January – Terry Family Shenanigans

More Pictures from Escada

Matthew is on his second transfer in Escada. It was a big change from Salgueiro and it took him and his new companion a minute to get their stride going but they seem to be doing good and getting some good things accomplished. I am proud of how hard he works and how he is dedicating himself to doing his best. You can see in the pictures they are keeping busy and doing a lot of good. This week on February 11 Matthew had his 6 month mark. He is a quarter of the way done with his mission. He is getting pretty close to fluent. He says he can speak and understand pretty much everything, he needs to keep adding to his vocabulary and work on his accent now. That alone is a pretty big accomplishment in six months. Plus all the other things he has learned about the gospel, living with others, working, being mostly on your own, traveling across continents, self motivating, accountability. He is elbow deep in life lessons and learning. We are proud of him. And I miss him like crazy.

They were able to find a sister who hasn’t been to church for a long time and in the past she wouldn’t let anyone come and see her or visit. I believe her name is Jessica but I might be remembering wrong. She is in her 40’s now but she served a mission when she was younger and people said she was really great and loved the gospel. She has depression now and had been having a hard time getting out of her depression. They found another sister who knew Jessica and was a friend a long time ago and they had her help them find Jessica and convince her to let them help her out. They spent a few days cleaning her house and yard up, and her friend got her some medicine and helped her get cleaned up herself. She has even come to church a few times since then.

All the yard and weeds you see were cut down and removed with the machete and hoe. Good old fashioned manual labor.

Here are more pictures of the city.

Some of those stairs the city is named for.

Sometimes on p-day they travel to Recife to the mission presidents neighborhood and get together with other missionaries to play soccer on the beach. It sounds like a pretty fun day. Last time Matthew said he was on a little bit in awe when he stopped to think his 19 year old self was playing soccer on a beach in Brazil with dozens of people from around the world. His team alone had an Argentinian, an American, a professional soccer player from Paraguay, a Bolivian, and one of the riches men in Brazil. Quite a group the church brought together.

Heading back to Escada after a day in Recife.

These are pictures of Matthew and his current companion Elder Toledo working in Escada. One of Matthew’s favorite parts of his day is eating food so he also likes to send us pictures of the food he enjoys eating.

These boys offered to run any errands for them if they needed anything.

Zone Conference with member of the seventy

I liked this picture because I can see his confidence and peace and happiness in his eyes and face.

This area has a lot of members but not very many of them come to church. Matthew and Elder Toledo have been working on reactivating and encouraging members to come. They had a pretty successful activity a few weeks ago. They have also found a new sister that was baptized this week.

Did splits with Elder Aranjo (spelled wrong I am sure)

I love how she says ‘pingy pong’. 🙂 in the first video and how Elder Toledo says ‘wow’ in the rain video.

Family Puzzle

My sister DeAnna gave everyone a puzzle for Christmas with our pictures from last Thanksgiving on it. We put it together a few weeks ago. I enjoy doing puzzles, I have never done one with pictures of people I know in it. It made it even more fun! It was a very cute idea!

Wrestling Check-In

Allison has been working hard at wrestling. Her meet tomorrow is for Regionals. I haven’t been at her last few meets so I am excited to see her.

She took 4th at league. Here are some pictures with her and her team. We are proud of her for how hard she works at wrestling.

Wild Life

One of the fun things about our new house is its location is out far enough away from the city that we see lots of wild life. We see lots of animals in the flesh around our house. We also see evidence of them, or hear them, or smell them. Some of the most common ones are deer, coyotes, racoons, opossums, snakes, mice, horses, cows, donkeys, chickens, skunks, and all kinds of birds. I think we have even had a bear wander through our front yard as it was passing through but I am shunned when I say that by certain family members.

I believe one of our regular animals we see has already made an appearance in Terry Family Shenanigans. Thomas the hawk. He likes to perch on the peak of our roof over the back deck and then dive off and catch food when small animals come out of the tall grass into our short grass. The past few weeks he has been around a lot and we have seen him in action. He is beautiful and big. It is hard to say but I bet his wing span in between 3-4 feet. We think he might be a Thomalina instead of a Thomas. There is a very young hawk that has started hanging around too. He looks like a minature version of Thomas and usually perches on the rim of our trampoline net or the rail of our deck. We haven’t gotten any pictures of the new friend yet but we have a few of Thomas. Someday I’ll get out my real camera and stalk him a bit to get some good pictures but we took these really quick when we saw him hunting.

I went to the chiropractor and when I got out of the car I was greeted by these two ducks that were hanging out on the sidewalk. I had never seen them before but I am guessing they are local residents because they had a food and water bowl our for them.

But, the big surprise of a new animal we saw the other day was on our way to Emilee’s softball practice. We were passing a field with a bunch of donkeys in it and Emilee noticed one of the donkeys looked a little different. We don’t know how this guy made it to Olathe Kansas but we hope he is enjoying life with his donkey friends.

Forest Springs Frosty Formal

Emilee had her first school dance. Her middle school has a dance for the 7th and 8th graders in the winter each year. She looked beautiful and is growing up way to fast. She picked out her dress, she wanted it to be purple and she decided how she wanted her hair to be done. She originally thought a bun but changed her mind and went with curls, half up, half down. She went with a group of her girl friends. A few of them came over to our house to take pictures before and then arrive together at the dance. Emilee said she wanted to go in her dads car so she could arrive at the dance and have ‘drip’. I am not sure I said that correctly. But we took her and her friends to the dance and we had the song “Shut Up and Dance” blaring on the speakers when we arrived and they made their grand entrance. They had to run because there was a blizzard happening and it was a freezing 15 degrees at the time but it was still a grand entrance. It was pretty stinking cute. They all had a fun time. Emilee said they danced a lot and they had good snacks to eat.

Left to right- Lyla, Camille, Eden, Keely, Emma, Olivia, Harriet, Morgan, Emilee, Rachel, Ava, Avery

2026

Here we go! A new year of experiences, growing, changing, learning, and memories to add to our lives.

Emilee went to Arkansas for the last part of 2025 and spent a few days with her cousin Lizzy. They had a great time and loved getting to be together. She was with them for New Year Eve and we picked her up New Year Day. We hadn’t opened presents yet so when she got home we opened some with her. Our family pajama pants this year were Dr. Pepper pants. Some of us are very big fans of Dr. Pepper. And speaking of things that people are big fans of, Emilee is also a big fan of Bluey…the cartoon for preschool kids…but there is apparently a big following of middle school kids that love it too. She got a pair of Bluey pajama pants for Christmas and she got her dad a pair for Christmas so we had to get that on camera.

A few days after the New Year it was warm enough to practice shooting her bow so we went outside and used the new target she got for Christmas.

Matthew is now in his Black Out Year. It is a term missionaries use for the year of their mission that they are gone from home for the whole 365 days of the year. The crappy part of that is the definition I just gave you. The silver lining is when it is done it will be just a few more months until he comes home. He is doing really well. His Portuguese gets better everyday and he is learning and growing a lot. We are proud of him and excited for the opportunities he is having. He is missed a lot. We went to dinner the other night at Costa Vida where he used to work. He called us while we were there and talked to some of the people he used to work with which he thought was awesome. On the way there we made this video for him so he could hear one of his favorite songs and see some of the Kansas sunset. Allison was in the car with us but didn’t want to be in the video.

Allison is working hard at wrestling. She is doing early morning practices and spends most of her weekends at meets. The most recent meet at Blue Valley North West she took 3rd place. Here is a video of her at a match in Topeka.

Emilee is still doing her weekly riding lesson. She moved to a new barn this year. She is getting pretty good and comfortable on a horse. It is fun to watch her.

Paperwork…and a Call

Matthew decided that he is going to go on a mission as soon as he graduates from high school. He started filling out the paperwork for it and submitted it this week. He has an interview next week and then within a week or two after that he should find out where he is going! We did a couple practice photos to submit with his paperwork. A lot of his friends have gotten there calls or have already left. They are going to Brazil, Sweden, Singapore, Philippines, Panama, Utah and Italy. He is really hoping to get somewhere out of the United States. He is worried that having asthma will make it so they want him to stay in the US. I think he could easily go to Europe or Australia. We shall see!

It has been a few weeks since I wrote the first part and it is time to find out where he ended up getting called to! Several people told us they usually found out on a Monday between 10-14 days after submitting their paperwork. When we were in that window we were anticipating it coming on a Monday, so I made some snacks and treats, Matthew put his friends and family on alert to come over Monday night when he opened it. Ryan was going out of town on Wednesday of that week so we were hoping it would come before he left too. Monday came and went…Tuesday came and went. The Stake president checked the status and it said it was still waiting for assignment so we figured it would be the next week on Monday. Wednesday came and went. We had the missionaries in our area over for dinner Wednesday night. They told us a way to check and see if the call was on the way. We did it and it still didn’t show us anything. Thursday evening I was sitting in Emilee’s room talking with her and Matthew called me. When I answered the phone he asked where I was because he had just gotten his call. We were all pretty surprised!

Matt decided he wanted to open his call with just his immediate family first and then read it again when he invited the rest of his family and friends over later. He said in case he was going somewhere lame he didn’t want to open it with everyone first. I think that was maybe a small part of it but I think most of it was he was nervous and wanted to be able to process it a little first. Which is just fine. The bummer part was Ryan was out of town, but he left the conference he was at for a while and found a quiet place he could face time with us.

Once we had Ryan on the phone he opened his call and found out he will be going to the Brazil Recife South Mission!! He starts online training in our home on August 11, 2025 and then will go to the Brazil Training Center on August 20th. I thought it was pretty touching that the day he starts happens to he his brother Aaron’s birthday. I like to think that Aaron will help Matt and be a companion for him throughout his mission from heaven.

After he read his call with us, we invited his friends and family over to read it later that night. We did a zoom call for friends and family that were not here in KC. Several of his baseball and school friends that aren’t members of our church came. It was really cool to see them support him and be excited for him. They all wrote their guesses on a white board before he read it. Many of them stayed for a while after he read it to start researching and finding information out about Recife.

It has been pretty exciting learning and starting to plan for his mission. The first thing we had to do was get the process started for getting his Visa. It take 4-6 months so they want you to get started right away. There were a few little hiccups but we got it done pretty quick and got the paperwork sent in. He will be speaking Portuguese while he is there so he got a few apps on his phone to help him start learning. It is 138 days until he goes from when I am writing this. We have discovered lots of people that have been to Brazil on there mission, some even the same one Matthew will be at, or have family or experience with sending a missionary to Brazil. It is comforting to have there advice and insight. I am sure Matthew will have a lot of amazing experiences and grow a lot. It will be challenging for him. It is exciting, and overwhelming and a little surreal all at the same time. There are a lot of things going on at school between now and when he graduates and the Summer is already starting to fill up. Ryan and I are trying to soak it all in and enjoy and appreciate the last few months with him before he leaves, as much as we can.

Wrestling

Winter was filled with Allison’s wrestling matches. This was Allison’s first High School wrestling season. It is from November to February, if they make state it is a few weeks longer. She initially started on varsity because she beat the girl for her weight class. A few weeks later another girl dropped down to Allison’s weight class and took her spot on varsity and she was bumped to JV. Allison decided to drop down another weight class and then wrestled in that weight class the rest of the season sometimes on varsity sometimes on JV depending on another senior girl wrestler.

I think she did pretty awesome! She didn’t seem to think she did overly great but when she wrestled JV she won most of the time. Two of her meets and one dual she took 1st place. When she wrestled varsity her record was pretty close to 50/50 wins vs losses. That’s were she thought she didn’t do good but as a freshman wrestling mostly Junior and Senior girls with a lot more experience I think that is a great first year.

It is fun to watch her and see her determination and commitment to it. Not just at meets but watching weight and maintaining it where she wants it while conditioning and putting a lot of time into practice between meets. Ryan and I learned a lot more about it too. I am still not an expert but I know how points are scored and more of what the verbiage and things the ref does or says while she is wrestling means. I also figured out how to combine her individual match videos into one so I can have one video instead of a bunch of short ones. Very proud of myself for that.

It was a good season. She loves to be busy so it was good for her to have that. She is contemplating doing track next…

This is a match that was far away so I didn’t make it to watch her but she won 1st place.

Here are a few of her matches. The first one is a dual she won by technical fall which means she won by getting 15 points ahead of her opponent.

This next one is a match that she wrestled seniors every time. She took 7th in her weight class.

The last one is her last JV match of the season and she took 1st place again. She dominated the first match, used her endurance in the second match, and dominated again the third match.

2025 Begins!

January was a typical January this year. There were a lot of social media comments and jokes about how January is a 12 years long, never ends and the most miserable month of the year. I don’t think that. February seems longer to me, ironic since it is the shortest month of the year. I get why people struggle though. It is a long cold and dreary month. I am ready for the calm boringness after several months of go go go with the holidays. We had a few things that spiced the month up though.

RJ and Dani decided we should all go to a show together at the Kaufmann Center downtown. They had never been and it had been a long time for us. We all went to Chicago together. I had seen the movie, never the play. I think the play was a lot better. It was a nice adult date night down town. Allison watched their son and dogs overnight at their house and Matthew and Emilee watched each other so we stayed downtown and used hotel points after the show. It was nice to not have to drive all the way home afterwards.

The following weekend was Ryan’s works holiday party. They rented out a speak easy under the KC Hotel downtown with a roaring twenties theme. It was pretty fun, everyone dressed up and had a good time. We were going to stay in the hotel that night too but mid week Ryan got sick and we didn’t know if we were going to be able to go or not so we canceled it just in case. Luckily he was better and we got to go. It is a pretty fun hotel but I didn’t mind coming home since we had stayed downtown the weekend before. I was talking to the new marketing person Ryan just hired and her spouse. They seemed really familiar and eventually we figured out that they come to my office for dental work, so they reason they looked familiar is because I have cleaned their whole families teeth for the past few years. LOL. Small world. There were some group pictures taken but I didn’t get any copies so I just have the pictures of Ryan and I. I thought we looked pretty good, Emilee thought we looked silly but she clearly doesn’t know how people dressed in the 20’s. Our costumes came with fake cigarettes but we decided to not carry those around all night.

The next weekend we had Grandpa Terry’s 73rd birthday to celebrate! Every year he says he just wants a very simple meal for his birthday dinner with everyone. This year he said he wanted tacos, Ross said that was boring and made chicken fajitas instead. They were very good… I think Roger enjoyed them and ended up being ok with the switch. Rhonda made him a carrot cake-she makes a very good carrot cake-and he blew out all the candles successfully. The Terry family has decided we are going to continue with the decades old tradition of blowing out the candles on a birthday cake despite COVID trying to do away with it. It is kind of gross if you think about it, but we have all survived this long. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ I do not have a clue why Allison is holding a candle up in an orange for him to blow out too-I would guess either an inside joke or she didn’t want to eat cake for wrestling reasons and was including her orange in the celebration.

And last but not least for January-for part of the kids Christmas present Ryan got tickets to the Chiefs playoff game…if they made it. Of course they made it to the playoffs. We have gone to the super bowl 6 times in the last 7 years and will probably go again this year. He had four tickets. I was fine with not going because if I watch the game I prefer to do it in the warmth of my living room. IT WAS COLD! Allison had some wrestling stuff she didn’t want to miss so she passed her ticket onto Matthew’s friend Carter. So Emilee, Carter, Matthew and Ryan braved the weather and went to the game. We won and it was a fun game. No one lost any toes or fingers to the cold. The Chiefs hold the record for loudest stadium in the NFL and Emilee said she believes it. She had a fun time with her dad and brother. Next we have to try for a three win in a row at the Super Bowl!

January 2024

If I looked back at my other posts from January I would bet that they say something to the effect that it is kind of a boring month but I love it because after the holidays I need a month of boring.

This year was not different. Relative to our usual schedule of kids activities and normal life events going on it was pretty slow. I loved it, and I needed it! There will still be some rearranging but I was able to go through each room and at least get the initial unpacking and organization done so everything is pretty functional. I did a little more decorating. Found some rugs, got a few things like and end table, bookcase and barstools. I hung up most of the pictures. I want to do another picture wall in the basement but I don’t have a solid plan in my head yet so I just keep thinking about it for now.

An usual change for me though was I got into plants. I like plants but as far as having live plants in my house I have never been interested because the few times I have been given a plant it doesn’t last to long. My sweet mom would give me starter plants after I got married and then they would die. She eventually gave up. I have just not had the desire or energy (I know it doesn’t take a ton but it requires some attention) to take care of them. Maybe now that my kids are older and a little more self sufficient I have enough band width to add some plants. So I did! I love them. They make me happy and don’t feel like a burden at all. The first one I got was a bit of an impulse buy from a store that doesn’t really have plants they just had a few randomly. I say that because so far it is the one that is struggling and I would normally think it was because I don’t really care to figure out why, but that is not the case. I think there was something in the soil or it wasn’t that healthy when I got it. I am still hopeful that it will turn around and make it but time will tell. After I got the first one I went and got a few more. Ryan took one to work and the rest I put around the house. I want to get more but I am making myself wait and not go crazy. The kids think I am a little silly but I like them. They don’t talk back or sass me either! Here are my plants I got. I repotted them and gave them all new soil and food and a nice sunny spot (or not sunny if they prefer) to grow. Three of the four are thriving and growing for sure. Crossing my fingers for the fourth but I am already way ahead of my past track record.

We had a few guests in January! Our first visitor was Sherrie. The girls stayed in Arkansas for a few days with her after New Years so she brought them back up and stayed the night with us.

A few weeks later Ryan’s best friend Mike Johnson came for a weekend. Those two are quite a pair. They love to get as much sports watching, eating, and talking in as they can whenever they get together.

It had been a bit to long since we had gotten out our Terry Family Growin’ Board and measured everyone. We got it out of storage when we moved so we measured the kids in January. Everyone had done some significant growing, Matthew hit a milestone he has been waiting on for a long time. He is the tallest in the family. He officially passed his dad in height. He is still growing so he is hoping to increase that lead by another inch or two.

Allison had two gymnastic meets in January. One at the beginning and one towards the end. The first one she had a few mess ups and wanted to just forget it. She still had some good moments but we can focus on the second one. Here are some pictures. I wish I had a parent photographer that takes amazing pictures for everyone on the team like I had for Matthew’s baseball but so far it is just my limited skills that are available. I tried to get some good action ones because we had pretty good seats at this meet.

Busy Weekends

January was a typical January. Kind of slow. Just the way I like it so we can recover and relax from the busy months before. By the end of January baseball, horse lessons, piano, gymnastics were all up and going. We had lots of things going on each weekend so Ryan and I would divide and concur the best that we could.

Like he does each year, Grandpa Terry started off one of the weekends in January celebrating his birthday. He turned 71. We told him we would make or get any food he wanted for his dinner and strongly hinted at BBQ. He said he wanted to go with easy to get, eat, and clean up so he picked pizza. After asking him 5 times to make sure he really didn’t want BBQ we picked up some pizza (we made sure one had every topping they offer on it just for Grandpa) and we celebrated with dinner followed by cake. His boys and his two oldest grandsons took him on an axe throwing adventure. They all felt very manly and proud of themselves when they got back. Ethan was concerned about not being able to throw the axe far enough and ended up being the best of them at it. Rhonda made a chocolate cake and a cherry cheesecake for him. In true pre-covid fashion we put candles on the cake and he blew them all out. I am all for blowing out candles but I think taking a piece for the birthday person and putting the candles on just their piece to spit on when they blow out is more my style. However, I am often overruled though and called a germ-a-phob or fun hater. All in all I think Grandpa had a fun birthday.

The next day was another big day. Ryan’s biological mom Sherrie, her husband Dave, daughter Genevieve and her son Eric came up to finally meet Rhonda and Roger in person. It has been a highly anticipated meeting since we found Sherrie two years ago. Ryan was a nervous wreck all week. He was really worried Rhonda would change her mind or hurl back handed ‘compliments’ or barely veiled insults when she met Sherrie. The day before they came, Rhonda decided she wanted to call Sherrie and talk with her over the phone first. They said they ended up talking for three hours and it was a great conversation. That put Ryan at ease a little bit and when they arrived in person it went pretty well. We all sat around and talked for a bit then Rhonda and Sherrie kind of split off and talked and looked at photos. Gen and Dave talked with the rest of us and Eric jumped right in to play with Emilee and Jovee. Rhonda and Sherrie just kept talking. Everyone else went to Top Golf and played games. Rhonda told me afterwards that she was really glad she finally met her and she really liked Sherrie. She said she felt like she was talking with a long lost friend. Ryan and I were very happy that they got along and made a friend in each other.

Instead of going golfing with everyone, Allison and I headed to Salina Kansas for a gymnastic tournament. She did a pretty good job. She placed 9th overall, and had one of her best bar routines yet. She is still loving gymnastics. We are proud of her for how hard she works and how much effort she puts into it. Right when we arrived it started snowing so by the time we left a few hours later there was a pretty good snow storm. We had to go a little slower but we were still able to make it home.

Vermin

About a week into the New Year, it was a regular evening. The kids were all at youth night at the church. I sat down to work on a puzzle we had out from Christmas. Ryan said he was going down to the basement to work on the computer. We were set up for a nice relaxing evening after work and the events of the day. A few minutes later Ryan called me to come look at something. After a sigh, one more sip of my hot chocolate and begrudgingly unwrapping from my cocoon of my favorite blanket I went downstairs.

He had found little black things scattered around the top of the desk and couldn’t figure out what they were. We thought they were insects…dirt…crumbs…they weren’t much bigger than a flake of pepper. We weren’t sure, we wiped them up and decided to see if they came back. I went back upstairs, wrapped back up in my cocoon. A few seconds later I snapped a satisfying piece into my puzzle and the words ‘mouse poop’ popped in my head. I have never seen mouse poop so I wasn’t sure. I decided to google it- sure enough that’s what it was. Ryan had the same thought and we both hollered to each other that we thought is was mouse poop at the same time. We looked around and found a few more spots that had evidence of the disgusting rodents. Immediately everything in our clean cozy little house turned to contaminated, dirty, soiled nastiness in my mind. So instead of relaxing and enjoying our evening we cleaned up everything we found, bundled up and went out in the nasty cold weather to Menards to get some mouse traps. I was still hoping it wasn’t mice, Ryan was pretty certain. We decided to buy one of each kind of trap and see which ones worked and get more of those. We told the kids to pick up any messes and no food was allowed anywhere outside the kitchen and dishes had to be done ASAP after eating.

We crawled into bed. Wondering if there were just mice running around the house like they owned the place every night. Then I heard Allison crying in her room. I went to see what was wrong and she was distraught that we were going to torture the mice and kill them. I tried to explain we weren’t torturing them but we were going to kill them. We came to the agreement that we would use traps that killed them immediately or caught them alive and then dad would take them to the field by his work and release them AND provide video evidence of their release. Crisis averted we went to bed.

The next morning we had THREE dead mice!! THREE!! To make matters a little worse the only traps that worked were the sticky pads…not Allison approved. They completely avoided the rest of the traps. That day was spent cleaning, disinfecting, throwing things away, and putting anything the mice might take as food into a plastic storage bin with a lid. We bought a lot more sticky pads. I researched mice and learned way more then I ever wanted to know about them. Allison made it clear that her trust in us was gone and we were murderers. We had a lengthy conversation about why mice are gross and shouldn’t cohabitate with humans. I apologized that we were going to be using the sticky traps. I had not lied to her but now that I had more information then the night before I had to update our plans. She couldn’t get the image out of her head that they would bite there own legs off to get away from the sticky traps. I told her I thought the sticky traps had poison on them or something because the mice were all dead in the morning.

We ended up catching multiple mice several days in a row, for a grand revolting total of seven. I kept thinking I couldn’t believe we had seven mice running around and no idea. More mice than people!!! I don’t think they were here very long though. The week of Christmas it got really cold. Several days of -5 or more. We think that is when they moved in under the sink for warmth. I deep cleaned the entire house before we moved in and never saw any evidence. I had cleaned several times since we moved in and not seen any either. Since we caught number seven we have seen no more evidence and the traps are checked and moved around regularly. Hopefully we are done with the gross disease carrying vermin.

That was the end of the mice drama until about a week after the last mouse was caught. Allison stepped on a sticky trap. She had a shoe on but was concerned she was going to spread poison all over the house.🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Allison’s Adventures

Allison is doing really well in school. Her goal it to work on her time management which makes me very happy. She is a person that evaluates herself and while she might not admit a mistake or shortfall, she makes a conscious effort to change or develop habits that she wants to work on.

In one of her classes they are making a large marble chute on a board. She asked me if I new which one was hers. All but one of them was contained to the board they were given to attach it to. One of them had extensions all over and was only on the board when she wanted to cross over to the other side. I guessed the least contained design and was right. Allison doesn’t like to be contained and that applies to all aspects of her life.

When I took some things into Emilee’s room the other day I found this note on the bathroom door that they share. It has been a while since I have found an Allison note. It made me chuckle. I especially love the ‘probably’ in parenthesis under “I WILL”. The two of them are working out some boundary/sharing issues with their shared bathroom.

Allison had another gymnastic meet this month. Her team took 1st place. She got her personal best in two events. She got a 9.3 on her floor and vault routine. She is progressing in all of her events and doing well. It is fun to watch her improve.

Boys vs Girls Communication

While I was at work the other day on a Thursday afternoon, I got a text from Lisa, she is Matthew’s friend Campbell’s mom. She asked me if I was ok with the schedule for Saturday for pictures and hanging out before and after the dance. Apparently that weekend-in two days, there was a high school dance that Matthew and Campbell were attending with a group of her friends. I told her I was glad she had reached out because I had no idea there was a dance coming up. After her text, I texted Matthew and asked him if he was going to a dance this weekend that he hadn’t mentioned to me yet. He said, “Yep.”

I am finding that Matthew will answer my questions if I ask him very specific questions multiple times. He isn’t much on details. Luckily Lisa and Campbell are, so they fill me in and tell me what is going on. He made it to all the places he needed to be to eat, take pictures, and dance. Campbell told me the dance was more fun this time because people actually danced.

Matthew also had parent teacher conferences. His communication continued to be brief for that as well. His entire presentation had fewer words than Emilee’s or Allison’s had on one page. Between his teacher and I we were able to drag enough information to know what we needed to know. I took a few snap shots of some of his artwork. I am not sure what the stick figure one is, when I asked he said, “An assignment.” 🙂

Emilee’s Events

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

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

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

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

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

January 2022

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

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

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

Fire Alarms and Cocoa

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

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

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

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

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

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

The take aways from our exciting evening were:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grandpa Terry’s 69th Birthday

Grandpa Terry has his birthday in January. It is his last year of his 60’s. Usually for your birthday you have someone else make your meal, at least I do, but for his birthday he invited us and Ross’ family all to dinner at his house and made us a ‘farm meal’ which was mashed potatoes, gravy, roast and green beans. Then for dessert we had a raspberry cheese cake. It was nice to get to see him on his birthday. This might be the first time we have spent it with him because it is in January and we don’t usually travel a lot in January.

For his gift we got him some Chief socks and a sweatshirt so he has some gear to wear for games.

I think this is as good as place as any to add a funny grandpa story. Now that we live by Grandpa we have learned that he has a particular way he does things. Everybody does of course, sometimes those things are more…neurotic then others.

Grandpa likes his house to be in perfect working order like it is brand new. He works very hard at keeping things cleaned and well taken care of. When he moved into the new house he went around and made sure EVERY single nail hole was filled in and sanded and repainted so there weren’t any unused nail holes on the walls. He also likes to use or reuse things until they can’t be used anymore. No matter how long it takes to clean or maintain or craft something to fix it, if it can be fixed he will fix it. He likes to save money and he does not like to throw perfectly good items away. This means he washes plastic silverware or cups in the dishwasher. He also uses plastic sacks from the grocery store (about two gallon size sacks) in his 13 gallon garbage can so he doesn’t waste the sacks. When there are 12 people over for dinner you can imagine how quickly those fill up. But we all have little things that have the potential to drive other people a little crazy, and we love Grandpa so we just smile, sometimes roll our eyes and empty the trash 12 times when we go over and wash the disposable silverware.

One of the times we were over we noticed a new frugal fix that he had come up with and it made me giggle. Exhibit A

What is this you might be wondering. It looks like a measuring cup from the top of a bottle of medicine screwed to the wall. You would be correct. It is a piece of trash screwed to the wall. What possible reason is there for this? When you see what it is for you might think it is actually pretty resourceful, and is it, but since he is not a 19 year old boy living in a college dorm room it is a little silly. Exhibit B.

We love Grandpa Terry and his fix it skills. 😁🤣😘

Allison’s Gymnastic Pictures

We got back Allison’s team gymnastic pictures. She has the prints hanging up in her room, but I took a picture of the pictures to have in the family blog.

She set a goal to work on her back flip, tuck, and handspring this year. Last week on the trampoline she got it down. She has had the skills for a while, she has been working on the nerves to trust herself and do it. She has a couple nasty trampoline burns on her face but she is confident enough to do them well on the trampoline now. Next step is applying it to land.

Everyone Likes A Human Pyramid

Last Sunday the kids were making their own pyramids and then I believe it was Aunt Lauren that helped them realize with the all the adults they had enough people to make one more layer.

Allison’s Christmas Experience

Allison struggled with knowing what she wanted to ask for for Christmas this year. Ryan and I decided that she would like to have an experience and make some memories instead of a physical gift. We came up with an indoor sky diving experience. Luckily we were right, and she was thrilled.

Shortly after the new year we scheduled her sky diving experience. It was for her and one other person so she asked me to go with her.

It was a lot of fun, it was a lot harder then we thought it would be, we were exhausted when we were done and sore the next day. It was loud and cold. But it was worth it and we had a good time. We haven’t told the rest of the family yet but we got a good deal on a family skydiving package when we were done so we got that and will take everyone sometime soon. We are waiting for Matthew’s leg to heal.

Here are the pictures and videos of us.

2021…and so it begins…

Well, 2021 is off to a good start in the Terry home. We took down all the Christmas decorations. When all the decorations are down everything always looks clean and decluttered so it triggers me to declutter and dejunk every drawer, cabinet, nook and cranny in our house. I have made it through the main floor and the upstairs. I have a little left to do in the kitchen and then the basement. Our trashcan has been overflowing the past two weeks, and the donation pile is piled high and ready to go to the salvation army. It is such a satisfying feeling to know there is no trash and no useless items in any drawers or cupboards.

Other aspects of our lives are continuing on as well, of course. Ryan is working and doing well at his job. I am working at Smiley Dental part time. We are still having church every week alternating between watching it at home or doing our own sacrament meeting, and going in person with half our ward at a time. We have to wear masks everywhere per the Governor’s state mandate but in all aspects that Ryan and I control, we try to have the kids life as normal as possible. Playing with friends, going outside, going to stores and other places. We had a family talk the other day and I think a trip as a family is in order. The kids need to get out and go somewhere. We did think of maybe a weekend ski trip to Colorado but with Matthew’s broken leg it won’t be soon. Plans are still in discussion. COVID is definitely here and moving through the community. Even as recently as August, I’d even say September, it was rare to actually know someone personally that had, had COVID. Now we have lots of friends, co-worker, neighbors and family that have had it. So far I have been blessed that most if not all the people I know personally that had it have had no symptoms to minor symptoms and recovered with no issue.

The information I have found says the survival rate for COVID is 99.4-99.6%. I’ll take those odds any day for a global pandemic. They have several vaccine options becoming available and are starting to distribute it. I had the option to get it through work but decided in my age, health, and family situation I would rather just take my chances with COVID. I am not anti-vaccine but they are using a new method that alters the mRNA in the cells and I think I want more than 10 years (I think that is being generous) of scientific experimentation and learning before I jump on board to volunteer to pioneer the first generation to try this type of vaccine. There are rumors that it will be required to travel, the next few months will be interesting to watch and see if people decide to hand over more of their freedoms and choice for the sake of ‘safety’ or they realize lets try our best to wash our hands and occasionally get sick and not hand over more unnecessary control to the government over our lives.

The past few months with COVID and politics have revealed some interesting dynamics in our neighborhood. There is a group of neighbors that have become pretty vocal about their support of Joe Biden. That in itself is not the problem, if you want to support Biden be my guest. The actions I see that can and are leading to some issues is their starting to condemn neighbors and people around them that don’t support Biden or follow the governments ‘recommendations’ to exactness, or more precisely their idea of exactness. Instead of inviting everyone to a party like they used to they just invite the ones that openly support Biden with a sign in their yard. (I do realize that having a party with a bunch of people isn’t following social distancing protocol, but if you are doing it to support Biden this group of people say its ok. I guess COVID knows the rules about which social gatherings are allowed.) They have gotten angry and sent mean texts to a parent for giving their kid a ride to basketball practice. Even though the kid is 14 and accepted the offer and has always carpooled with them in the past. They often ‘don’t see or hear’ when you walk by their house and say hi to them while they are sitting or working in the yard. They announce on the FB page that anyone who is a Republican can unfriend them and they want nothing to do with them because some people in Washington DC raided the capitol and somehow every Republican in America should be held responsible. They google everyone on the street and let people know what people they probably want to avoid because of certain events or beliefs in their past and/or present. Matthew was ON A WALK with some friends and a neighbor told them to go home or she would call the police. I find it more than slightly ironic that all of these things go on and more while one of these people have a “Love Your Neighbor” sign in their yard. It is pretty crazy, almost laughable if it weren’t all true.

Expanding our bubble a little more to school and local happenings. The girls are back in school full time. Matthew is back to full time virtual school. There was some long convoluted explanation relating to number of cases going up but not in schools but they should stay home anyway, as the reason for going back to virtual but I don’t want to waste the time to type it here. The teachers are doing a pretty good job for the most part but this year can hardly be qualified as quality education, I am constantly assured by the schools that’s ok though. The girls school principle (the one who has her name and picture plastered all over the school and makes me want to scream and pull my hair out just by hearing her name) is loving having the excuse of COVID to make as many stupid illogical rules as she can to fulfill her need for total control. She has a little group of followers that ‘spy’ for her and turn in people that are ‘hiding’ their COVID symptoms. The kids are told they shouldn’t talk loudly because of COVID, zero visitors are allowed into the school, and when she sends all the teachers home to be quarantined, she has people with no teaching experience or even a license to substitute filling in and ‘teaching’. Uggg this might seem obvious but I loathe this woman. If you have ever seen Harry Potter she honestly is Professor Umbridge, to a tee, minus the magic wand of course but hair, dress, and smarminess are the same. We have three and a half more years left of dealing with her before Emilee is out of elementary. I can not say if I will or will not make it my mission to get her fired between now and then.

Nothing drastically improved overnight in the world at large when 2020 became 2021. In politics, Trump is throwing a temper tantrum-to be fair the democrat’s totally rigged the election and falsely elected Joe Biden, but in typical Trump fashion he is acting like a two year old. There is literally dozen’s of examples and proof from video tapes of people carrying in suitcases of votes and running them through 7 times, software corruption, eye witness accounts, counties having more votes then people living in them, ‘corrected ballets’, and so much more that the media and courts just flat out ignore and dismiss. Instead they are pushing the the story that a man who has been in politics for 40+ years with nothing to show for it, has sexual harrassment charges against him from people ages 5-80 dismissed as ‘he is friendly’, has a son that it connected to Russian Mafia and other drug Lords, and can’t follow a conversation because he has dementia, not only won the election that at its most generous predictions was never predicted in his favor by more than a slight margin, but won by a landslide, with bigger voting margins than have ever been recorded in United States history-including the beloved Obama. If you honestly think the results of this past election were accurate, you are living with your head in the sand and not willing to accept reality. The fact that people no matter what their political affiliation is are ok with this and letting it get swept under the rug is not a good sign. Our government and its validity and structure is circling the drain.

Over the past year it has been crazy to take a step back and see all the things that are in motion. No matter what perspective you look at it from-citizen, economic, political, anything-it is changing fast and furiously. From a religious perspective, when you read about the wars and government corruption in the Book of Mormon it is eerie how close situations are today. Human nature as a whole is fairly predictable and it is crazy how a little control and a little filtering of the media and propaganda can swing nations in different directions. It seems like it is sudden but it isn’t, I think a lot of people don’t realize or want to believe how subtle, organized and focused the devil is on slowly dragging people down. It is like some people view it as something of the past, just stories. If you look even in the last 100 years you can see the patterns and work of people that are pure evil working their way into position and power and building on their steps to get ultimate power. Hitler was less than 100 years ago and in my life time alone the general truth and facts of what happened and lead up to that have been taught in school and lessons learned accepted as facts, to a once small but now growing alarmingly larger and larger belief that we should head towards socialism again and even that a lot of the history and things that happened didn’t really happen. How insane is that! There is no other way to describe it as crazy but when people try and talk or change or expose the evil, they are looked on as radicals, crazy, selfish and uncaring. People are starting to be very divided and polarized.

Uuggg. I really wasn’t planning on this post being about any of this but I obviously went off on a tangent. With all of this stuff becoming more and more prevalent, obviously I am seeing it more in my personal life and that is worrisome. When I read in the scriptures that good people will be lead away by subtle means and I see it happening to my own friends and family I want to shake them and say, “This is you its talking about! Don’t fall for it!” I have heard leaders and people say that things are speeding up and moving quickly. It isn’t that I didn’t believe them but it is different when you start seeing it in your own personal life with people you know and have known.

The waters are pretty murky and that isn’t going to improve anytime soon. It is overwhelming if you focus to much on it. If I didn’t have a living prophet to follow it would be hard to keep focused. God is real, his gospel was restored to the earth through Joseph Smith. I have heard a lot of criticisms and doubts about Joseph Smith from several acquaintances in the past year or so. I know he wasn’t perfect and I know that even studying and learning more about him I still won’t have all the details or the how’s and why’s of what he did and who he was but I know enough to know that he was called by God to translate the Book of Mormon and restore the gospel to the earth in its fullness. I know he did that, and God helped him accomplish the things he needed to. I know Joseph Smith had faith, and personal revelation and I believe he did his best. I don’t need to judge him and fill in the details with the limited knowledge I have through rose colored glasses almost 200 years later. I have prayed and asked if he was a prophet, I know he was a prophet of God. I know President Nelson is a prophet of God today. I know he his helping us prepare for what is to come. He has been urging us and helping us become more independent and trusting of our individual testimonies and personal revelation. He reminds us to strengthen them and helps us know what to focus on and how to prepare ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Family Flexibility

The range of flexibility in our family goes from Allison doing full splits and bending over backwards to Ryan and Matthew who can barely bend forward let alone touch their toes.

The past year Matthew has started having issues because he works out so much and then doesn’t stretch enough. On top of his lack of flexibility his muscles tighten up from working out and make him even less flexible and more tight. He has had to do several rounds of physical therapy. Of course Ryan and I have been nagging, harping, reminding, lecturing, begging, threatening, and anything else we can think of to get him to stretch 1-2 times a day. I’ve made him do Yoga with me. He is pretty ornery about it ,mainly because it hurts, he doesn’t like it, doesn’t get the importance of it, he is not good at it, and he is a belligerent teenager.

Our chiropractor gave us a video to use with some basic stretching. Ryan realized he needs to do it just as much as Matthew so the two of them have been doing it together at night. It is so ridiculous watching them. I switch between laughing so hard my eyes water to rolling my eyes as they moan and complain and roll around on the floor supposedly stretching but looking more like they are having a seizure or full body muscle spasm.

Kudos to them for trying though. They get an ‘A’ for effort. Well Ryan gets a ‘B’ and Matthew gets ‘C-‘

Philosophy and Toothpaste

I am not an idealist, I am a realist. Usually an optimistic realist but have my moments on the pessimistic side as well. So maybe you could say most of the time I am a realistic idealist, heavy on the realistic. 😂😂😂 I wonder if that is an original joke, or if my brain pulled it up from my memory that I heard somewhere before. Anyways. The reason I am rambling on about this is because it is a new year! One of, if not the highest time of year that people focus on making new goals for achievement and self improvement.

Ideally, many of us decide on something that we think will make our life better, or happier and make a plan to achieve it. Then follow the plan and achieve the goal. This process can then be repeated and goal by goal, step by step you are farther along the path of being a successful, fulfilled and happy person until your life is perfect and you are perfect.

Realistically, most of us start with great intentions and ambitions but then usually loose interest, desire, and/or motivation, and shortly afterwards and are back to our old habits. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are harder to make. Of course individual circumstances fortitude, self discipline and other traits have a big effect on success/failure too.

However, from an ideal realistic point of view. Sometimes we set goals for ourselves and are successful, sometimes we fail, sometimes we change our mind and change our goals. Sometimes we take a break then start again. There are almost numberless possibilities and reasons for why we do and don’t achieve goals. I think that the desire to make goals and put effort towards self improvement can be praised for heading in the right direction. Hopefully each day we can take another step in the direction we want to go. Sometimes the steps might be baby steps, giant leaps, maybe even a slip backwards, or complete stand still. Some goals are achieved in a day, some take years, some a lifetime, some are frivolous, inconsequential, life altering or even eternal but hopefully when all is said and done if you haven’t yet achieved the goal, you are closer than you were. And, along the way when needed you have the discipline to rededicate yourself and try harder, the courage to re-evaluate and change course, and the brains and humility to know which one of those to do-or come up with a third option.

Anywho. I am going to switch gears a little now and address the second part of the title of this blog. Toothpaste. The recent focus of a minor goal in my life.

Throughout our marriage we have lived in several different homes and sometimes Ryan and I have shared a bathroom sink, sometimes we have had our own. Depending on whether we shared a sink or not we would also share a tube of toothpaste or each have our own. Currently we have our own sinks and have our own toothpaste.

A while back while we were brushing our teeth one night, I made the comment that when I was helping the girls brush their teeth their toothpaste had so much dried toothpaste gunked up around the top that you couldn’t squeeze anymore toothpaste out even though it was at least still half full of toothpaste. Ryan chuckled and said it must be hereditary. To which I rolled my eyes and changed the subject because I knew where the conversation was headed. Ryan being Ryan wouldn’t let it go and asked to see my tube of toothpaste. I told him to not concern himself with my toothpaste…yaddy yaddy yaw…Ryan makes fun of me…I call him a turd…as the conversation is wrapping up he says something to the effect of it boggles his mind that he is a less detailed oriented person and messier than me but his toothpaste is clean as a whistle. I am a clean, organized, person but there are a few things in my life that are just a mess like my sock drawer and my tube of toothpaste. I laughed at the sock drawer comment because I know why I do that. It is the perfect amount of ‘controlled chaos’ for me and I like it. The toothpaste though…I don’t try and make it gunky but it usually is that way and I have to clean it up pretty often. So my curiosity was piqued as to why it was messy too.

So I decided to make it a goal of mine (definitely in the frivolous goal category) to keep the toothpaste tube nice and clean. Each time I brushed my teeth I made a conscious effort to leave the toothpaste nice and clean. A week later…it was getting gunky again.

I casually inspected Ryan’s toothpaste and noticed that he doesn’t just flip the lid down, he snaps it on tight, so I tried that. A week later I couldn’t snap the lid tight because it was getting gunky again.

Now it went from curiosity to a mission. So I checked the toothpaste after I put it on and and sure enough it was nice and clean but when I set it down a little toothpaste would come out the top and start building up. A little more trial and error and I discovered the proper way to apply toothpaste if you want to have a gunk free toothpaste tube.

Squeeze the toothpaste to get the toothpaste you want. Then while simultaneously releasing the squeeze on the tube so it will suck the toothpaste down into the tube apply a moderate amount of pressure with the toothbrush while applying the toothpaste so that the bristles scoop out more of the toothpaste and leave a little dip going into the tube instead of a the toothpaste being flush with the opening. Then close the lid tightly. This method has successfully kept my toothpaste gunk free for several weeks. Also, a note is to squeeze from the bottom not the middle of the tube which is different then what I used to do.
Basically, Ryan applies his toothpaste more aggressively so it stays clean. I have a more delicate approach due to the fact I inadvertently try not to touch the bristles when I apply toothpaste to anything except the toothpaste. If you have your own toothpaste either way is fine, but if you share a tube my way is a little more hygienic…until the tube gets gunky.
I successfully achieved my goal (which turned out to be more of a science experiment) and now tend to switch back and forth between my old way and Ryan’s way.

I know it seems like I spent a lot of time and effort on this, but I would like to say I really didn’t. All the thinking and pondering of what to do next occurred during the time I spent applying the toothpaste. I have however spent a lot of time writing this blog about toothpaste.😁

My Blog!

I order the first two volumes of my blog earlier this month and they have arrived! I have a few kinks to work out when I have them printed but for the most part it is pretty awesome. I have about 400 pages of posts and pictures from last year!

The kids read my blog sometimes but they like looking through the book and reading that a little more I think. It’s fun to remember things. Even from a year ago I forget lots of the details. I read what I said about January last year and then this year. It made me laugh that it is almost opposite. What a difference a year can make.

I also need to proof read a little more use the word ‘too’ less. 😁 I’m ready to blog another year though!

Bring on January

When school starts in August there is a steady buildup of energy and activities that comes to a big crescendo with Christmas and New Years (mostly just Christmas). Then January comes and I used to think it was kind of boring. I actually still do think it is boring but it is a nice, peaceful, relaxing boring. If I think about it, January is the only month that there isn’t some big event (New Years is more like the end of December) that requires a bunch of planning and preparation and whatever else. It is a nice refrain before the year starts to ramp up again and takes off with one busy thing to the next. Once Valentine’s Day comes there is a steady stream of holidays, school events, birthdays, vacations, activities, sports, and more until the next January.

So I have been trying to slow down and relax and enjoy the nice things about January, so far it has been working splendidly.

Last little bit of break. The first week of January is usually still Christmas break for the kids. This year we enjoyed it playing games, and doing things around the house. We got all the Christmas things put away. I went through each of the kids rooms with them too and purged them of paper, trash, and whatever else is crammed in there. They don’t really like doing that but I feel amazing once it is done, they all like the end result too. When we were done there were five full trash bags for the garbage man, and two for donating.
Purge my house. I also go through every closet and other room in my house and organize, clean out, get rid of old stuff, broken stuff, do lots of the little things that have been sitting on desks or in drawers waiting to get filed, sewn, fixed, or whatever else. Basically all the things that I haven’t wanted to do but for some reason in January I don’t mind doing. I hate having clutter and stuff laying around, even if it is crammed in a drawer. When you have kids, it is amazing the things you find crammed in drawers. A couple months ago I did some rearranging and Ryan built me some storage shelves in our storage room and I turned it into a little work out room. This month I finished up the floor and getting it set up. Matthew and Alli have both been using it for lifting weights, running, and stretching. I have a few more things I want to add eventually like a punching bag, pull up bar and a few more weight things but it is a handy little room.
Soup weather. I like soups-because they’re good, easy, and easy to have leftovers with. January is a perfect month for cooking soups. We usually just have a few different soups each week. So many choices! This week I made a broccoli cheese soup. With a little hesitation everyone actually ate it without to much fuss and most even dared say they liked it, which always shocks me. However, the next day no one was very willing to have leftovers. I get it though, I think broccoli cheese soup is a bit of a conundrum. It doesn’t look very good and it doesn’t even smell very good, in fact I think it stinks, but it tastes delicious. I even find myself deterred from eating it but once I take a bite it is always so delicious.
Reset. I usually try to re-motivate and re-focus on my goals and our family goals. Our big family one is keeping on track and doing regular family study of the new church curriculum Come Follow Me. We are sticking with our before school reading/study time we have been using since school started. It works really well…when there is school. We need a better plan of attack when there isn’t school. Matthew’s bus route was rearranged for a few days when school started last week and we had to start reading at 6:20. It was a little painful. It has since been switched again and we are back to our 6:45 and we are all much happier.
Try something new. I decided to stop paying for piano for my kids and fighting with them to practice everyday and instead take piano lessons myself. I will appreciate it much more then my kids did. I took lessons in elementary school and have just played fun music since then. I want to work on better technique and timing. I had my first lesson this week and I am already well on my way to being a counting fiend! Ha! I will try and get Allison to play again in a year or two. Matthew will most likely fall into the category of people that regret not sticking with it longer when he is older. I told him I have never met someone that regretted taking piano lessons, but I have met many that regret stopping their lessons. In 20 years when he regrets it, here is my proof. You should have stuck with it.

Here we go!

About six months ago I started mulling over the idea that I wanted to start a blog for our family. I don’t really know much about blogs. I can get by with my computer skills but I’m not the most tech savvy person. I have friends that I know use it as their family journal/scrapbook and print it out each year, and that is what appeals to me. When I was about 10ish one of my aunt’s gave me a few scrapbook supplies. I started doing it and really like it. When I got married I kept doing it and created many volumes of books. Right after I had Matthew I remember thinking, “I might as well pack all this stuff away for the next 20 years because I will never have time to do this again.” After I adjusted to being a new mom and juggling everything I was able to get back to it. Three or four years ago I switched over to doing everything online through Shutterfly instead of by hand. It was much easier and faster, and less messy. I love having the books to look through and remember. My kids like them too. I hope someday their kids and so on will enjoy them too. I think a family blog will let me add a little more substance to my books instead of just a brief caption with the pictures, but still have pictures too. So… here goes the launch of the Terry Family Blog!