For the past many years every year on Matthew’s birthday, he has raced his dad. Dead sprint, about 100 yards, winner gets bragging rights for the next year on being the fastest. Of course when this started Ryan smoked Matthew. In recent years Matthew is more and more convinced it will be the year he will win. Once or twice we have had a false start or some shenanigans that has resulted in a race being disqualified and having to run again. Ryan has been the clear winner each year though. This past year when Matthew turned 16 Ryan had a tweaked neck and wasn’t able to race. Then Matthew was sick, then it was winter, then something else and it was many many months after Matthew’s actual 16th birthday and they still hadn’t raced. Both trashed talked each other and said they other was scared to race because they new they would loose. Blah blah blah. They are both talkers. Finally one nice sunny day this Summer I told them both to get outside and race. I can’t remember when exactly they raced Matthew was closer to 17 than 16 (luckily it was before he broke his arm) but we are calling it the 16 year race. After being a late bloomer waiting semi-patiently for growth and puberty to catch up Matthew finally had some man muscle mixed in with his youth. Combined with his dad having old age mixed in with his man muscles and the perfect storm occurred and Matthew had his day. It was a proud moment for him.
Tag: ryan
Country Dancin’
Ryan and I went on double date with a co-worker of mine and her husband. I thought for a while that the four of us would get along. We did and we had a great time and have hung out many times since then.
The first time we hung out was also Dani’s birthday. We went country line dancing. Dani and I happen to listen to the same radio station on our way to work in the mornings and one of the radio hosts from the station was there that night so we met him while we were having a fun night dancing.
Busy Weekends
January was a typical January. Kind of slow. Just the way I like it so we can recover and relax from the busy months before. By the end of January baseball, horse lessons, piano, gymnastics were all up and going. We had lots of things going on each weekend so Ryan and I would divide and concur the best that we could.
Like he does each year, Grandpa Terry started off one of the weekends in January celebrating his birthday. He turned 71. We told him we would make or get any food he wanted for his dinner and strongly hinted at BBQ. He said he wanted to go with easy to get, eat, and clean up so he picked pizza. After asking him 5 times to make sure he really didn’t want BBQ we picked up some pizza (we made sure one had every topping they offer on it just for Grandpa) and we celebrated with dinner followed by cake. His boys and his two oldest grandsons took him on an axe throwing adventure. They all felt very manly and proud of themselves when they got back. Ethan was concerned about not being able to throw the axe far enough and ended up being the best of them at it. Rhonda made a chocolate cake and a cherry cheesecake for him. In true pre-covid fashion we put candles on the cake and he blew them all out. I am all for blowing out candles but I think taking a piece for the birthday person and putting the candles on just their piece to spit on when they blow out is more my style. However, I am often overruled though and called a germ-a-phob or fun hater. All in all I think Grandpa had a fun birthday.
The next day was another big day. Ryan’s biological mom Sherrie, her husband Dave, daughter Genevieve and her son Eric came up to finally meet Rhonda and Roger in person. It has been a highly anticipated meeting since we found Sherrie two years ago. Ryan was a nervous wreck all week. He was really worried Rhonda would change her mind or hurl back handed ‘compliments’ or barely veiled insults when she met Sherrie. The day before they came, Rhonda decided she wanted to call Sherrie and talk with her over the phone first. They said they ended up talking for three hours and it was a great conversation. That put Ryan at ease a little bit and when they arrived in person it went pretty well. We all sat around and talked for a bit then Rhonda and Sherrie kind of split off and talked and looked at photos. Gen and Dave talked with the rest of us and Eric jumped right in to play with Emilee and Jovee. Rhonda and Sherrie just kept talking. Everyone else went to Top Golf and played games. Rhonda told me afterwards that she was really glad she finally met her and she really liked Sherrie. She said she felt like she was talking with a long lost friend. Ryan and I were very happy that they got along and made a friend in each other.
Instead of going golfing with everyone, Allison and I headed to Salina Kansas for a gymnastic tournament. She did a pretty good job. She placed 9th overall, and had one of her best bar routines yet. She is still loving gymnastics. We are proud of her for how hard she works and how much effort she puts into it. Right when we arrived it started snowing so by the time we left a few hours later there was a pretty good snow storm. We had to go a little slower but we were still able to make it home.
My Awesome Husband
Ryan has been working at his company now for almost 11 years. He is the first employee they hired and him and the two owners have now grown to 40 employees. For the past year he has been expanding his role and wearing two hats. He has done his regular job in business development but has been helping new business development people learn their roles and the business. The owner and him have been working out the details for a bit and last week he made it official and made Ryan the VP of Business Development! He has several jobs that he is going to finish he has already gotten started but then he will transition to the new position full time. He is pretty excited about it. I am proud of his hard work and his drive to improve and develop his career and provide for his family. He is a good man, I am a lucky lady. He took Allison Christmas shopping this afternoon and went hitting with Matthew at the batting cages. He tickled and wrestled around with Emilee and took me out on a date last night after the ward Christmas party. I love that he loves his family and purposefully spends time with us together and individually. I know he enjoys his job but has been stressed and extra busy at work the past few months. He leaves it at the door when he gets home and lets all of us know he loves us and likes to be with us and spend time with us. I have been feeling extra appreciative of him lately.
We Have A Third Driver!
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.
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.
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.
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.
20th Anniversary
Ryan and I hit our 20th wedding anniversary this year. For our 10th anniversary we did a Caribbean cruise and we decided on that trip that for our 20th we wanted to do a European cruise and see Greece. About 2 years ago we booked it. We were planning to leave from Venice and see Greece, France, Rome and Barcelona. About two months before our cruise they emailed us and told us that our boat was being relocated to the Caribbean. We were welcome to stay on the cruise but it would not be in Europe obviously. We decided to cancel and Ryan did the research and planned out the trip for us instead. It was a lot more work and research for him. I didn’t do much, he did it all, and he did an amazing job. He had our flights, taxis and any other transportation we needed booked and ready to go for each place we went.
We already had a flight to Venice so we kept it and that was our first stop for a few days. Then we went to Santorini Greece, Mykonos Greece, and finished in Athens Greece. We were gone for 12 days. Ryan’s parents watched the kids for us. It was an amazing trip. It was both of our first time in Europe. We ate wonderful food, saw amazing places, met great people, stayed at beautiful hotels, and had an experience of a lifetime. It was incredible.
I decided to make a photo book on Shutterfly to show the pictures better so I wrote the details of our trip in that too. I will still include a few of my favorite pictures here in my blog though. So the short version here is we had a great time and we are excited to plan another trip to Europe sometime to see more of it!
January 2022
This January was a typical January. Not a lot going on. A good month to rest after all the holidays and re-group and plan for the upcoming year. It is a long slow month. I don’t mind though.
Ryan’s work did there usual January Christmas party for the company and their spouses. This year was a little different though because it was also the 10 year anniversary of the company starting. Ryan has been with them since they started so he made a little party planning committee and they put together a fun night for everyone. It was at a hotel in Lawrence Kansas. They had meetings Thursday and Friday and then Friday evening all the spouses came and joined for the party. They had a dinner followed by a casino night. They gave you fake money to play with and you won tickets with your money that you could bid on a bunch of prizes at the end. They did a good job. It was a fun night. Everyone stayed the night in the hotel and went home the next morning. I am glad he works at a company he enjoys and works with good people.
That is about the only event worth reporting in January. February came with a couple good snow storms this year. Ryan’s parents went to Idaho for a while to see Becky and her new baby boy Kaden. We took care of their house for them while they were gone. Ryan told the kids to go over and shovel his driveway. I am a sucker and they talked me into driving them over. Then they found his snow blower and asked if they could use that. I pulled it out and it was easy enough to use so I started using it and told them to shovel. At some point the new phone in my pocket that was less than two weeks old wiggled its way out of my pocket and fell on the ground. The snow hid it and the next time I came around I snow blowed it right up. I thought I had hit a heavy part of snow for a second and then didn’t think much about it. Matthew was standing at the top of the drive way in front of me and noticed a black object flying through the air land at his feet. He looked to see what it was and picked up my phone. It was no longer straight but had a nice arch to it. The phone did not survive its run through the snow blower. The case however came out with barely a scratch on it. I was pretty annoyed. I got to spend three hours of my day to go buy a second new phone. I got the special one for the price of two deal this time.
The Annual Race
The yearly race between Matthew and Ryan usually is on Matthew’s birthday. This year was delayed a few weeks due to one or the other of them not being in the optimal health they wanted to be in to participate in the race. Finally they both had a day with no tweaked muscles, lingering coughs, enough sleep the night before, and their lucky pair of socks were clean. Their excuses were a little ridiculous.
There was a bit of an upset this year. They had the first race and Matthew won. Uncle Ross happened to be filming them at the start and after Matthew’s celebration at winning showed that Matthew had false started and the race was thrown out.
They waited a few minutes until both agreed they could expend the full amount of energy needed for a second race. With explanations of what a false start was and was not still going between them they lined up again for the race that the winner gets a full year of bragging rights as the fastest Terry.
The second race ended with a photo finish. Ryan was half a step ahead and his knee crossed the line first. Matthew was a semi- gracious loser and told him to enjoy his last year of beating him because it won’t happen again. I don’t have the video Ross had of their start, I did see it though and it was a false start.
My Birthday Trip
For my birthday this year everyone was sick or quarantining in case they got sick. That was not the original plan but that is what happened. So we put a little pin in my birthday and bumped it out a week and a half until everyone was better. Ryan cooked me many yummy meals- spaghetti and meatballs, steak, and my favorite chocolate layered cream cheese cake. Ryan remembered to cook the crust this year. Allison made me a cute birthday sign and the kids got me a sweet gift basket with lots of fun surprises in it.
Ryan decided to surprise me for my birthday with a trip to Chicago. He confirmed my availability without setting of any suspicion. Then he booked our hotel and flights. He even checked my email and filed the flight information into another folder so I wouldn’t see the confirmation. He was pretty proud of himself and I had no idea. Unfortunately, he was unable to out think all of the Google software data gathering (straight up snooping) even though he hid the emails, my calendar found them and the next time I checked my calendar a little message popped up asking me if I wanted to add my flight to Chicago to the calendar. I tried to act like I didn’t know but when Ryan straight up asked me if I knew I told him my calendar betrayed him.
As I said we ended up having to postpone the trip a bit but shortly after my birthday, we flew to Chicago and spent a long weekend there. We had a fun time with each other. We stayed at the Palmer Hotel. When we got there we decided to go to the Magic Show that the hotel is apparently famous for and has been showing since the 80’s. It was pretty fun. I love stuff like that. During the day we toured the city by foot, subway, or boat. In the evenings we went to shows. We ended up doing two different magic shows, a comedy show, and an old timey piano bar that played requests. The atmosphere was early 1900’s but the music was modern. In the mornings we slept in as long as we wanted. Glorious. It was a great weekend and I’m glad we squeezed it in because it is trade show season for Ryan at work now and since we have been back it seems like I haven’t seen him for a few weeks. We pass each other on the way to work or taking the kids somewhere, one of us is asleep before the other gets home and one of us is at work or taking Matthew to seminary before the other one is awake.
The Field Museum 
These chandeliers were so cool looking. 
The Bean 
Can you see us in the reflection? 
Awesome sky lines 
Beautiful architecture 
The top of that building looks like a Roman Temple. 
The Corn Cobbs of Chicago. 
Chicago Skyline 
Hard to tell there is a river right in front of us. 
This is the river by the building with flag hanging on it. 
Part of the raised subway. Some of the subway was underground, some above the traffic. 
That is the library. 
You know you are in the city when there is pigeons walking around like they own the place. 
You think it is just a regular old building but they were all so different and unique. 
The name of this boat is The Summer of George. Ryan was quite excited. 
Our hotel-The Palmer House 
Hotel lobby. 
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. 
This little guy sat by me at the pool one afternoon. There were a lot of pretty birds, butterflies, and flowers. 
I took this picture from the restaurant. It is the infinity pool we spent a lot of time swimming in. 
View from the gold cart on our way to some place. 
There was lots of little rivers like this through out the resort. We had one that went along the back of our little apartment. 
Every morning they had someone walking around with this hawk. It was his job to keep the other birds away. As soon as he went around a corner there was always some brave/stupid bird that would dive in and try and grab some food. 
In the US we have to stay 6 feet apart. In Mexico it is safer I guess so 5 feet is good enough. Stupid COVID. 
We don’t know what these are but they were common to see around the resort. There was a family of them at one of the holes Ryan was trying to putt into. They were in no hurry to get out of his way. 
Ryan golfed one afternoon with his new clubs. It was beautiful weather. 
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. 
We saw two arenas that they used to watch teams compete in with a rubber ball. This was the smaller one. We are standing up where people would watch. 
This is considered a smaller temple but it is still massive. It is 107 steps to the top from the ground. 
This is part of a temple that is being restored. When they were built they were all white and smooth because they were covered with plaster. 
107 steps. They are very steep and narrow. Mosiah taught us to walk diagonally to save our knees. It made a huge difference. 
This tree is called a Tree of Life. The trunk is hollow and the bottom 4-5 feet is full of water. People could drill a small hole in the trunk and clean drinking water would come out. Pretty amazing. 
Another Tree of Life. Once you knew what to look for, every now and then one would just appear in the middle of all the other trees. 
These pillars represented the warriors. Mosiah said possible a memorial to the stripling warriors 
The pillars all lead to this temple. The top has a statue in the middle that represents the leader of the soldiers. Mosiah thought possibly Helaman. 
They built one tier on the temple every 50 years. They have discovered their are NINE more tiers under the ground that are not seen. 
There are three Gods in the top of this building. They say it was the rain, sun, and I don’t remember the third one. Mosiah said it could also be God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. 
The corners of the building make shadows on the sides of the stair pillars that start in March and are at their fullest on April 6th. The shadows make it look like the snake is slithering down the temple. 
Mosiah said other tour guides tell people these small circles were probably baths, or aroma therapy/steam areas. If the leaves were cleaned out you would see four stone steps in the side area that lead into the circle that is about 4 feet deep. There are several spots at the bottom that would drain water out too. Possibly for baptisms. 
Mosiah told us what a lot of the ruins on these building meant but of course I can’t remember it all now. 
This was the observatory. Like many other buildings and temples it was built so that on April 6th the sun would shine through the windows perfectly. 
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.
This is where we ate lunch. 
I was a little nervous about going into a hole in the ground. Ryan said it wouldn’t even really feel like that. When I got there and looked down the spiral stair case I started to doubt him. 
…still going… 
…it feels like I am going pretty far down. 
Then we go through this tunnel for a while that you can’t stand up straight in. 
It did open up into a big area with beautiful water. 
You can see the ceiling and were the hole that you can look straight down into the cenote from the street in this picture. 
The water wasn’t as cold as we thought it would be. It was refreshing. 
I struggled with swimming out in the open. It felt like some cave monster would come grab me. 
Ryan didn’t have any issues though. 
He guessed it was about 12 feet deep right here. 
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.
Boardwalk out to the beach. 
The sand was beautiful, white powdered sugar feeling. There was dozens of little huts to sit under and sleep, read, visit, and eat. 
This is after a giant tractor came by and removed the top of the mound. So sad that this is ruining their beaches. 
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.