The best Sunday program of the year is coming up in our ward next week! The Primary Program. Ryan and I are helping. It is Allison’s last program before she goes to young women. Emilee still has a few years to go. Matthew will be watching us from the audience. The girls and I took a picture while we were practicing.
When we were in Florida, I believe it was the Cazier family that bought some candy corn. When they were trying to open the bag up my mom made the comment that she didn’t know people bought candy corn on purpose. She thought it was just crap candy people handed out at Halloween and in turn everyone threw it away once they got home.
This of course started a debate among us all as to if we liked or didn’t like candy corns. I fall on the side of it is crap candy, but if I remember right it was about a little more than half of us that eat them on purpose and sometimes even spend their own money on them. To each there own!
Today in ward council the bishop had a bag of candy corn he had bought for his daughter at her request. She tried one and said he could have them back. In her defense these particular candy corns were worse than normal ones. See for yourself below. Disgusting.
Matthew was able to successfully turn 15 this month. We were in Florida for his actual birthday and per his desires he went fishing in the ocean with his dad for his birthday. They were supposed to wake up at 5am to make it to the place they needed to meet their fishing guide by 7am. Ryan happened to wake up and check the time at 6:45 am. He turned his alarm off in his sleep instead of waking up. They were a little late.
Despite that, they both had a great time-even Ryan who does not like fishing. That trip was our gift to him. He also got some fishing supplies and money to buy fishing things from grandparents and siblings.
Allison literally gave him ‘his very own underwear’ which is featured in the picture above. It had his already owned underwear in it.
My parents got a picture package for everyone at the Space Center. We weren’t always together but here are the ones that we got. Having fun just floating around we have the French, Cazier, Jones and Terry Families.
Those of us that got serious with our training and became official astronauts are featured below.
It was time for our bi-annual Jones reunion. When it is my families year to do Christmas together we plan a Summer trip together instead. The travel is easier, schedules are a little easier, weather is better, and then we can enjoy Christmas in our own homes. This year we were a little late and ended up doing our trip in October over my kids Fall Break. Matthew and even Allison have reached the point that missing school is a little bigger deal and harder to get caught up and keep grades up.
We did a repeat trip to Orlando Florida. We stayed at our usual spot- a house in the Champions Gate sub division. It is a perfect location to get to pretty much any of the big Orlando attractions. There is a big club house with a pool and activities, and we can get a house with 2-9 bedrooms depending on the number of people we have and the house has its own pool too. That is the best part. The kids can swim as much as they want. John and Rachel’s family couldn’t join us this year so it was my parents and the three girls and their families. We got a 9 bedroom house. I think some kids slept in a different room every night. I thought it was cool that a lot of the rooms had a Disney theme too. Ours was the Mickey room. There was a Star Wars and Frozen room too. Most of the kids stayed in a room full of bunk beds. That was pretty fun for them. Emilee packed all the essentials she needed for her trip herself as you can see.
Monday was day one. Arrival day. The French’s and my mom drove and my dad came late the next day. A week prior to our departure, Kenny sent everyone the info to get checked into the house. Including a passphrase “The Russian Bear Hunts at Midnight” to tell the security guard to let you enter. Sherri drove with my mom and when they got to the gate my mom pulled out a paper with the address and rental house info- including the passphrase Kenny had sent. Sherri started laughing and told my mom it was a joke. I told her I will forever hold a grudge at her for not letting mom say it and seeing what the guard did. DeAnna and her family flew and got there in the evening. We also flew. Our flight was delayed a little bit (Southwest tried to cover up a strike by their pilots- saying it was weather that canceled thousands of their flights- it was actually them protesting being forced to get the COVID vaccine against their will per the government mandate) we thought we might have to drive (and I would have done it without to much complaining because I agree with the pilots that they-or anyone- should not be forced into getting a vaccine they don’t want) but our flight ended up going through ok and we made it just a few hours later. We got our rental car, bought some groceries, and headed to the house to start a fun week.
Day two was bright and warm and sunny. After sleeping in and having a late breakfast of a ridiculous amount of Reese’s Puffs we all headed to the beach. That is the one down side to Orlando-it lacks beautiful Florida beaches. We traveled to Honeymoon Beach and spent the day there. Most of us were satisfied with the number of shells to collect, the warm water to play in, the nice sand castle building area, and the beach to lay on and take a nap. Matthew was a little disappointed in the lack of waves big enough to body surf in but he still got to go to the beach in Florida. We had a fun day but I didn’t take any pictures. I was one of the people snoozing on the beach working on my tan. The drive to and from the beach helped us get a lot of our license plate states found. I downloaded an app to help us keep track of the states we found. By the end of our week in Florida we had found 33/50 states. After the beach we all headed home, showered and ate dinner together then spent the evening playing games, working on a puzzle, or swimming in the pool on the patio.
Day three started slightly earlier then the previous day. Last time we were in Florida for a reunion we all went to Magic Kingdom together. DeAnna’s family had never been to Hollywood Studios, so we went to that park this time. Next to Magic Kingdom, it is my favorite. I like the option of lots of shows to watch, not all rides. We all arrived and went our own ways and met throughout the day. Toy Story Mania is still our families favorite ride. We did it a few times. The new attraction was the Star wars rides and areas. They had canceled the virtual que the week before we went and there were no fast passes for it. That meant if we wanted to do it, we had to wait in line for 2-3 hours. We decided to do it. It was a long brutal process. We bought 5 dollar Star Wars Cokes for everyone about half way through to boost moral. In the end everyone said it was totally worth it (even Emilee who declared no less than a dozen times that is wasn’t worth it and this was the most ridiculous this she had done in her whole entire life) and it was their favorite ride/experience of the day. I was worried we would run out of time to do the other things but we still got to do and see everything we planned on. Emilee preferred the shows, she is not a fan of rides (might have something to do with riding the Mamba at age 5 at World’s of Fun) but she liked Toy Story and Star Wars. Matthew and I did the single rider line for few things and got on rides in 5 minutes instead of an hour. He said he has graduated to Universal Studios level rides but had a fun time with us. Allison was game for pretty much anything. She got a Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwich and everything else was icing on the cake after that. It might be the last time we all go to Disney as a family before Matthew is moving out so it was a fun day. It was pretty late when we got home. People went to bed or played a game and did a puzzle while we visited about our day.
Day 4. We used this as a recuperating day. Everyone slept in and had a lazy morning. The kids swam in the pool and played the many games that the garage was equipped with (ping pong, air hockey, checkers, and basketball). Matthew convinced his dad to get him a fishing pole. He had tried to bring his own but it wouldn’t fit. We thought there would be rentals but there wasn’t. So with his 19.99 Walmart fishing pole in hand uncle Kenny drove him over to the neighborhood gold course where he had seen a body of water he wanted to fish in. About thirty minutes later he had walked back to the house. There was an alligator in the water that didn’t like him fishing for his food. Every time Matthew cast, the alligator would start moving towards Matthew. He moved several times but when it kept happening he decided to call it a day. After lunch we moved to the club house pool. They had a few big swimming areas, a splash pad, a slide, and a lazy river that we all ended up floating around together in at some point. One of my favorite pictures is the one of John and Joseph getting on the tube and then one lap later they are both passed out asleep along the side. We got several hours of good swimming in. My pictures aren’t the greatest but considering my camera was wet and I took them floating in a tube I decided to include them anyways. The only person I missed was Ryan.
When we finished at the club house we went back to clean up. All the adults plus KJ went to dinner at Longhorn Steak House. The kids all stayed at the house and watched Transylvania II together while eating pizza, popcorn, candy and whatever else they to eat. Matthew told me later that Emilee and Allison got in a fight and caused quite a scene. There younger cousins gave them some advice on how to behave better. It included apologizing but still having consequences from Nathan and Aubrey told them to take their noise level down to ZERO while demonstrating with her fingers pinched together. They are a fun group of nieces and nephews. I talked with all of them and had a good conversation. Even though Joseph told me repeatedly he didn’t want to be my friend and I could not give him a fist bump he was willing to have a pillow fight with me when he realized I would help him ward off Peter. KJ is the happiest baby ever. He loves to snuggle and will let anyone hold him. We were all constantly passing him around trying to have our turn holding him.
Day five most of us headed off to the Kennedy Space Center. It was Matthew’s birthday and he had been begging to go fishing in the ocean for his present so Ryan and Matthew went on a half day fishing trip and then met the rest of us at the Space Center. The fish were biting. They caught 30-40 fish between the two of them, including a hammer head shark, a puffer fish, a tarpin, and several others I can’t remember now. None of them were huge but they had a blast together.
Back at the Space Station we were having a great time too. Allison was not to excited about going-she thought it would be boring-she quickly changed her mind once we got there though. Everyone loved seeing the big space ships and rockets and touching the moon rock and asteroids, watching videos about them. We took a bus(the sweetest bus I have ever been on) out to the Atlantis Space shuttle and saw the building they assemble the space ships in on the way. The size of the building is hard to even comprehend. They said the Roman Colosseum would fit on the roof with plenty of room to spare around it. The flag on the side took 600 gallons of paint. Everything we saw was just massive. We did a simulation of a take off in a rocket. They had a mock up of the space station up in space they could crawl through. There was tons to see and do. It was a pretty cool day.
When the Space Center closed we headed home for the evening. It was our last night so we ate whatever food was left and played games. When the kids were in bed minus Matthew we had our traditional white elephant party. Some of the top mentions were fart spray, rubber chickens to shoot at people like rubber bands, a tortilla blanket, and a mask with a face on it that had snot running down it. It was a fun last night. The week went by to fast. The next morning we headed to the airport. They forgot to send our luggage on the plane so we had to wait for it to arrive later that evening but other wise we arrived home without much excitement. We had the rest of the weekend to rest. It is always a fun week when we get together. I am already looking forward to the next time.
Halloween was on a Saturday this year, which was really nice. There were several activities throughout the week that kept us busy before the final culmination of gathering pillowcases of candy to shorten the life of our pancreases and challenge the strength of our teeth.
Matthew had his last baseball tournament bringing to close a back to back Spring and Fall season that was very fun but very long. The weather was COLD. The high for any of our four games was 39 degrees. Grandpa and the girls watched for bit then decided to return to Grandpa’s house for pizza and hot chocolate. Ryan was having a Man Trip with his mission buddies so he was warm and cozy in the hotel lounge he was watching football with his friends at in Vegas. Matthew and I survived the cold. He layered up and used hand warmers and running around helped. I made myself a cocoon of about 5 blankets, several layers, winter coat and boots, and about a dozen hand warmers strategically placed around my body. They were all good games and the boys ended up winning the entire tournament.
Next up on our Halloween week was actual snow. The original estimate was about 8 inches but luckily it was not that intense and with the ground still being pretty warm we had a nice slushy two inches when it was done. The girls had a fun time playing in the snow but luckily there wasn’t enough to stop school or anything else really.
Matthew had his written drivers test the same day as the snow. I finally convinced him he might want to study a little before he take it instead of just winging it. He did some practice tests that he failed with flying colors and decided to put a little more serious effort into his preparation. I encouraged him to not fail as he walked back to take the test. About ten minutes later he returned and said that the 25 question driving test was the most stressful test he has ever taken in his life but he passed with 88%. Now he gets to take Drivers Ed and get about 50 hours of practice in the next year then he can get a restricted license to drive himself to school or work when he is 15. He is a little hesitant to practice but is getting better. It will be pretty nice to have a third driver before to long.
Allison searched high and low for a costume for Peanut this year so he wouldn’t be left out of the festivities. She was very happy when she finally found one that was small enough to fit him. Peanut seemed less thrilled about it, but tolerated it well enough.
The girls had Halloween parties at school. They were a little different this year because some people are trying to hang onto COVID for as long as they possibly can. They got to dress up and play some ‘socially distanced’ games though. Our church had a Trunk-or-Treat too. It is the first ward activity since COVID. Everyone that wanted to come met in the parking lot and we had pizza and visited for a bit and then the kids made the rounds through all the cars to get as much candy as they could. It was a fun time.
Emilee had a Halloween Costume Parade at the barn where she takes riding lessons. Everyone was assigned a horse and then they were supposed to come up with a coordinating costume for them and the horse. Emilee was partnered with Reese and her new friend Peyton. They decided to be ballerinas. They thought is was extra funny because the horse they were assigned was a male and a big one at that. Peyton was not able to make it to the actual parade part so Emi and Reese did that, but when she did get there we took pictures with her. It was a fun time. The girls love any excuse to ride or be around the horses. Emilee stayed an extra hour after her last lesson to help clean up the stalls and get the horses ready for bed. Ryan took her to her lesson and when she came home she ran to me and said, “Guess what!? I got to scoop up horse poop and feed them hay!” That is funny in and of itself but Emilee is very adverse to any type of manual labor especially if it resembles ‘work’ in any way so it was very impressive that she not only did it but was thrilled about it as well.
The girls had to carve their giant pumpkins. We did that the day before Halloween. Allison did hers pretty much all by herself, she is a creative little girl. She has been watching a show called “Halloween Wars” that makes giant Halloween themed creations out of cake, modeling chocolate, pulled sugar, and carved pumpkins. She was itching to try some ideas she had from that.
This next picture is a little set up of Emilee’s I found one day this week. She has been playing something with the legos and included some of the Halloween decorations in her imagination playing. I took the picture because it won’t be long before she is to old for this and I will miss her little zoos, parades, fights, shows, or whatever else she comes up to imagine with her toys.
After all this fun festiveness it was finally time for the actual day of Halloween. We did our usual tradition of having the McDonald’s over for pizza and home made witches brew (root beer) then we all went trick or treating together and come home and have a giant swapping/trading market. I was very happy there were a lot of people trick or treating this year. Some people were trying to cancel it-with COVID as the excuse, but there were a lot of people out that did it. Most people just put their candy on the corner in a bowl but that was fine. The kids had a great time. Matthew went and did his own thing with some friends. He is having a hard time coming out of his shy bubble since COVID so Ryan and I helped him get invited to a things with some of his friends. He had a fun time and then texted Ryan to come get him when they started watching a scary movie. He had a good time. The older girls went back out for round two of trick or treating after we came back with the littles from the first. The adults played a game. Ross and Lauren are under quarantine for five more days because Ross got COVID from someone that stayed at their house. They stopped by in their van and we gave them some candy. I delivered it to them in my Betty the Dinosaur costume. They weren’t scared. Grandma also made personalized trick or treat bags for all the grandkids which they thought was great when they stopped at their house to trick or treat.
Emilee was a scary clown, Allison was a police officer, and Matthew was a baseball player. Allison went to the store and picked out her costume but being 2020/COVID they wouldn’t let her try it on and it was in a bag. It still had a picture of it though. However, when she got home and opened it up she was less than pleased with it and proceeded to let all of us know how disappointed she was for the next hour and went on ranting and raving about how stupid it was and she wouldn’t wear it. Her and Cambrie were planning on both being police officers and she wasn’t going to look stupid. I asked Lori to send a picture of Cambrie’s costume. It was the exact same one! I showed Allison and within 10 seconds she decided that it was fine and she would wear it. 🤦♀️😒 Oh well, problem solved.
It was a fun night, everyone enjoyed themselves and had way to much sugar. As usual by the time Halloween night is over I am happy to see it done. It was a fun night. Oh! Allison had a fun experiment she wanted to try with the dry ice this year. She made soap bubbles from evaporating dry ice. It worked well and she was quite happy with herself. She decided to speed the process along with a straw.
My sweet husband is pretty patient and tolerant person. If you listed our family in order of who has the most pet peeves or gets irritated about stupid things he would be towards the bottom for sure. There are a few things he has a hard time ignoring though. One is glasses full of liquid left on the island in the kitchen that are inconveniently the height of his elbow so he constantly knocks them over. The one that tops all other misdeeds in his eyes is anything to do with his car. The number one pet peeve is now no longer an issue. It was getting in his car and banging his knees because I am shorter than him and had the seat up. His Tesla has a fancy function that will move the seat back when ever I get out so he doesn’t hit his knees anymore. However, his second pet peeve of his car appearing like it has been sat in, touched, or used in anyway is not so easily fixed. EVERYONE knows you can’t eat, drink (not even water) or even bring food into dads car. You can’t cross your legs and rest your foot on the dash or console. You can’t touch or breath on the windows. You can’t leave anything in the car that came in with you. As you can imagine, his car is pretty immaculate and frequently cleaned and checked to make sure it is up to snuff. These rules apply to dad’s car whether he is in it or not. Ironically I have tried to enforce these same rules in my own car with ZERO success.
At some point last week I took his car to take someone somewhere and may or may not have been finishing a handful of peanut butter pretzels when I got in the car. When I got home I forgot (admittedly AGAIN) that I was supposed to plug the car in to charge and went into the house and continued on with my day.
The next morning Ryan left early to travel somewhere for work. I was still in bed and heard my text message ding. I looked and it is a picture of his car not plugged in. I curse myself for forgetting and debate on just apologizing or being snarky and tell him it was probably him that forgot.😁 But as I was debating I got a second picture from him.
Caught by a stupid pretzel!🤦♀️🤷♀️
Betty is the name I gave my inflatable T-Rex costume. These costumes have been around for years. There is always one or two walking around on Halloween night. They always make me laugh too. It is really hard not to smile or laugh out loud when one of these wanders by with its tiny arms and tail that waddles like a duck when the person inside it walks. Many times when I’ve seen them I’ve thought I should get one of those and have some fun with it. I decided to do it this year. Betty has been worth every penny. Just try and have a bad day if a giant inflatable dinosaur chases you around the yard. Or better yet, be the one inside the giant inflatable dinosaur chasing someone around the yard. Betty has tried her hand at cooking dinner, napping on the couch, jumping on the trampoline, sauntering around the house, watching TV, going on a walk or a jog down the street, and many other things. Betty’s favorite thing to do is jump out and chase someone around while roaring. She is pretty good at it. The neighborhood children have come out in hoards to watch and wave at Betty. Stay tuned, I am sure you will see more of Betty.
Church is still not back to normal yet. Each Stake is doing things a little different depending on how it best works for them. Our ward has been having very small groups of people attend church each week. This past week they have changed it a bit and now the ward is split in half so you will go every other week and then do your own at home every other week. In the past, every year in October the Primary Children do a sacrament program to share what they have been learning in Primary. They sing songs and have little speaking parts they share. It is one of my favorite sacrament meetings of the year.
This year I am the Primary President so it is my job to put the program together with my presidency. Most wards have canceled it due to COVID, some have done a virtual program. We decided to put together a virtual program for those kids that wanted to participate. I will plan on attaching it to this post when it is complete. The girls did their part for it today. They each wrote an answer to a question. Emilee’s was, how can I keep my baptismal covenants? Allison’s was, how can I teach others about Christ?
I print my blog in six months increments. I just got the most recent one printed for January-June 2020. It was about half the number of pages as the other volumes have been. Not as much to write about when the world shuts down and people try and keep it that way as long as possible. Our family is trying to get back to life as much and as normal as possible. It has been a long time but I went on a Girls Night Out with some of my friends the other night. We met for dinner and then most of us went to an escape room afterwards. It was a really fun night, we all had a great time and enjoyed being together. There was great conversation and we kicked the escape rooms butt!
