I have been so excited to decorate for Christmas this year! I wanted to put everything up early but since I was hosting Thanksgiving I thought I should keep my Thanksgiving stuff up at least until then. I did put my outside lights up and my tree without decorations on it early. It has been two years since we have had our decorations up. I forgot what some of them were! Two years ago we had just moved into our rental and only had room for a few things. Last year we moved in to our new house two days before Christmas so I put our tree up and that was about it. This year is was a little like Christmas opening up all the boxes to remember what I had. It was very fun to get it all up. The kids and Ryan were excited too. It feels nice and Christmassy around here now. We were in our last house for 7 years so I had a spot for everything. I have a few things that don’t work anymore or some areas that I don’t have the right decoration but I will tweak it a little each year and eventually it will all pull together. My goal this year was to get a bigger tree. We went from 7 1/2 feet to 12 feet. It is big! I love a beautiful tree but don’t love the setting up. I might get a little tired of setting it up every year, but I think it fills the space pretty good. I also got the garland for the stairs. Allison had a really cute idea to put ribbon on the kitchen cupboard doors with a bow so it looks like presents. I thought it turned out pretty cute! Ryan and I attempted to do the lights ourselves this year. He even crawled up on the roof for our tall front porch. The smaller eve next to it had a 30 foot drop off the one side so we decided it wasn’t worth the risk of our lives and ability to move all our limbs. I ordered a grinch and stuck him in the yard to make it look like he was stealing our lights, then we didn’t have to put them on that eve. Next year we need to get some bigger lights I think…and see about finding someone else to install them.
It has been a few years since my entire family has been together. Last Christmas we decided that we would all get together for Thanksgiving. We were debating on having it at Sherri’s house or ours. After a little discussion, Sherri said that she would, “rather host a holiday that wasn’t about food because its not really her thing and it might not live up to everyone’s expectations.” It would have been just fine at Sherri’s but that tipped the scale to have it at our house. So the plan was set for 5 families, 6 couples, 11 adults (we will count Matthew as an adult now), 12 kids, and one baby, for a grand total of 24 people to gather together for a Thanksgiving Holiday Family Reunion. Matthew moved to the workout room, the girls moved to the basement living room and that left a room for each married couple. A few kids slept with their parents in their rooms but most of the kids slept in the basement living room and had a big sleep over together each night.
The Cazier’s arrived Sunday before Thanksgiving. My parents and the French’s arrived on Monday evening, and my brother and his family came Wednesday evening. Ryan and I had to work Monday and Tuesday so my family entertained themselves during the day. They played lots of games and ping pong. DeAnna organized a baptism temple trip for everyone that wanted to go on Tuesday. That was a good experience for the cousins that got to go together.
The rest of the week we spent hanging out and having fun together. We did our traditional white elephant party. The kids had one and then the adults had one. They were both lots of fun. DeAnna and Emilee ended up with matching white elephants. Allison was the amazing entertainer of all the cousins. She organized several group games and contests. She prepared the giant living room sleep over each night. One of her biggest hits was a dance party in our basement. She strung lights along the walls in our cave (that is our unfinished area under the garage. Someday it will be an epic entertaining room.) and then made each person an invitation and person ticket. Once the doors opened they had to get a secret password from Grandpa Jones and then they could give the password to get into the dance and dance their hearts out. It was a pretty cool party.
Thanksgiving morning several us were getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast. Sherri recruited Allison and Tyler to help her make an obstacle course for anyone that wanted to do it. They did it relay style so when one person finished an obstacle the next person would go until a team one. When they were all obstacled out anyone that wanted to run in the family Turkey Trot ran a mile route that Sherri had mapped out through out neighborhood. The Cazier boys finished in a pretty impressive time. Tyler, Nathan and Michael can have a nice track or cross country career in their future if they want to! It was a VERY cold day so I was impressed with any of them that went outside to participate in the outdoor activities.
Everyone had lots of Thanksgiving food. It was a delicious feast. After we ate a lot of us took our post meal nap and then woke up and ate pie for dessert. It was a fun day. The whole week was fun. We went to a few movies, put puzzles together, played lots of games, visited and enjoyed each others company. My mom helped me put up my Christmas tree too. We were up until about 1am on Friday morning. Everyone was leaving the next day so we were playing until we were exhausted. We all went to bed healthy but between then and morning almost half of us came down with a stomach bug. We were so close to a sick free get together. It was brief but violent and by the time it was done a little more than half of us had it. A little bit of a sour note to end on but I had a great week and I am glad we could all get together. I think everyone else thought so too.
We were lucky to get two of these gems in the White Elephant party.
Of course we updated our family picture since we were all together. It has been maybe 5 or 6 years since we have done that. We are blessed with a great family. I wish we were all closer and could see each other more often but I am grateful for the times we get to get together.
My dad does a good job at taking lots of pictures when we get together. He was the official photographer for Thanksgiving. Aubry and KJ participated in the kid white elephant but there pictures were accidentally videos so I couldn’t get them to upload. Aubry got a cheeseburger mug and KJ got a toothbrush ornament.
This year our Halloween ended up looking a little different than it has for the last 10 years. The McDonalds kids and ours all made individual plans with their friends so we didn’t get together like we usually do. We still made pizza and home made root beer for people to eat as they came and went to get ready or stop in on the way to their party. Our houses in our new neighborhood are spread out pretty far so we didn’t have any trick or treaters.
Matthew dress up as Dr Duffensmirch from Phineas and Ferb. Campbell was Harry the platypus. They went to a party with a group of their friends from school. They actually went trick or treating for a little bit too.
Allison and her friends assembled matching outfits and were gangster minions together. They went trick or treating in Grandpa Terry’s neighborhood and then spent the night at our house.
Emilee was a witch this year. She went trick or treating with Reese and a few other girls. They picked a neighborhood that is known for handing out full size candy bars and they were not disappointed. They found a few haunted houses people were doing as they trick or treated too.
Ryan rediscovered his Joe Dirt costume from almost two decades ago and proudly wore it to work. He gave himself a goatee to go with the costume.
The night of Halloween Ryan and I shuttled the girls around were they needed to go and then enjoyed a quite night at home. We did go to a Halloween party with Dani and RJ Halloween weekend. RJ is a pilot so he provided Ryan with an outfit to borrow and Dani and I got First Officer costumes to go with them. I think we were a hit. Ryan LOVED being a pilot too.
If it doesn’t feel like time is flying by in September, by the time October gets here is really picks up the pace. School, activities, holidays, more birthdays, and all the things that go with those make it hard to stop and enjoy everything that is going on.
Matthew’s last baseball season with his FBC competitive team was in full swing for September and October. They played pretty much every weekend. There was a weekend in October that off and that was it. I have a lot of good pictures from this season. I will share them in another post.
The biggest event for October was our family trip we have been planning for a while. Unless something changes it is our last big family vacation together before Matt graduates and goes on his mission and the family dynamic shifts into a new era. We talked about what we should do and asked Matt for his input a lot because it was also over his 18th birthday so we wanted to celebrate that too. Matt loves beaches, sunshine, warm places, fishing and food. After tossing a few ideas around like Hawaii, Alaska, cruise, and all inclusive beach resorts, we decided that a cruise would check the most boxes on the wish list. When we went on a cruise in 2019 for Christmas with the kids we had a great time but we thought it would be fun if they each had a buddy. Since then we have tossed the idea around with Ross and Lauren to come on a cruise with us. Matt asked if that could happen with this trip so we invited them too. Each pair of people ended up with their own room.
We settled on a cruise in October that was the week of Matthew’s actual birthday. A few weeks before the cruise there was some issues with Ross and Lauren not realizing they had other priorities the same week. I don’t really want to get into all the details but I was pretty upset about it. They were going to send Ethan and Leah home alone half way through the cruise, but luckily the cruise required them to have an adult accompany them. So Ethan, Leah and Lauren left half way through the cruise which was dumb. Allison and Matthew were on their own the last two days but we had a great time still.
A few days before we left all the girls went to the nails salon together and got a manicure for the cruise.
Matthew felt left out so he showed us his nails to take a picture.
To include Matthew’s love of fishing and for part of his birthday present, our family drove down to Galveston Texas a few days before the cruise left. We drove to Dallas and stayed night with Kenny and Sherri. Then next day we drove the rest of the way to Galveston and that afternoon we Ryan booked us a deep sea fishing boat.
Our traditional family picture to start a trip off.
Matthew and Ryan went ocean fishing a few years ago in Florida for Matt’s birthday. They caught probably 40 fish in a few hours. This time…we caught one fish…in five hours. It was a good one though. Matt caught a 4 1/2 foot long black tip shark. Once we got it on the hook Matthew wrestled it until we got it up to our boat. He did a good job, he said it was a little awkward because the pole the shark bit was right handed and he usually fishes left handed. I was the video/picture person. I tried to get fancy and take photos while I was videoing and at the point when he pulled it out of the water the most instead of taking a picture I stopped and started the video. 😢 Total mom fail. I still got some video and pictures though. The captain asked us if we wanted to keep it but we had no where to store it because we were getting on the boat the next day. So we let it go. It was a fun experience to watch him real in the shark. Pretty exciting. The other 4 hours and 50 minutes was a little slow, that is the lot of a fisher. I thought just relaxing and floating on the waves was great. The others had occasional waves of sea sickness but everyone kept everything in their stomachs.
After a day of fishing we went to dinner and checked into our hotel for the night. The next morning we headed to the boat! We didn’t realize it at the time we booked the cruise but the ship we were on was the same one we went on with the kids in 2019. Mariner of The Seas. The kids were all paired up and had their own rooms. Allison and Leah’s room ended up being the hangout spot for cousins when they weren’t doing other things. They mentioned a few times the room was pretty hot. A few days into the cruise we realized their AC wasn’t working. We called maintenance and 30 minutes later it was much cooler in their room. The first day we explored the ship and got settled in our rooms. We discovered the ice cream cone dispensary and snack areas, soda refills, all the important things.🤣 For dinner we ate at the Hibachi grill. It was a fun kick off to the cruise.
It seemed like the kids really enjoyed having a buddy and doing whatever they wanted together. We all got a lot of activities in on the ship. We had two days at sea, plus the embarking day. Some of the favorite things we did were shows, trivia games, dance parties, swimming, the flow rider, water aerobics, mini golf, rock climbing, napkin folding, working out, finding and hiding ducks, napping on the deck, watching movies at the pool, ice skating, board games, a sushi making class and eating lots of yummy food. Our waiters names each night were April and Jozie. They were really nice and took great care of us. They had been on the boat for 7 months and were getting off to go home for the holidays the same day we did. The only picture Matthew asked for the whole time was with them. They always brought him extra food. I have never seen someone eat so much, he was like a food vacuum. He started keeping track of how many ice cream cones he ate but lost track after 34. The girls decorated their doors and I decorated Matthew’s room for his birthday.
We had two days at Ports. The first was Costa Maya. We all went to a beach and the kids played keep away and we did some souvenir shopping. The second was Cozumel. It was raining pretty good in the morning. Our family had an excursion booked. Jovee came with us and everyone else went to the airport to fly most of their family home. We were debating on canceling the excursion due to rain. When we were checking in they told us we needed two drivers with a drivers license. Ryan didn’t have his so Matthew and I were the drivers for our group. They asked us a bunch of health questions and when they asked about asthma I said yes but not who had it. They said Matthew couldn’t drive if he had asthma (how dumb is that btw) so Allison immediately said it was her. We went along with it (not the best example, I know) and I told them it wasn’t bad at all and we weren’t concerned about it. Then they said that Allison could not only not snorkel but she couldn’t go on the boat to snorkel because if she needed medicine they couldn’t help her. I told them it was fine and I had her medicine if she needed it, which she wouldn’t. Then they were really freaking out because I had medicine. It was a disaster. We decided to just cancel the excursion and rented our own car. We drove ourselves to the cenote that was on our excursion and it was closed anyway because of the rain. We drove for a bit until we found a nice beach that it wasn’t raining at. We had an almost empty beach with chairs and a restaurant. We rented some boogie boards for the kids and they enjoyed the pretty big waves for several hours. It was a great afternoon and I was happy that it wasn’t ruined by rain or asthma. It is so fun to see new places and make new memories.
Playing keep away at Costa MayaCozumelI made a sand castle that looked like a Mayan temple.Costa Maya
We got off the boat early in the morning on a Saturday and drove the whole way home. Matthew had a baseball tournament that weekend and we were able to get back so he could play on Sunday and help them win. It is going to be very different and feel weird when Matthew and then the girls start leaving the house. I have enjoyed this phase of our lives. I still am but it is getting alarmingly close to it coming to an end.
Since we were doing Matthew’s senior pictures it was a good time to update our family pictures too. The ones I had hanging on my wall were a few years old. Kids getting older and going through puberty make it looks like even longer. So we got everyone’s pictures taken. I think they turned out pretty wonderfully. I love my sweet family.
We didn’t do a big vacation this Summer because we are going on vacation in October together-more about that later- but we wanted to have a mini-cation together at some point this Summer. We have been wanting to do a float trip with the kids for a while so we decided it was time to do it. Ryan had a friend from work that lives by the Current river in Missouri. They have people come stay with them a lot and they have all the stuff you need to float the river. They have invited us several times and it hasn’t worked out so we decided it was a good time to do it.
The week of our trip Allison went to girls came Monday through Thursday. She was actually pretty close to were we were going to be so instead of having her drive home and then all the way back to the same place, we left on Thursday and picked her up at the camp she was at before they left to come home. She was actually at camp for her birthday. We had lots of little celebrations to celebrate her this year. Becky made her a cake and we celebrated with the rest of the KC Terry’s on Sunday before she left for camp. I sent a surprise gift bag for her to open on her actual birthday at camp. Her main gift this year was a new bed and mattress for her room. She wanted a queen bed instead of a twin. She also wanted to but some board and baton on one wall in her room and make an accent wall. We got that put up for her and painted it the blue color she wanted. Then we let her pick a place to eat out for her birthday dinner when we were on our float trip and Matthew and Emilee were back.
Matthew and Emilee came home from their Florida trip late Wednesday night and we left to get Allison Thursday morning and then go straight to the river. On Tuesday Ryan’s work buddy that was going to take us to the river and let us stay with him called and said that his wife was pretty sick with COVID and he would still let us use stuff and take us to the river but it might be best if we don’t stay at their house so we didn’t get sick. I would always rather stay at our own place than with someone so I thought it worked out great. Ryan decided to see if he could find a VRBO even though it was last minute. There were literally two options available. One was a definite no and the second was pretty new but had a handful of decent reviews. Once we gathered our kids from Florida and girls camp we headed to the Current river. We had some time to pass before we could check into our place so we stopped and watched the new movie Twisters on the way. It was pretty good. It still makes me feel old to watch ‘new movies’ that are remakes of movies that came out when I was young. After the movie stop we finished making our way to our little VRBO that the kids quickly nick named the “Crack Shack”. We were a little concerned when we pulled up. It looked a little rough from the outside. Luckily it was clean and not as bad on the inside, and had good door locks. It was literally 30 feet from a Dollar General store which is a little ghetto but very convenient. We settled in and went to dinner at an outdoor burger and ice cream stand. We watched the Olympics and played games the rest of the evening.
The next day we met Ryan’s friend and he hooked us up with all kinds of floating options. Ryan decided to get a kayak and the rest of us went with a tube. He drove us to a spot on the river to get in at and planned to meet us about 4-5 hours later at the pick up spot. Allison was a little tired from her week at girls camp and was a little less than excited about the whole trip. It took some convincing to get her to come out of her room and do anything with us the first night. With a little bit of help from us, mostly her brother Matthew, we loaded up and headed to the water. Once we got on the river it was much better. All of us loved it. The weather was great, the water was clean and a perfect temperature. It was so relaxing. We had the river to ourselves most of the time too because we went early instead of in the evening. We stopped to swim and play in the water a few times. We caught a baby turtle, saw some fun animals, got tan, and enjoyed each others company. I love float trips. It was the perfect length too. About the time we were getting tired and had run out of snacks we saw the pick up point.
After we dropped off the equipment we went home and showered and went to a pizza place that was recommended. It had potential…but they must have been short staffed and had a new cook, and something. It was comical how ridiculous it was. They only had half the items on the menu available…no pizza, which is what we went there for. Once we ordered the waitress (who had to go ask someone else about everything because she was brand new) said it would be about 45 minutes before the food was ready. We decided to try some of the games they had…the only one that worked was the dart board. That after asking almost everyone that worked there only had two working darts. They had axe throwing-another reason we went there… but it wasn’t available. When the food finally arrived it was ok. Nothing great. We decided to see if we could save the meal with shakes for dessert. After what seemed like forever waiting for the shakes we asked if they were coming and our waitress said they were almost ready. Then we watched her walk over to check on them and they must have told her to do it herself because she then went over and made them by herself one at a time. It took a while and we think it was her first time handling ice cream ever. By the time we got the shakes, the first three were liquid, two were the wrong flavor, mine was only half full and tasted like thick milk. It was so ridiculous from start to finish we just all laughed about it. We left and went back to our crack shack. The Dollar Store was still open so we got some junk food and played games the rest of the night. The next day we headed home.
It was a short but sweet vacation. Lots of little hiccups but I will still probably remember it as one of my favorite vacations with the kids. Our season of life is getting ready to change after this year. I have loved this season. I love the kids being older and a little more independent and watching their personalities develop. It is a time they are developing themselves and trying things but it is still a little bubble that their lives don’t have to much craziness or stress. They are all awesome people and I love spending time with them.
Last December, DeAnna called and said that her family was going to go on a trip and see some of the church history sites and asked if she could come and stay with us for a few days since we live by them. We said yes, of course.
When it got a little closer Sherri and Kenny decided they wanted to join in the fun so they asked to come visit too. So we had a party with the Terry, Cazier, and French families for a week in July. There were 11 kids and 6 adults. I am hosting Thanksgiving in November so it was a good practice run for when I have 14 kids and 10 adults here.
We had a good time. I was again a little nervous about the weather. July in Kansas does not usually encourage one to be outdoors due to the ridiculous heat and humidity so I was trying to think of good indoor things to do around here. The weather ended up being pretty awesome the whole time though. Seriously gorgeous 80 degree temps and low humidity. Everyone arrived on Thursday and Friday. Saturday we went to a park and played pickle ball for a few hours. There was a playground and baseball field that some of us played kick ball on too. Sunday we went to church and played games, jumped on the trampoline and hung out at the house. Ryan squeezed in as many games with John and sushi runs with Kenny as he could before he had to leave for a conference Sunday night. Monday we went to Liberty Missouri to see the Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith and a few others were put in jail for false charges for several months. That night we went to a Royals game. It was a pretty exciting game. I think there were 4 maybe 5 home runs, a little drama with people getting hit by pitches that resulted in coaches getting kicked out. Between that and the stadium food it was a pretty fun night. Tuesday we went to the Spring Hill Aquatic center and spent a few hours at the pool. There was lots of games and activities at the house. I am glad we had the trampoline, it was a big hit. Hannah had a birthday while she was here too. We made her a cake and she picked what we had for dinner. It was a fun couple of days. I enjoy the chaos of big family gatherings. My kids do too. They love having cousins to play with from the time they wake up until they go to bed. The Cazier’s left Wednesday to go to Nauvoo Illinois and then home. The French’s left the next day.
Jake and Becky came that same week and were at Grandma Terry’s house. We saw them a little bit. The Bourne’s, grandparents, and Terry’s came to our house on Saturday and Sunday to hangout together. Ryan and I had Allison to ourselves for a week because Matthew and Emilee left the same day the Cazier’s did to spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa Jones. It will probably be the last time Matthew goes to spend a week with them since he will graduate and move on to other things this year. He loves going there. Grandma cooks him tons of good food, grandpa tells him funny stories, and he can walk out the door and fish in the ponds around them anytime he wants.
The city of Olathe doesn’t allow fireworks. People still do, but it limits the fun a bit. That’s why we loved going to Nebraska and having a huge firework display and doing our own right from Grandpa’s drive way. Ever since Grandma and Grandpa Terry moved to Olathe we have been anticipating a July 4th celebration at our new house! Our house is not considered inside city limits so we can light off whatever we want. Last year we lit of fireworks on the road but we didn’t have a house yet. This year we had the house!
It is always such an awesome holiday. It really is one of my favorites. It is low key and minimal prep. The point is to just relax, eat and light off fireworks. For the past few years at some point during the summer we go with Terry cousins and spend the day at World’s and Ocean’s of Fun Amusement park. Last year we didn’t go because we had a family reunion at Branson and everyone went to Silver Dollar City together instead. This year my kids were really looking forward to it and the day that worked out was July 3rd. I was a little nervous in anticipation of the heat but it ended up being a great day. It was overcast so not blistering sun and humidity but still warm enough to swim. Everyone was tall enough to go on every single ride if they wanted too for the first time too! Jovee is one of the biggest roller coaster junkies in the group and up until this year there was always one or two off limits due to height for her. Emilee has had a little anxiety about a few roller coasters since going on one when she was really young that she probably shouldn’t have. Height wise she has always been as tall as kids several years older than her. She was trying to talk herself into doing the Patriot. We got in line the first time and then when it was our turn she couldn’t do it. We watched everyone else go and then she decided she would give it another shot and the second time it was our turn she did it. She loved it and was much more relaxed about going on the rest of the rides after that. Leah is not a big roller coaster fan but for Allison’s birthday she said she would go on any ride Allison wanted her to go on with her. It was a great day. We hit all the rides we wanted then ate lunch and went to the water park side. After they were all done there we headed home with a stop at chick-fil-a on the way.
The next day we had a BBQ at our place with all the KC family and my friend Dani came with her son Ethan. We played games, ate food, went and got fireworks, set of the day time ones and then repeated it all until it was dark enough to do the night time ones. We had one small incident. The kids were lighting off smoke bombs and bottle rockets and things like that. The three youngest kids like to light smoke bombs and run through the smoke. They lit what they thought was a smoke bomb and it was but it had some firework stuff in it too. So they were all standing around it and ready to start running in the smoke and it started shooting out whistlers at them. They ran pretty quick. Luckily no one was hurt. It was a good lesson to read the entire description and always stand back even if you think it is just a smoke bomb. Other than that is was just a fun time. We topped the day off with strawberry short cake and it was another successful Fourth of July!
These are pictures I have that I like but didn’t really need a full post about them, or didn’t go with pictures taken at the same time that I put in other posts. So I thought I would just do a collection of them here.
This is our one and only picture from Easter 2024. As much as I love pictures and documenting events, I sometimes am horrible at taking the pictures. This was the end of the day and everyone was headed to take off their Easter clothes and I insisted on one family photo. Some of us were more willing participants than others.Sherrie and Dave came to visit us for a weekend to watch some of Matthew’s games. We had some time to pass before a game and were right by Liberty Jail. So we went to the jail and still had time to pass. There happened to be a bazaar across the street from Liberty Jail so we walked around. They had this little selfie spot so I had them hope in for a picture.
Both of these pictures are in Utah when we were staying with DeAnna for my Grandpa’s funeral. I thought 6 people brushing their teeth in the bathroom was pretty cute. DeAnna made lots of good food while we were there too, Sherri wanted to document that ‘she can cook but chooses not to’. While we were in Utah, dad took Emilee and Matthew to their softball and baseball tournaments they had going on that weekend. They love it so much they decided to go watch a Royals game one of the nights we were gone.
I am not sure where we were coming back from…maybe the eclipse, but the girls were being a little grumpy to each other but when they fell asleep they snuggled right up to each other.
This is one of the many times we have had to rent a skid loader to do some lawn stuff. It won’t be the last either. Ryan and I take turns between freaking out about why we have so much land to take care of and someday it will be awesome.
We try and do an annual amusement park day with our cousins each year. Sometimes it ends up being in Branson and Silver Dollar City, sometimes Worlds/Oceans of Fun. It was a great time this year. Everyone is tall enough for all the rides. Jovee is the biggest adrenaline junky and finally hit the tallest minimum requirement for the rides she had been waiting to go on for years. We went on July 3rd which was begging for heat stroke, but the weather was cloudy and perfect so it was a great day.
We have had typical so hot and humid days you can barely go outside this Summer for sure but there have been a lot more than usual gorgeous beautiful weather days. This hammock is one of our favorite spots to hangout on those days.
My sweet Grandpa Jones passed away at the end of April. He was a pretty awesome person. I wasn’t as close with him as my grandma but I loved him and know he loved me and his family. I remember lots of stories about him but you always learn and hear knew things about someone when they pass away. Everyone except two cousins were able to come to his funeral so there was a lot of memories and stories shared. He was a good example. He lead by example on how to work hard, try hard, love those around you, and do what is right. He had a witty sense of humor, loved sports and was an amazing Gardner. He hasn’t been able to keep his yard up the past few years like he used to and it was a little sad to see over grown bushes and no flowers and immaculate landscaping everywhere.
My grandma passed away two years before he did. They are my first set of grandparents to pass away. It was a bit of a different feeling at his funeral having neither of them there. It was sad when Grandma Jones died but he was still there and around. When he passed too it felt heavier because it is like the closing of their generation. More finality to it. I walked around their house and took a lot of pictures because I will probably never see it again and up to this point in my life they have always been there and been a consistent, happy, familiar, predictable piece in my life. It is like a chapter closing. I don’t know how often or if I will see a lot of the cousins and aunts and uncles again. Grandma and Grandpa were the connecting piece for us. They were both amazing people and I miss them.
This is the eulogy for my Grandpa, written by my uncle Jared and edited by all his siblings.
A few days before he passed he told his kids that he thought he was dying and wanted to say goodbye to them. They are in Utah so I didn’t get to see him but i was thinking about him a lot that week. The day he passed I was planting plants in one of our flower beds. I had been doing it long enough it was starting to be more exhausting then enjoyable and I stopped for a minute and he came to my mind and I thought about a time we went to visit and when I got out of the car he and my grandma were planting dozens of petunias together in one of their flower beds and I helped them finish. Then all of the sudden I had a distinct feeling that they were both there watching me for a minute. I felt love and concern for me from them and then it was gone. I thought it was a memory but a few hours later I got the message that he had passed earlier that day. Maybe not, but I think that after he passed grandma was waiting for him and before she took him to wherever they were going they stopped by to visit me and probably other family members that weren’t able to be there when he passed. It was definitely a unique and special feeling.
His funeral wasn’t until mid May because one of his daughters was in another country after he passed for a few weeks. I went out to his funeral and brought Allison with me. It was nice to see family and talk about grandpa. His funeral was very nice. It was a lot like grandma’s but his had a little more somber note to it like I mentioned because now they were both gone. I know we get to see them again someday and they are together now which makes me happy. Besides grandma he had four brother and both his parents waiting for him that he hadn’t see for a long time. His mom passed away pretty young so it had been over 60 years since he had seen her. I bet that was a very happy reunion. He was in the military and got a 21 gun salute at his graveside and an American flag to honor his service. That was a touching experience to witness as well. You will be missed by a lot of people Grandpa. Thank you for being a good example and good leader for your family for many generations.
This is a poem that my uncle Jared read at my Grandpa’s funeral that my grandpa wrote.
These are pictures I took of pictures that were displayed at his viewing. Several of my cousins put together 7-8 picture boards of different parts of his life. They did really good job.
The glare is a little hard but he posed for the wizard in this stain glass. One of many picture boards to show his life story.
These are pictures from his funeral, the graveside service and his viewing. My aunt Kristin takes the pictures for everyone to have.
Before Allison and I left to come back to Kansas we went and spent some time at my Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I don’t think I will ever see it again so I wanted to walk around and sit and take pictures of things that I have always associated with their house to remember. The yard pictures don’t do it justice compared to how beautiful my grandpa kept it until he wasn’t able to anymore. Whenever we stayed at his house, he would come to the breakfast table dressed and ready to go out to the yard to work after eating a bowl of Wheaties, fresh home grown fruit and fruit juice and a slice or two of raisin bread with a healthy dab of butter spread across it.
We had many sleepouts in sleeping bags in the back yard. Grandpa often forgot to turn the sprinklers off so I remember many an early morning waking up and relocating to the living room floor soaking wet to finish the nights sleep.This is a unique staircase. My cousins and I tried everything we could think of to use as a slide to go down them.Hundreds of hours were spent by kids, grandkids, great grandkids, other family and friends in the orchard. Besides the swing and sandbox, golf, horse shoes, canoeing, gardening, family reunions, parties, yard games, obstacle courses, kickball, whiffle ball, and so many more activities to create lifetime memories were here.If you sent them a picture it would be put up somewhere in the house. They had pictures of everyone everywhere.Usually this gate would be surrounded by beautiful roses.Lots of family visits, FHE, musical performances and other family gatherings were in this living room.Upon arriving at their house, if they didn’t great you at the door, they were on their way to meet you here in the entry way of their house. I can still here the sound of the floor creaks from walking on this area of the house.They had this picture framed above there fireplace for decades.
This is the program that was handed out at his funeral. I put several paper copies in my kids memory folders too.
