November – Page 3 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Friendsgiving 2019

Last year four families from our baseball family got together for a Friendsgiving. We did it again this year. It is a fun time. The kids like it because there is a group of them to play and all of them have at least one buddy. We are all very different families but we get along really well and enjoy each others company. Everyone brings a few appetizers and we visit and hang out for a few hours then eat a dinner together. Then play games and visit some more.

This year there was minute to win it games that we all did. We divided into five teams and each team rotated between five games. There was potato rolling, apple stacking noodle fishing, cotton ball flipping and cookie eating contests. The winner of each team wrote their name down on a paper. After all the teams finished we went to each game and the five winners from each team played the game. Those people earned a laminated turkey medal. Then the winner of each of those games played against each other in a final championship game. The final championship game ended up being Cam, Matthew, Jake, Allison, and Frank (his mom actually one but requested a proxy for the championship game). They each had a paper plate with 10 candy corns on it that were covered in whip cream so you couldn’t see them. Whoever found all ten and put them on a napkin next to their plate-without using your hands of course- was the winner. The kids loved it. Jake was the winner and he got another laminated turkey medal for his efforts.

It was a nice relaxing enjoyable evening. The friends that have done it every year are moving to Poland this summer for a couple years. One of the rest of us will have to try and live up to the Friendsgiving tradition while they are gone.

I have been waiting to post this post to add some fun pictures to it…long story short-they aren’t coming. So take my word for it, we had a fun time and looked ridiculous doing it.

Allison’s Cheer Competition 2019

Allison’s squad did the dance and cheer competition this year. They did a great job! It was fun to watch. The smile on her face when she was doing it showed that she loved it too.

They ended up placing third for the dance. I really think they were better than at least one if not both of the teams that took 1st and 2nd but they got docked a huge amount of points for the way they tossed their poms to the side when they were done with them…I will refrain from the snarky comment I have about judging competitions getting way out of hand. I have no problem being in competitions that are judged. I think it is can be good for kids actually. If it is logical with clear objectives. When it is convoluted and subjective. All the teams were fun to watch, the judging was just a little obscure and hard to predict.

I don’t know what happened with my pictures. The first few are fine and the last few are fine but the middle ones came out way to dark. I lightened them as much as I could. I feel awful they turned out dark. I also put pictures from her last cheer game on here. They performed the same routine they did for the competition during half time so I got a few good pictures from that. After they last game they switched gifts with the football players too.

Emilee’s 7th Birthday!!

After counting down almost daily for the last 6 months Emilee’s birthday final came! She was so excited. She has been asking for some lego dragons fora long time. I was able to find some on ebay since they were not sold anymore and she got her little family of lego dragons for her birthday.

To celebrate she wanted to have a few friends over for an all day play date. She spent the night at Jovee’s on Friday and then I picked her up and Jovee, Reese, Cambrie and the rest of our family went to a movie together. It was cheesy, bad acting, and pretty ridiculous and they loved it. They giggled and laughed through the whole movie. After the movie we went home and had pizza and rootbeer, opened presents and then blew out candles and ate cake. The weather was great so Emilee picked a park and we went and played for a few hours. After her friends went home we met Jovee’s family at Sake Lounge and had Emilee’s favorite food- a Shaggy Dog. It is a sushi roll.

I think she had a fun birthday. She said she feels a little bigger but not much. We have lego dragons all around our house.

Giv-er

To explain this title. I will need to back up a little bit and go back about a three weeks ago. I wanted to give the outgoing Primary Presidency and small gift as a thank you for their service so I went online and found a website call Zazzle and ordered my gift from them. They do personalized gifts, so you design it and then they put it on a picture or shirt or whatever you want. So I ordered something it came and I delivered it and was done with Zazzle.

Fast forward a few weeks an I find a box in my mailbox from Zazzle. I was immediately confused because I had already received the order I placed and hadn’t ordered anything else. I open the box to find this little item featured below. This leaves me more confused. Then I think, maybe it is a promotional item (a very tacky bad one but still) and they just sent them out to a bunch of people. I then find the receipt in the box with the hat that says I designed and paid for this tacky thing.

I go to the website and login and look at my orders…nothing. So I somehow designed this ugly hat, ordered it, paid for it, and had it shipped to my house and there was no record of it on my account. I thought maybe it was another persons order that had been delivered to me but it had my name and address on it too. Slightly annoyed now thinking about how long I am going to have to spend on the phone to get this figured out, I start looking for a customer service contact number.

At the same time I was texting with Ross, Lauren, and Ryan on a group text about some random stuff. I sent them a picture of my perplexing hat. After I send the picture Ryan texts back, “Hey that is mine!” I thought he was messing with me. After some very confusing but now hilarious texts I found out that he had decided to order a hat from a movie for a friend for Christmas. Coincidentally he came across the same Zazzle website I had used a few weeks previously, made his own account and ordered it.

So we actually did pay for an ugly hat! Luckily it has a purpose though. Also, luckily he let me know it was his before I got ahold of Zazzle customer service and got irritated with them. It was pretty funny.

Found My Stockings

It is important to appreciate the small things. I had a small victory the other day that I have been waiting for years to get done.

When Ryan and I got married we got stockings for us that were just the standard basic fluffy stocking. I didn’t know for sure how many kids we would have so I didn’t want to get some nice ones then have a kid and not be able to find a matching one (I am a uniform decorator). I wasn’t sure what stockings I wanted to commit to either. When we had kids I just got the same kind at the store. They changed the color of the red slightly each year so none of them really matched that well.

When we were done having kids I wanted to get matching ones for all of us that were a little nicer than the 99 cent basic one. For the last 5 years I have had my eye out for the perfect stocking. I didn’t want anything elaborate, but I wanted them to have our initials on them and I did want them to be red. I found a couple that were cute but they didn’t have enough, or the right letters, or they were to fancy or something.

The other day I was walking through a store and I saw some cute knitted red stockings that were perfect-except they didn’t have letters on them so we could tell them apart. I kept walking and when I got around the corner there was the exact same stockings with letters! I was so happy. I tried not to get to carried away because I didn’t know if they had all the right letters. It turned out they did though so I was finally able to get my cute little stockings!!

They are hanging up on my fireplace now and I love them. It makes me happy when I look at them. Yay for matching Christmas stockings!

Terry Family Matching Christmas Stockings

Journey to Judea

A friend of mine told me about a church that does a production each year for the community about the birth of the Savior. It sounded pretty neat and I was able to get tickets for us and Lauren’s family to go.

It is very well done. When you come in they have a nice waiting area with cookies and hot chocolate. Then when it is your groups turn you go outside and walk through probably 15 different stations that start with Moses, then Abraham, then Abraham and Isaac, then Isaiah and then starts the story of Mary and Joseph and then going to Bethlehem and then of course the stable and his life, death and resurrection. The town of Bethlehem was pretty amazing. They had a ‘street’ that you walked through and probably a hundred people doing all kinds of things on the street- shopping, looking for someone, talking with friends, selling something, beggers, people doing laundry. It really felt like you were walking through a street in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. It was a neat experience.

We had a good conversation with the kids afterwards too. Aside from remembering what Christmas is celebrating and remembering to focus on that part of Christmas amongst all the other holiday stuff, we talked about the importance of surrounding ourselves with good people and good things. Even though we don’t belong to the same church as they do and they don’t have the fullness of the gospel they were good people teaching a lot of truths and strengthening people’s knowledge and faith in the Savior.

Allison and Mom Date

The past few weeks have not been the best weeks between Allison and Ryan and I. We seem to go through cycles with her of ups and downs and we are definitely in a down. There are still happy moments when we are on a down cycle but that is what they are moments. Far and few between the contention and friction and arguing and almost constant battles over everything from waking up in the morning to how people are breathing around her. Hopefully we are headed back up at least but that is an unknown for now. It is not fun for all involved obviously.

The other day Allison came to me and said that she wanted to go and have some fun one on one time together. I thought it would be a good idea and a chance for us to have some positive interactions for a good amount of time.

We decided to go to main event together. There is a bunch of different activities there to do and we decided to do bowling together. We played three games and had lots of fun. The score board would use your actual real face on silly cartoons when it was your turn to bowl. Allison thought it was a hoot. We did a fun zip line thing a couple times while we were there too.

It was fun and we did get to reset and enjoy each others company and not fight for a whole two hours. Allison and I have to put more than the average amount of effort into our relationship and communication. The little stinker is worth it though. She doesn’t always believe me but I love her and I want her to be happy and I want what is best for her.

November happenings…

The past few weeks have been pretty busy but really good weeks.

Our primary at church had their annual primary program. It was really good. It is one of my favorite Sundays of the year. This year Emilee helped me invite our new neighbors to come and they did. It was a really cool experience for them I think. Their son Jack even stayed the rest of church with Matthew. That same week they called a new primary presidency and I am the new president. Figuring everything out and getting organized has kept me busy for the last few weeks. I am enjoying it and excited. I enjoy being in primary. Kids can be little stinkers but they also have sweet pure hearts and I love hearing the way they see the gospel and apply it in their lives.

Emilee was the P.E. Student of the Month for her class. I couldn’t make it because I was at work but Dad made it and got a picture of her getting her award.

Allison became a turtle activist. Basically that means she made lots of posters and shames any of us that use a straw.

We have had some great Fall weather this month, despite it snowing the day before Halloween. The last few weekends have been gorgeous and we have tried to go to the park when we can.

Emilee decided to measure herself doing different things on her mirror. It made me smile when she showed me. There are fewer and fewer moments like this in our house now that everyone is getting older. It is kind of hard to see but she marked a spot for standing on her tippy toes, standing regular, kneeling up, kneeling down, criss cross apple sauce leaning up, and last but not least criss cross apple sauce flat on her bum.

Allison made a tube for something at school and found a funny way to take pictures with it too.

Allison had her last game for cheer this season for the football teams. They have their final cheer and dance competition coming up later this week. It has been mixed reviews on whether she liked it or not this year. I asked her if she wanted to do it again and she is currently undecided. She is looking forward to the competition and will do a great job and have fun. I am sure that will help her decide.

Emilee had a field trip to the the Pumpkin Patch. There are few less perfect field trips for 1st graders in the Fall. We got lost in a corn maze, played in the corn box, climbed in the hay, and rolled down the lawn in huge irrigation pipes. There are some sweet kids in her grade. Emilee and I had fun sitting in the very back seat of the bus together too.

Thanksgiving

Our November flew by in a flash! Everyone had lots of activities going on, I worked quite a bit, and Ryan was extra busy with work. I also like to get as much Christmas prep done as I can in November so when December comes we can have less to do and enjoy the season. So we got our decorations up mid December and most of the present shopping done too. The girls had a daddy daughter dance with their dad for Girl Scouts. It happened to be on the same night as Ross and Lauren’s annual Pie Night, so the girls decided to leave the dance a little early to make it to both activities. Ryan was very happy with their decision because he looks forward to Pie Night. Emilee found a cat while we were waiting at piano lessons. She coaxed it from the neighbors driveway to the one we were at and played with it. I had a spell of momentary weakness come over me that almost ended up with me bringing the cat home. I was able to talk myself down though. The kindergartners celebrated Thanks giving by having a little singing program for their parents. They all dressed up as an Indian or a Pilgrim. Then they had a feast together when they were all done. The Saturday before Thanksgiving we had a Friendsgiving with some families from Matthew’s baseball team. It was a fun night. We are very lucky to have a nice group of families on the team.

Girl Scout Fall Ball
Emilee found friend.
The kindergarten classes sang some songs and had a Thanksgiving feast.
Emilee loves holding Linnea whenever she can.
Ready for breakfast but not ready to wake up yet.
On the way to Grandma and Grandpa Jones house.
Enjoying the nice drive through a blizzard.
After driving almost 11 hours in the snow, we got stuck in our driveway. Thank goodness for neighbors with snow blowers.

My mom had a surgery on her neck the week before Thanksgiving so we went up to South Dakota to see her and my dad for Thanksgiving. It has been a while since we have been up there. I was very happy to find my mom in very good condition considering she had a major surgery one week before. She was doing so good I had to keep reminding the kids that they had to be careful with her.

Ryan and I both worked on Wednesday so we headed up on Thanksgiving Day. We decided to celebrate on Friday instead.
My mom likes to cook but couldn’t, I could cook but don’t like to so we decided to pick the favorites we wanted from a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and nix the rest of it.

My mom, always prepared (even when having a surgery), had made rolls ahead of time, and had the options of a turkey, chicken, roast or ham to choose as the main dish. My mom and I were out voted on the turkey for a ham. We added the rolls, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, a Sam’s Club pumpkin pie (the very best pumpkin pie you can get) and we had a great Thanksgiving feast on Friday. For the rest of our time in South Dakota everyone’s goal was to relax. I think we were very successful at it. We all went to the theater together and watch the new ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ movie. The kids discovered the 1992 Mighty Ducks movie. I remember loving it when I was younger and watching it many times. We watched the original, second and third movies of that. The boys went and saw the new Harry Potter movie too. My mom and I were able to squeeze in several Christmas Hallmark movies and the adults all watched ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ which I don’t recommend. Among all the couch potatoes watching movies there were many card games of Golf, and Baloney (BS), and various board games going on as well. It was a great long weekend.

We checked the weather several times and were debating on leaving Saturday or Sunday because KC up to Omaha was supposed to get hit with a big blizzard. We decided on leaving later on Sunday when the storm was done. When we woke up Sunday the storm was much bigger and slower so it was supposed to hit in the afternoon, so we left as early as we could to get home instead of waiting. The roads were crystal clear until we got just past Omaha. Then the freeways were closed and everything else. We tried the side roads for a bit but I got tired of that quick so we went back to the freeway and we were able to get on but we drove 30-40 miles the rest of the way home. This made the last usually 2 1/2 hour long trip take more than twice as long so by the time we got home it took us almost 11 hours instead of 6. It was a long day… the kids did great and were able to hold going to the bathroom for new record times. Ryan was pretty grumpy, and I was the driver the last 8 hours so I was tired. We were both a little irritable and we learned our lesson to be better at checking the weather. We told the kids it was a good example for them as to why we don’t drive in bad weather, and it wasn’t mom and dad’s best decision.

Flat tire…again

Over the years I have had several flat tires. I don’t know why, I only drive on roads but I am good at finding things to pop my tires. It is never convenient of course but my luck has always been with me in that when I have gotten a flat Ryan has always been with me or it was a slow leak that I could just drive it to the repair place. Last week I pulled into the garage after getting groceries and when I got out of the car I heard the dreaded hissing sound of a flat tire.🤦‍♀️ Luckily I had made it home so I wasn’t stranded somewhere but I wasn’t going anywhere because one of the tires I had put on my car less than two weeks ago was completely flat in about two minutes. To add to the fun it had just started snowing. We have road side assistance on our car insurance but I had two hours to be at work so I decided I was going to have to pull up my big girl pants and do it myself because getting RSA would take to long. So I got everything out and made a quick call to Kenny to get a little help on exactly where to put the jack because Ryan was in a meeting. Twenty minutes later I had my spare on and was ready to head to the tire place to get it fixed. Woohoo! When I got there they were pretty busy and wouldn’t have it done in time for me to get to work on time. It was still snowing and to be honest I didn’t trust my tire changing abilities enough to drive across town and back, so I started looking for a ride.

Ryan was not available still but recommended Uber. 🤦‍♀️ No thanks, getting in a car alone with a complete stranger that is most likey a man goes against my survival instincts. I asked Lauren and she said she had an appointment soon but would take me. I started waiting for her but felt bad making her late for her appointment so I put on my big girl pants again started reviewing my self defense strategies and ordered an Uber. I called Lauren to let her know and she said they bumped her appointment an hour when she called and she was already on her way so she could take me. Woohoo! No Uber for me. She was there about 30 seconds later so I got on the App and tried to figure out how to cancel my Uber ride. Supposedly it is very simple but I couldn’t figure it out and five minutes later got a notification that my driver arrived. I called him and felt like an idiot explaining to him I was no longer there. I got the notification from him he canceled and continued chatting with Lauren. About five minutes later I got another notification that my second driver had arrived.🤦‍♀️ I tried a few more things and didn’t get anymore notifications about drivers showing up so I think I got it figured out. I made it to work and went into discover that because of the snow half the afternoon patients had cancelled and they only needed one of the two hygienists. 🤦‍♀️

Oh well, I changed a tire all by myself. Go me!