie lunch box, and Emilee likes Bluey. Matthew teases them both and gives them a hard time about it. We were Christmas shopping and Emilee found a big Bluey stuffed animal. She sent Matthew a picture and told him it would be on his bed for him when he got home.
This might be the last year I get a cute decorated Christmas list from Emilee, my other two already don’t do it anymore. So here is the list she gave me. My kids know they don’t get everything on their list but I like to have lots of ideas. They also know I don’t give living gifts but they still put them on their lists sometimes.
The second area Matthew went for his mission is Escada. We haven’t spoken to him since he got there but he posted a few pictures. It is about 3-4 hours from Recife, much closer than the 11 hours Salgueiro was. It will be more humid but in the 80’s most of the time, not 100+. I don’t know his new companion’s name yet, but I know he is Brazilian and doesn’t speak any English.
Right before he transferred to his new area he went to a Christmas celebration in Recife. Lots of missionaries came to have a fun day together. They played basketball, soccer, socialized, and ate lots of good food. Matthew said they did a little shopping and even listened to ‘non churchy’ Christmas music. Matthew loves music-including church music- they are not supposed to listen to anything besides approved church music. Not listening to his music has been hard for him, he has mentioned several times that he misses it a lot. When I hear music that I know he liked it reminds me of him singing it when he was home and it makes me miss him a lot too. I appreciate his mission president and his wife making a big effort to make a special day for them. This is Matthew’s first Christmas away from home (a lot of the missionaries first Christmas away). I am glad that they have a chance to have fun and enjoy the Christmas season together.
The second day of his trip to Recife they all went to the Recife temple together. Matthew hadn’t been to that temple yet. He said it was really beautiful. Whenever they get all the missionaries together they hand out any packages that have come since the last time they were together. We mailed one to Matthew with a private courier for Christmas…it wasn’t there. We found out a week later that it got taken to Sao Paulo (a four hour plane ride south) and is there with two other peoples Christmas packages. So frustrating. It seems like things not working the way they are supposed to happens a lot lately. At least it has been found and hopefully will make its way to Matthew at some point. He loved getting together with all the missionaries and seeing friends he made at the MTC. He loves the organized sports, he misses that a lot too.
Allison’s wrestling season has started! Her first tournament was the Spring Hill Invitational. She did awesome! She took 2nd place for the varsity 135 weight. She was disappointed that she didn’t win but she looked really good. I could already see improvement from last year. Ryan and I enjoy watching her.
Her first dual was against Pittsburg. She did great at that one too. I don’t watch her wrestle through the camera because I want to see it in real life so sometimes my camera doesn’t follow her like I think I am . I was also sitting pretty close so I had to move the camera a lot more to keep her in frame.
Her second tournament was in Douglas Kansas which is a few hours away. It was during the week so Ryan and I weren’t able to go. She won her first match and then lost her second and third. Maybe her dad and I are better luck than she thinks we are. 😜 Hopefully we won’t miss any more meets this season. She is hoping to make it to State this year. She is putting in the work, hopefully it pays off!
Matthew stayed in Salgueiro for two transfers. That is 12 weeks. He seemed to like it a lot and enjoyed his time there. He got there in September and left about mid December. That is the hot season for Salguerio, it is a dry heat and was above 100 most of the days he was there. He didn’t have any air conditioning the first half, then they had a room unit installed and they had air conditioning in their bedroom the last half. He baptized a young man named Enzo and a few of his friends and were teaching his mom when he left. These are the last of the few pictures Matthew sent of Salgueiro before he left.
The week between Christmas and New Years day it very unique. I love it. Ryan and I usually take it off and of course the kids are out of school. There is no structure. You bounce back and forth between constructive activities, and wasting time. There is no time. You don’t know what day it is. It doesn’t matter because there is no schedule, no demands. If there is something scheduled it most likely will be forgotten. Sometimes you go to bed at 8pm. Sometimes it is 2am. Sometimes you shower and get dressed for the day, sometimes you don’t. I get to be my true introvert self and rarely leave the house. A lack of a plan is the plan. We love it.
We had lots of relaxing, family time activities. The Bourne’s were at Grandma’s all week so my girls spent most of their days playing with them. The weather wasn’t to bad so they even went to the park a few times and got to be outside. I took them to the church one afternoon to play in the gym and draw on the giant chalk boards.
Grandpa Terry, Emilee and Jovee all gave talks on Sunday. We had a family dinner with everyone at our house afterwards to celebrate getting to go to three sacraments. Lots of games were played and football was watched. I caught Ryan getting a little extra snuggle time in with Emilee while he explained something about football rules to her.
Becky invited me to go to a paint class with her so we filled one of our afternoons painting a winter sunset scene. I really like painting. I never know what to do with it when I’m done, it is not good enough to hang up anywhere. It is a fun thing to do and I like learning the techniques and creating things.
Ryan and I worked on some projects together. He made some awesome shelves for my holiday decoration boxes. I can now take one at a time out without having to restack or take other boxes out of the way. I LOVE IT. I went through all my decorations and storage stuff and organized it and cleaned it out. So satisfying. We got a new security system that Ryan installed too. We live far enough away from people that there aren’t that many people but not far enough that I don’t think a weirdo wouldn’t wander by. Ryan got a dart board for Christmas so we hung that up and put a frame around it to help protect the wall a little from wayward darts.
We celebrated New Years Eve at our house with all the Terry Family. We had lots of food and yummy treats. We watched movies, played games, ate and visited while we passed the time away until midnight. I made a balloon drop with confetti for the kids to pull down when we got to midnight.
https://youtu.be/v5mnrlAsQ8E?list=PLBwkO01uWtw9DJu2WA-l0-1CZ6EuoK5Kl
It was a fun night to celebrate the last day of the year and the starting of a new one. It is pretty crazy to look back over a year and see and the things that happened and how things changed. It is weird how things change and don’t change at the same time. I think 2024 was good to us. We had some good times and made new memories together. No broken bones. I waited until 2025 had started before I typed that. We are not perfect but we are blessed and grateful for our good health and the comfortable lives we all have. There is a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world right now and we are mostly untouched by it. 2025 will bring a new chapter into our families lives. The foremost in my mind is Matthew will graduate and is planning on going on a mission and the dynamics of our family will shift from how we have known them for the last 18 years. For the last picture of this edition of my blog I thought I would put this picture. I wish I had one of our whole family doing this but this one will work. Ciao 2024
It was Ryan’s families year for Christmas. The Bourne’s came from Idaho and the Ross and Ryan families are already here. The Lee’s couldn’t make it.
Christmas Eve we spent most of the morning cooking a preparing the meal. We had ham and cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, jello salad, and Ryan smoked a brisket. It was all very delicious. We ate dinner around 4pm. After dinner and pie and cookies for dessert, the cousins continued to play and have fun together. Some of us watched a movie and played games or took a nap. When everyone was rested and not stuffed from dinner anymore we had a little family gathering. Emilee, Jovee and Tyler started us off by sharing a little thought they each wrote about what Christmas means to them and what some of their favorite parts about Christmas are. Then most of the grandkids shared some kind of talent. We had several piano numbers, a flute, a trumpet, dancing, and even a little acrobatics. Grandpa then gave us a Christmas message and we all had a family prayer together.
Later that night when we got back to our house we opened our Christmas Eve PJ’s and did any last minute wrapping and headed to bed.
Christmas morning we plan for 6:30am at the earliest to wake up for presents. The kids have the option to sleep in longer if they want but so far they have not taken us up on the offer. This year Allison woke us all up at 6:30 sharp with excited cheering that it was Christmas morning. The kids wait at the bottom of the stairs until we get into the living room and then they come up and we start opening presents.
Matthew got some golf clubs and a guitar. He pretty recently decided that he wants to learn the guitar. It isn’t the piano but I’ll take it. Allison wanted lots of clothes and some fancy head phones. Emilee wanted some lego sets to put together and she is currently collecting palm pals and had a list of those she wanted. I didn’t do a very good job of taking pictures this year. Here are the few I did remember to take. Last year we did a scavenger hunt for the kids for the family gifts. They seemed to like it so we did it again this year. The family gift was tickets for one of the Chiefs play off games in January. It will be a fun family event! I’ll post more about it after they go to the game.
After we opened presents and ate breakfast and chilled for a little bit, we went back over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We opened more presents there with them and then the Chiefs played at noon so everyone came over to our house to watch the game. We ate snacks and leftovers, played games and hung out together.
December was just lovely. It flew by really fast but it wasn’t chaotic and out of control with to much going on. It was perfect.
We made treats, did puzzles, listened to music, looked at lights, drank hot chocolate, did toys for tots and the giving tree, wrapped presents, watched Christmas movies, went to Christmas parties, celebrated with family and friends. It was an awesome month.
Allison had another wrestling match. It was an away meet so we didn’t go but someone recorded it for us. Spoiler alert-she wins! I finally figured out how to combine her videos so we can watch all her matches for a meet in one video.
https://youtu.be/IAO7dOd16K4?list=PLBwkO01uWtw9DJu2WA-l0-1CZ6EuoK5Kl
Ryan and I went on a brief overnight date to downtown Kansas City. He gets a free weekend night as a perk through his Hilton credit card so we usually use it in December. We went with our friends Dani and RJ. We booked a few reservations at some of the Christmas pop up places they have for appetizers, dinner, and dessert and had a nice relaxing night with lots of visiting.
Christmas was on a Wednesday this year. The kids finished school the Friday before and Ryan and I had our last day of work on Monday. Then we had the next week off to celebrate Christmas, New Years and enjoy being lazy, and getting things done around the house that we wanted to. Ryan built some shelves for all the decorations in our storage room. I haven’t taken down all the Christmas decorations yet so I will wait to take a picture when its all packed away and finished. He installed a new security system around our house. I was in my purging our house of things that we don’t need anymore and customizing/organizing a few areas. I did Ryan and my closet, the pantry, and the storage room- which like I said is now just waiting on the Christmas decorations. We played games with the kids and hung out. There is a touch of a sad note for me this year because it will be the last Christmas before our kids start leaving the house and we start tip toeing into a new era in our lives. That is another reason I really wanted to soak everything in as much as possible.
I am just putting a little ‘good job’ note in here for me. On December 12, 2024 I got all the way caught up on my blog. I have been several months behind at any given point for the last year or two. Woohoo!
For part of our church Christmas party this year the youth were asked to do some kind of performance. One of the leaders came up with a shadow nativity. They basically act out the life of Christ to a song called Halleluiah behind a screen with a bright light so you can just see their shadows. It is about a 5 minute long song, so it is short but very sweet and touching. Emilee was willing to do it since no one could actually see her and there were no speaking parts. She was actually put in charge of turning the lights on and off when they needed it and thought that was perfect. Allison is living at the school gym for wrestling right now so she didn’t have time. Matthew said, “No thanks.” The leader in charge texted me and asked if I thought Matthew would be able to participate. I told her he would love to and let Matthew know that he was voluntold to do it. They went to the first practice and when they came home I anticipated a little push back from Matthew for making him do it. Instead I got a play by play of the rehearsal as he speed acted/sang through the song and all his parts. The reason the leader had asked for him specifically is because she wanted him to play the adult Jesus because he is older and able to be more mature and reverent than other boys that were participating. Matthew ate that up and was all in. It reminded me of the time I signed him up for a summer play of The Greatest Showman. He was not happy and protested the whole way to the first practice. Then I didn’t hear much protesting after that and he said it was going pretty well. When we went to the performance he was literally swinging from the ceiling on rope ribbons while he sang his little heart out. He definitely has a drama side to him, he just doesn’t let it out very often. It was cute to see him be excited about it. Campbell caught wind of it and said she was coming to watch and she told Ramey and he came to watch. Matt did a great job and Emilee nailed the lights.
I recorded it…I must have been holding my phone upside down though because it is sideways and I can’t get it to straighten. Add it to my list of mom fails. 🤦♀️ Just turn your head to the side while you watch it.
Shorty after we had Matthew and were living in Wichita, Ryan surprised me with a piano for my birthday. This is the awesome piano I have had for the last 18 years. It has been a great piano and I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing it. We moved it to four different houses with us and every time the movers told us it was the heaviest piano they had ever moved.
When we were building our new house, I decided that at some point I wanted to get a baby grand piano and planned for a spot for it in our living room. Nay Sayers-like my husband (and specific friends he asked because he knew they would agree with him) said it wouldn’t fit or it would look weird. I ignored them because I knew they were wrong and it would look beautiful. I didn’t know for sure when I would get one but it was on the list. I went and looked at pianos a few times and met a nice guy named Blair at one of the piano stores that kept an eye out for what I was looking for and would send me some options every now and then. A few weeks ago he sent me one that really caught my eye so Ryan and I went over to look at it. It was lovely and I liked it but I didn’t get it. I did however, see another one while I was there that I really liked and I ended up getting it instead. We bought it and a few days later it was delivered and was my early Christmas present. AND I LOVE IT!! It fits perfectly and doesn’t look weird at all. It is so pretty and all my kids and Ryan have said they will start playing again or want to learn at least one song. Will they?? …probably not. But it is so pretty they wish they could play it. 😂🎶 I can play it! And I love to play it! John Cazier helped me break it in and my sister and mom over Thanksgiving too. I’m excited to play it for years like I did my last one.
I have been so excited to decorate for Christmas this year! I wanted to put everything up early but since I was hosting Thanksgiving I thought I should keep my Thanksgiving stuff up at least until then. I did put my outside lights up and my tree without decorations on it early. It has been two years since we have had our decorations up. I forgot what some of them were! Two years ago we had just moved into our rental and only had room for a few things. Last year we moved in to our new house two days before Christmas so I put our tree up and that was about it. This year is was a little like Christmas opening up all the boxes to remember what I had. It was very fun to get it all up. The kids and Ryan were excited too. It feels nice and Christmassy around here now. We were in our last house for 7 years so I had a spot for everything. I have a few things that don’t work anymore or some areas that I don’t have the right decoration but I will tweak it a little each year and eventually it will all pull together. My goal this year was to get a bigger tree. We went from 7 1/2 feet to 12 feet. It is big! I love a beautiful tree but don’t love the setting up. I might get a little tired of setting it up every year, but I think it fills the space pretty good. I also got the garland for the stairs. Allison had a really cute idea to put ribbon on the kitchen cupboard doors with a bow so it looks like presents. I thought it turned out pretty cute! Ryan and I attempted to do the lights ourselves this year. He even crawled up on the roof for our tall front porch. The smaller eve next to it had a 30 foot drop off the one side so we decided it wasn’t worth the risk of our lives and ability to move all our limbs. I ordered a grinch and stuck him in the yard to make it look like he was stealing our lights, then we didn’t have to put them on that eve. Next year we need to get some bigger lights I think…and see about finding someone else to install them.
We spent the week between Christmas and New Years continuing to get settled into our new house. Ryan had most of the week off so it was nice to hangout around the house and relax while we got stuff done. Sleeping in until you want to is a luxury I will never get tired of.
It was relaxing but I was anxious to get the house mostly unpacked and organized. I tend to have tunnel vision when I have something I need to get taken care of so that was my main focus. New Year’s Eve was on a Sunday so there wasn’t a lot going on. Ryan and girls decided to go to Arkansas and spend the weekend. The Torgerson’s are good about having family get togethers and celebrating together. They went to Jen and Dave’s house and had a good time. Matthew and I stayed home and had a low key holiday. We all loved it and had a great New Year.
We found a few bugs that had to be worked out in our house too the first few weeks we were in it. Almost every system in the house had a few kinks. The electricians had to come rewire and change a few things. Our furnace intake was ‘to open’ so it kept getting snow in it and then it wouldn’t turn on. This of course happened when it was a mere -10 degrees outside for a week. One of our tanks for the septic system was cracked when they backfilled so it was filling with water which made the pump run 24/7 which caused it to burn out so the alarm alerting us our system was full went off. I felt bad for the company that had to come fix it. The timing couldn’t have been worse. The weather was cold and rainy and it was a giant mud hole they had to dig in to get the broken one out and put a new one in. Not to mention it was the sewer system. Shortly after that we had a leak downstairs from the bathtub upstairs. Our builders took care of it all and there is still a list of small fix it items to do but overall everything is good. We are really glad we have at least a year warranty on all the work for the house too!
The beginning of 2023 we had recently moved into our rental and by the hair of our chins we moved in at the end of 2023 so we could get settled and start making new memories and adventures in our new house. Happy New Year!!
Our December this year was busy as usual but a different than our usual December. Starting with our Christmas decorations. I come from a family where several of the women love to get their Christmas trees out and set up early. My Grandma June has been known to leave her tree up year round more often then not. Sometimes she changes the decorations for each holiday, sometimes she just leaves it Christmas all year. When we were younger my mom didn’t put our tree up as early but now she usually has a small one if not the full tree up by October at the latest. My sister Sherri usually has hers up by September. I have my tree up by the Friday after Thanksgiving at the latest. Usually a week or two into November I get the itch and put it up. This year, since we didn’t know for sure when we were moving we decided to not get any decorations out in out rental and just wait until we were in our new house. When we missed the November 1st move in dead line by the time Thanksgiving was approaching I pestered our builders pretty hard for a move in date. They finally said their goal was to be “done” with the house by Thanksgiving and then have a few weeks to go through and catch anything they needed to fix or change and the week of December 18th would be a good move in week. Thanksgiving came and went and the house was close but not quite what I would call “done”. The builders hadn’t said anything about moving the date up or back so I decided to tell them that I had scheduled movers for Dec 20th. They never really agreed but they said ok. We packed up the rental and got things ready to go with no Christmas decorations…it was a little bit gloomy I must admit. Decorations really add to the festivities and atmosphere. There were still Christmas parties and church school activities to help it feel like Christmas though!
Emilee’s class took a field trip to downtown to see some of the choirs singing at Union Station. She asked her dad if he would be a chaperon on her field trip and was pretty excited when he said he would love too! They watched the choirs and then broke into small groups and got to do a little Christmas shopping and eat lunch. Emilee had a great time and loved that her dad was there.
Allison has been doing some babysitting lately and finds it to be quite lucrative. She is incredible at it too. I was a boring babysitter, I didn’t really love doing it and I preferred the kids to entertain themselves while I supervised. Allison has awesome activities and games planned and makes a fun evening of it for the kids. She makes scavenger hunts, seems to have an endless supply of balloons, and gives them lots of attention. She watches a friend of ours son named Ethan with Emilee a lot and every time we come home they have new fun ideas that Allison has come up to do with them. This picture is one of the crafts she did with them sometime in December. These were little pictures them made. There was also giant almost life size gingerbread cookies hanging on the wall that they had made of themselves.
Emilee sang her very last time in Sacrament as a primary kid. She will be in Young Women’s after the New Year. I will have no more kids in primary!! That is so crazy! Allison snuck a picture of her singing for me. Her and Reese are inseparable.
Allison started her gymnastic season in December. She has decided that she wants to focus on weightlifting and wrestling so she is going to finish this Meet season for gymnastics then take a break. She has done a great job in gymnastics and always works hard at keeping her flexibility and learning her routines. We like watching her perform her events. Here are a few links to some of her best ones so far, in my opinion. Also some pictures from different meets she has done so far this season.
https://youtu.be/MB0es-oSbDQ (Allison Bar Routine)
https://youtu.be/kedxhCSiRQA (Allison Floor Routine)
As the day to move into our house arrived we weren’t sure it was going to happen until the actual day we moved. You never know with builders. In my limited experience they will never say when they will be done. They have to have a hard deadline and they will push it up to the second of that deadline. This time they made the dead line though! I told them we were moving in on December 20th but I actually didn’t schedule the movers until the 23rd. From the 20th-23rd we brought as much of our stuff over as we could that we didn’t want to box up. Lots of car loads. We got a lot of stuff taken over. There was pretty much just furniture for the movers when they came on the 23rd. The kids helped a lot and Matthew even recruited a few friends to help him load his car and take over a few loads. The first thing I took over was the Christmas tree and I set it up right away with a few decorations. I wasn’t going to have our first Christmas in our house with no decorations. It immediately felt like Christmas. That and the Christmas music made it a great time for moving.
Just to keep things extra exciting and as busy as possible on the 22nd of December Matthew had to have another procedure done on his arm to help get more of his mobility back. They had to put him to sleep but they were able to do what they needed without cutting him open again so he was able to recover a lot quicker then his initial surgery. We were worried he would have a pretty crappy Christmas break but other than a day or two afterwards he felt pretty good and was able to do the things he normally would have.
We used the same movers that moved us into the rental to move us out. They showed up at 9am Saturday and were supposed to be done around 1-2pm but for some reason they decided to bring a smaller truck this time then they did the first time…so when the truck they brought was about half full they realized it was not going to fit everything and they were going to have to do two trips. That made an already long day a little longer but they finished about 6pm and we had all of our stuff in our new home!! We got beds set up for everyone and spent the first night in our new house on December 23,2023. A week shy of two years from the day we bought the land and decided to build.
The next morning we all woke up refreshed and ready for Christmas Eve. We were actually pretty tired from working nonstop for three days to get everything done but we were very happy to be in our home. It was Sunday so we went to church and enjoyed the sacrament program. The Christmas program is one of my favorite weeks at church. There was beautiful music and great talks and thoughts shared. We came home and spend the rest of the day settling into our house, playing games and making Christmas treats. It was a Jones year for Christmas but my family usually doesn’t travel at Christmas because we are all spread out and no one wants to deal with the weather. Grandma and Grandpa Terry came over and joined us for a Christmas Eve dinner of pizza, salad, sparkling grape juice with Christmas Crunch and rolo pretzels for dessert. We same some Christmas songs, read the Christmas story from Luke in the Bible and watched a Christmas movie together. I usually like to have 95% of my shopping done by December 1st and then have it wrapped early in December but that didn’t happen this year because we didn’t have a lot of places to put things and I didn’t want things to get lost so for the first time in my life I had nothing wrapped on Christmas Eve. Ryan and I did it when everyone went to bed. It was fine we got it all done and weren’t up as late as I expected but I prefer my usual method. It is a lot more relaxing. I was pretty stressed that I would fall asleep and forget to do it before Christmas Day.
Christmas Day was a great day. The kids were debating on what time we should all get up. Some of them argued that we should sleep in but in the end the usual wake up time of 6:30 decided on. We opened gifts from Santa and each other and family and then the last gift I opened was the start of a scavenger hunt for the kids for some family gifts from Ryan and I. We were excited with how excited they got about the scavenger hunt. Even Matthew was into it. They figured the clues out pretty quickly and found a family game, a punching bag, and a ping pong table. After the scavenger hunt it was time for breakfast and then relaxing and spending the day assembling gifts and hanging out. Later in the day we went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s to see how their Christmas morning went. Yeah, it was a great day. I love Christmas and I love that we just get to relax and hang out together and not have to do work and other things.
https://youtube.com/shorts/0Ww2OcD-PJc (Christmas morning 2023)
Ryan worked a little bit through the next week until New Year’s but the kids and I were out of school and work. It was great to get to catch up on things I had gotten behind on and get settled into the house and not have all the normal stuff to do as well. We got a little dusting of snow a few of the days.
As most Decembers are, ours was pretty busy. I did a poor job of documenting it with photos. I can still write about it.
We did a lot of our usual traditions. We drove around and looked at lights while listening to Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate.
We did some service-this year most of us were able to help with the local Christmas Bureau. They set up a giant store basically for people that need a little extra help and then they can come shop at the store- but it doesn’t cost money. We helped man the store while people were shopping and take it down and store everything left when it was over. Allison enjoyed helping people pick out a coat if they needed one.
Ryan and I went to a White Elephant party. All of us went to the ward Christmas party. It was a lot of fun. Yummy food, good music, lots of visiting. There was a photo area and we had full intentions of taking a family photo but we couldn’t locate all of us at the same time to take it and missed our chance. Matthew got one with his buddies though.
I didn’t think about leaving out some puzzles from storage for Christmas. We usually have a puzzle out to work on most of December. We were able to borrow a few from Grandma and we got a new one to work on too. Lots of Christmas music, hot chocolate, Christmas movies, wrapping, buying, gifting. We decorated a ginger bread house. We made and decorated sugar cookies. Our elf Bubbit sent his cousin and reindeer so we found them each morning too. It was a nice month, I think we all enjoyed the family time and celebrating Christmas together.
Christmas Eve was supposed to be at Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s house with a big dinner and then reading the story together, singing, and hanging out while we played games. Becky and her family came from Idaho and brought Covid and RSV with them so we stayed away for a few days. So we ended up doing all the things I said but we did them with just our family at Ross and Lauren’s house. We did go over later on Christmas day and we had a family dinner the day after Christmas with everyone.
Christmas Day we were up and ready to open presents by seven. We opened everything and had breakfast and checked out our new gifts. Emilee got her roller skates, Allison got lots and lots of squishmallows, and Matthew got his air soft gun. Then we went to church. It was just sacrament meeting and it was a really nice service. There was lots of music which I love. Then we had a the rest of the day to eat junk food and play with the new toys and games.
Between Christmas and New Years we had an artic wind blow in. It was -5 degrees for about a week. Gross. We played with cousins a lot. Emilee really wanted to see the new movie called Puss and Boots so we all went to that together. We went to Urban Air one day and let the kids all get their energy out on the trampolines. My sister Sherri and her family came to visit about mid week. We found some space to squeeze them in while they were here. Matthew moved to the basement. He had snacks, a fridge and a TV down there so we didn’t see him to often. One day was warm enough we went to the park down the street to play. We caught up on the movies we hadn’t had a chance to see. Sherri and I got our nails done and went shopping together. It was a fun visit.
For New Years Eve Sherri and I got some things to play some games with the kids. Ryan made some BBQ and we had lots of snacks to munch on. We played the games we did and then the kids played while we watched a movie. When it was almost midnight we busted out the glow sticks and celebrated the new year. Matthew is now old enough to go out with his own friends and do his own thing so we didn’t get to enjoy his company New Years Eve. He went to a Stake Dance with his friends, then to Twisted Sugar to eat to much sugar, then to Campbell’s house to finish the evening.
2022 was a pretty good year- hopefully we keep that trend going in 2023.
It is always a little crazy to look back over the past year and realize how much happened in a year. Some of it we expected some of it we didn’t. The highlights for me are usually the trips and family events we do. Ryan and I had our 20th anniversary trip to Europe. We decided to buy a lot and build a house. We went to Branson a few times, one of them a Terry family reunion with boating and Silver Dollar City. A sister trip to Texas. Countless activities with the kids- gymnastic meets, wrestling matches, horse riding lessons, baseball games, concerts. The kids all spent some time in Florida with Grandma and Grandpa Jones. I went to Utah for my Grandma’s funeral. Then we decided to sell the house and move into a rental while they build our new one. It was quite a year. I am grateful we were able to do all those things and more. We are very blessed.
We got to go watch Allison play her cello in the school concert before Christmas. This is the second year she has played and she is pretty good. Imagine how good she would be if she practiced!! It was nice to hear her play. Grandma and Grandpa were able to come watch too. Enjoy!
Our Elf Bubbit usually shows up around the 10th of December. This week Emilee found a letter from him hiding in one of the stockings. It looks like we will have some antics from his cousin this year and a visit from his Hershey Kiss Pooping Reindeer.
Ryan has been working at his company now for almost 11 years. He is the first employee they hired and him and the two owners have now grown to 40 employees. For the past year he has been expanding his role and wearing two hats. He has done his regular job in business development but has been helping new business development people learn their roles and the business. The owner and him have been working out the details for a bit and last week he made it official and made Ryan the VP of Business Development! He has several jobs that he is going to finish he has already gotten started but then he will transition to the new position full time. He is pretty excited about it. I am proud of his hard work and his drive to improve and develop his career and provide for his family. He is a good man, I am a lucky lady. He took Allison Christmas shopping this afternoon and went hitting with Matthew at the batting cages. He tickled and wrestled around with Emilee and took me out on a date last night after the ward Christmas party. I love that he loves his family and purposefully spends time with us together and individually. I know he enjoys his job but has been stressed and extra busy at work the past few months. He leaves it at the door when he gets home and lets all of us know he loves us and likes to be with us and spend time with us. I have been feeling extra appreciative of him lately.
This photo popped up in Ryan’s phone the other day. This is from 3 years ago. Emilee would be 6 and Matthew would be 12. Probably a school fundraiser night at Culver’s.
That’s it for 2021! Bring on 2022!
After a relaxing at home after Christmas, it was time for another party! Our friends the Beashore’s invited us over to celebrate the New Year with them. We ate lots of pizza and snacks for dinner. The rest of the evening was spent playing games and visiting.
They taught us a fun game they play every New Years Eve called Saran Wrap. I actually don’t know what they call it but that is what I am calling it. The kids all get in a line around the table oldest to youngest. The youngest gets to start with the ball. The ball is a bunch of little candies, gum, giftcards, coins, cash, anything you want rolled up in the saran wrap every few feet. When you start the person with the ball unwraps as fast as they can while the next person is rolling a dice. If they roll a three or a six they ball is passed to them. Anything you unwrap you get to keep. As soon as the ball is passed the next person starts rolling the dice and the new person unwraps. It keeps going until it is completely unwrapped. Then you can trade or bargain or keep whatever you got when you are done. It was a fun idea. I am sure our kids will want to carry it on next year and make it a tradition of ours too.
The other games we played were Taboo, ping pong, pop a shot, darts, occulus games, and dancing and boxing games on the play station. At midnight we cheered and lit off a few fireworks and confetti canons. It was a fun evening.
On our way home we saw that Grandpa and Grandma’s lights were still on so we stopped for a few minutes to say hi and tell them happy new years. Then we went home and went to bed!!
One of the gifts that our family got was a game called, Awkward Family Photos. We have played it a few times and it has some pretty funny pictures.
The Sunday after Christmas, Dad wanted to take a family photo of everyone before we changed out of our church clothes. It quickly evolved into taking our own awkward family photos. The first picture is the only one we didn’t intend to be awkward.
Countless times throughout the year anyone of our children is known to sleep through their alarm, purposefully not set an alarm, or have to be dragged from their bed kicking and screaming that they are tired and don’t want to wake up for one reason or another.
However, for the last ten years without fail or deviation of even one minute on Christmas morning, without an alarm, they all pop up like daisies at the predetermined earliest allowed to wake up time of 6:30am. Let that be an example of what the human brain can do with the right motivation.
This year was no different, they all woke up and then came in to get Ryan and I. Grandma and Grandpa Terry also came over to open presents with us at 6:30. Once the adults are in the living room and ready with their cameras the kids can come down and see the presents and stockings from Santa. Stockings are fair game and anything found in them can be immediately opened or eaten. Once everyone has had a few minutes to look through their stocking we take turn opening Santa presents one at a time. Once those are opened everyone starts opening presents at the same time. The wrapping paper goes in a general large pile and occasionally someone will take a break from unwrapping and stuff it in a trash bag. If Grandpa is there and you need a knife or scissors he loves to whip the one out of his pocket he carries with him at all times. If Grandpa isn’t present Ryan will whip out his pocket knife that he carries one day a year for a few hours on Christmas morning.
It was a very happy, blessed, fun Christmas morning for everyone this year. Once everything was opened we started breakfast. This years options were a breakfast casserole or all the favorite high sugar cold cereals. Grandma and Grandpa stayed a few more hours while we checked out our new stuff, did puzzles, watched a movie, listened to Christmas music, took a nap, or enjoyed relaxing.
We were on our own for Christmas this year. My family did our Christmas get together in October in Florida. Ryan’s family was spending it with the other half of their families.
Roger and Rhonda were planning on going to Texas but then changed their minds and stayed here. We invited them and the McDonald family over. We have done Christmas with them before and it has been a few years.
We decided to go and see the new spider man movie in the theatre. Emilee didn’t want to go so she hung out with Grandma. Matthew and Allison invited Campbell and Caylin. It was 40 minutes late starting because there were projector issues but once that got figured out we all enjoyed the movie.
We had a yummy ham dinner together. Ryan smoked the ham, Rhonda and Roger made the rolls, I did potatoes, corn and green bean casserole, and Lori brought coconut cream pie. It was a delicious festive dinner.
We sang some Christmas songs together, read and acted out the Christmas story, Emilee read a book, and there were several piano, cello, and clarinet musical numbers played. It was a great evening with friends and family. After we were all done hanging out and visiting everyone went home we opened our matching pajamas and took our Christmas eve family picture. Then we hurried off to bed so Santa could come!
It was a very wonderful day. I love Christmas time. The Christmas Spirit permeates everything and everyone is happier and friendlier and you take the time to appreciate family and friends. I am grateful for the birth of the Savior and His life. It isn’t just a nice story. He is real. I know because of Him and what he did for each of us we can have eternal families and be together forever. I am grateful for the atonement to repent and improve ourselves. I am grateful for my family, and the very blessed life we have and all the amazing friends and family we have in our lives.
December was a fun, busy, wonderful month! We usually put our decorations up the day after Thanksgiving but I did it right after Halloween this year- and I don’t regret it! 😁 We paused the Christmas festivities and were thankful and grateful at Thanksgiving then we were right back to the Christmas spirit!
We tried to focus on service this month so we did something each weekend to do service. We brought Grandpa along with us as much as we could.
The first week we did The Giving Machine at Crown Center. Each Christmas season our church does a #LightTheWorld. They have a few vending machines called Giving Machines that they have in a few places around the country. You can go and punch the number in for the item you want and just like a vending machine it drops the card to the bottom but instead of taking something you leave it there and they distribute whatever people donate to the different charities. There was local charities for food, clothes, and blankets or a safe place to stay. There were also world wide charities you could donate a chicken or water or things like that. This year we got to have a giving machine in Kansas City. They placed it in Crown Center, it is an area downtown that lots of people visit and do festive things for the holidays. We were all really excited to go and see it and pick a few things to donate. We did a few of the festivities while we were there too. We walked through the train and light exhibit, ate lunch at Spin City Pizza together, and some of us window shopped while the rest of us went ice skating. We of course visited the giving machine and donated some chickens, an acre of sweet potatoes, some food, blankets, and a goat. The kids loved it!
The other weekends we volunteered at the Johnson County Christmas Bureau. We were supposed to be there for 4 hours but we were only there for about 30 minutes and they told us they were done for the night. We told the kids it still counts for service and we will volunteer again next year and hopefully have better luck. We made a lot treats and then delivered them to friends and neighbors the following weekend. We also tried to volunteer at Harvesters food bank but they changed their age requirement to a minimum 16 years.
Allison had two gymnastic meets within the past month. One was here in Olathe, the other was in Columbia Missouri. We drove there and back in one day. She didn’t say this but I think she loved having a travel meet that took the entire day like her brother has travel for baseball sometimes. She did great at both meets. Her best event was the beam at our home meet and the bars at the Columbia meet-she nailed her kip. She also added a few back hand springs to her floor routine and did great at those too.
We did a lot of puzzles this month too. Something about Christmas makes me want to put puzzles together. If it is a Christmas puzzle even better! Matthew was my most frequent helper but everyone joined me at some point for a bit. We would watch a Christmas show, or listen to Christmas music and drink some hot chocolate while we puzzled away.
Allison had a Christmas concert for orchestra. She did great. I had a hard time getting a picture of her because she was behind another kid but it was a well done concert and they sounded great. Her favorite part was going to dinner with Caylin afterwards.
The French family was still with us for Christmas Eve. The Ross Terry family joined us and we had a New Year’s Eve party at our house. Matthew went and did his own thing with friends but returned just a few minutes after midnight and ended the night with us.
Ryan smoked some pizza’s for us, and we had way to many snacks and and treats to munch on. Allison put together some minute to win it games. We rotated through them all then the winner of each team challenged each other to win the final championship. Jovee put together a scavenger hunt that was boys versus girls. Leah put together a Jeopardy game for us to play. It was pretty fun and she did a great job at the questions. It was challenging for the adults and the kids. Before the adults played their own game and the kids did their own things we had a glow in the dark dance party. It was fun! I like dancing in the dark, you can dance however you want and enjoy yourself without worrying about looking like a goof ball. Most of the dads watched and cheered us on but everyone else got our glow in the dark dance moves on.
We all had sparkling cider and watched the ball drop in New York at midnight. A lot of crappy things happened in 2020 (pandemic, riots, earthquakes, fires, killer hornets so name a few) but it wasn’t all bad. There were a lot of good happy moments too and despite a global pandemic we were able to see most of our family between Thanksgiving and New Years. Nothing magically changed when it became 2021 at midnight but it is nice to have a new year to start fresh with and make the most of. Here’s to a great year in 2021!!
Christmas Eve was a big family dinner at the Terry Homestead (AKA Grandpa and Grandma Terry’s). The highlights of the meal for me were ham and rolls and corn and pies. We read the Christmas story and watched a new church video about the Nativity. We sang a few songs and the kids opened their new Christmas pajamas to sleep in.
We slept and woke up in our own home then returned to Grandma’s to open a few more presents with them. Ross made some coffee cake for breakfast (its actually cinnamon flavor not coffee, but it is meant to eat with coffee so it is called coffee cake). The rest of the day was spent playing with the new toys, eating left overs, and enjoying each others company.
In the past we had told the kids they couldn’t wake us up before 6:30. Every year without fail and the help of NO alarm clock they have woken up on the dot at 6:30 ready to open presents. We hadn’t reviewed this protocol with the kids the night before, everyone was pretty tired and we thought we would wake up when they did and let them sleep in a bit if they did. I woke up on my own at 6:25 and all was quiet. I laid in bed enjoying the morning coziness. (Have you ever noticed in the morning when it is time to get out of bed, all of the sudden your bed gets more warm and cozy?! It is like it is begging you to stay in it.) At 6:29 I was thinking maybe I could read a book or something for a bit but just like past years at 6:30 one of the kids popped up out of bed and all three of them were in our room dragging us out before the clock hit 6:31.
Allison got a new book case for her room that she wanted and a beam to practice her gymnastics on at home from Santa. She got some cute new clothes, and good smelling girly pampering things. Ryan and I were stumped on what to give her then decided to do an indoor skydiving experience for her. She was very thrilled.
Matthew got an xbox that can handle all his games and updates from Santa. He got a wallet and a few new sweatshirts. He debated for a while to ask Ryan and I for new air pods. In January of 2020 he bought his own with his own money and by March they were lost. He and I both searched the house and couldn’t find them and they haven’t turned up since. He said if he asked for them he knew his old ones would turn up but he decided to ask for new ones. That is what we gave him and when he opened them and the case with a clip so he didn’t lose them he was very happy and said “Watch, my lost ones will turn up within a week.” Fast forward about three days, we had everyone over at our house for dinner and games. Uncle Jake was in the study and when he stood up he felt something on the back of the couch. He found a pair of air pods. He showed Allison and she said they were Matthew’s. The next morning I found them on the counter and called Matthew to come take care of them and ask why they weren’t in his case with the clip. When he walks into the kitchen he is wearing his air pods in his ears, so the ones I was holding were the long lost air pods. So after looking for a year, three days after buying new ones, Jake found the original air pods and Matthew’s prediction of finding the old ones within a week came true. Aaaahhh! Allison and I are now sharing the old ones and Matthew has the new ones he got for Christmas.
Emilee got a new bike and a toy horse trailer from Santa. She was thrilled and rode it around the block many times despite the freezing cold temperatures. Ryan and I gave her several ‘little toys’ because she loves playing with little tiny objects. She was also hoping the family would get some virtual reality goggles to play games with and we did so she was very excited to try play with them too.
Ryan got some accessories for his smoker (and his smoker). I got a 9mm hand gun and a bunch of passes to the range. I take my conceal carry course in February.
The kids and I went to the store and they all did some shopping for each other and any friends or family they wanted to. Matthew got his girlfriend, Emilee, and me a present. Emilee got grandma a present. Allison got everyone that would be there Christmas morning a gift. She is a sweet girl and gift giving is one of her love languages. She lit up watching people open their gifts from her and they were all thoughtful gifts.
It was a fun magical day as Christmas is supposed to be.
The month of December went by very fast as usual. I used to have a list of things we did but then I started feeling like everything was a more stressful and we were just trying to cram everything in. I like for December to be open for whatever comes up and whatever we decide to do to enjoy the holiday season.
One of the things we decided on doing was the 12 days of Christmas for the sister missionaries in our ward. We found a nativity with twelve pieces and left them a piece every night with a scripture and then a small gift to go with it. It was fun and we often went to look at Christmas lights before or after we dropped of their gift. Some of the little gifts we gave them we saw them wearing at church like a head band, a Christmas mask, and a scarf. The girls thought that was great to have a secret. The missionaries were usually not home when we dropped off the items each night so that did take a little fun out of it. We didn’t have to worry about being caught. I also wonder if one or two of the gift was taken before they came home… it was still fun though. Another Sister in our ward put together a 12 days of Christmas for a family that recently lost their mom. We were able to get one of the days for that. When we dropped off our two turtle doves gift, they were home walking all around the house and even had the front door open with just the storm door closed, and a dog to help alert them to people coming up to the house. The kids loved staking the house out, making an approach plan and successfully leaving the gifts without being caught. Allison was decided on being the runner since Matthew was recently in his cast and couldn’t get anywhere fast. They lived close to a corner so we parked around the corner, Allison put the package on the porch, ding dong ditched them and ran faster than we have ever seen her run in her life. It was great fun.
We had several nights of making hot chocolate and taking it to drink in the car while we drove around and looked at Christmas lights and listened to Christmas music. I think we managed it without any arguing or melt downs this year, which is a FIRST. I think in general there were a lot more lights and decorations up this year, and earlier than usual as well. My opinion is that after all the crap of 2020 people wanted a little extra Christmas cheer. There were a lot more people driving around looking at lights as well. One neighborhood had a two hour wait to get into to see their lights.
We made neighbor and friend treats. Usually we do chocolate dipped pretzels but this year we made a box of whoppers look like a reindeer and put a poem on it that said it was reindeer droppings. I also sent out Christmas cards that the kids helped me address and mail.
Our house was decked out for Christmas, I loved reading a book with my hot chocolate by the fire place with all the Christmas lights on, we listened to Christmas music ALL the time and Allison and I played as much Christmas music on the piano as we could. We focused on having secret people within our family each week to do nice things for. My mom started that tradition in our family growing up. With each kind deed we put a straw in a manger to make soft for baby Jesus on Christmas.
Ryan decided that he wanted an electric smoker for Christmas. He also decided that he was going to have Santa deliver it early so he could practice smoking a few things before Christmas, then by Christmas he would be good enough to cook for the family when they all came.
We did our Christmas puzzle while watching Christmas movies. Christmas is a good time to do puzzles, also while drinking hot chocolate with the fireplace going.
Since we have been married we switch between the Terry family and the Jones family for Christmas and Thanksgiving. My family has switched to having a Christmas in July when it is easier and more fun to travel and having our get togethers then. This year was a Terry Christmas. Obviously Ross and Ryan already live here. Becky and her family came the week before, and Rachelle’s family decided to stay in Texas this year.
It was a very fun week before Christmas. We had lots of family dinners. Ryan tried his smoker many times and each time got better and better. The cousins had fun playing with each other all day everyday. Grandma handed out way to much candy. Ross baked and cooked all kinds of yummy food. Many board games were played, crafts were made, gatherings were had and movies were watched. I didn’t get nearly enough pictures.
A few days after Christmas my sister Sherri and her family joined the festivities. They love KC BBQ so we made sure we went to one of their favorites- Q39 for dinner one night. We also tried out the pizza oven in the smoker and had several good rounds of pizza. The week between Christmas and New Years had a good snow storm. We got about 4-5 inches of perfect packing snow. Aubry being a Florida native, was a little hesitant at first but once she got out in it spent as much time as she could in the snow. We had a couple snowmen, a wall for protection during snow ball fights, and Allison had a pretty legit igloo going before the snow started to melt. Ryan resurrected our Nintendo 64 and Sherri and I relived our glory days of playing Tetris Attack from decades ago. I can’t believe I am old enough to say ‘decades ago’. I won on occasion but Sherri pretty much kicked everyone’s butt. Matthew and Allison were very glad that video games have come a long ways since Nintendo 64 but still had fun playing the game.
We spent one of the afternoons at Dave and Buster’s with the French family. We all found a game or two that we were hooked on and spent our token allotment on. Ryan dropped balls into a hoop and won the jackpot, I liked a musical ping pong game, Allison loved the Deal or No Deal, Matthew liked the ship spinning wheel and hit a jack pot on it, and Emilee loved the motorcycle racing games. The French family was well rounded and helped all of us find our favorite games. When we were all done and turned our tickets in for prizes we had balls, stuffed animals, silly straws and a ridiculous amount of stupid candy. We followed it up with lunch at another favorite, a Mexican restaurant called K-machos.
Sherri and I were able to spend part of a day getting our nails done and doing some shopping. Neither one of us was interested in clothes shopping so we went to a makeup store, grabbed lunch and then stopped at Nothing Bundt Cakes for dessert.
I have some serious junk food habits to break and a lot of exercising to do after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.
There were a lot of other things that happened that I am not recalling at the moment, but the main thing I want to remember is it was a wonderful holiday season. With the exception of the Lee family we were able to have all of our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in our home at some point or another. There were a lot great memories and fun times had, meals shared and relationships grown. At some point or another when we were putting decorations away and taking down lights all the kids and Ryan and I talked about how much fun we had over the last few weeks and how awesome it was to see so much of our family. Not a bad ending for the year of social distancing.
I was making dinner and cooking something on the stove. I looked up and saw a little message for me on the microwave. Allison left it for me. Sweet girl. It made my day.
Last December when we went on a cruise with the kids for Christmas, Ryan booked a cruise for just the two of us for this December. When COVID hit in March we were not even concerned about it affecting our cruise. When school started we thought surely we would still be going on our cruise in December. The beginning of November we were told the cruise had been canceled. We rescheduled it for April 2021 and are hoping that will happen.
Even though our cruise was canceled, Ryan decided he still wanted to go on a trip for a few days with just the two of us. Ryan is awesome to vacation with. He takes care of everything. I really just have to show up. He arranges the travel, hotels, car if we need it and does the research to see what to do and where to eat. I love it. The best part of vacation for me is just being able to show up and not have to plan anything.
He came up with a train ride to St Louis. We were thinking of a few other locations but a lot of places are still pretty shut down with COVID so we went with St Louis. We have wanted to try a train ride and see if it is something the kids would enjoy. So Thursday morning we drove downtown to Union Station and got on our train. About six hours later we arrived in the St Louis Union Station. It was nice to be able to talk and walk around and not have to be driving ourselves. It is a lot like a plane but more space and less restrictive on moving around. We stayed at the Hilton Union Station Hotel. It was a pretty awesome giant old stone building. Lots of cool architecture. They had it decorated gorgeous for Christmas and in the evenings they had laser light shows about every 30 minutes to watch. We met some long time friends for dinner one night, otherwise we just hung our around the hotel area. There were lots of restaurants, and a Ferris Wheel. We went through the aquarium and went to a movie. The Aquarium was small but nice. They had several petting/feeding areas that were not crowded at all so we got to take our time. The picture with our hand in the water is some kind of fish that eat all the dead skin off your hand when you put it in the water. It felt very creepy and weird but I made myself do it. There was one other person in the movie theater with us. I haven’t gone to a movie since January. I miss going to the theater. There wasn’t a lot of people around but there was still small crowds. Lots of little kids running around in their PJ’s on their way to see Santa.
It was a great long weekend. We had no schedule. It was very relaxing. We rode the train back Saturday afternoon. The kids spent one night at the Terry Grandparents, and one at their cousins. They were waiting for us when we got home that night.
How many Terry’s does it take to hang a TV on the wall?
Answer. Five. Two workers, one supervisor/vacuumer, and two wives with uncanny eye leveling skills.
Since baseball ended for Fall, Matthew has been gearing up for basketball season. Ryan signed him up for a private club. He could go play pick up games whenever, there was skill clinics daily and then he was put on an eighth grade team and could play in tournaments most weekends. Matthew was hoping to get up to speed with his skills and then start improving before school basketball started. His plan was going well until this past week, I picked him up after practice and he was limping and said he hurt his ankle when he did a layup and came down and landed on someone.
We took him home, iced it, elevated it gave him a large dose of Tylenol, wrapped it and he went to bed. The next morning he was not able to move it at all without a lot of pain. Ryan took him to the doctor and they did an x-ray. He had broken two ankle bones and fractured his tibia. They put a boot on his foot for him to wear until Monday then we will go and get a permanent cast. The fracture in his tibia is close to his growth plate that is wide open so he has been given strict instructions to stay completely off of it for two weeks so he doesn’t make the fracture worse. Then he has another 8-12 weeks in a cast after that and then physical therapy. Luckily he does not need surgery. Basketball season is gone and baseball conditioning will be well underway before he is back at it though.
After getting all that information from the doctor, the main take away Matthew focused on was the doctor saying his growth plates are wide open and he is getting ready to have a big growth spurt. He is very excited about that.
We woke up after our last night on the boat back in Port Canaveral Florida. One of the perks of having a suite is being able to get the process of getting off the boat expedited. We had a very helpful concierge that kept popping up all over the place helping us get off the boat. He made me laugh, it really felt like he came out of no where.
On our way to Kenny and Sherri’s we stopped to eat some breakfast. When we walked in and sat down Emilee asked me what was free. I chuckled and told her that nothing was free anymore now that we were off the boat.
Our plane didn’t fly out until late that night so we hung out with Kenny and Sherri and my parents. We ate dinner together and Sherri my mom and I went and got a mani/pedi.
The flight home seemed to go pretty quickly. I like flying at night. It is pretty seeing all the lights of a city when you land and take off. Ross picked us up again so we were headed home about 15 minutes after the plane landed.
There were a few presents from the kids to each other and Grandmas and Grandpas that we didn’t open before we left. Even though it was late the kids wanted to open them when we got home. Ryan and I decided to earn ‘cool parent points’ and we stayed up to open them.
It is pretty crazy how in a 24 hour period we were on a private island in the Bahamas, playing with cousins on the trampoline in Tampa Florida, then slept in our own beds in Kansas that night.
It was a fun packed, exciting vacation full of new experiences and places. We wanted to have a Christmas that our family could remember and I think we were successful.
After a good night sleep we woke up at Coco Cay. It is Royal Carribean’s private island. There is a water park, splash area, fresh water pool, several different beaches, shops, and places to eat. There is also a giant air balloon but it was to windy the day we were there for it to be open.
It was a beautiful little island. We were the only ship there so it was not crowded at all. The weather in the morning was a little cloudy and even had a few sprinkles of rain. This kept even more people on the boat instead of getting off so you almost felt like you had the place to yourself. Once the little rain shower passed through, the sun came out the temperature was perfect.
The wind was a little strong so they asked us not to put umbrellas up. On one of the beaches we relaxed at for a bit this caused a little problem with seagulls. There were a lot of them and they weren’t deterred by people. Like I mentioned there wasn’t a ton of people anyway. Emilee was walking back from the lunch area to our beach chairs with her little plate of food. I guess the birds picked her as an easy target because she was little and walking by herself. One seagull flew in and flipped her plate out of her hand and then the rest swarmed the plate on the ground. She was not happy to be bested by birds. When she came to tell me about it, due to the wind not allowing us to use umbrellas, we both got pooped on in our unprotected chairs. Probably by the same stupid birds that stole her food. Luckily after that they moved on to poop on the next people.
One of the little beach areas had a good little spot for snorkeling. Ryan took each of the kids out with him for a little swim to see what they could find. They saw a sting ray and some cool fish. We tried to make a sand castle but didn’t really bring anything to build with so decided to turn each other into sand castles instead. Allison was a mermaid and we told Matthew he was something cool but then made him wearing a dress instead.
The girls stayed at the splash pad during the little rain storm. I read my book under a chair and Ryan and Matthew went back to the boat for a bit. When the sun came back out we played in the fresh water pool for a bit. Ryan and I dozed off and when we woke up the kids were all dozing on the warm cement in front of us. Not to bad for the 26th of December.
There was wild chickens roaming around the island. We saw a little lizard (about two feet long) walking in front of us at one point. We followed him and he lead us around the corner to his big brother who was at least twice his size. Later the kids spotted an even bigger one in a tree while we were walking by.
We explored the shops a little on our way back to the boat. Emilee found the big conch shell she wanted as her souvenir and Allison and Matthew got a t-shirt or sweatshirt. It was a great day.
The kids were familiar enough with the ship that they decided to ditch Ryan and I for dinner and find their own. Poor Ryan and I had to eat dinner all by ourselves, it was wonderful. We found the kids sitting at a little pizzeria together when we done. It was pretty cute to see them sitting at a table together chatting it up while they enjoyed their dinner. Hopefully that will happen when they are older too. The girls wanted to go to the kid area again. Matthew went and played basketball for a bit then came back and hung out with Ryan and I. We were looking at pictures and walking around the promenade. Ryan disappeared for a while and came back with a grin on his face because he had booked another cruise for him and I next December. We all met back in the room and hung out there the rest of the night while we packed and got ready to head home the next day.
When we woke up Christmas morning, Santa had left a few favorite treats-skittles and peanut butter Christmas trees. We also found our tickets to see the dolphins. Sometime during the night we had docked at Nassau. We went out on the balcony to see the view of the Island. There were three other cruise ships parked by us.
After breakfast we put our suits on and lathered on the sunscreen. Then we got of the boat and explored the market area for a bit before it was time to go to the dolphins. A lady talked Emilee into letting her braid her hair. I can’t tell Emilee I am going to brush her hair without her squealing that it hurts. This lady was not being gentle. I could tell Emilee was uncomfortable but she never said a word. She really liked the braids when she was done though. It is almost a month later and she still has them in.
When the hair braiding was done we found the place to go on our dolphin excursion. We had to take a tender (small transport boat) around to the other side of the island. We had some beautiful sights to see on the way. Atlantis of course. The kids thought it was cool to see a place they had seen on TV before. There were some big yachts by us and famous peoples homes that we passed. I only remember Oprah’s and my kids don’t know who she is so they weren’t overly excited about that. The water and views are just gorgeous so just watching the view around the island was relaxing. They dropped us off in a little cove area where we could play on the beach and swim until it was time to see the dolphins. There was some blow up water toys that the kids played on for several hours. Ryan and I played for a little bit with the kids in the sand and water, then we found some comfy beach chairs to take a nap and relax in. After we ate lunch I also found a souvenir shop that had a delicious pint of cookies and cream Ben and Jerry’s ice cream that I enjoyed while basking in the sun on the beach. The water was clear and pretty. A little chilly but not bad. When we got there the place was way overcrowded and I was a little grumpy that they basically marooned us in the cove with a million other people for four hours until it was time to go to the dolphins. After about an hour though several of the ships were leaving so most of the people left and it was almost like having the beach to ourselves. We were the last group to see the dolphins so we were pretty much the only people in the cove when we walked back to the tender. It was easy to forget it was Christmas Day being on the beach. The weather was gorgeous-it was the best weather of our trip. There was always Christmas music playing but we all mentioned that it wasn’t the typical Christmas atmosphere and feeling.
The dolphin excursion we went on was AMAZING. I think it was everyone’s favorite part of the entire vacation. You get to sit in the dock area and have fun watching the dolphins up close while you wait. Then when it is actually your turn you get into the water and the dolphin is swimming right there with you. Our dolphins name was Salvador, and he went by Sal. He let us rub his back and belly, and even feel his teeth. He did a little dance with us and he gave each of us a hug and kiss and took pictures with us at the end. When he gave Allison a kiss he came back for three more and then whistled really loud and did a little spin. She told everyone how the dolphin had a crush on her. It was a lot of fun. They took lots of pictures for us and even a video.
Our tender boat was cutting across the back of the cruise ships on our way back to dock. One of the ships was leaving and even though we were cruising pretty fast and could have easily made it, they laid on the horn and the police boat came out and was not happy. The boat leaving was a Carnival boat, the week before a different Carnival boat had crashed into another one of its own boats. I can only imagine how the steering crew were freaking out when they saw a boat in front of them after their company had already had a crash less than a week ago. I was never concerned about getting hit. It took us a lot longer to stop and back up then it would have to finish going across and we still had plenty of time. It was a little funny since it was obvious no one was going to get hurt.
Once we got back to the ship we showered and cleaned up then went to have Christmas dinner. They had a kids menu in addition the regular menu, Emilee was ecstatic she didn’t have to eat boring yucky food. The girls went to kid place for a few hours after dinner. Matthew went to the arcade for a bit again and then he went to play basketball so Ryan and I went to the variety show and watched a juggler and some singers and dancers put on a pretty decent show. We grabbed some hot chocolate from the suite lounge again and all met back in our room. We were all ready to turn in a little earlier than usual. We had a great time making memories with each other.
I mentioned in a post back in October about a challenge that President Nelson gave in the Women’s Broadcast. He asked us to fast from social media for 10 days. Read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Then, as we were doing those things he asked us to listen to the promptings and thoughts that we had and ACT on them. I did the fast back in October and I just finished the Book of Mormon a few days ago.
**Fast from social media for 10 days.
I realized I checked my Facebook and then followed the rabbit hole of the next feed or video that came up more than I thought. I completely deleted it from my phone for a while. Sometimes I do need it for checking on events so I did put it back on my phone but I decided to turn off notifications on Facebook and now I rarely look at it. I don’t miss it either. One of the things I filled my time ‘extra time’ with was practicing my piano more.
The new update on my phone has a Screen Time monitor which is kind of handy too. It keeps track of how many times you pick up your phone, and how much time you spend on each app on your phone. It is interesting to think you spent 10 minutes doing a crossword puzzle and then check and realize it was actually 35 minutes. I have talked with my kids about how electronics can consume our day without us realizing how much time we are spending on it. Then we talked about how if we spent even 1/2 that time working on a talent or doing something for someone else how that would increase our abilities and help us be and feel more like Christ.
**Read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Listen and act on the promptings you receive while reading the Book of Mormon.
One of the things that came to my mind while I was reading is to start memorizing scriptures together as a family. I have a little white board on the fridge that I put quotes on a lot so we decided to put a scripture up every couple weeks that we want to work on and memorize. I have really liked doing this so far. Emilee doesn’t seem to quite get it yet, but Matthew and Allison have memorized several scriptures already. I have too. I have never been good at that, memorizing things is intimidating to me for some reason. Each time Allison has a scripture memorized she gets to celebrate by staying up an extra hour for bedtime, and Matthew celebrates with a QT Icee. I told them that they could pick scriptures they read in their personal study that stands out to them for the family to memorize. They liked that idea.
A lady in our ward mentioned in her talk one of the ways she helped her kids not fight (or solve a lot of fights) when they were growing up was to have a ‘Child of the Day’. Their family rotated through the kids and when it was your day you got to do things like say the prayers, sit in the front seat, pick your spot at the table. Whatever little things her kids tended to fight about so they all got a turn and new they would get a turn and didn’t need to fight about it. I haven’t started this yet but I think it is a great idea. I have it on the back burner in my brain to bring out someday if we are in an arguing rut or something.
We started reading scriptures in the morning before everyone leaves when we started school. Then we all eat breakfast together too. With that and my own reading from the Book of Mormon with the challenge from President Nelson I have noticed a slow but steady increase in all of our patience and tolerance with each other. The kids get a little less snippy with each other and forgive quicker. I have way more patience with them. They listen a little better and are more helpful. I’m loving it, everyone is loving it, even though they might not realize they do and the benefits that have come from it.
I started doing ’10’s’ with them again too. This is something from ‘Positive Parenting Solutions’ that we have done before. I had the thought to start it again. Each day the kids get to have a dedicated 10 minutes with mom (and dad tries to do it to when he can) where they have 100% of my attention focused on them and only them for 10 minutes and the two of us do whatever they want to do and I am in play mode, not mom mode. Some of the things they have come up with are play a game, singing, reading, watch a show, draw, color, practice cart wheels, go on a walk, watch YouTube together, play ‘Twenty Questions’ or ‘Would You Rather’, whatever they come up with. They love it, this isn’t the only time I spend with them but it is their special 10 minutes.
Another thing that has come to Ryan and my mind recently is talking with our kids about pornography. Ryan is in the Young Men’s and we have gone to firesides and broadcasts in the past, and talked with several bishops over the years. One of the consistently repeated topics we hear and talk about in regards to pornography is the importance of open communication. It isn’t a matter of IF your kids will see pornography, it is WHEN will they see it, and what will they do when they see it. It is a really delicate line of teaching our kids that it is not okay to do and helping them understand how and why they feel the way they do when they see it (shame, curiosity, excitment) and then interpreting those feelings correctly and learning why they have those feelings and when they are appropriate and not appropriate. Ryan talked with Matthew about this today. Satan is evil but not stupid. We know looking at pornography is bad, so when we see it one of the emotions we might feel is shame. The purpose of shame is to let us know we are doing something we should stop, one of the tools to use to guide us through lifes decisions and situations, just like joy lets us know we are doing good, heat warns of being burned, fear can be a warning, and all the other emotions and senses we have. Satan (especially with LDS people that can tend to have more ‘guilt issues’) uses that shame feeling to make people feel that instead of the act of what they are doing is wrong, the person them self is wrong and bad, which leads to more guilt and shame and can make us want to hide instead of talk with someone like a parent, or leader about what happened and how it made us feel. Ryan and I spend a lot of time, thinking, talking and praying about this topic together and talk about it often with our kids so they know what it is and that they can come to us knowing before hand that we won’t be angry at them, we will help them figure it out and work with them.
I am glad that I did President Nelson’s challenge. It has been a long time since I have read the Book of Mormon that fast. I like doing it that way sometimes because I can connect the stories and people together more then when I read it slower. It was a nice experience. I am looking forward to getting started with the new Come Follow Me curriculum when the new year starts.
Despite the fact that time slowed down so one day felt like 10 according to my kids Christmas Day FINALLY came! We were at Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s this year with our Bourne and Terry cousins.
Christmas Eve we had a big yummy ham dinner together. Grandpa read us the Christmas story and talked to us about using our time wisely on Sundays when we get an ‘extra hour’ at home. We sang Christmas songs and then the kids bounced off the walls and played games until bedtime. Then they continued to bounce off the walls in their beds with excitement until the last of their energy wore out and they fell asleep. Leah and Allison were the last two to fall asleep. There goal was to stay up all night. They said they made it to midnight, but I checked on them at 11:30 and they were sleeping. They woke up at 5:45 but we made a rule the night before that no one could wake anyone up until 6:30. They stayed in their room like they were supposed to and argued about who was not being quiet enough just loudly enough for the people below, next to, and across the hall to hear them.🤦♀️ At 6:30 AM sharp all the kids magically awoke if they weren’t already and let everyone know it was time to open presents.
Santa was right on with his gifts this year. Emilee loved her doll that can ride her horse she got for her birthday. Allison got a karaoke machine that she has been using non-stop. Matthew got a new bat for next season that he is very excited to use.
We spent the rest of the day playing with new toys, eating left overs, relaxing and staying in our pajamas. It was a very nice Christmas day!
Ryan has a thing for sunglasses. Partly because he loses them all the time and has to get new ones. Partly because the kids (not as much now) break them. Partly because I take them. Those are his reasons for having so many sunglasses. The real reason is that he likes sunglasses and they are for him what shoes are for other people…or coats for me. He doesn’t spend tons of money on them, in fact the cheaper he can get them for the better in his opinion. Who knows how long they will survive before being lost, scratched, or sat on?
When we were getting ready to go on our cruise he decided he was going to order himself some new snazzy sunglasses. He did and even paid a extra to get them in time but we had a big blizzard that delayed shipping all over the place (we drove right through it, I don’t know why the mail couldn’t😁 J/K) so his new sunglasses were delivered the day after we left and he had to settle with a ‘less favorite’ pair.
As we were walking to the ship there was a street vendor that had sunglasses for sale (authentic Ray Bans for only $5!😉 ). So we tried a few. He debated on some that looked like some blinged out pop stars (just for the cruise) but settled on an aviator style. A short time later a girl took a picture for us that was wearing the same blinged out glasses he almost got, and I wore a pair that I stole from him because I liked them the whole cruise, so we started giving him a hard time that he seemed to have a thing for girl sunglasses. Fast forward to when we get home from our trip. He is still very excited about them and puts them in the car to wear the next day. When he comes home from work, I see them for the first time. He gives them a glowing report and says that he loves them. I think they are girl sunglasses. He disagrees and continues to wear them. I sent the picture below to Sherri and her carefully constructed political non-answer was ‘they are fashion forward’. So…what do you think?!? Don’t worry, he never reads my blog so he’ll never know. 😂 Girl glasses or not, he is still a handsome guy.
The past few years I have tried extra hard to make it a point to enjoy the holiday season and not get to busy with things that it rushes by and I feel stressed and frustrated instead of joyful and peaceful like you should feel at Christmas. I was able to get decorations up and most of the Christmas shopping done before we left on our cruise so that when we got back we could enjoy the rest of December and do our family Christmas traditions.
We kicked off the week after we got home by setting up the card table and pulling out a bunch of puzzles to start doing. There is something about Christmas music, lights, decorations, and cold weather that makes you want to put your slippers on and do a puzzle, or ten.
A few times before Christmas we like to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We get in our PJ’s, make some hot chocolate, bring a cozy blanket, turn on our favorite Christmas music, and go check out all the neighborhood Christmas lights. There are several neighborhoods that we know will not disappoint but we try and find new ones too. When we found the house with all the blow ups we had to get out and walk through it to appreciate the 100+ blowups in their yard, including a 25 foot penguin. I bet their neighbors just love them.
Matthew is loosing interest a little in gingerbread house decorating but the girls still love it. Sometimes we make one big one, sometimes we each make our own little one. Then as Emilee announces several times a day, “Gingerbread houses are made to be eaten.” They slowly become stripped of their candy and frosting. If there is anything left, our elf Bubbit takes them with him back to Santa on Christmas Eve to share with all the other elves.
Bubbit is our elf that visits every year and keeps an eye on who is being naughty or nice for Santa. Every morning he is in a different spot, sometimes he is being a little mischievous or silly. Occasionally he gets into marshmallow fights with the barbies or super hero figures. The older he gets the more he likes to just hide in funny spots. We got him in 2013. At the time Allison had found a grasshopper and named it Bubbit so when our elf showed up she thought it was the perfect name for him too. Lots of people have elves. They show up around December 1st. Some ambitious elves show up on Thanksgiving. Bubbit is a special elf that helps Santa do some extra work so he usually doesn’t make it to our house until mid December. It is good to let the anticipation of his arrival peak before he comes.
My mom and dad gave us a story called ‘The Last Straw’ that was a tradition we did in my family growing up. We have an empty basket and we fill it up with straw by putting in a piece every time we do something kind for someone. Then on Christmas Eve the basket is full of straw from hopefully hundreds of small acts of kindness and love, and we have a little Baby Jesus to put in the basket.
We usually go to the church Christmas breakfast. It was a little low in attendance this year but it was still a fun time. Allison picked a spot in the very back corner for us to sit. I looked up while I was eating and could see everyone there eating and visiting and having a good time while Christmas music played softly in the back ground. It was a nice moment. We have a very nice and friendly ward. Santa came at the end and the girls gave him a high five and talked to him. Emilee wanted to do it but almost had a heart attack waiting in line as the anticipation of willingly walking up to a stranger and talking to him built up. She was with her two good friends so that helped her bravery and she did it. When they finished and she found out that you get a candy cane for talking to Santa, her bravery went through the roof and she went back all by herself.
Matthew has been a little bit of a scrooge this year. Allison has noticed and taken it upon herself to fix his ‘not Christmasiness’ self. She brainstormed a few ideas and I carefully helped steer her towards ones that might actually have the results she wants instead of the opposite. (Running into his room every hour tonight while he was sleeping and yelling, “Matthew be more Christmasy” until he said ‘ok’ was luckily moved off the table) Instead the girls made him a giant poster that said Merry Christmas Matthew and hung it up in his room. We will see if operation ‘Make Matthew Merry’ is a success.
Several years ago we made chocolate pretzels to hand out as a treat to out neighbors. The kids had a lot of fun doing it and it has become our traditional treat from the Terry’s that we hand out to friends and neighbors. We have stream lined it pretty good too. It used to be an all Sunday afternoon activity, but now we can make them and hand them out in the same day. It is also pretty hard to screw up which is good for me.
The kids are leaving tomorrow to go to Grandma’s early with their cousins. Ryan has work he wants to get done before Christmas, and I want to see the church Christmas program Sunday morning before we go up. It has been a very nice December. It isn’t over yet, I know, I’m just relishing the greatness so far of this magical month.
The last night of the cruise you have two options for getting ready to disembark the next morning. You can keep all your luggage with you and carry it yourself off the boat and do ‘express disembarking’ which means you will get off the boat first at 7 am. The other option is to leave your luggage outside your room the night before and they will take it down to the disembarking area for you. Then they dismiss you by number starting at 7:30 in 15 minute increments. We decided we weren’t in to big of a hurry because our flight wasn’t until the afternoon so we all left our luggage outside our room except for an over night bag. Our time for disembarking was at 8:45, Kenny and Sherri’s time was 9:15. They asked us to be out of our staterooms by 8 am so we met for breakfast at 7:30. We were enjoying one last breakfast at the Facejammer and at about 7:45 they made an announcement that said there was a ‘slight issue’ that needed to be resolved before they could begin the disembarking process. At 8:15 they came back on and explained that the ‘slight issue’ was that all the taxi drivers and luggage porters had gone on strike and were blocking the airport and cruise terminals so that Ubers and any other drivers couldn’t get in or out. Of course they were working to have the issue resolved as fast as possible, were sorry for any inconveniences this was causing, and would let us know as things changed. Sure enough we looked out along the pier and there were taxi’s as far as you could see blocking the roads. There wasn’t much we could do so we just stayed at the Facejammer and played a game of hearts. We also looked into how much an Uber would cost when we finally did get off the boat and it would be $12 for all four of us and our luggage (Ryan and I paid a taxi driver $18 for the two of us to our hotel when we arrived which was about a 2 mile trip). They continued to make the same announcement every fifteen minutes or so until sometime between 9-10 they started the express disembarkers and then slowly started calling the groups. Ryan was getting a little antsy about missing our flight so we decided we would get in line to leave the boat and by the time we were through the line hopefully our luggage would be ready. Our plan worked and they called our number about the time we entered the the luggage claiming area. Kenny and Sherri got theirs and got in the customs line and outside to start getting a taxi. Ryan and I went to our area and… could not find out bags. We asked someone about it and the look on their face was not encouraging. We ended up walking through all the luggage areas and found nothing. By that time two suitcases the same size as ours were the only suitcases left in our area. The luggage guy (we will call him Bob) called the number and LUCKILY someone answered the phone. Bob explained to whoever answered the phone that they had taken the wrong luggage. The person Bob was talking to did not believe him and kept saying, “I already have my luggage.” It took several minutes for Bob to convince him to just look at the name tag of the bags he took and he said, ‘Oh, I took the wrong bags!’ Ryan had progressed from antsy to irritable to angry and he only got angrier when we had to sit there and wait…and wait…and wait until every single other person had gotten their luggage and left the boat. Then after a little more waiting the person arrived with our luggage. Which other than being roughly the same size as ours looked nothing like our luggage. Different color and style. We then had to take it through customs again to make sure they didn’t do something to it. We got outside and luckily found a taxi quickly. When we got to the airport the driver told us it was $25…we only had $20 and some change on us so we had to stiff him a little. Apparently the solution for the taxi strike was to charge us more so I didn’t feel to bad. Sherri and Kenny were already there in line so we joined up with them. There were a lot of people that had missed their flight or were late like us so the airline split us into two lines, people leaving within 2 hours (we had about 45 minutes) and everyone else. However they forgot the let the people at the front know so they kept taking people from the wrong line. After 10 minutes of our line not moving Ryan went from angry to irate. He asked several different attendants to direct the line and none of them did so he took matters into his own hands and started directing traffic. He got a few fist bumps and high fives from the people in line with us, and some ‘watch our for the crazy guy’ looks from the airport workers. Miraculously we made it through the agricultural check and regular security and didn’t miss our flight. The rest of the way home went without any drama.
Roger picked us up at the airport and brought us home. It was a wonderful vacation but we were glad to be home. Grandma and Grandpa did a very good job taking care of the kids and gave them a good report too. They were better behaved for Grandma and Grandpa then they are for us, which is a little frustrating but I am glad they can pull out their manners and use them for someone. They caught us up on everything they had been doing and we showed them our pictures. Then it was back to real life.
Our last full day of the cruise was in St Thomas. I thought this island looked more like the United States than Puerto Rico did as far as buildings, shopping, things like that. There roads actually had two full lanes with painted lines dividing the lanes. For our last day the guys felt like they wanted to change it up a bit so instead of finding a taxi to give us a tour. Kenny rented a Jeep and he drove us around. Sherri and I did some last day shopping while they went and picked up the car. To make it a little more fun even though it is a US Virgin Island, they drive on the left side of the road. We had to stop really think before we turned so we knew where we were going and were sure we weren’t pulling in front of someone. Kenny said his auto-pilot wanted to keep taking over. The research from the night before on where to go in St Thomas resulted in two beaches that we wanted to try. Another indication that we were getting closer to America is that you couldn’t just walk up to the beach anymore, when we arrived we had to pay and they had restrictions posted all over the place.
The first beach we went to was called Megan’s Bay. It is rated one of the top 10 beaches in the world. It did not disappoint. Of course it was very beautiful, but the sand was so fine and soft. It was like walking on powdered sugar. Another difference at this beach was as soon as you stepped into the water you could see thousands of fish swimming around you. They started tiny, just an inch or so. The further out you went they kept getting bigger. The would move away from you as you walked which was fun to watch too. When we were about as far out as we could go and still touch if you held still a fish 6-8 inches big would come and start swimming around your legs. Kenny had one that stuck with him for a long time so he named him Frenchy. The name stuck and we started referring to all the fish as frenchies. The pelicans were at this beach too and they seemed to know the big fish liked to hide by people because they were not shy to dive right next to you and try and catch them. We stayed here for an hour or so and just enjoyed the moment. Kenny started trying to catch fish like the pelicans because he didn’t think it seemed that hard. That was funny to watch. When we got hungry we dried off and left to find some lunch. We found a little hole in the wall pizza place. It was really good pizza and their garlic bread was even better. Not very authentic I know but it was delicious.
After our bellies were full of delicious pizza we carefully made a right turn without causing an accident and went to the last beach of our trip. Ryan and I took a long walk down the shore line. I decided to make a little sand castle too. Kenny and Sherri and Ryan were floating around out in the water and found some cool rocks to add to my castle. There were a few people on the beach but not many. Most of the beaches we went to were surprisingly crowd free for the most part. There was usually some stray dogs and cats wandering around too. They were not very interested in people. They seemed a lot tougher than american dogs. Not aggressive but street smart, and content. No begging or puppy dog eyes. Just content to play or nap in the sand or swim in the ocean then wander around and find some food or shelter. We stayed at that beach until it was time to head back. We stopped at an ice cream shop at the docks right by our ship and enjoyed more of the perfect 85 degree temperature. Sherri and I meandered back to the boat while we shopped and the boys returned the Jeep. St Thomas is only about 70 miles from Puerto Rico so after we left port we went about as slow as possible back to the disembarking dock. There were lots of games and activities going on for the last night on board. It was an incredible vacation. We really did love every minute of it.
Thursday morning we had arrived at St Maarten’s island. There were two other boats docked by us in the morning. By the afternoon there were five cruise ships docked. Our ship is nothing to sneeze at but it was the smallest one. I think I decided I like that though. In talking with people from other boats through out the day it seemed like our boat had a little more homey feel to it, not crowded, no lines for anything, excellent food. We could always find a place to hang out on the boat that no one else was around. The bigger boats do have more on board activities though which kids would probably like. I felt thouroghly entertained throughout our seven days. I think the quality of shows would be better on a bigger boat though. That is something I felt like was lacking on our boat. We went to three different shows one was ok, one was tolerable and one was awful-we would have left but we all fell asleep instead.
Anyway St Maarten continued our beautiful island cruise and did not disappoint. It had more of a modern, lots of rich people live here look the islands we had seen so far. Ryan and I had booked a SNUBA excursion with a company we found online and were supposed to meet them at 9:30 am. Kenny and Sherri went to do some exploring and shopping and we went to ‘Bobby’s Marina’. When we arrived it was just the two of us. There were about ten other people that were supposed to be booked at our time but they were on a different boat that was about an hour behind schedule. So the company decided to take Ryan and I out to the bay a let us SNUBA with two of their divers while the boat went and picked up the rest of the people and then came back. They kept apologizing because they were ‘leaving us’ but we didn’t care at all. Instead of SNUBAing with ten other people for 25 minutes, we had a private tour for 45 minutes. It was pretty awesome.
So SNUBA is basically scuba diving but instead of having to get a lot of training and carry the oxygen tank on your back, you don’t have to have any training and the oxygen tank is on a little raft and there is a long tube with the respirator attached to you so you can swim and the raft follows you around. You wear snorkel goggles and fins and a weight belt along with the belt that the hose and respirator are attached too. Ryan liked it a lot and said he would definitely do scuba diving. Your vision is pretty limited (zero peripheral) so my claustrophobic self liked knowing that I was tethered to something. It took me a little longer to get used to the breathing than Ryan. It is compressed air so if I breathed in and out like normal (which is what they said to do) I was getting way more oxygen than I was used to and even though I was breathing I felt like I was suffocating. I figured out to breath out about twice as long as I breathed in and I was able to keep my O2/CO2 levels more normal. I still had to stop and concentrate on relaxing and not freaking out a few times. Since we had 45 minutes our ears were able to adjust to the pressure and by the end we were about 20 feet deep. It was pretty amazing. One of the divers took pictures for us and we just swam around and explored the ocean. A lot of the coral was ruined in the hurricane but we still saw some cool stuff. There was a ship and a helicopter crash sunk that was cool to explore. We saw a squid and a moray eel among all the many different fish sea anemones and urchins. About one minute after we ran out of air and surfaced the boat came back with all the other people. We got out and dried off while they got in. I was looking around the water and saw 2 dorsal fins about 30 feet away. It took my brain a few seconds for it to register what it was and then they were gone. I didn’t think it was a very good idea to start yelling shark and not that I am a shark expert but it didn’t seem like a shark to me for some reason. I kept watching and then I saw three and realized it was dolphins not a shark. I pointed them out and people started to look. Our guides didn’t believe me at first but then they saw them and they got pretty excited. It was kind of funny. They kind of forgot they were helping people dive and got really excited to see the dolphins. One of the guys staying on the boat immediately dived in and started swimming towards them. One of them told me he has lived there for 35 years and never seen a dolphin in this bay. He told me when I yelled dolphin he thought I was seeing a buoy. By the time I got my camera out to film them they had moved further out but you can see them pop up a few times on the video. It was a really fun excursion, made even more fun because it turned into a private excursion.
After we returned from our SNUBA we met up with Kenny and Sherri. The day was about half over so we didn’t have to much time to explore. We had heard of a really nice beach so we decided to grab a taxi to the beach and spend the afternoon there. It took us a little bit to find a taxi that would just take us to the beach but we finally did. Traffic was pretty congested on this island too so it took a good 40 minutes to get to the beach. It was a gorgeous beach though. We grabbed some lunch at a questionable restaurant but it was the only one around and we were starving. We also learned that St Maarten islanders are not good about estimating time. Everything took at least twice as long as they told us it would. Getting to the beach, making our food, and going back to the ship. It was a little slow going. After we enjoyed the beach for a while we luckily decided to head back a little earlier than we originally planned since we had to find a taxi. We were able to ride in a taxi that was picking up some other people but it took us over an hour to get back to the boat-even with our driver driving on the wrong side of the road a few times to pass everyone. Everyone seemed to have the same issue because when it was time for the boat to leave there was still a few people missing. We made it back though and had a fun evening on the boat and enjoying some delicious hot chocolate from Veneesh at dinner.
When we woke up on Wednesday we were in port at Dominica, which is called the rain forest of the Caribbean. All the islands have a lot of trees and forest up at the higher areas. Dominica was all jungle with a house occasionally peeking through the green. They get 200-400 inches of rain a year!
Our exploring plan worked out pretty well on Grenada so we decided to do the same thing on Dominica. We found a taxi driver that took just the four of us on a tour. He drove around and showed us different views of the islands. We ended up at Trafalgar Falls. After a short hike the trail opens up to a little look out area and there are two beautiful waterfalls right by each other. You could stay there or walk down and climb around in the water and rocks. So we did. We climbed and explored for a while, we found a small pool that we all got in to refresh ourselves. It was cold, but how many times do you have the opportunity to take a swim in a river on the island of Dominica?!
Next on the tour was some of the islands hot springs. They have one as big as a football field but we didn’t have time for that one. They get a lot of mud and minerals that are good for your skin from their hot springs. They were trying to rub it on us the whole time we were there. It goes on gray then dries to brown. Someone tried to give us a tattoo with it with a leaf. A sneaky old man rubbed some on my arm when I was walking by and I had a brown blotch on my arm for the rest of the day. Dominica was the place we felt like we were being haggled the most. You couldn’t walk two feet without someone wanting to sell you something. I tried to just avoid eye contact because I was not very good at saying no. I decided to not carry any cash on me after I spent two dollars on a paper flower made of crepe paper so some little girls could go to school so I could just say I didn’t have any money. A little bit later a guy with a guitar started following Sherri and I around singing a made up song about how our husbands looked like Tom Cruise and Bruce Willis. I told him I didn’t have any money and he said that Ryan and Kenny had told them to come find us and sing his song after he sang it to them because we had the money. 🤦♂️
After the hot springs we asked our driver to take us to a beach. Dominica isn’t as well known for its beaches as some of the other islands we visited but he said he would take us to one that was actually a black sand beach. I thought that was pretty cool because I had never been to a black sand beach before. It sticks to you more than white sand. The waves were black too which I did not expect and looked pretty cool. We rented a little palm tree shade area and some chairs to relax in. This beach was the first place we saw pelicans. They were flying and around us and diving for their food. All of us swam and took a nap on our chairs. I spent way to long trying to catch a pelican diving on camera. It was a wonderful afternoon.
After a few hours at the beach we headed back to the boat a little early. After we changed Sherri and I went to the rock climbing wall. We were the only ones there so we raced a few times and then tried the harder climbs. It took me a few tries but I was finally able to get to the top of the hardest one.
Our third day on the boat started with waking up in a new port at Grenada. We all agreed this was our favorite day overall. After a delicious breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe (we started calling it the Facejammer) we left the boat.
The guys convinced Sherri and I to live on the wild side and not book an excursion/tour through the ship. So we walked past all the buses and vans crammed full of people going on the same tour and we found a very nice taxi driver named Ricky who agreed to take the four of us on a tour of the island, bonus- for less than a third of what the cruise line would have charged us.
Grenada is known as the Isle of Spice, so the first place he took us was to a nice little old man named John’s spice shop. John gave us a demonstration on how they make nutmeg and cocoa and all kinds of information that I thought I would remember but don’t about the many different spices they make on the island. It was very interesting, and of course my natural herbalistic side was intrigued and we got some spices and herbal remedies to bring home with us. They had some highly recommended cocoa balls that they recommended making ‘cocoa tea’ with. We got a few of those and thought it would be a fun drink to try and we got a few to give as gifts. Later when we boiled some water, dissolved the cocoa ball and added twice the recommended amount of sugar we tasted it. It was disgusting. I have tried an herbal tea called Matte so I was expecting something kind of like that. It was way grosser than that. Even after adding more sugar and then chocolate milk I couldn’t handle it. So that went down the drain. I feel bad for giving it to everyone I did too. Hopefully someone likes it. But I feel like I should say sorry if you are reading this and I gave you a cocoa ball. I didn’t know they would be that gross. At the back of his shop there was a little balcony that gave you an amazing view of the island. It was a great little place to stop. Our tour was off to a good start.
The next stop on our tour was up in the mountains a little bit. He dropped us off and showed us where to find a short trail that lead to a waterfall. When we got to the trail head there was a man with his pet monkey. For a small donation he would let you hold it, so of course we all did it. The water fall was very pretty, we explored a bit then headed back to Ricky. He drove us around a few more places. There was an old Fort you could tour by the prison. The prison was pretty small and actually looked like a farm with walls around it. We asked him about it and he said that if someone went to prison they had to work and grow food so they weren’t just sitting around. He also said there really wasn’t a lot of crime on the island. He said that everyone watched out for each other and kept tabs on each other. I noticed that on all the islands people were very helpful and kind. Sometimes you could tell it was more of a tolerance because tourism is their bread and butter but in Grenada especially the people were very genuine and welcoming. As we were driving around we passed one of our churches. We pointed it out and he said that there are two missionaries on the island with white shirts and ties that he has seen. Ryan told him to talk to them next time he saw them and tell them he drove a bunch of Mormons around for the day.
We wanted to check out a beach for a while so Ricky took us to one that was not as crowded and was a calm area. We walked into a restaurant with two people eating at the counter and giant open windows overlooking the ocean. It was gorgeous. Kenny said he felt like we were in a picture. I agree. I took a lot of beautiful pictures. We ate some local food. I tried the creole fried chicken and it was delicious. Everyone else tried something called rotie. It was alright, way better than mafungo. After we ate we spent some time swimming in the crystal blue water and hanging out on the white soft sand beach. After a few hours it was time to head back to the boat. On the way we came down a hill that overlooked a little bay and there was a beautiful complete double rainbow. Ricky stopped right there on the road so we could take pictures. It was an incredible view. Ricky dropped us off just outside a strip mall so we could walk through and shop a little on our way back to the boat. It was a wonderful day.
That night we went to a comedy show, played more cards and, stayed up late talking, and watched a dance contest between passengers and the crew.
Our first full day on the ship was a day at sea while we sailed south to reach Barbados. We slept in and woke up to the beautiful view of the ocean and the occasional island in the distance. We shopped in the stores on board a bit. Ryan and Kenny had signed up for a Sushi making class. While they were at that Sherri and I attended the ‘giant giveaway information meeting’. That was our only regret of the whole cruise. It was a waste of an hour of our time. We tried out several different areas to eat on board, sat out on our balconies and watched or participated in several of the games they have going on throughout the day like trivia, or name that song, and a belly flop contest.
After dinner that night we ended up in the Safari Lounge which kind of became our spot. We went there often to play Spades or Hearts. They had karaoke going on the first night we went there. There was quite a range of talent but it was fun whether they were good or bad. Everyone was cheering either way. I convinced Sherri to sing ‘Any Man of Mine’ by Shania Twain with me. My friends and I had a cassette tape of her music in high school that we sang along to everyday on our drive to and from school and anywhere else we went. We wore that tape out. Anyway, we sang it and it was a blast. I would have voted to skip the last verse because it got a little long but it was fun. We came back the next night and Ryan sang ‘Sweet Caroline’ by Neil Diamond. It was a hit. I don’t think he moved a muscle the whole time he sang but he sang well. Ryan didn’t want Kenny to feel left out so he took the liberty of signing him up for a song. He kept telling Kenny he was next and three songs later about the time Kenny was starting to relax and think Ryan was just messing with him, they called Ken French up to sing ‘Oops I Did It Again’ by Brittany Spears. He was a good sport and went up and sang. It was hilarious. When the crowd saw this big burly guy walk up to sing a Brittany Spears song they loved it. He got comments about it the rest of the week from random people while we were walking around.
Monday morning when we woke up we were docked at Barbados. It was a pretty small island. Our cruise came with some on board credit so we used ours towards a sailing and snorkeling excursion on a catamaran. There was a note on our itinerary to make sure we didn’t wear anything that was camouflage colors or even just the standard ‘marine green’. Anyone wearing that color that was not a member of their military would be arrested for impersonating a military officer. Apparently there was a little bit of tension politically on the island. As we were leaving the ship one of the passengers was arguing with a crew member about having to change his shorts. Maybe I am just a chicken but I don’t know why you would any shade of green when the risk of being thrown in a foreign prison was explained.
We found a bus to take us to the docks for the catamarans and we started out adventure. There was about 25 people and 4 crew members. The first two hours we just sailed around the island and they pointed out different things as we went. I sat up front and relaxed on the net for a while in the sun. They fed us a nice lunch and then we arrived at a place to snorkel. Everyone geared up and we all jumped in the ocean. The place we went usually had turtles which we saw. There was a sunken ship with lots of fish and even a turtle swimming around it too. It was pretty fun. I have never snorkeled before but it isn’t hard. It was a little crowded in the water because they tried to keep us close together so they could keep track of everyone. Everyone accidentally was grabbed or grabbed someone several times. It was a neat experience. When I was swimming back to the boat I also got to experience an under tow. One second I was an arms length away from the ladder, the next I was 10 feet away and going further. I decided to go to the other side of the boat after swimming and getting no where for a while. After we snorkeled for about 45 minutes they took us to a nearby beach. We were able to jump off the boat and swim to the shore. I am always amazed at the blueness of the water and how clear it is. It is so pretty. We walked along the beach for a while and then Ryan buried his feet and I made myself a mermaid tail in the sand. After the beach the excursion was over. They took us back to the docks and we rode a taxi to our ship. We met up with Kenny and Sherri for dinner. We didn’t see a lot of Barbados other than the coast line but it had the typical island bright colored houses spattered along the coast and up the mountain and greenery growing in any unclaimed space. It was a very nice first day of the boat excursion.
Ryan and I have been talking about going on a cruise together ever since our first one 6 years ago for our 10th anniversary. Earlier this year Ryan decided he couldn’t wait any longer and he pulled the trigger and booked us a cruise for December 1-8 to the Western Caribbean. It left from Puerto Rico so we added a few days before to have some time to explore Puerto Rico too since neither of us has been there. Then we invited Sherri and Kenny to come with us. Ryan’s parents helped us out by coming to watch the kids while we were gone.
It was GLORIOUS! We loved every minute of it. The first time we went on a cruise I was pregnant with Emilee and it wasn’t that great. The cruise was awesome but I didn’t feel good, had no energy and couldn’t do a lot of the activities. I didn’t know how much of the yuckiness was pregnancy or sea sickness so I was a little worried about going again. Turns out that it was all pregnancy and no sea sickness. I didn’t have any trouble at all, in fact I found the motion very relaxing and soothing.
Ryan’s parents came Wednesday night and got settled. Roger took us to the airport Thursday morning. By 5pm we were arriving at out hotel in P.R. We tried a restaurant recommended by the hotel ‘next to the cock fighting arena’ and tried some local cuisine. The local authentic dish is mafungo. It is plantains smashed and fried and sometimes can have spices mixed with it. Not my favorite. We walked around outside for a little bit but it was dark so we hung out at the hotel. I never quite got used to Christmas decorations in a tropical environment. It always seemed weird and a little cheesy to me.
Friday morning we walked on the beach that was 5 minutes from our hotel then Ryan rented a car and we drove up into the mountains. There are several gorgeous water falls you can hike to. Some of the trails weren’t repaired from the hurricane but we hiked to Quebrada Juan Diego Falls, and a tower that overlooked the Yunkan forest. We found a little smoothie stand on the side of the road on our way back down the mountain. Ryan was excited to get an ‘authentic’ fruit smoothly. I was a little relieved when they made it with Kirkland brand ingredients from Costco. It was yummy though.
After the rain forest we headed to the beach. The water was perfect. The waves at the beaches in PR were pretty big. We spent an hour or two swimming in the water then walked through some shops and grabbed some dinner. When we go on vacation Ryan and I switch rolls. He becomes the planner and organizer and I become forgetful and carefree. So before the shops we had to find a bank to withdraw some cash because I forgot our bag at the hotel with our cash in it. That was a different experience. When we walked in through the first door it locked behind us and the second door was locked and we had to be buzzed in. I rarely go inside banks but when I have they are not that busy. This bank, appropriately named Banco Popular was hopping. There were at least six tellers and then that many more people at desks (all wearing their Christmas bedazzled headbands) and no less than 20 people being helped or waiting. And Ryan and I were the only two white people in there and stood out like a blinking light bulb. Everyone was very friendly though and after paying ridiculous fees to get $40 in cash we were soon on our way out after being buzzed out and locked in between the two exit doors again.
After we ate we headed to Fajarda where we had booked a kayaking trip from the ocean two miles down a little inlet that opened up into a bay. We arrived about ten minutes before sunset. We watched the sunset several times on our trip. It was always pretty but I noticed that it isn’t as colorful and vibrant as sunsets with mountains or more things for the lights to bounce off of. It was still beautiful to watch. Once the sun went down the bay we were at contained bio luminescent algae that put of light when the water gets stirred. We read lots of reviews about how awesome it was (well Ryan did, I took the carefree approach) and some friends of ours actually went to one in another part of PR and said it was the highlight of their trip. So it got dark and we started stirring the water…not a lot happened. The guides got our group together and explained how it all works and this bay was one of only four bays in the world that glow year round, but sometimes water and weather conditions allow for more glowing than other times. Then they gave us a tarp to put over our heads so we could stir the water in total darkness and see it. You could see little sparkles but it was no where near what was expected. It was a little disappointing. We paddled around the bay in the dark for about 10 minutes then they told us to start heading back down the inlet to get back to the docks. As we were paddling in the pitch black through the mangroves the hilarity of 10 kayaks the two we were sandwiched between containing people with zero kayaking experience and zero natural ability quickly became apparent to me. The only light was the glow sticks on both ends, unless a guide shined a flash light momentarily to help you get your bearings. So instead of hearing calm slow strokes Ryan and I were surrounded by almost panicked nonstop unfocused splashing followed by the crunch of a kayak running into the mangroves and watching the little glow stick lights ping pong back and forth from one side to the next with occasional complete spins in circles. When it got particularly chaotic one of the guides turned their light on to find that one kayak had basically crashed into the other and was high centered. We were stuck in the middle of this for about 15 minutes before we were able to sneak around them. It was some of the best entertainment I have had in a while. I was crying and had a side ache from laughing so hard but trying to not be to loud about it. Amongst all the chaos some of the funniest things I heard was someone tell his wife to put her paddle down and she was no longer allowed to paddle. The other two were arguing about which direction they were facing and rowing. HI.LAR.I.OUS. It almost made up for going kayaking on a kayak trip in the dark and not seeing what you were supposed to see.
When we finished our kayak experience is was late and Kenny and Sherri had arrived so we went back to the hotel and hung out with them for a bit. Later that night we were talking about how we had spent the entire day together. We couldn’t remember the last time just the two of us spent all day together. We actually got to talk about things beyond the basics of surviving the next 24 hours. We both enjoyed it, luckily we still like each other. 😉
The next morning the four of us checked out and loaded up in the car and went to Old San Juan. There is two forts that have been there for over 400 years that we toured. They were pretty impressive. I felt like I was walking around a castle. Another observation that we all made while on our trip is that rarely do you see any posted rules or guidelines like you do in the US. At the fort there were dozens of windows and lookouts that you could walk right out on and they dropped off to a 50-100 foot sheer cliff, no railings or anything. They would have had gates blocking any access to them if it was in the US. It was the same with driving. No stop signs, rarely a stop light. Everyone just took turns and used common sense and politeness. Anyway, we walked around the forts for a few hours then wandered through town and found a restaurant recommended to us by a friend. We passed on their mafungo recommendation and had some yummy seafood instead. Then it was time to return the car and head to the boat!
We checked our luggage in and got out sea passes and boarded the boat. We were on Royal Carribeans Jewel of the Seas. It is one of their smaller boats which I think is perfect because there are not lines everywhere and it feels less crowded. After we explored the boat we had to go to our muster stations and learn how to evacuate. Then we ate our first dinner on board. This particular boat is known for its better than usual food. It was very good all week long. We bounced around to different waiters the first few night but then we settled into a spot with Domingos and Veneesh for the last three nights. They were both from India, and were very kind and sweet. Domingos always remembered our names and what our favorites were. Veneesh remembered that we preferred hot chocolate instead of coffee with dessert and made some of the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. It was always the perfect temperature too. Mmmm, its the little things that matter.
After dinner our staterooms were ready so we checked them out and unpacked a little. We got a balcony which was really nice to eat breakfast on, or just sit out and relax and enjoy the view. I loved waking up each morning and looking out to see the ocean or the new port we were in. The boat departed at about 8:30 pm. It was a little windy the first two day but otherwise the weather was perfect and the seas were pretty smooth. Before we called it a night we went up to the front of the boat and took our ‘Jack and Rose Titanic Pictures’. It was awesome to be three days into a vacation that was just getting started.
