A few days after getting back from New York we got ready for our family Summer vacation. Matthew had a baseball tournament in Gulf Shores Alabama over the fourth of July so we invited Ross and Lauren to come with us and we found a VRBO to stay at by the beach and added a few extra days to make it our Summer trip.
On our way to drop the Guinea Pigs off and start our vacation!
It was hot! We are used to humidity in Kansas but it took a step up in Alabama. Good thing we were by the beach!
We stopped at Bass Pro in Memphis on the way home for Matthew. He loves exploring a new Bass Pro Shop.
We had several beach days and did some mini golf. We found some Outlet Stores that the girls (and everyone) really liked and spent several hours shopping there. In the evenings we played lots of board games. Ryan and Ross brought at least 30 options of games to play like they usually do and we play 2 of them over and over. Matthew played 7 baseball games. The team has been playing pretty good lately but Matthew personally has been having an amazing season. They took 2nd overall in the tournament for their age group 16U.
On the actual fourth of July we had a cookout on the beach and played in the water a little bit with the whole team. Then watched fireworks from the beach. It was a cool experience. None of us had ever seen fireworks from the beach. It is just a great place to relax and hang out. I think everyone had a nice week.
Last time we were there a few years ago we took pictures at an ice cream shop that we went to. They are some of my favorite pictures. We went back to the same place and took the pictures again in the same poses we did a few years ago. We got some souvenirs at the store and made it out without any new crabs or other living animals.
By the time we drove home I had driven through 14 states within 2 1/2 weeks. It was a busy few weeks for everyone. We squeezed a lot of fun and new memories in this Summer and there are still more to come.
Three kids and building a house can keep a person pretty busy in the Summer. As I mentioned in the last post, the girls started their Summer off with a Girl Scout Camp. Matthew started his off with High Adventure in Colorado with the other boys in our church ward his age. They went to the sand dunes and hiked those, and the mountains. They were camped right in the middle of the two. They went white water rafting one day as well. This is his third year of going. He has had a great time each year.
One of Allison’s favorite things to do is shop. She has been doing a little more babysitting lately. She is a really fun babysitter. Way better than I ever was. She always comes up with fun games and scavenger hunts and the kids she watch always have a great time. She watched Emilee and her friend Ethan a lot this Summer. This is a giant gumball machine she found on one of her shopping adventures spending her hard earned money.
Ryan and I had a few adventures in June too. We went to Las Vegas with our friends Dani and RJ. We had a pool day, exploring day and ate at some fun restaurants while we visited and enjoyed our quick weekend getaway together.
Emilee’s one wish for her Summer was to go to a horse camp. She did that at the end of June. She has been doing her regular riding lesson each week still but she wanted to have a full week of riding everyday. The last day they did a horse show for the parents to show what they learned. She had a great time. She still loves horses and hopes to get her own someday.
Another activity Emilee loves and looks forward to each and every Summer is sleeping in. She loves to sleep and would sleep until noon everyday if we let her. Dad had to wake her up one morning “early” which means before 9AM and he thought it was hilarious getting her to wake up. She wanted nothing to do with it.
Matthew kept busy with work and baseball and weight lifting after he got back from High Adventure. He went to FSY towards the end of June. It was in Warrensburg MO at the college there. He was able to room with his cousin Ethan and several of his other good friends were there. He said it was a fun time and one of his favorite parts was the testimony meeting the last night they were there. That makes me happy that he went and had a good experience.
Matthew and Carter making cooking to entertain themselves one afternoon.
Allison went to another girls camp at the end of June with two of her friends from school that are also in her troop. It was in Tulsa Oklahoma. I picked them up and they told me all about it on the way home. They had a mean counselor, it was ridiculously hot and the food was awful but they still had a great time together. Allison wore a swim suit that had the American flag on it and got the nick name Ms America for it. She came home with an American flag cowgirl had covered in sequence do go along with her nick name. She loved it.
Here are some random other pictures I have from this month that I’ll add to the end of this post.
Birthday party for Ethan Huntsman at Main EventJaNeil decorated my room at work for me.Someone taking pictures instead of listening at church.Emi loves doing her dad’s hair.Crafts with dadEthan’s bday party.Emilee teaching Ethan how to climb trees.
We thought this year might creep by slowly while we wait for our house to be built. Sometimes it does seem like it is taking forever but overall it does seem to be flying by. Once Spring Break was over and it is the 8 week stretch until school is out for the Summer it really seems to fly.
It was a cold Spring but there were a few nights in April we were able to light up the fire pit and make some smore’s in the back yard. Mmmmm we all love a good smore.
Emilee was selected as the Student of the Month which they now call Leader of the Month. Luckily they awarded it on a Friday so I was able to watch her get it. They do a little intro about the person before they say who it is. They said a lot of nice things about her- she helps others, gets her work done, is kind, loves to read, is a good listener. As soon as they said this person loves horses and knows all kinds of facts about horses everyone knew the teacher was talking about Emilee.
I was a good girl and did my workout before her award ceremony even though that meant I had to show up stinky and gross. Good thing you can’t smell pictures.
Our church had a Prom Night. Matthew’s high school only lets upper classmen go to the prom. Or you can be invited to the prom by an upper classmen. Matthew didn’t go to the school prom. When the church said they were having a stake prom I asked him no less than 12 times if he and his friends were going to get a group together and go to the dance several months, and weeks in advance. You don’t have to dress formal but a lot of people do. He told me each of those 12 times that he was not planning on doing that. The day of the prom he texted me from school to tell me that he and a group of kids were going to go to prom and he was taking Campbell.🤦♀️ At least he had given her a few more days notice than he did me so she was able to find a dress and Matthew just wore his church clothes, no tux. They both had baseball/softball practice until 6:30 so they missed dinner and ended up just going to the dance. After the dance they had an after party were they are supposed to dress up as something together. They changed back into their baseball/softball uniforms and went together like that. I got no group pictures. They had a fun night. That is is the difference between a boy and girl. Boys are zero planning time, you have to drag details out of them and beg other moms for pictures. Girls want 12 outfit options, tell you all the tea and have pictures of every second of the night. Is it not adorable that they both were the number 14?!
Allison was busy doing track everyday after school in March and April. She decided to do the pole vault, discus and shot put. She did a lot of running and got in good shape. The coaches didn’t do much coaching for her events so it was more of a figure it out on your own thing. We were proud of her for trying something new and putting all the effort she put into her practices and meets. I tried to go running with her a few times. I am a tread mill runner IF I run- I like the AC on a fan in my face and stopping exactly where I started as soon as I am done. She kicked my but when we would run together. She loved the social part of it and overall had a good time. She ended the season not sure if she wanted to do it again. If she does she wants to drop shot put and discus and do the high jump instead. If she decides to do it again we will have to see about finding her a private coach to teach her the pole vault and high jump.
Emilee is trying her hand at softball again this Spring. So far it is going 100% better just for the fact that she has glasses now and can see the ball. She joined her bestie Reese’s team and it is a good fit for her. She has improved a lot in catching, throwing and hitting. We all try and help her practice batting and playing catch at home. Hopefully she sticks with it for a few more years.
Matthew made the JV baseball team. They had a really good season. A little more than half way through the season he was moved to practicing with the varsity team and going to all their games. He still played JV games but then he would go to all the varsity games and warm up with them and pinch run for them a few times. The Varsity team went to State he got to go with them and had a great experience. They lost their first game and were out but still had fun. He is hoping to get to go again his Junior and/or Senior year when he is a full time varsity player. He has grown a bit and has a little more strength behind his swing and throw so he is really enjoying himself when he plays now. It is fun to watch him.
These are the three JV players that moved up to varsity.This was the Regional Game they won to go to State
Like January, February seemed to stick to the tradition schedule. There is more days off of school between teacher conferences, snow days, holidays, and this year we added another day off for the Super Bowl Parade since the Chiefs won.
Emilee made her Valentines box to take to school for her Valentines Party. After this year she had one year left before there will be no more kids making Valentine’s Boxes in our house.😢 She did a great job and did everything on her own including coming up with the idea, gathering supplies and creating it. When she was all done she had an adorable Valentine’s Day Fox Box.
Matthew and Campbell went to the school dance. Matthew called it Winter Homecoming but I think that is not the right name. It is probably Sweethearts or something like that since it is in February. That is what all the other schools called it. I was in Idaho when he went to the dance but Campbell’s mom Lisa sent me some pictures. Between Matthew and Ryan they were able to pull an outfit together. They had a fun time. They went with a group of Campbell’s friends, and ate dinner at Sake Lounge before the dance. Campbell is a Sweetheart because she does not like sushi but she agreed to go there for dinner because Matthew loves it. Those are the same pants he wore to the dance in October and he has already outgrown them. He loves that he is obviously taller than her now and she can wear heals if she wants.
The day after the dance was the Super Bowl. The Kansas City Chiefs were in it so everyone was pretty excited. Ross and Lauren and Roger and Rhonda came over to our house. There was lots of yummy food and it was a really close game. It came down to a field goal the last few seconds of the game that won it for us. I was driving home from the airport at the time. I had seen some of the game on the airplane. Lots of people would cheer whenever we scored. There was tons of decorations and a balloon tunnel at the airport set up for when the players came home. I was trying to hurry home in time to catch the last few minutes but as I was getting off the freeway at my exit a bunch of red, gold, and white fireworks started going off. I knew we had won. As I pulled into my driveway about five minutes later there were still fireworks going off everywhere and people running all over cheering that the Chiefs had won. Kansas City has some good fans.
Of course while we were getting ready to sell our house and move into the rental, the rest of life continued on. Each of the kids had a busy Fall.
Matthew played Fall Ball. He had a fun season and he and his team participated in several fun tournaments and even one of placed in the finals for a few of them. Several of their tournaments were on college fields, including KU. The boys thought it was pretty cool to play on a D1 field.
As baseball was slowing down in October, Matthew filled his time with other activities. He turned 16. I am a pretty lucky momma. He is a good son. He is becoming a good man too. Things were a little chaotic on his birthday but he made the most of it. Most of his desires focused around the food he wanted to eat. He had smoothies, chic-fil-a, and sushi and for his cake- as always a Cookie Cake. He spent some time hanging out with Campbell and sometime hanging out with his buddies. He asked the family if we would go to Top Golf for his birthday. We all went and had a good time. Emilee and Matthew were pretty good golfers. Allison and I have some work to do. Anyone that asked what he wanted was told fishing stuff. He got several mystery tackle boxes and he loved it. Grandma texted him thinking it was me asking about his present. He sent me a screen shot and thought it was pretty funny. Grandma messed with him a little and gave him gummy worms and fish as a tackle box before she gave him the real one. He thought it was pretty funny.
Matthew took Campbell to Homecoming. There was a group of them going together and the day of all the other boys changed their minds. Matthew was a good sport about it. They took pictures before and then went to the football game. After the game they went to the dance and then played games at one of the girls house afterwards. I am very appreciative that Matthew finds good friends to hang out with. Campbell does too. He has found the groups that don’t want to drink and party. They have fun and enjoy each others company.
Watching the HS football game with our friends Margarita and Jeff.
Saving the best for last. We were all hanging out in the living room one night and I noticed that Matthew kept admiring himself in the mirror and pretty pumped about his muscles. I was able to get a short video of it without him noticing.
We have been keeping an eye out for a good car for Matthew to use. Right now a used car is worth a lot more than it actually is worth so it is hard to find a decent reliable car for a decent price. Kenny said he would find us one, he is a mechanic so he knows a lot more about cars than we do. He found us one and Ryan and I decided to make a weekend of it to go out to Florida and bring it home. We flew out on Labor Day weekend. We spent a few hours in Tampa and had lunch with my parents and the French’s. Then we began our trek home.
Halfway through its final drive from Florida to Kansas, unbeknownst to us, it would never complete a drive again without some mechanical issues.
It felt like we were in college again, going on a trip and not knowing if we would make it in our 2011 well used Hyundai Sonata. About 20 minutes into our drive the check engine light came on. We called Kenny and he said if it wasn’t flashing and it seemed to be driving ok then we could keep going. So we did. The first night we stopped in Atlanta Georgia. The next day we drove a couple hours to Nashville Tennessee. Ryan had been there for work before and thought it was a fun place. I have wanted to go but never been. Once we got there we checked into a hotel right across from the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. We spent the rest of the day exploring Nashville.
We went through the museum which was ok. I like country music but I am not a crazy fan of anyone in particular. We also went on a tour of Studio C. It is one of the original recording studios from the 1940’s. It was pretty cool. Hundreds of singers had recorded there over the years. Including Elvis Presley. The last part of the tour was in a room that he recorded a lot of his hits in. They told us about a typical recording session with him and his band. There was a broken cabinet that Elvis kicked one night and a panel came off. The piano was original too. I thought is was a cool tour. The rest of the evening we wandered around and did a little shopping. I wanted to find some cowboy boots but didn’t have any luck. It is a very friendly town. Of course at night there is endless live music to listen to. It was pretty awesome. It was all kinds of music too, not just country. There was a lot of talent.
Elvis played this piano a lot.Many famous artists including Elvis stood on this spot to record.
The next morning we drove the rest of the way home. We dropped the car off at the mechanic we use to figure out why the engine light was on. I scheduled a detail for it because it was pretty gross inside and we looked forward to having a third car and driver to get people all the places we seem to need to go.
Fast forward six weeks and we found ourselves trading the Sonata in for a newer car that actually works. After getting it back from the mechanic, we found ourselves in a very frustrating and irritating cycle of getting the car from the mechanic, paying a couple hundred dollars to fix something then bringing it home to have it break again within two days and be taken in for another week to be fixed. It would randomly die sometimes. One of those times Matthew was backing out of our driveway and it died. He had no power steering or breaks and our driveway is a hill so he continued to roll when died. He rolled right into our neighbors nanny’s car. That was kind of the last straw for me. It is stressful enough to put your son who has basically no driving experience in a car and send him off on his own. To send him in a car I didn’t trust and proved many times it could create dangerous situations was nerve racking. On top of that, we were in the process of selling our house (more on that later) and by November 1st Matthew would be the girls and his ride to and from school so we had to have a working reliable safe car for him.
The car Matthew rolled into when his died unexpectedly. It looks like it isn’t that bad but that stupid dent cost more than $5000 to fix.
I decided to go through a dealership. I know I pay more money that way but if something goes crazy wrong I know where to go and have some sort of warranty and accountability with it, unlike a private seller. After some research I found a 2015 Honda Accord. They were willing to take the Sonata for more then a few other car places had offered me for it so that was nice. I did not want to sell it privately or have it sitting around reminding me how stupid it was, I didn’t have the time or patience for that. Two birds with one stone. We didn’t tell Matthew because we didn’t know if we were actually going to find a car or not. It was a nice surprise for him. He loves it and it has been so helpful for him to be able to get himself places and sometimes the girls. Game changer.
The new car. Matthew said he will probably name it but he hasn’t decided on one yet.
A few weeks after Emilee got back it was Matthew and Allison’s turn to go to grandma and grandpa Jones’. They flew out together. Matthew is old enough that he can be her companion. This was also Matthew’s first time going. He only stayed a week because he had baseball. He had a very fun time. He told me to book him a trip to Grandma’s for next Summer when he got home.
Some of the highlights he has mentioned is how good grandma’s baking is. Her ginger snap and chocolate chip cookies were definitely a favorite. Being able to walk out the door and go fishing was a fun perk. Beating Sherri at pickle ball has been mentioned a few times. The beach, aquarium, zoo, lots of swimming, games, and movies. Grandma kept him busy. He was very happy to get out of Kansas and have a fun trip for the Summer. They also watched some home videos and Matthew sent this one to me. I remember filming this. Cute little stinker.
There was a tussle over who got the bed. It is a queen bed and could have been easily shared. Matthew suggested he have it for the week he was there and Allison have it for the week she stayed after he left. She said, “That is fair but that’s not how it’s going to go.” They shared the bed the first night, then Allison was demoted to the air mattress.
Just arriving at Grandma’s from the airport.First…and only fish he caught this trip.
When he came back grandma was able to walk him to the shuttle then he was on his own. He found security and made it through (he did have his fishing pliers confiscated) then made it to the gate. Then it poured rain for a few hours and delayed his flight but he made it home. I picked him up in the passenger pick up area. He was pretty proud of himself for flying half way across the country all by himself.
Allison stayed to have one more week with Grandma after Matthew left. She was excited to upgrade back to the bed from the air mattress. Last Summer when she was there Grandma got her hooked on the Hallmark Mystery Channel so she was excited to catch up on that with her. She was there over her birthday this year. Grandma made her a chocolate cake. Matthew took a few gifts for her in his suitcase from us and left them for her to open. She had one to open when she got home too. They went bowling and swimming at Sherri’s for her birthday. Grandma made her a chocolate cake.
The Summer of 2022 is one of the hottest ones on record for Kansas. We spent most of the weekends sizzling in the heat, going through a ridiculous amount of sunscreen, ice, water, and sunflower seeds watching Matthew play baseball. Despite the heat, I enjoy a good baseball game.
Pre-Game huddlePost Game cool down-waiting for the next game.During Game Cheering
We switched Emilee to a new barn for her riding lessons in March. She seems to be really liking the new place. She has been progressing a lot. For the school talent show at the end of the year she asked me to take a video of her at her riding lesson to show for the talent show.
Emilee also played volleyball again this Spring. She asked to do it and was excited to go to practices and games. For all other sports besides horse riding we have had to make her ‘just try it’ and she has been very glad when it is over. She did great this season, her last game she served the maximum times (5) and scored then they have to give the ball to the other team. She was pretty excited about that.
Allison had her AAU gymnastics meet in Manhattan Kansas. She did really well. The team ended up qualifying to go to the National AAU meet in Illinois in July. She is pretty excited about it. Ryan and I are happy for her that she enjoys gymnastics and she is doing well at it and continuing to improve.
Matthew just finished up his Freshman year on the baseball team. He was a really good bat this season. He played mostly 2nd or short when he was on defense. He did a good job and his coach seemed pleased with him. There last game of the season was rained out which was a bummer. He is looking forward to his season with his club team over the Summer.
There was a YM basketball tournament for our Stake. The boys all had a great time. Matthew loved it. Our ward had two teams. The team Matthew was on ended up making it to the final game and winning the tournament. Matthew was given the MVP award for giving all out effort all the time. They even let them cut the net down which was pretty fun for them.
I have some talented children. I love watching all my kids in their activities. I am glad they are taking the opportunities to improve themselves and work hard at something they enjoy.
