janae – Page 3 – Terry Family Shenanigans

My New Wheels

After almost ten years with my van, I decided it was time to get a car with a few less miles and years on it. For the past year I have been researching and keeping my eye out on what I might want. I haven’t been able to decide if I wanted to get another van or an SUV.

Hands down a van is the best family car out there. There isn’t an SUV out there that can compare to the amount of people and luggage space plus comfort that a van can. The sliding doors on a van alone are worth their weight in gold. SUV’s are going to be good for people hauling or stuff hauling-not both. The “mid size” SUV’s are basically a tall car, which is fine but I need something a little bigger still. That narrowed my search down quite a bit right there. Van, or three row SUV. I don’t want a suburban or the huge SUV’s either. I don’t want to feel like I am driving a tank. That narrowed my field even more. There were really only 3-4 SUV’s that fit my criteria. One of those was a Tesla which of course Ryan was promoting. It had a third row but when I sat in it myself it seemed like a pretty liberal description to call it a third row. I am only 5′ 5″ and my knees were under my eye lobes. The lifting side doors while they sound cool, were not as cool in functionality. To finish narrowing it down I picked based on reviews, price, and looks. It left me with the choice of a new Honda Odyssey van, or a Honda Pilot SUV.

After a few more months of debating, I ended up going with the Pilot. If my kids were younger I would have gone for the van again, but since they are bigger they can get in and out on their own and sadly, it won’t be to many more years before they start driving themselves places or going on missions, or college. It was a little weird while I learned all the new buttons and things for a week but I have now adjusted and am comfy and loving my new car.

We didn’t trade the van it. We decided to sell it on our own and get twice what they were offering us for it at the dealership. We debated making it Matthew’s car but I would rather find him something a little smaller. So it hung out in our drive way for a week or two while we decided what to do with it. This past Friday I caught up on my other things and getting the van ready to sell moved to the top of my list. Coincidentally my neighborhood was having their annual Fall garage sale weekend. I decided that since we would have a lot of people driving through the neighborhood I would put a sign on it and see if I could sell it that way before I put it online. I cleaned it out, took it to vacuum and wash it and put the signs on it. On my way home from washing it, I decided to see if Roger and Rhonda would mind if I parked it in their driveway instead of mine for the weekend because they live on the street that leads into the neighborhood. I parked it in the drive way and went inside to ask. We were chatting and less than 5 minutes after I arrived someone rang the door bell. Roger said he didn’t know who it would be and I said it was someone wanting to by my van. It was! They asked to look at it, drove it around, and then said they would buy it! They left to get a cashiers check and two hours later I met them at the house again and they drove off into the sunset with it.

I was pretty excited. I thought it would take a little more effort and work to sell it but it didn’t. I wouldn’t even say I cleaned it all the way. It was neat, but I wouldn’t call it clean until I had worked on it a few more hours. Instead of that, it was sold in about 5 minutes.

Later that night I had a similar experience like I did when I donated my blue rocking chair. I didn’t cry but I had some nostalgia while I remembered all the trips and things we did together as a family in the van. It handled a lot from us. It took us all around KC, Florida, Alabama, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Tennessee, South Dakota, Nebraska, some of those places many times and others I don’t even remember. We sang hundreds of songs, played games, caught up on our days, ran errands, watched Christmas lights, plowed through snow, splashed through huge puddles. It handled our dirt, food, crayons, markers, vomit, spilled milk, soda, water, slime, pee, poopy diapers. It had countless names, words, hearts, stick figures and boogers smeared on the windows. It was a great little van. It never broke down on us. The alarm system was a bit touchy. I had to DRIVE home from a baseball practice once with the horn honking none stop because it didn’t like that I unlocked it with a key instead of the key fob. Much to all of our embarrassment it honked over and over none stop until I got home and found said key fob. Despite my best efforts sometimes it only locked me out of it 1-2 times. It was a good little van. I sold it so fast I didn’t even think to take a final picture of it but I will have fond memories of my black Honda van.

Mexico

Our much anticipated adults only vacation finally happened! We had a cruise scheduled for last December that was cancelled due to COVID. We rescheduled it for April this year and is was cancelled again for the same reason. We decided to push the cruise to next year for our 20th anniversary. Hopefully in a year cruises will be back and running. In the mean time we decided to go to an all inclusive resort and see if we liked it verses a cruise better. We went to Playa del Carmen and stayed in the Fairmont Mayakoba Resort. It was pretty swanky. In my head I pictured it like a fancy hotel room but we had our own little apartment and traveled around the resort by walking or golf cart to do the different things we wanted. There were lots of lizards. Tiny ones and big iguanas that we saw. We had a family of them that we saw around our bathroom. I told myself that they liked to stay in the bathroom where it was the most humid and wouldn’t crawl in my bed at night. We named them Larry, baby Larry, and Lizzy. When we were home and showing the kids pictures and talking to them about our trip they were the most jealous about our mini bar/fridge that was stocked daily with sodas, candy, chips, and a bunch of other snacks.

Eating breakfast at one of the restaurants before heading to the pool.

The weather was about 50/50 rainy and sunny while we were there. The day we had a tour around some of the places in Mexico, including the Mayan ruins was overcast and cloudy but no rain. It was still hot but no where near what it would have been if the sun was out. It was perfect. Some friends that were there a few months ago recommended we do an LDS tour with a family that has been running their own little business for group or personal tours. There is 8 kids if I remember right and all of them have a middle name from the Book of Mormon. The youngest is named Lemuel. His mom told him it was his job to make a new path for his name from his name sake. 🤣 Our friends tour guide was Helaman. My parents actually did a tour with them years ago on their cruise, their guides name was Alma. Our guide was Mosiah. It was a pretty awesome tour. He picked us up at our hotel and took us to Chichen-Itza, a cenote, and Ek Balam. He had lots of information about the ruins and pointed out ways that indicate the original religion was in God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost and then over time when they became wicked turned them into multiple other Gods.

Inside the arena. You can’t see in this picture but up on the second level wall there is a small circle with a hole in the middle attached to the side. The players had to bounce a rubber ball through the hole using any part of their bodies, except their hands. The WINNERS were given the honor of being sacrificed.

Between the two ruins we went and saw, Mosiah took us to a small little town and we ate lunch at a very authentic Mexican store/restaurant. Ryan thought it was pretty awesome. It reminded him of Bolivia. The food was really good. We had black bean soup and tacos with various kinds of pork and sauces. After lunch he took us to a cenote. They are really common there. It is basically a giant hole or cavern underground that gets filled with water from under ground rivers. They come in all different sizes. He took us to a smaller town with one that is pretty quiet and for most of the time we were the only ones there.

We headed to the beach to spend one of our days. We had heard there was a bit of a seaweed issue. We were fine with that. We thought we would go and sit in a chair and enjoy the view and eat lunch. When we wanted to swim we could come back to the pools. It turns out a ‘bit of a seaweed problem’ means ten foot tall mounds as far as you can see in either direction and crews of people netting and raking it up out of the ocean and not even making a dent. The smell was what we couldn’t handle. We had dinner reservations on the beach one night but after our visit we decided to cancel them and eat at a different restaurant.

One of the days we went into Playa Del Carmen and walked 5th avenue. Right after we got there a guy came up to us and said he was our waiter from the hotel and he wanted to show us his shop. He totally swindled us. We both thought he was an actual waiter from the hotel. We bought a few things from him and left. About ten seconds later, another shop owner came up to us and said he was our waiter. That is when we realized we had fallen for the number one tourist trick on the whole street. Amazingly we ran into 40 waiters that happened to work at our hotel. We figured out the umbrella we were carrying from the hotel was drawing all the attention. Despite that we got some good souvenirs and had fun walking around and seeing everything. The beach by the shopping area was covered in seaweed too.

We had a wonderful vacation and enjoyed ourselves very much. I got my first stamp on my pass port. We both decided that the resort was awesome and we had a great time but all things considered we like cruising a little more. There is a bigger variety of activities to do and you see more places with out having to do the traveling yourself once you are on the ship. We had fun and made some great memories together that will get us fueled and relaxed until our next trip together.

A Visit to Sandi’s Farm

One of my co-workers lives on a small hobby farm. She has a pig, lambs, calf, donkey, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, bees and probably a few more animals I am not remembering. We were talking at work one day and decided that we should all go visit her farm. Emilee was the only one of my kids that was able to go, she brought her friend Summer. They loved it. Emilee is an animal lover and isn’t afraid to jump in and do whatever when it comes to animals. She loved the baby lamb and the baby ducks and chicks the most. One chicken in particular took a liking to her and followed her around and wanted her to hold it. Sandi let her name it, she decided to call it Ruby.

Grandma Jones

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.

Truth

The Chair

We have had some work done on our basement lately so I have been going through things and cleaning out closets and storage areas. I have never been attached to stuff. I have things that would make me feel sad to lose but for the most part if I don’t have a spot or a space for it I am all for getting rid of it or giving it to someone that can use it. My sentimental side is put into photos and journals.

So as I was cleaning things out and discarding things, one of the items that was left sitting in the middle of the floor was my blue rocking chair. This chair was purchased a few weeks before we had Matthew. I wanted a chair in his room to sit in when he nursed or at night for story time. At the time we bought this chair I really liked the look of the popular rocking chairs that had a matching rocking ottoman. We had looked at and tried several of that style, they were cute but when I sat in them I was less than impressed. They were not comfortable, they didn’t recline, and they were ridiculously expensive too. So other then looking cute in the nursery pictures at stores it seemed useless to me.

One of the weekends before Matthew was born Ryan and I were looking at couches at a store for our house in Wichita and noticed they had a room full of consigned furniture for sale. I walked through it and found this little blue reclining rocking chair. It was a smaller one so when I sat in it the arms were close and easy to reach and would work perfect to rest my arm on when holding a baby. It was cushioned everywhere so it was nice and comfy. It rocked, or could be reclined with a foot rest in many different angles. I pictures a nice little grandma or grandpa that had it in their home for a few decades. It was in really good condition and clean. I thought it was perfect! We bought it and brought it home and put it in Matthew’s room.

It worked perfectly for me over the years. I rocked and snuggled all my babies in it. It didn’t creek or make noise when you rocked in it. I read thousands of books, took hundreds of naps, and spent many nights comfortably sleeping in it with a sick baby or toddler sleeping on my chest. I thought about recovering it sometimes but never got around to it. It stayed in the youngest kids room up until we moved to our new house in 2015. In our new house we didn’t really have a spot for it but I put it in all of our kids rooms for awhile until they wanted to fill the space with something else. I even had it in my room for a bit. Then it ended up in the basement and Matthew spent countless hours in it when he broke his leg.

When we had the last of our built in work put in the basement I was all out of spots to put it. I moved it to the garage and it stayed there for a while. I asked around a bit with neighbors and friends and church to see if anyone wanted it. No takers. I loaded several other items and things in my van and donated them but kept leaving the chair in the garage. Finally I loaded the chair up in the van and drove it to the salvation army. Then I parked in the parking lot and debated with myself for way longer than I will admit if I should donate it or not. Then I called Ryan and ran my thoughts through him. I have no need for this chair…I seem to have some attachment to it…I feel hesitant to donate it…I am acting crazy about a chair…I want to donate it but I don’t want it to become a college kids pot smoking chair…I thought I knew what his answer would be but he surprised me. He told me that a few months ago he would have told me that I was being irrational and to donate the chair (that is the answer I was expecting) but after the last few months with discovering his biological family and dealing with buckets of unknown buried, new and overwhelming emotions he is a changed man now and understands that the chair is important to me and he will support me in keeping the chair or donating it. Whatever I wanted to do. Sweet answer, but not helpful.

I got off the phone with Ryan and talked out loud to myself in my car for a few minutes and decided I would donate the chair. I would hope someone that needed it would have it and my sweet chair would be useful to someone else, hopefully a new mom or grandparent…not a college student.

I drove up to the donation area, the man helping me said they only took furniture in really good condition. I told him the chair was in great condition, not a rip or stain on it. Someone would be very happy to have it, I rocked all my babies in it and I wouldn’t give it to him if he was going to throw it away or give it to a pot head. He put a hand on my shoulder and said he would find it a good home. Then I left and cried all the way home about a chair.

I know it wasn’t about the chair. The chair just reminded me of the memories I had with all my babies that aren’t babies anymore. It was one of the last if not the last thing I had around the house from their baby years. That man probably called me the crazy lady and gave the chair to the first person that wanted it, but I hope it found a good home.

This isn’t a fitting picture for such a special chair-stuck out in the garage. It is in many pictures in our memory books over the years though.

Stay Calm

My son is coming up with new ways to stress me out the past few months. He has had an unofficial girlfriend (whatever that means) for a while but it is still new for me. I’d rather him not have a girlfriend at all until he is 25 but since it isn’t all my decision, I will make the best out of it. She is a sweet girl and they are really good friends. I picked up his phone and saw this as his screen saver the other day and had a combination ‘What the #@%$!’ and ‘Oh that’s sweet.’ moment. Be cool mom. Be cool.

Truth vs. Right Ponderings

The Book of Mormon and the Prophets and apostles have told us the closer we get to the second coming the harder it will be to determine right from wrong. Even from looking at society values and morals thirty years ago up to now, which seems like a long time but it isn’t, I can see how quickly something can crumble and change and people can be used and turned against each other. Satan is trying to make us see people not as people but as a threat or inconsequential, and turn us against each other and he is getting more and more successful at it.

In the past few years I’ve seen friends and family that I thought were rocks in their beliefs and knowledge of God and The Gospel, crumble and fall. It has been on my mind a lot lately. In the church it is mentioned a lot that the children and upcoming generations are going to have to be stronger and more firm then ever before to be able to navigate their futures and keep their testimonies and relationship with God strong and unbreakable. As a mom that is often on my mind, along with the worries am I teaching my kids enough. Ryan and I have had many conversations (and will have many more) and drive the kids crazy sometimes with out talks about knowing their responsibilities to learn, apply, search, study, strengthen and then repeat over and over to maintain a strong unshakable testimony of the gospel and their purpose in their lives on earth. Lately, I’ve had the desire to write it down for them to hopefully read later when I am not as present in their lives as I am now and remind them again.

The words true/right, and wrong/false, are often used interchangeably in conversation. I believe there are truths, rights, falsehoods and wrongs, and we make our choices based on what we believe those to be. However, I don’t believe those words are interchangeable. Recently, when I was reading the Book of Mormon I noticed that the word truth is used almost exclusively, instead of right or wrong. I say ‘almost exclusively’ because since pondering this thought I haven’t re-read the entire Book of Mormon to compare and see how often each word is used but what I have read specifically uses the word truth when referring to the correct way, instead of right. I think the Lord is very intentional on what words are used in the scriptures so I started thinking about that choice of word, truth verses right.

There is generally an agreeing consensus among the majority of a group of people on what is right and what is wrong. These consensuses are somewhat firm but right or wrong can change and even have some grey area, due to new information, discoveries, circumstances, societal pressure and so forth.

Then there are truths. Truths are absolute. Truths are not changeable based on political, societal, personal or even religious beliefs. Truths can not be changed but they can be accepted or rejected. Accepted or rejected truths define political, societal, personal, and religious decisions for a person. They make us what we are. Truths don’t change based on whether you believe them or not and full or partial understanding of a truth does not change it as truth. Truths are not fluid like decisions and even right and wrong. For something to be a truth does not mean it is perfectly or completely understood. Truths can have varying degrees of consequence or influence. In my life my list of absolute truths is not very long but it caries more weight and influence then any other aspect of my life. It helps provide clarity in areas of my life that can get murky. Accepting or rejecting a truth leads to accepting or rejecting other related truths.

Decisions (aka choices) are made based on information, facts, emotions, opinions, knowledge, ignorance, life experiences, right, wrong, truths, or the complete lack of some or any of these things.

In my head I envision a giant net made of all truths. Individual truths form a chain and link with all other truths, creating the net. God has a perfect complete net and knows ALL truths. We don’t. I don’t.

As individuals, we are each aware of different truths and learn and expand on different truths throughout our lives. Some have more truths then others. We are each forming our own net of truths throughout our lives. When a truth is learned, or accepted that link is galvanized and strengthened and can lead to other truths. Some truths we learn might start in the middle of the chain, and links can be made going in multiple directions. Chains can be stronger and more complete in some areas then others. Multiple parts or chains can be growing at different times and eventually they will all come together and form a giant net of truths. I think there are some critical links we can connect and grow during this life but I don’t think it is possible to have a complete perfect net in this life. I also think faith can be used as a link to connect parts of our nets when our understanding and knowledge of truths are not complete. Facts are often considered truth-especially from a science perspective. The flaw with assuming facts are absolute truths is it is not always possible to know when a complete truth is known. Sometimes facts can change if more truth is found or revealed.

This is some of my chain of truths in relation to God.

God exists. He is real, He created me. He has a purpose and a plan which is to bring about the immortality and eternal life of mankind. My truth is God is the Father of Jesus Christ and His teachings and plans were brought to the earth and fulfilled through Jesus and will continue to be.
After Christ’s death, God’s truths and power were eventually lost on earth until it was restored by God again through Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith was given the charge to translate the Book of Mormon and restore the gospel and Gods power to the earth-completely. My truth is that Joseph Smith was not perfect but he was called by God to do the things he did. Joseph did what God asked him to do and His gospel was restored and is on the earth now.
Because of the first two truths, my truths include the 13 Articles of Faith including number eight that states The Book of Mormon is the word of God. The prophets in the Book of Mormon repeatedly say it was written for our day-MY TIME. Therefore lessons and teachings in it were meant to be learned, used, and applied, to my life now.
Since God restored the priesthood to Joseph Smith, the priesthood has been organized and passed through a consecutive unbroken line of modern day prophets up to President Nelson and will continue and not be removed from the earth before He comes again.

A persons truths are the pillars of who they are. If a person accepts a truth and later rejects it (or vice versa), any decision or choice previously made based on that truth has to be remade. Some truths have more of an impact on our lives then others.

Girls Trip!

Sherri is having a baby boy at the end of April so we decided to have a girls get together while we had the chance. We kept it close to her this time. DeAnna and I flew out to Tampa and stayed at Sherri’s and my mom lives there now too so we got to all hang out together.

I was the last to arrive so the three of them picked me up and we had a great lunch at a Cuban restaurant when they picked me up from the airport. We caught up on all the latest happenings in our lives and walked along the river walk afterwards.

Love these lovely ladies!

We went on an air boat for a swamp tour, did some shopping, got our nails done, and painted some pottery. The time in between we spent getting some sun around Sherri’s newly finished pool, playing games, watching a movie, and talking. It was a wonderful weekend. The weather was 85 and perfect the whole time, I am so excited for Spring to get to Kansas. Their company was what made the weekend though. It was a great time as usual.

Captain Jack in the back. He has a perfect deep gravely voice like a Captain should.

Allison’s Christmas Experience

Allison struggled with knowing what she wanted to ask for for Christmas this year. Ryan and I decided that she would like to have an experience and make some memories instead of a physical gift. We came up with an indoor sky diving experience. Luckily we were right, and she was thrilled.

Shortly after the new year we scheduled her sky diving experience. It was for her and one other person so she asked me to go with her.

It was a lot of fun, it was a lot harder then we thought it would be, we were exhausted when we were done and sore the next day. It was loud and cold. But it was worth it and we had a good time. We haven’t told the rest of the family yet but we got a good deal on a family skydiving package when we were done so we got that and will take everyone sometime soon. We are waiting for Matthew’s leg to heal.

Here are the pictures and videos of us.