Terry Family Shenanigans

Pretty Snow

I am not a big winter person but I enjoy snow while it is falling and the day or so after it is on the ground when it is still pretty and white. I am always impressed with how quiet it is when it snows too, it makes everything seem so peaceful.

Kansas City usually gets 1-2 snow falls a winter of about 1-3 inches. This year has been well above our average. We have had 5 snows so far, 2 of those 6+ inches. The first big one we drove home from South Dakota in at Thanksgiving. It was blowing and not a very ‘pretty’ storm. This past weekend it started snowing giant beautiful snowflakes on Friday evening and they kept floating softly to the ground until late Saturday afternoon. It was a very pretty storm. We ended up getting about 11 inches! It is a nice wet snow so the kids have been making snowmen and snow angels, building forts, having snowball fights, sledding, and having a great time in it. I also really love how the snow sits on top if trees and bushes and looks so pretty too.

Matthew’s First Time at the Temple

In our church we believe that everyone has to be baptized to live with Heavenly Father after we die. Not everyone has that opportunity while they are on the earth so one of the things we do in the temple is act as a proxy for our ancestors that weren’t baptized before they died. Once you are twelve you can do this so we got a babysitter for the girls and Ryan, Matthew and I went to the temple last week. Matthew is a good kid. He has a kind, good heart. It was a nice night with just the three of us. We stopped at Freddy’s afterwards for some ice cream.

When we drove up Matthew noticed that the shadows above the windows look like little temples. I thought that was pretty awesome.

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.

President Nelson’s Challenge Follow up

I mentioned in a post back in October about a challenge that President Nelson gave in the Women’s Broadcast. He asked us to fast from social media for 10 days. Read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Then, as we were doing those things he asked us to listen to the promptings and thoughts that we had and ACT on them. I did the fast back in October and I just finished the Book of Mormon a few days ago.

**Fast from social media for 10 days.

I realized I checked my Facebook and then followed the rabbit hole of the next feed or video that came up more than I thought. I completely deleted it from my phone for a while. Sometimes I do need it for checking on events so I did put it back on my phone but I decided to turn off notifications on Facebook and now I rarely look at it. I don’t miss it either. One of the things I filled my time ‘extra time’ with was practicing my piano more.

The new update on my phone has a Screen Time monitor which is kind of handy too. It keeps track of how many times you pick up your phone, and how much time you spend on each app on your phone. It is interesting to think you spent 10 minutes doing a crossword puzzle and then check and realize it was actually 35 minutes. I have talked with my kids about how electronics can consume our day without us realizing how much time we are spending on it. Then we talked about how if we spent even 1/2 that time working on a talent or doing something for someone else how that would increase our abilities and help us be and feel more like Christ.

**Read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Listen and act on the promptings you receive while reading the Book of Mormon.

One of the things that came to my mind while I was reading is to start memorizing scriptures together as a family. I have a little white board on the fridge that I put quotes on a lot so we decided to put a scripture up every couple weeks that we want to work on and memorize. I have really liked doing this so far. Emilee doesn’t seem to quite get it yet, but Matthew and Allison have memorized several scriptures already. I have too. I have never been good at that, memorizing things is intimidating to me for some reason. Each time Allison has a scripture memorized she gets to celebrate by staying up an extra hour for bedtime, and Matthew celebrates with a QT Icee. I told them that they could pick scriptures they read in their personal study that stands out to them for the family to memorize. They liked that idea.

A lady in our ward mentioned in her talk one of the ways she helped her kids not fight (or solve a lot of fights) when they were growing up was to have a ‘Child of the Day’. Their family rotated through the kids and when it was your day you got to do things like say the prayers, sit in the front seat, pick your spot at the table. Whatever little things her kids tended to fight about so they all got a turn and new they would get a turn and didn’t need to fight about it. I haven’t started this yet but I think it is a great idea. I have it on the back burner in my brain to bring out someday if we are in an arguing rut or something.

We started reading scriptures in the morning before everyone leaves when we started school. Then we all eat breakfast together too. With that and my own reading from the Book of Mormon with the challenge from President Nelson I have noticed a slow but steady increase in all of our patience and tolerance with each other. The kids get a little less snippy with each other and forgive quicker. I have way more patience with them. They listen a little better and are more helpful. I’m loving it, everyone is loving it, even though they might not realize they do and the benefits that have come from it.

I started doing ’10’s’ with them again too. This is something from ‘Positive Parenting Solutions’ that we have done before. I had the thought to start it again. Each day the kids get to have a dedicated 10 minutes with mom (and dad tries to do it to when he can) where they have 100% of my attention focused on them and only them for 10 minutes and the two of us do whatever they want to do and I am in play mode, not mom mode. Some of the things they have come up with are play a game, singing, reading, watch a show, draw, color, practice cart wheels, go on a walk, watch YouTube together, play ‘Twenty Questions’ or ‘Would You Rather’, whatever they come up with. They love it, this isn’t the only time I spend with them but it is their special 10 minutes.

Another thing that has come to Ryan and my mind recently is talking with our kids about pornography. Ryan is in the Young Men’s and we have gone to firesides and broadcasts in the past, and talked with several bishops over the years. One of the consistently repeated topics we hear and talk about in regards to pornography is the importance of open communication. It isn’t a matter of IF your kids will see pornography, it is WHEN will they see it, and what will they do when they see it. It is a really delicate line of teaching our kids that it is not okay to do and helping them understand how and why they feel the way they do when they see it (shame, curiosity, excitment) and then interpreting those feelings correctly and learning why they have those feelings and when they are appropriate and not appropriate. Ryan talked with Matthew about this today. Satan is evil but not stupid. We know looking at pornography is bad, so when we see it one of the emotions we might feel is shame. The purpose of shame is to let us know we are doing something we should stop, one of the tools to use to guide us through lifes decisions and situations, just like joy lets us know we are doing good, heat warns of being burned, fear can be a warning, and all the other emotions and senses we have. Satan (especially with LDS people that can tend to have more ‘guilt issues’) uses that shame feeling to make people feel that instead of the act of what they are doing is wrong, the person them self is wrong and bad, which leads to more guilt and shame and can make us want to hide instead of talk with someone like a parent, or leader about what happened and how it made us feel. Ryan and I spend a lot of time, thinking, talking and praying about this topic together and talk about it often with our kids so they know what it is and that they can come to us knowing before hand that we won’t be angry at them, we will help them figure it out and work with them.

I am glad that I did President Nelson’s challenge. It has been a long time since I have read the Book of Mormon that fast. I like doing it that way sometimes because I can connect the stories and people together more then when I read it slower. It was a nice experience. I am looking forward to getting started with the new Come Follow Me curriculum when the new year starts.

2018 Quotes for the Fridge.

I have a little white board on our fridge that I decided to use to put quotes on that I read or heard somewhere. Someday I will have a quote wall or something to display a bunch of them but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet so it doesn’t look sloppy and drive me crazy.

When you really want something you’ll find a way. When you don’t really want something you’ll find an excuse.

~Girl, Wash Your Face

Whatever standard you’ve set for yourself is where you’ll end up…unless you fight through your instinct and change your pattern.

~Girl, Wash Your Face

Words have power but actions shape our lives.

~Girl, Wash Your Face

When you know better you do better.

~Maya Angelou

Life is to be enjoyed not just endured.

~Gordon B. Hinckley

If thoughts make us what we are, and we are to be like Christ, then we must think Christ like thoughts.

~Ezra Taft Benson

Forget yourself and go to work.

Be grateful, humble, smart, prayerful, involved, true, positive, and still.

~Gordon B. Hinckley

Be proud of the work you do the person you are and the difference you make!

God gave the Sabbath day for man, not man for the Sabbath day.

It’s their day too.

The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God won’t help you.

Choose the harder right, instead of the easier wrong.

~Thomas S. Monson

Wherever thou art, act thee thy part.

~David O. McKay

If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what someone has to say.

I am your mother, you are my child. I am your quiet place, you are my wild. I am your calm face, you are my giggle. I am your wait, you are my wiggle. I am you dinner, you are my chocolate cake. I am your bedtime, you are my wide awake. I am your lullaby, you are my peek-a-boo. I am your good night kiss, you are my I love you.

In December we decided to change it to our scripture board and we wrote scriptures on it that we wanted to memorize as a family. For a little incentive to memorize them, we let the kids pick a small reward each time they memorized one. Matthew picked a QT icee, Allison picked staying up an extra hour after her regular bedtime one night. Emilee is still deciding. They have to have them memorized to the point that I could ask them at any time and they could rattle it off without thinking.

Alma 37:35 …yea remember my son and learn wisdom in thy youth. Yea, learn in thy youth to keep the commandments of God.

Alma 38:9 …there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved only in and through Christ. Behold He is the light of the world. Behold he is the word of truth and righteousness.

Merry Christmas!!

Despite the fact that time slowed down so one day felt like 10 according to my kids Christmas Day FINALLY came! We were at Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s this year with our Bourne and Terry cousins.

Christmas Eve we had a big yummy ham dinner together. Grandpa read us the Christmas story and talked to us about using our time wisely on Sundays when we get an ‘extra hour’ at home. We sang Christmas songs and then the kids bounced off the walls and played games until bedtime. Then they continued to bounce off the walls in their beds with excitement until the last of their energy wore out and they fell asleep. Leah and Allison were the last two to fall asleep. There goal was to stay up all night. They said they made it to midnight, but I checked on them at 11:30 and they were sleeping. They woke up at 5:45 but we made a rule the night before that no one could wake anyone up until 6:30. They stayed in their room like they were supposed to and argued about who was not being quiet enough just loudly enough for the people below, next to, and across the hall to hear them.🤦‍♀️ At 6:30 AM sharp all the kids magically awoke if they weren’t already and let everyone know it was time to open presents.

Santa was right on with his gifts this year. Emilee loved her doll that can ride her horse she got for her birthday. Allison got a karaoke machine that she has been using non-stop. Matthew got a new bat for next season that he is very excited to use.

We spent the rest of the day playing with new toys, eating left overs, relaxing and staying in our pajamas. It was a very nice Christmas day!

The moms always go get their toes done. Alli and Leah get to come now too. Allison has been looking forward to it since last Christmas.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Emilee and Allison loved to hold Baby Chloe.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Morning!
Allison opening her Karaoke Machine from Santa.
Matthew’s bat from Santa.
Tyler and Emilee eating Pringles and watching the cars race
Emilee’s doll from Santa
Traditional Christmas morning family selfie.

Not sure why their hats are attached to the front of the foreheads…great job on the song though.

Grandpa always has some new jokes for the Grandkids.

Ryan’s new sunglasses

Ryan has a thing for sunglasses. Partly because he loses them all the time and has to get new ones. Partly because the kids (not as much now) break them. Partly because I take them. Those are his reasons for having so many sunglasses. The real reason is that he likes sunglasses and they are for him what shoes are for other people…or coats for me. He doesn’t spend tons of money on them, in fact the cheaper he can get them for the better in his opinion. Who knows how long they will survive before being lost, scratched, or sat on?

When we were getting ready to go on our cruise he decided he was going to order himself some new snazzy sunglasses. He did and even paid a extra to get them in time but we had a big blizzard that delayed shipping all over the place (we drove right through it, I don’t know why the mail couldn’t😁 J/K) so his new sunglasses were delivered the day after we left and he had to settle with a ‘less favorite’ pair.

As we were walking to the ship there was a street vendor that had sunglasses for sale (authentic Ray Bans for only $5!😉 ). So we tried a few. He debated on some that looked like some blinged out pop stars (just for the cruise) but settled on an aviator style. A short time later a girl took a picture for us that was wearing the same blinged out glasses he almost got, and I wore a pair that I stole from him because I liked them the whole cruise, so we started giving him a hard time that he seemed to have a thing for girl sunglasses. Fast forward to when we get home from our trip. He is still very excited about them and puts them in the car to wear the next day. When he comes home from work, I see them for the first time. He gives them a glowing report and says that he loves them. I think they are girl sunglasses. He disagrees and continues to wear them. I sent the picture below to Sherri and her carefully constructed political non-answer was ‘they are fashion forward’. So…what do you think?!? Don’t worry, he never reads my blog so he’ll never know. 😂 Girl glasses or not, he is still a handsome guy.

Christmas Activities

The past few years I have tried extra hard to make it a point to enjoy the holiday season and not get to busy with things that it rushes by and I feel stressed and frustrated instead of joyful and peaceful like you should feel at Christmas. I was able to get decorations up and most of the Christmas shopping done before we left on our cruise so that when we got back we could enjoy the rest of December and do our family Christmas traditions.

We kicked off the week after we got home by setting up the card table and pulling out a bunch of puzzles to start doing. There is something about Christmas music, lights, decorations, and cold weather that makes you want to put your slippers on and do a puzzle, or ten.

A few times before Christmas we like to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We get in our PJ’s, make some hot chocolate, bring a cozy blanket, turn on our favorite Christmas music, and go check out all the neighborhood Christmas lights. There are several neighborhoods that we know will not disappoint but we try and find new ones too. When we found the house with all the blow ups we had to get out and walk through it to appreciate the 100+ blowups in their yard, including a 25 foot penguin. I bet their neighbors just love them.

The girls are sitting on top of the van to get a better view of a light display we were watching.
I remember doing this as a little girl.

Matthew is loosing interest a little in gingerbread house decorating but the girls still love it. Sometimes we make one big one, sometimes we each make our own little one. Then as Emilee announces several times a day, “Gingerbread houses are made to be eaten.” They slowly become stripped of their candy and frosting. If there is anything left, our elf Bubbit takes them with him back to Santa on Christmas Eve to share with all the other elves.

Allison’s Gingerbread house
Emilee’s Gingerbread house
Matthew’s Gingerbread house

Bubbit is our elf that visits every year and keeps an eye on who is being naughty or nice for Santa. Every morning he is in a different spot, sometimes he is being a little mischievous or silly. Occasionally he gets into marshmallow fights with the barbies or super hero figures. The older he gets the more he likes to just hide in funny spots. We got him in 2013. At the time Allison had found a grasshopper and named it Bubbit so when our elf showed up she thought it was the perfect name for him too. Lots of people have elves. They show up around December 1st. Some ambitious elves show up on Thanksgiving. Bubbit is a special elf that helps Santa do some extra work so he usually doesn’t make it to our house until mid December. It is good to let the anticipation of his arrival peak before he comes.

My mom and dad gave us a story called ‘The Last Straw’ that was a tradition we did in my family growing up. We have an empty basket and we fill it up with straw by putting in a piece every time we do something kind for someone. Then on Christmas Eve the basket is full of straw from hopefully hundreds of small acts of kindness and love, and we have a little Baby Jesus to put in the basket.

We usually go to the church Christmas breakfast. It was a little low in attendance this year but it was still a fun time. Allison picked a spot in the very back corner for us to sit. I looked up while I was eating and could see everyone there eating and visiting and having a good time while Christmas music played softly in the back ground. It was a nice moment. We have a very nice and friendly ward. Santa came at the end and the girls gave him a high five and talked to him. Emilee wanted to do it but almost had a heart attack waiting in line as the anticipation of willingly walking up to a stranger and talking to him built up. She was with her two good friends so that helped her bravery and she did it. When they finished and she found out that you get a candy cane for talking to Santa, her bravery went through the roof and she went back all by herself.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Champion.

Matthew has been a little bit of a scrooge this year. Allison has noticed and taken it upon herself to fix his ‘not Christmasiness’ self. She brainstormed a few ideas and I carefully helped steer her towards ones that might actually have the results she wants instead of the opposite. (Running into his room every hour tonight while he was sleeping and yelling, “Matthew be more Christmasy” until he said ‘ok’ was luckily moved off the table) Instead the girls made him a giant poster that said Merry Christmas Matthew and hung it up in his room. We will see if operation ‘Make Matthew Merry’ is a success.

Operation ‘Make Matthew Merry’

Several years ago we made chocolate pretzels to hand out as a treat to out neighbors. The kids had a lot of fun doing it and it has become our traditional treat from the Terry’s that we hand out to friends and neighbors. We have stream lined it pretty good too. It used to be an all Sunday afternoon activity, but now we can make them and hand them out in the same day. It is also pretty hard to screw up which is good for me.

Making Christmas treats

The kids are leaving tomorrow to go to Grandma’s early with their cousins. Ryan has work he wants to get done before Christmas, and I want to see the church Christmas program Sunday morning before we go up. It has been a very nice December. It isn’t over yet, I know, I’m just relishing the greatness so far of this magical month.

Going home.

The last night of the cruise you have two options for getting ready to disembark the next morning. You can keep all your luggage with you and carry it yourself off the boat and do ‘express disembarking’ which means you will get off the boat first at 7 am. The other option is to leave your luggage outside your room the night before and they will take it down to the disembarking area for you. Then they dismiss you by number starting at 7:30 in 15 minute increments. We decided we weren’t in to big of a hurry because our flight wasn’t until the afternoon so we all left our luggage outside our room except for an over night bag. Our time for disembarking was at 8:45, Kenny and Sherri’s time was 9:15. They asked us to be out of our staterooms by 8 am so we met for breakfast at 7:30. We were enjoying one last breakfast at the Facejammer and at about 7:45 they made an announcement that said there was a ‘slight issue’ that needed to be resolved before they could begin the disembarking process. At 8:15 they came back on and explained that the ‘slight issue’ was that all the taxi drivers and luggage porters had gone on strike and were blocking the airport and cruise terminals so that Ubers and any other drivers couldn’t get in or out. Of course they were working to have the issue resolved as fast as possible, were sorry for any inconveniences this was causing, and would let us know as things changed. Sure enough we looked out along the pier and there were taxi’s as far as you could see blocking the roads. There wasn’t much we could do so we just stayed at the Facejammer and played a game of hearts. We also looked into how much an Uber would cost when we finally did get off the boat and it would be $12 for all four of us and our luggage (Ryan and I paid a taxi driver $18 for the two of us to our hotel when we arrived which was about a 2 mile trip). They continued to make the same announcement every fifteen minutes or so until sometime between 9-10 they started the express disembarkers and then slowly started calling the groups. Ryan was getting a little antsy about missing our flight so we decided we would get in line to leave the boat and by the time we were through the line hopefully our luggage would be ready. Our plan worked and they called our number about the time we entered the the luggage claiming area. Kenny and Sherri got theirs and got in the customs line and outside to start getting a taxi. Ryan and I went to our area and… could not find out bags. We asked someone about it and the look on their face was not encouraging. We ended up walking through all the luggage areas and found nothing. By that time two suitcases the same size as ours were the only suitcases left in our area. The luggage guy (we will call him Bob) called the number and LUCKILY someone answered the phone. Bob explained to whoever answered the phone that they had taken the wrong luggage. The person Bob was talking to did not believe him and kept saying, “I already have my luggage.” It took several minutes for Bob to convince him to just look at the name tag of the bags he took and he said, ‘Oh, I took the wrong bags!’ Ryan had progressed from antsy to irritable to angry and he only got angrier when we had to sit there and wait…and wait…and wait until every single other person had gotten their luggage and left the boat. Then after a little more waiting the person arrived with our luggage. Which other than being roughly the same size as ours looked nothing like our luggage. Different color and style. We then had to take it through customs again to make sure they didn’t do something to it. We got outside and luckily found a taxi quickly. When we got to the airport the driver told us it was $25…we only had $20 and some change on us so we had to stiff him a little. Apparently the solution for the taxi strike was to charge us more so I didn’t feel to bad. Sherri and Kenny were already there in line so we joined up with them. There were a lot of people that had missed their flight or were late like us so the airline split us into two lines, people leaving within 2 hours (we had about 45 minutes) and everyone else. However they forgot the let the people at the front know so they kept taking people from the wrong line. After 10 minutes of our line not moving Ryan went from angry to irate. He asked several different attendants to direct the line and none of them did so he took matters into his own hands and started directing traffic. He got a few fist bumps and high fives from the people in line with us, and some ‘watch our for the crazy guy’ looks from the airport workers. Miraculously we made it through the agricultural check and regular security and didn’t miss our flight. The rest of the way home went without any drama.

Roger picked us up at the airport and brought us home. It was a wonderful vacation but we were glad to be home. Grandma and Grandpa did a very good job taking care of the kids and gave them a good report too. They were better behaved for Grandma and Grandpa then they are for us, which is a little frustrating but I am glad they can pull out their manners and use them for someone. They caught us up on everything they had been doing and we showed them our pictures. Then it was back to real life.

St. Thomas

Our last full day of the cruise was in St Thomas. I thought this island looked more like the United States than Puerto Rico did as far as buildings, shopping, things like that. There roads actually had two full lanes with painted lines dividing the lanes. For our last day the guys felt like they wanted to change it up a bit so instead of finding a taxi to give us a tour. Kenny rented a Jeep and he drove us around. Sherri and I did some last day shopping while they went and picked up the car. To make it a little more fun even though it is a US Virgin Island, they drive on the left side of the road. We had to stop really think before we turned so we knew where we were going and were sure we weren’t pulling in front of someone. Kenny said his auto-pilot wanted to keep taking over. The research from the night before on where to go in St Thomas resulted in two beaches that we wanted to try. Another indication that we were getting closer to America is that you couldn’t just walk up to the beach anymore, when we arrived we had to pay and they had restrictions posted all over the place.

Our Driver and Navigator for the day. Notice the big yellow sign if front of Kenny reminding him what side of the road to drive on.
All the islands had chickens roaming around all over the place. They seemed particularly numerous at St Thomas.
This is the roof someones house. It is on the side of a hill so you park on the roof and enter the house from the top. If you were to walk out the ‘front door’ you would fall straight down the side of the mountain.
I thought it was cool to see the ‘ocean parking lots’ with all the boats.

The first beach we went to was called Megan’s Bay. It is rated one of the top 10 beaches in the world. It did not disappoint. Of course it was very beautiful, but the sand was so fine and soft. It was like walking on powdered sugar. Another difference at this beach was as soon as you stepped into the water you could see thousands of fish swimming around you. They started tiny, just an inch or so. The further out you went they kept getting bigger. The would move away from you as you walked which was fun to watch too. When we were about as far out as we could go and still touch if you held still a fish 6-8 inches big would come and start swimming around your legs. Kenny had one that stuck with him for a long time so he named him Frenchy. The name stuck and we started referring to all the fish as frenchies. The pelicans were at this beach too and they seemed to know the big fish liked to hide by people because they were not shy to dive right next to you and try and catch them. We stayed here for an hour or so and just enjoyed the moment. Kenny started trying to catch fish like the pelicans because he didn’t think it seemed that hard. That was funny to watch. When we got hungry we dried off and left to find some lunch. We found a little hole in the wall pizza place. It was really good pizza and their garlic bread was even better. Not very authentic I know but it was delicious.

Mocking the picture guy on the boat who always wanted us to pose like that for pictures. Ryan refused to do it.
I know Kenny is strong but his tree actually just decided to grow sideways.
Baby ‘Frenchies’
Sand like butter.

After our bellies were full of delicious pizza we carefully made a right turn without causing an accident and went to the last beach of our trip. Ryan and I took a long walk down the shore line. I decided to make a little sand castle too. Kenny and Sherri and Ryan were floating around out in the water and found some cool rocks to add to my castle. There were a few people on the beach but not many. Most of the beaches we went to were surprisingly crowd free for the most part. There was usually some stray dogs and cats wandering around too. They were not very interested in people. They seemed a lot tougher than american dogs. Not aggressive but street smart, and content. No begging or puppy dog eyes. Just content to play or nap in the sand or swim in the ocean then wander around and find some food or shelter. We stayed at that beach until it was time to head back. We stopped at an ice cream shop at the docks right by our ship and enjoyed more of the perfect 85 degree temperature. Sherri and I meandered back to the boat while we shopped and the boys returned the Jeep. St Thomas is only about 70 miles from Puerto Rico so after we left port we went about as slow as possible back to the disembarking dock. There were lots of games and activities going on for the last night on board. It was an incredible vacation. We really did love every minute of it.

Last beach of our trip
The darker areas are giant beds of sea weed, not the slimy gross kind though. The almost looks like they are made out plastic little tree kind.
I made a sand castle for funzies.

They were trying to decide what something was without touching it.