Dad turned 41 this year! We went out to one of his favorite restaurants, Sake Lounge, and had a lot of yummy sushi. In the past he has requested his mom’s chocolate cake but this year he changed it up and asked for a lemon cake. I only have one cake recipe that has lemon in it so I made that. I nailed it. It was delicious. Not what he wanted, but still delicious. The cake I made had a glaze instead of a frosting and he said he had envisioned frosting. It was still delicious though.
We were a little short on gift ideas so he got some new pajama pants and some snazzy socks. I remembered him mentioning that he wanted a good chopping knife, ours are getting pretty dull. I found him one, and it is definitely sharp. It has cut all of us that have used it. Apparently we need to work on our knife safety skills. Allison decided it needed to be named so we now refer to it as Kevin.
Thanks to her friend Stella, Emilee was willing to try a new sport this Spring. We signed her up for Softball. It ended up not starting until June but we were still able to do it.
Practices were fun and she liked going to those, but once games started it was a little trickier to get her there. I ended up bribing her with an ice cream cone from McDonald’s after each game she went to. We still missed a few but she got to most. She did really well too! She got a few good hits in and ran the bases. She chased the ball down and threw it to first a few times and got two outs. She learned a lot about how the game works and what you are supposed to do on offense or defense. They usually got a team treat afterwards to that was a motivation for her to go. I didn’t know that until after promising her an ice cream cone so she loved getting a bonus treat.
She loved when we would come watch her too. Allison and I made it to most of the games. It was a bonus when dad and Matthew came, his baseball overlapped a lot.
Dad and Matthew tried to help her practice hitting and play catch with her during the week too. Emilee is naturally athletic but she is averse to sweating so we are hoping she will push past that and try again next year.
We are in the process of dissolving our RV business. As that process has continued to play out we have ended up with one of out RV’s here in KS. Li’l Sebastian is enjoying the heartland. Ryan decided that if we are going to have it here and are paying for it we might as well use it and enjoy it. He planned a quick family vacation to the Lake of the Ozarks. We loaded up Sebastian and drove down Friday night to the KOA. Ryan has been there many times for work, none of the rest of us have ever been.
It is a nice little town. There are all kinds of things to do. The KOA was pretty new and updated. The first thing we did upon arrival is light a fire and roast some smores. We explored the campsite a little. Then it was pretty late so we started a movie together in the RV then went to bed.
The rest of the weekend was pretty packed with cool activities. We went to a water park, toured Bridal Caves, hiked a few trails including one that had castle ruins to see, we also went to the lake and swam for a few hours. We cooked over the fire for dinner each night and had smores. There was park and a pool at our camp site that we swam in too.
This is a peak at one of the huge underground lakes in the cave.
This is a ‘ladder’ they used when the cave was first explored, it is a 2×4
There was a lot fewer people than usual because of COVID still but that made it not as crowded when we went to all those places. Ryan and I have decided we are ready to pretty much go back to our normal lives. We understand the risks of being in public and getting Corona and we are fine accepting those risks. Just like we do with the flu, and colds, and every other disease we might catch by living our lives. The purpose was to slow the spread to not overwhelm the hospitals and we did that- a while ago- somewhere along the road the goal for some became to have no one else get COVID ever and that is ridiculous. Then the riots and protests and looting has started with ANTIFA and BLM groups. Thousands have been gathering in groups to do that…it is hard for the media and liberals to convince people we have to continue to stay home for everything except protesting and rioting. Anyway, I digress. Back to our vacation.
For some reason the girls were intent on seeing a turtle. They picked their wish well. We saw our first turtle cruising across the highway right as we got to town. He was luckily on his way off the highway. On our hike there was one imitating a rock right on the trail we were hiking. The last one we found was next to our campsite buried in the leaves. He was the luckiest because the girls gave him a snack of lettuce and blueberries before he moved on.
This is the turtle we almost missed sitting on the path we were walking on.
We hiked a few hundred steps down to the spring. It was beautiful. The hike back up was painful.
Remnants of a castle from the early 1900’s.
It was a very nice relaxing weekend. I am glad that we did it and enjoyed our time together. The RV survived and is still running. We did dismantle the table because we couldn’t figure out the correct way to turn it into a bed. It is a fairly easy fix though. I followed in the van so we would have a vehicle to drive around once we got there. The first two minutes were exciting to watch as we left. The door flew open, and a couple of the side panels fell open. We had to stop once on the way there because Emilee was trying to move around when she wasn’t supposed to and crashed her face into a window and started gushing blood. Luckily it wasn’t broken and we got it under control pretty quick. After that the rest of our trip was accident and injury free.
Awhile ago I posted some ‘Mayochup’. It was a good effort at fry sauce, but not quite the right ratio of ketchup to mayonnaise-and the name is stupid. I saw this in the store the other day, and it took some brainstorming with a few people to figure out what it was supposed to be- mayo and seratcha. No Heinz, just no.
The kids finished their online Covid 19 schooling and are now enjoying their summer. Things are gradually starting to open again but by no means would I say things are back to normal. The city pools are not going to be opening, but they did open our neighborhood pools. The rule is that we can’t bring any friends with us for now though, which is a big bummer. We have been finding fun things to do still and will make the most of our summer.
Matthew had to imitate a picture for his last 7th grade art project. He picked the picture of a bear in his room from our trip to the Smokey Mountains. We had a donut truck visit the neighborhood. Allison spotted it and we got way to many donuts.I am ‘allowed’ to work again. I used to wear a mask and glasses, and of course gloves. Now the new PPE requirements are head cover, face shield, glasses, TWO masks, glove and a jacket. It is hot, hard to breath and sometimes hard to see.I talked Matthew into letting my use my extra hair color on him. He hated it at first and wouldn’t go anywhere without a hat but has now relaxed and is waiting patiently for it to grow out. Pretty crazy how a color can make you look different.My presidency and I put together a little drive through ice cream stand for our ward. It was a chance to celebrate summer starting and an excuse to see people face to face. We had a good turn out and it was a lot of fun.
Emilee tried softball this year. She did great for practice, but once games started she wanted nothing to do with it. It took 30 minutes to get her in the dug out for her first game. Then she was fine and did a great job hitting and catching and throwing. The second game she went with protest and still did a great job. I don’t know if we are going to get her to anymore though. She is a little home body.
We found a fun place to have a picnic and then play in the creek or stream with our cousins. The kids were skeptical on our way. None of us had been there before and we didn’t know if the stream was a puddle or deep enough to play in. It turned out great though. It has a shallow still areas, and deeper areas and a little ‘rapids’ area that they thought was great fun. There were fish, shells, crayfish and frogs to chase around. Everyone tried their hand at rock skipping. It was a fun day!
This young man is thrilled to be playing baseball again. It is ridiculously hot, but they don’t care. They had a weekend of scrimmages, then a tournament and a few more tournaments to come plus the regular league games. He still can’t get enough of it.
My parents are moving from South Dakota to Tampa Florida this summer. They finished selling the house and finalizing things and drove to our house and stayed for a week on their way to Florida. There are pros and cons for them moving to Tampa. I am not a huge fan of the general climate of South Dakota so I am not sad that I won’t have to go there anymore. It is a lot easier and quicker for us to get to South Dakota then Florida though, so we won’t get to see them as often. We can get some good flights to Florida if we watch, and it’s Florida so it is always a nice place to travel too. They will be living by my sister so I can see twice the family when we see them too.
We had a really nice week with them. I worked the first day they were here so they watched the kids for me. Ryan and I are really awesome parents and they love being around us and eating up our wisdom (heavy sarcasm there if you can’t tell) but one-on-one time with Grandma and Grandpa while Ryan and I aren’t around is pretty fun and doesn’t happen very often so they were looking forward to it. They had a fun day playing games, making cookies, competing with each other at Wii games, telling jokes, going swimming, and enjoying each others company.
The week went by really fast. Allison and Grandma kept us stocked in yummy cookies all week. We watched a couple movies together (some of us took naps while we did that-me and Grandpa). My mom and I went and did a little shopping together and went to lunch. She found some sandals and summer shirts to add to her ward robe for Florida. Matthew had regular, makeup, and state tournament baseball games throughout the week. My parents have never seen him play so it was a good week for them to be here. They got to watch 6 of his 7 games. They were troopers. The first two games had nice weather, after that is was ridiculously and miserably hot and humid. Yuck! One afternoon we made a trip to Sam’s Club so my dad could enjoy walking around and looking at everything. We also had a fun afternoon at the pool a few times.
Sunday morning my mom flew to Florida so her back and neck wouldn’t have problems. My dad left that morning in their car to drive it to Florida. They invited Allison to go with them for a few weeks until we see them later this month in Colorado. She was pretty excited. It will be a fun time for her and help redeem her summer a little bit so it’s not just remembered as the summer she couldn’t do anything because she broke her arm.
It was a really nice week having them here. I am glad they came to visit. They are great Grandparents for my kids. They have endless patience with my kids, especially the girls. They teach and correct them without them realize they are doing it. They have endless patience with them. Watching them reminded me to stop and take the time to talk with my kids more about what they want to talk about and less of what I want to tell them.
Our first month of summer has buzzed by. It has been a fun month.
Emilee had a birthday party with Jovee and went to a birthday party with her friend from school Stella. They are two little peas in a pod. It was actually Stella’s older sisters birthday and her mom let Stella invite a friend so she would have someone to play with. Mission accomplished. They had a fun time together.
Allison got her full arm plaster cast off and switched it for a half arm water proof cast. She is loving having more use of her arm back and being able to swim and shower without a big plastic bag.
Matthew’s team played in the State Tournament for baseball. They played really well and ended up making it into the top 8. The game we lost they were fighting the whole time to win and never gave up. It was a great game. One of the games Matthew was nominated for the State All Star game. He was pretty pumped about that. We are going to be in Colorado during the tournament so he won’t make it this year though. Hopefully next.
It is about time for Ryan to get a new car. He has been working out how to get a Tesla for the past 6 months. The original plan wasn’t fast enough so he kept working on it and doing the math and got one a week ago. He loves it.
These pictures were sent to me from Emilee’s old preschool teacher. She was organizing her photos and found a bunch with Emilee in them from preschool. They are from 2 or 3 years ago but I’m putting them in here anyways because she is stinking cute.
Plaster project
Playing in the leaves.
Making volcanoes
Painting her whale
Princesses riding on their horse
First day of 2nd year of preschool
Bug catching
Play time.
Dress up time.
Playtime.
Emilee’s birthday cookies she brought for the class.
We did a traveling baseball tournament for the first time this summer. We made a fun family trip out of it. We went up to Omaha Nebraska for the Slumpbuster Tournament, which is at the same time as the College World Series (CWS) for baseball.
We drove up on a Wednesday afternoon. There has been a lot of flooding between here and Omaha this summer. The freeway was actually closed until the day before we went up. It saved us a lot of time to not have to go around it. The flooding was really sad to see though. Lots of homes and farms and towns still underwater or damaged from being underwater. We checked into the hotel and the first item of business the kids wanted to do was go swimming. They thought it was a great kickoff for the long weekend. There were a few other families from the team that came up that night. A group of them went to watch a CWS game. The rest of us ordered pizza’s and spent a few more hours swimming in the pool.
On their way to CWS
They found princesses at CWS!?!
The next day everyone met at the Omaha Zoo. The kids loved walking around as a big group and looking at the animals together. We saw a lot of cute little baby animals-including a seal, giraffe, gorilla, and some other kind of monkey. When we finished exploring the zoo the kids decided to play a game of wiffle ball at the wiffle ball park in the zoo parking lot. Then is was back to the hotel to play card games and cool off in the pool. Coach Jimmy had a little meeting to kick of the weekend before we all headed over to the opening activities for the Slumpbuster Tournament the boys were playing in. At the Tournament Kick-off they had a lot of activities and baseball equipment to try or buy. The main attraction was giant bonfire with wooden bats and some fireworks.
Wiffle Ball at the Zoo
Emi and Anna
The Cheetah taking a picture with a cheetah.
Emi, Lexi, and Anna
They thought it looked like they were swimming with the fish!
Jake and Matt
Lunch at the zoo
Bonfire
Friday was the day we started playing games…but the weather didn’t cooperate. We had a lot of rain all night long and into the morning. We were supposed to play two games a day on Friday and Saturday. Friday our 8 am game was postponed until 10 then 11. Everyone started going their own way and exploring different shopping areas. At 12:15 we got a text saying we had to be in Lincoln (one hour away) because they had playable fields to start a game at 2. Everyone made it and we had our first game. Ryan’s parents came and watched and were glad they had to drive 10 minutes because they live in Lincoln, instead of an hour. The game did not go well. We tell Matthew all the time he can’t blame an umpire for loosing a game, it’s a poor excuse. However, this time it really was the umpire. Ugg, I won’t waste time explaining but, he was awful.
Playing spoons.
Our second game that day was cancelled so we went to Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s house. Grandma had made a spice cake for Ryan’s birthday so we had cake and ice cream together. The girls stayed at their house that night. Allison and Grandma went to the craft store together and made rainbow loom bracelets and slime. Emilee and grandpa played with the stuffed animals beanie baby collection all night. They were pretty happy.
Matthew, Ryan, and I went back to Omaha and went to the Omaha Storm Chasers (AAA Baseball) game that night with the rest of the team. Coach Jimmy arranged for the boys to go down on the field and meet the team and make a high five tunnel for them to run through. It was a fun experience for them.
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Storm Chaser’s
Saturday we only ended up having one game as well in the morning. Grandma and Grandpa brought the girls back to us and watched us beat a team 20 to 0 in 2 innings. It took about 40 minutes from start to finish and was not a satisfying game obviously. We were done with baseball by 11 on Saturday. We went to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa before they headed home, then we joined the rest of the team in downtown Omaha for some sight seeing, shopping, and Ted and Wally’s Ice cream. It was very good ice cream but they were out of a lot of flavors we were willing to try (no one was willing to try banana/peanut butter/bacon flavor) when we ordered so we ended up with vanilla or a root beer freeze. The rest of the team continues to make fun of us for getting ‘just vanilla,’ the jokes on them though because we all liked our ice cream, everyone else couldn’t say that. After we finished in downtown there was another giant swimming party at the hotel for a few hours. Then we ate dinner and had another impromptu game of wiffle ball behind the hotel in a parking lot with anyone that wanted to play. We made it to bracket play on Sunday and had a game at 8am. We must have had too much fun all weekend while we killed time waiting for the rain to stop. The boys were not jiving. We ended up getting run ruled! I don’t think we have ever been run ruled in the two years we have played with this team. We packed up and were home by early afternoon.
Emi opted for a sucker instead of ice cream.
Coach Jimmy coaching ‘Matty Baseball”
Wiffle Ball
This sign was up in the pool area.
My two little boogers.
Allison got her driver’s license
The baseball was a little disappointing with how things worked out with the weather. It was a fun weekend in every other aspect though. We got to know the baseball families a lot better. The kids loved the zoo and all the swimming. It was a different vacation then we have done before. It was a nice change of pace and all of us had a good time. Hopefully the next time we travel for a baseball tournament we get to play more baseball though.
As summer is getting started and we are all adjusting to being around each other for most of our day. I have had the thought cross my mind a couple times one thing or another just drives me crazy. As I have thought about these things, sometimes they legitimately drive me crazy and I want to pull my hair out. Somethings that drive me crazy though I think I will miss someday so I should quit my complaining and enjoy it while it lasts.
The first thing that came to my mind was our family seating arrangements for church on Sunday. This has changed a lot over the years as the kids go through different ages, we have had assigned seating, rotating seating, and occasionally ‘you pick’ seating. Currently ‘first come, first serve’ is the way seats are chosen unless people get rowdy then Ryan and I start making them play musical chairs. The whole thing is quite ridiculous. It is just sitting and listening for 45 minutes but they act like they are making a life altering choice.
Whatever the seating arrangement is, there seems to also be some unspoken rule that says everyone has to get as close to me as possible and take up as little space on the bench as possible. Every Sunday I feel like I am being smothered during Sacrament. I have one or two people trying to sit on my lap or lay their head on my lap, hold my arm or hand, lay on my shoulder, wedge their body underneath me for warmth. Aaahhh, sometimes I just want to sit by myself and stretch out. I know someday they will sit in their own space though or not be there at all and I will miss it, so I just try to enjoy if for now.
I’ve always had a rule that my kids can come get me at night if they need me or have a bad dream but they can not sleep in my bed. They can snuggle a minute, or sleep on our couch in our room, or I will even lay by them in their bed until they fall back asleep but they are not supposed to sleep in my bed because I like to sleep without being kicked or squished or wake up with a kink in my neck because someone wedged themselves underneath me. Matthew and Allison follow this rule very well. Matthew has already outgrown needing me at night for a few years now. Allison occasionally will come poke me for a hug but not very often. Emilee has been the hardest to enforce this rule with. Partly my fault because she has always been a little cuddler from day one so if she comes for a snuggle, before you know it I’m waking up and its morning time. She has also mastered crawling into my bed without waking me up when she crawls in so I wake up in the morning with a sore back and her mouth breathing in my face. It is getting better but Emilee’s approach to disobeying has always been ignore or act like you don’t hear and smile cute when you get caught. That is really hard to combat at two in the morning when you are not conscious and want nothing more than to stay that way for the rest of the night.
Shortly after Ryan’s 30th birthday I decided that for his 40th birthday I was going to do a surprise party for him. He struggles with turning a new decade so I thought it would be a fun way to help him welcome in his 40’s and be something different.
As it got closer I decided that instead of a surprise party I would just do a party for him so I talked to him about it and he kind of poo-hooed the idea because he isn’t excited about turning 40 like I figured. So I let it go and tried to come up with other ideas. He didn’t really have any suggestions of what to do either. I came up with having one of his best friends from his mission come for the weekend. I thought that would be a fun surprise for him, and it was, but I also had lots of people asking me when his party was or what the plan for his birthday was. A few weeks before his birthday I decided that I was going to do the surprise party anyway. So I rented our neighborhood clubhouse, invited about 100 of his closest friends, got a giant cake, balloons, and some yummy BBQ and we had a party! I had about 150 pictures of Ryan displayed as part of the decorations from when he was a baby up to now.
His buddy Mike Johnson flew in from Arizona and got to our house about 3:15 on Friday, the day of the party. I had told Ryan he had an appointment to get his car detailed (that was something he wanted for his birthday) at 4pm so he would be home. Johnson decided he wanted to hide somewhere and jump out and scare him. I ended up telling Ryan that I needed the A/C filter changed and when he went to change it Johnson jumped out. I was a little worried Ryan might take a swing at him when he got startled but he didn’t and he was very excited to see his buddy and find out they had the weekend to hang out.
As soon as Mike surprised Ryan, I took the kids to sleepover at their cousins house and then I was going to meet Ryan for dinner a little later. What actually happened is the kids and I all went to the clubhouse to wait for Ryan. A few minutes before they were supposed to leave I called Ryan and told him that Emilee had left her mermaid toy at the pool so I needed him to go to the clubhouse and check the lost and found on his way to dinner. He came to check but instead of finding a lost and found when he arrived, he found a surprise party! He had no idea. I thought he might have been a little suspicious but he said he didn’t really have any idea.
We had Joe’s KC BBQ for dinner and the adults visited, Ryan made the rounds to everyone to talk for a bit. The kids swam in the pool and drank way to much soda and blew the noise makers that I made the mistake of providing. We of course sang happy birthday and blew out candles. I think everyone had a fun time. It was a good night.
After the party Ryan and Mike spent the rest of the weekend golfing, eating out at their favorite places, getting massages, shopping, watching golf, enjoying having no responsibilities. They are quite the pair.
Sunday morning was Father’s Day. Johnson headed home to spend it with his family and we celebrated Ryan. We had Ross and Lauren over for dinner to help us eat some of our BBQ leftovers. Then Lauren and I played a game with Ross and Ryan because it was Father’s Day and they said we had too. Playing a game with Ross and Ryan is a 2-3 hour commitment so we often opt to do something else and let them play themselves. On Father’s Day and birthdays they say we have to play though.
It was a nice weekend. I am very grateful for the great dad’s we have in our lives. Ryan and I were both raised by great dads. Ryan is an amazing dad. I took a mental picture today of him skipping across the parking lot to the car after church with a daughter on each arm because they thought it would be fun and silly. I am grateful for all the friends and Uncle’s and other family members that are good examples of dads to my kids too. It takes a village.
