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.
Flavors include mashed potato, turkey, green bean, cranberry sauce, stuffing, apple pie, and coffee.
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.
We were standing in the ‘street’ and Chip and Dale’s helpers asked us to move so Mickey and Minnie could drive through.
Slinky Roller coaster. One of the best roller coasters I have ever been on.
Star Wars fans will recognize this famous ship…I believe it is the Millennium Falcon…but not positive. Pretty awesome though.
After I took this picture he pointed at me and told me to put my data pad away. LOL.
Part of the experience on the Star Wars Resistance ride. Walking through an enemy ship after we were taken prisoner.
In hindsight we picked the worst time all day to get in line, but 2 hours and 45 minutes later-we made it.
Frozen Show. One of mom’s favs.
Chewie and Rae are in the back ground.
Strategizing how to get the most points on Toy Story.
Hollywood Studios.
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.
John and Joseph boarding their tube. Joseph is already rubbing his eyes.
Next time I saw them…they were sleeping.
Sweet Hannah! Peter is to the left of her.
My momma.
Dad, and Nathan sliding by on the left.
Tyler, splashing it up!
Michael!
Kenny and Aubrey
Matthew!
Happy KJ and Sherri.
DeAnna and Peter
Allison!
Emilee and me!
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.
spiny cat fish
Puffer fish
baby tarpin
hammer head shark
Heading out to the ocean.
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.
This building is just massive.
Allison sitting on a space toilet.
Crawling into the space station.
Front half of Altantis
Back half of Atlantis
Eagles nest by the space center, it is bigger than a king size bed.
Emilee standing on the moon.
Bus ride to Atlantis
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.
Ryan and Allison planted a full salad/salsa garden this year. The salad stuff didn’t do to great, we got a little lettuce but it was kind of bitter. About mid summer the salsa stuff started growing. The first time they made it I called it our $100 salsa. It has continued to produce and they have made lots of salsa, even canned some to save for later. Our tomatoes are still going strong, they are debating canning some spaghetti sauce as well. We have definitely made at least our moneys worth that it took to plant the garden if not more from all the stuff. It is a nice change for us.
One of our many harvests from our garden.
A few months ago I took Emilee and her friend to my co-workers hobby farm. She had a great time and has been begging to go back ever since. Allison wasn’t able to go and she wanted to go too. Sandi had added a few more types of animals and was excited to have the girls come see them. We made it out to see the farm again a few Saturday’s ago.
Always lots of chickens
Dirk the turtle
A lion bunny
Turbo the tortoise
Baby Peacocks
Ryan went to his half brother Austin’s wedding out in Utah in August. The kids had already started school and it was in the middle of the week so he was the only one who ended up going. He had a fun time getting to know everyone more. After the wedding festivities he did a mini man trip in the mountains with his buddies Sam and Mike. They did lots of manly things together like ATV’s and shooting. He did not get any pictures of the reception for me though.
Sam came to the wedding and Ryan introduced him to Sherrie.
Ryan and I found ourselves at Home Depot a little while ago. We had gone for one thing but decided to get a few fence pickets while we were there because we have a few broken ones. We weren’t positive on the size and shape so we texted Matthew and told him to send us a picture of THE FENCE. He sent us this picture.
Kids his age use an app on their phones called Snap Chat. They send pictures of what they are doing to each other and they usually look pretty much like this. Half of their face is in the picture and the back ground of where they are. I rolled my eyes and told him I didn’t need a social media head shot, I needed to know how tall the fence was. He wrote back that was the reason he put himself in the picture…for perspective. 😂😂🤦♀️
Matthew and Emilee came down with COVID the first week of September. They both recovered pretty quick but were down in bed for a few days. They still had to stay home and mostly in there rooms for a few days after they were feeling better. I helped Emilee brush her hair one day-which she hates. I told her we could do some silly pictures while we did it so it would be more fun. She didn’t seem to love it that much.
As the end of Summer approached we did our usual back to school shopping and registering and getting ready to start back into the routine of school. Ryan has been toying with the idea of getting some kind of property by a lake. His brother and him have been talking about it for the past year or two and they are trying to convince their dad to join them. Matthew was still on his high from boating for the first time this Summer at High Adventure. When August arrived he doubled his efforts and focused his ideas and requests to do it again on Ryan. Between that and a client of Ryan’s offering to let us use a time share of his we decided to squish in one more fun Summer trip before school started. We invited our cousins and Grandpa Terry even came down for a day and played with us.
We went to Branson Missouri and Table Rock Lake. Branson is very similar to Gatlinburg Tennessee. There is a touristy main street area with lots of fun shops and museums and things to do. Gatlinburg is more Dolly Parton themed, Branson seemed more Elvis Presley. A lot of the places are in both locations, one of them being the Titanic Museum. We didn’t have the chance to go to it when we were in Gatlinburg so I made it a must for Branson. My children rushed me through it a little faster then I would have gone on my own but it was a very interesting museum.
The place we stayed was basically a two bedroom apartment. The adults each took a room and we had air mattresses all over the place for the kids to sleep on. Roger just came up for one day and didn’t stay the night because Rhonda wasn’t up for traveling and he didn’t want to leave her alone. We played games and ate dinner and checked out the pool the day we arrived. The next morning was our boating day. I went boating a lot when I was growing up. My grandparents had a cabin and boat and we spent many weekends playing at the lake. We rented a pontoon boat that all 11 of us could ride on at the same time and did the tube, knee board, and wake board. I’ll tell you what. It was pretty awesome to show up and have a boat already in the water, fully fueled and ready to go with any toys we needed on board. I did the math roughly in my head and for how often our family would likely go boating if we made it a thing in the Summer it is well worth it to rent verses buy our own boat. I’ve tried to get Ryan to go boating several times in the past and he said he wasn’t interested and wasn’t a boat person. About 30 minutes into our day he came over and told me he loved it and we need to do it more often.
It was a great day. We packed a few coolers of food and drinks and we were on the boat from 10-6pm and didn’t get tired or bored once. Everyone had a great time. Everyone took a turn on the tube, some of us tried a few other things. We found a little cove around lunch time and thru the anchor and the lilly pad out and ate lunch and swam for an hour or two. Grandpa even got on the paddle board and did a flip off the boat with the kids. The lake is really nice, the water is pretty clean for a lake (I think because it is mostly rock on the bottom not mud) and the water is perfect temperature. Ross, Grandpa and Ryan were all pretty comfortable driving the boat by the end of the day. We all want to do it again and more often. The only bummer is that it is a three hour drive to get there from our house.
After we got back to our place that night everyone took a quick shower and then headed to Lambert’s for dinner. They have home style country food and they throw the rolls at you whenever you want one. The kids really liked it. Sherrie and Dave and Genevieve and Robert and their son Eric were close to Branson so they met us there for dinner. Roger and I stopped by to say hi. He met Sherrie for the first time. (It went well 😊) We didn’t stay long, he wanted to get home to Rhonda and I had to work the next day so we went home while everyone else ate.
The next day everyone that stayed went to Silver Dollar City, which is an amusement park. It was another fun and successful day. There were rides and food to please all the people. There were different level of thrill seekers that could pair up and have fun together. After a full day at the park, they played games and played one more night at the time share. The next morning they headed home.
It was a pretty fun, basically spontaneous, farewell to Summer trip. We have already talked about making it our Summer kick off next year too. Ross and Lauren’s kids started school the day after they got back. Our kids still had a week- the final count down to back to school begins!
We packed in a lot of fun activities the last few weeks of Summer.
First up was all my children returning home from their visits to se Grandma and Grandpa Jones. They were all happy to see each other and be home together again. It took them about 5 seconds to remember how to push each others buttons though. 🤦♀️ I put a few of the pictures grandma and grandpa sent from their adventure in an earlier post but here are a few more they sent after I wrote that.
Going to the zoo with Hannah
Reunited siblings
Ryan and I went to the Garth Brooks concert with some friends and a couple people from his work. It was the second time we have seen him. It was his first concert since COVID and I think Garth was pretty pooped. He usually sings a lot longer than he did. It was still a great concert but between the ridiculous heat and not being used to it, it felt a little brief. Martina McBride made a surprise appearance. That was cool. It broke back memories of listening to her while we painted our house one Summer in Wyoming.
Our favorite neighbors through a party-Jeff and Margarita-so we attended that. We usually try and get out of neighborhood shin digs but we made an exception this time.
All the kids find school supplies that they really need for school when we go school shopping-that have nothing to do with school. Emilee tried to sell me on this, but settled for a picture instead.
We squeezed in our 3rd (maybe 4th) annual cousins trip to World’s of Fun and Ocean’s of Fun. We are now only one kid away from having no height restrictions on any of the rides. Jovee is 2 inches away from 100% ride qualification. We have it down pretty good now on what rides we have to hit for each person and then head over and spend the rest of the time at Ocean’s. We did come back for the evening to World’s this time. The kids liked the lights and music they turn on at night for the rides. The night ended with fireworks at closing time, that was fun too.
Emilee was really excited to get back to horse lessons when she got home from Grandma and Grandpa Jones’. I caught a picture of her taking a little break and stretching for a second during her lesson. Her and Reese are becoming quite the horse lovers. These two have been besties since birth and they were born two weeks apart. After their lesson one day Reese told Liz and I that they would skip their birthday presents and just get a horse for Christmas since it was ‘kind of a big present’. Emilee looked at Reese and said, “Well, maybe less birthday presents but not NO birthday presents!”
Allison went home with Grandma Jana for a few weeks after she came to watch the kids while Ryan and I were in Mexico. She loves going to visit Grandma and Grandpa and had a great time. They went swimming a lot, watched lots of movies, did art projects, she played with Aubry and she met her cousin KJ for the first time and held him for a bit while they lit of fire works for the 4th of July. She loves the one on one attention and enjoys getting to be an only child for a bit.
Matthew had a lot more baseball. They won several tournaments and came close to winning in several as well. He and Campbell like to go and watch each others games when they don’t have their own to play in. Towards the end of the season he finally started getting some of his speed back that he lost when he broke his leg.
This is some more random Summer pictures.
We helped watch Margarita’s dogs one weekend. They are more of the lounge and relax type then the play and move type. Emilee was trying to convince them to do something with her. She was not successful.
Not our usual July 4th now that Grandma and Grandpa are here. We all ate a yummy dinner together and there were a lot of fireworks to watch. Next year we will make better plans to be somewhere that we can light our own fireworks off.
Allison was quite pleased with how high she was able to stack her free ice cream cone at Jason’s Deli.
Emilee watched her friend Natalie’s hamster for her while they went on vacation. Between her and help from Allison, she was able to keep it alive and remembered to feed it. I think it also clarified for her that she might not really want the full time responsibility of a pet.
This is Matthew and Ethan’s idea of hanging out together. I think they are at least playing the same game as a team.
Allison’s chalk art.
The last two pictures are to help Allison remember that we love her and this is why she isn’t always in the pictures with us.
Allison was being a little grumpy and we were giving her a hard time about refusing to be in pictures or not showing her face or smiling. We told her when she gets older she is going to wonder why she isn’t in any of the pictures with everyone else.
This is why Allison. When we try to take a picture we have to take what we can get or we would never get a picture. We still love you, and we love the back of your head!
Despite the month of May having an average temperature of about 65 and 3 of the 4 weeks rainy and gloomy, we are all ready for Summer to start!
One of our first activities was celebrating Grandma Terry’s birthday! She turned 69, and is doing pretty great! She has finished 4 of 6 chemo treatments and the cancer is responding like it should and going away. She has been handling it all like a champ and taking it day by day. We are all proud and happy for her and continue to pray that she will make a full recovery. We were happy with her choice of birthday cake too-strawberry jello cake-Yum!!
The girls went to Girl Scout camp to kick of their summer. They have both been a few times and don’t look forward to it per se, but seem to have a great time once they are there. Emilee went two days this year and then got sick with a stomach bug so missed the last half. Allison was old enough to stay over night one of the nights and saw way to many large bugs and spiders in her perma-tent. I don’t know if they will go again next year but it was good for both of them to enjoy a little outdoor time.
Allison having no fun at camp.
The girls and I were planning on joining Matthew and Ryan at a baseball tournament in Arkansas immediately following their camp, but since Emilee got sick and Allison wanted to go the last day instead of skip it we stayed home for the weekend and the boys went with out us. There first two games were kind of a bust. Matthew said they were probably the worst two games they had played since the famous ‘grand-slam bunt’ disaster 5 years ago. Things improved after that though. Matthew had some person best improvements and good contributions to the team and overall the team did better and won a few games. They all had a fun weekend and made good memories together too. Including adding a sign next to the hotels “pool closed” sign that caused a little confusion. If you can’t read the sign it says “The pool is open!” It may or may not have been added by one of the parents on our team.
Next week Matthew is going on his first High Adventure trip with the Young Men in our ward too. He needs some good outdoor time just like the girls.
At their first meeting, Sherrie said one of the things that she was worried about was that he would just want to meet her once and then never see her again. Her family told her that was a possibility but she would at least get to meet him this time and have that memory if he decided he didn’t want to see her again. I was touched by her honesty and vulnerability. Ryan told her he didn’t know how the future looked or where to go from there but he did want to see her again and wanted to get to know her and her family better.
It has now been a few months since all the pieces of finding and talking to Sherrie for the first time fell into place. Sherrie and Ryan talk or text fairly often on the phone. Ryan has video chatted and or texted with all of his half siblings. I went to Utah to see my Grandma Jones and spent an afternoon meeting David, his wife Jen, and Giselle. Sherrie and Genevieve, her son Eric, Grandpa Perry and Sherrie’s husband David have stopped by our house at different times when they were coming by Kansas City.
About a week ago all of the siblings came out to have a vacation together in Branson Missouri. David and Austin stopped by our house on their way. We went to dinner, they came to one of Matthew’s games, and we had them and David and his wife and kids at our house for dinner. Ryan and I went to Branson for a day and met them all together. It was a little overwhelming for Ryan but he was glad to finally meet all of them in person and spend a few hours with them.
The following weekend we took the kids and went to Sherrie’s house and spent the weekend with them. David’s family was still there, our kids seemed to get a long with his kids pretty well. The kids loved having cousins to play with and lots of fun activities to do. We were able to meet Vanitta, Sherrie’s mom. The person that Kenny found and was able to finally find the link to Sherrie. We played games, grilled food, Ryan went golfing, we drove around Dardanelle, went to church with them, and took pictures on the top of Mt Nebo. It was a fun weekend. I felt like I was just meeting my in-laws for the first time even though I have been married for 19 years. Not quite sure how I fit in yet. Sherrie and her whole family are so kind and welcoming though. I am excited to have them added to our family. Ryan is too. I love the changes in him the past few months. I have always loved him and he has always been a good man. He has grown spiritually and emotionally the past few months and I love him even more.
It feels like all the ice has been broken now. Everyone has met and the initial relationships have started to form. One of our concerns when Ryan was debating on looking for his biological mom was how it would affect our family. We didn’t know all the possible scenarios but we had many that we came up with-good and bad. We decided to trust that Heavenly Father would guide us and things would happen the way that would be best for Ryan, our kids, Rhonda and Roger, and the people we discovered along the way. We had no idea how it would turn out but so far it has been pretty amazing.
Vanitta
Robert, Gen, Kit, Eric
Scarlett, PJ, Lizzy, Jen, David, Maggie, Parker, David
My sweet Grandma Jones is 89 years old and has had some health complications the past little while. I decided to take a weekend to go and visit her in case she isn’t with us to much longer. She is not very comfortable and in pain most of the time but she still did her best to talk and visit with me. Sometimes her memory is bad but it was pretty clear when I was there this time. She told DeAnna and I stories about growing up and through out her life. I have been blessed with sweet grandparents and I am grateful for them. I was named after my grandma, Annie Joy Pinegar Jones. I have a lot of fond and happy memories from and with my Grandma. I am so glad I got to go see her and my grandpa for a few days.
I stayed with DeAnna and one of the days I was there we drove up to Idaho to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Call as well.
