ryan – Page 3 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Reaching Out

When Kenny found the link to the Turnbull’s he woke up his wife and showed her the obituary and contacted Ryan. As the three of them were talking Sherri noticed another name in the same obituary that she recognized, Bill Bertelson. She remembered knowing someone by that name from a family that she knew when she lived in South Dakota with my parents. She remembers thinking it wasn’t a very common name but it was probably a coincidence.

Once they had Vanitta’s name they started trying to find more information about her. They assumed she was likely Ryan’s mom but they didn’t know for sure. One of the ways they looked her up was on Facebook. Since they weren’t friends with her, only her public pictures were available to see. They looked through several available pictures and tried to glean any information they could. As they were looking through the pictures, Sherri saw a picture of Vanitta with her brother Bill Bertelson. She pointed it out to Ryan and they were both shocked. Ryan and her both recognized the Bill in the picture with Vanitta. It was the same Bill they had met together nineteen years earlier.

Christmas 2002. Ryan and Janae were married in May 2002. At the time her parents and other three siblings lived in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Later that year her dad was transferred with his job and the family planned to move to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. With the timing of the move they arrived in South Dakota the week of Christmas. They couldn’t move into the house until shortly after the New Year so they planned to stay in a hotel until then. Ryan and Janae decided to come up and join them and they had a hotel Christmas in Sioux Falls South Dakota their first Christmas together with Janae’s family. A day or so before Christmas was Sunday and the family attended the new church they would be going to and met some new friends. One of the families that introduced themselves to Janae’s parents was the Bertelson family. Bill and his wife Barbara. When they heard they were staying in a hotel over Christmas they invited us to join their family for a Christmas breakfast. They were a very kind and thoughtful family. My parents got to know them well and became good friends. Whenever Ryan and Janae went up to visit her family they would always come and say hi at church and ask how they were doing.

Along with discovering Vanitta and her brother Bill, the three of them were able to figure out that Vanitta was about 85 years old which would have made her in her mid forties when Ryan was born. They also pieced together that she had several children that would be older than Ryan and one that would be younger. At this point their best guess was Ryan was most likely conceived from an affair or maybe rape then given up for adoption. After talking and speculating and living on a wave of excitment from finding a strong lead, the three of them decided to call it a night and pick up the search in the morning. A few short hours later Janae woke up at 7am on Friday morning not knowing any of the exciting news from the night before. When Ryan filled her in on everything they had discovered she told him he would never live down not waking her up when he found out. Then they called Kenny and Sherri and picked up were they left off the night before and started making a plan to figure out who to contact. Through Facebook stalking they were able to figure out a few more of Vanitta’s family members. Kenny, Sherri and Janae were pushing for Ryan to call or email Bill. They thought that would be the easiest link. He probably wouldn’t remember Ryan but he would know Janae’s parents. Ryan didn’t want to contact Vanitta directly, but instead of Bill he kept coming back to a guy named Perry Turnbull that we thought was Vanitta’s son. Ryan said he felt like that was the right person to contact, he looked like a good guy and maybe even a Bishop in our church. Within 5 minutes Kenny has Perry’s email and phone number and found out he actually was a Branch President of a Young Single Adult Ward. Ryan decided that is who he would contact. At 9am he sent a Facebook Message and an email to Perry with the following message:

Perry, I don’t believe we’ve ever met, my name is Ryan Terry. This is probably going to sound strange so I’ll jump right into it. I was born in 1979 and was adopted via LDS family services, but I think we might be related! A few months ago I got a 23andme DNA test, mostly to check for health concerns as I have no family history, but also out of curiosity of my biological lineage. Literally the only piece of information I have about my biological parents is on adoptive court papers that had my surname of Turnbull before legally changing my name to Ryan Terry when I was a few months old. In 23andme I have only a few 2nd and 3rd cousins, and did not see any Turnbull surnames. Until last night. I was looking at the Keele family line, which DNA says I have relations to, and found through Ancestry.com and Family Search where the Turnbull name actually popped up – with Vanitta. Through some light Facebook investigation, it looks like that is your mother or you are related to her in some way.

Anyway, maybe this is super weird, but I think we may be closely related and I thought you could maybe help me connect some dots. I considered reaching out directly to Vanitta, but figured she may not be super Facebook savvy and not even know I sent a message. Or maybe it would be a shock to her if I directly contacted her. So since you seem to be active on Facebook and connected to her I wondered if you could help me. I sent you a message in Facebook Messenger too but I often forget to check those messages, so thought I’d send you an email.

Putting myself in your shoes, I can see this might be really weird and out of the blue. But now my curiosity is peeked! I would love to connect some dots and perhaps express gratitude to my biological mother for following what I believe to be a divine plan. I have always felt like I was meant to be with my adoptive parents and am happy for eternal families.

Sorry for the long, random, rambling message! Would love to chat with you if you get the message and would like to talk.

Ryan

Ryan had sent several emails to other possible relatives at this point but had never heard back from any of them. This time felt different but no one knew what to expect. At some point that morning while they were all looking at pictures and trying to piece connections together someone said that maybe Vanitta was not his mom but his grandma. That seemed to fit time lines a little better. They were able to find a picture of one of her daughters that they thought was a possibility but they just didn’t know and wouldn’t know unless Perry contacted Ryan back. All four of them tried to go about their day and impatiently waited to hear something back.

Ryan had several scheduled meetings that day at noon, two and four. He left shortly after sending the email and went to his first meeting at noon. At 12:15 his phone rang and caller ID said Perry Turnbull across the top of his phone. He new it probably wouldn’t be a short conversation and was already in his meeting with a client so he sent it to voicemail then tried but utterly failed to focus on the next 45 minutes of his meeting.

Perry left a message. At 1pm Ryan walked out to his car to listen to the voicemail.

Transcription of Perry’s Message:

Hi Ryan, my name is Perry Turnbull and you sent me an email and a Facebook message today regarding your heritage and thanks so much for that message that was very thoughtfully written and sincere and um I believe Ryan, there is a very high likely hood that there is a direct connection between you and my sister and I would just love to talk to you about that and to fill you in with as much as I know and connect the dots as much as I am able. SO feel free to give me a call back at … and I will also respond to your email as well with some personal contact information and look for ward to chatting with you. Hope you have a great day and thanks for reaching out, take care. Bye.

Ryan was obviously emotional when he heard Perry’s message. He had just found out who is biological mother was! He had one hour until his next meeting but he new he couldn’t wait until the end of the day to call him back so he decided to call on his drive to his next meeting. He hit send and called Perry Turnbull back.

The Results

Once the sample had been sent in there wasn’t much to do but wait. Other then the surname of Turnbull and being born in Monett Missouri we didn’t really know any other information.

Kenny tried to hold true to his finding Ryan’s birth mom in 30 minutes. He had one or two people he thought were good possibilities but without the DNA he wasn’t willing to say anything with much commitment. Several weeks later after much anticipation, Ryan finally got the results. His health information came back pretty good. The things they were able to test and look for came back with no big red flags. It was nice for Ryan to have some peace of mind about some general health information. Learning more about his biology made Ryan realize his curiosity was definitely piqued and he wanted to know more about the ancestry side of his DNA. However, when he looked at those results there wasn’t much to see.

Kenny’s words.

Sitting on the couch at Ryan’s house while the girls were out shopping we somehow got on the topic of DNA/his biological mother. Ryan mentioned that he had looked on classmates.com at yearbooks torying to find a picture of her in Monett. Considering myself an amateur sleuth of sorts I offered my help and said I could probably find her in 30 minutes. Little did I know the task ahead of me. After researching for 2 weeks I thought I had found her (based on what we thought we knew). We decided to wait for 23&me DNA results to confirm, deny or shed any light on the subject. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were out to dinner with friends at Longhorn steakhouse when Ryan texted me with a picture of his closest DNA relatives. I looked at the list in disbelief! His CLOSEST match was 2%! I will never never forget Ryan’s next text to me. He simply wrote ‘work your magic’.

The lack of information available almost made the task of finding his birth mom more intriguing . Kenny and Ryan spent a lot of their free time looking and trying to find links to possible relatives. Ryan sent a few emails to relatives 23&Me said he was related to but never heard anything back. They both continued to talk and look into things together but Kenny made it a personal mission to figure this mystery out.

Too be completely honest I felt like I’d need some real magic to get anywhere. My next move was distinct, I looked at the list of relatives and prayed. I prayed that I would be able to know how to connect the dots. After the prayer I turned to google. I decided that if I could find one of these individuals family history pedigree charts I would have a better chance of finding either of Ryan’s biological parents. The first name was just initials so I moved to the second one immediately. The name was Reba Keele and it said she was from Utah. Turns our she is a professor of sorts and an author. One of the first pages I found on her actually listed her family info including parents names. With this info in hand I turned to family search. Knowing that only deceased ancestors appear on family search I put her parents names in. I got an immediate hit! Turns our the Keele family are LDS pioneers and have kept great records!! 23&Me had said that Ryan was a second cousin to the first 2 matches. I had an immediate sense of relief thinking I would close this case in a day!!!!!!! My excitement soon faded as I saw the number of relatives in this line. It seemed like every marriage had 10 kids! I hunted through this info everyday! Some nights I found myself unable to sleep or waking up with a new idea on where to look at 3am. I had searched all the second cousins!!!! No matches that fit.

Kenny spent weeks and hours of his time doing research for Ryan. The four of us would often talk together and there were several theory’s starting to form in our minds as we continued to run into dead ends. The biggest frustration was that we could not find the link in any of his known relatives to the Turnbull line. Kenny had looked through hundreds maybe even thousands of names and the Turnbull name never appeared. Was it a misdirection or a flat out lie? Maybe it was a single child of a single child and the line died out? Maybe Monett was not the right place…where would we even start to look if it wasn’t though? We were almost out of possibilities. Kenny suggested that Ryan get his DNA tested through ancestry.com because they had a bigger database to search. Ryan requested the kit and Kenny kept looking.

This continued for weeks. I decided to once again pray for direction as it seemed like I had lost traction. Shortly after the prayer I stumbled on an article discussing family DNA and how the DNA match percentages add up. It mentioned that at 2% someone might be a much more distant relative to these people then 23&Me indicated. I returned to family search with a renewed determination and decided to read all of the obituaries of the most recently deceased ancestors of Ryan to see if I could find any matching info (we had a last name and an approximate location). I started reading obituaries about 7:30pm. At 1:30am I was exhausted, I had read so many obituaries they were all blending together. I was reaching the end and had no new info. Just as I was about to call it a night I read one last obituary for Winifred Olsen. In the text it listed all of her children. The name hit me like a ton of bricks. Vanitta Turnbull of Arkansas! The location was close enough and the last name was a match!!! I couldn’t believe what I was reading! Had I really just found them??! My eyes began to swell with tears as I knew in my heart I had found Ryan’s biological family! The fact that is was 1:30 am was so irrelevant given the exciting news I decided I had to call Ryan. I texted him first and to my shock he responded back immediately letting me know he was still winding down from a basketball game he played earlier or he would have been asleep. I texted him the following in all caps “I FOUND YOUR MOM!” He immediately called me in disbelief but the more we talked it became more and more real. This was her! I hadn’t been able to sleep for 2 months! I found my head constantly running through new scenarios of where to look but now it was done! As I slept that night I found myself in a very emotional state. I could only imagine what Ryan was going through but even being involved on just the search side had given me a little glimpse of it. The next day brought MANY phone calls between Ryan and my myself. Who do you call to reach out too? Which family member? The events that have transpired from all of this are nothing short of wonderful!

Ryan and Janae have talked several times since then about how without Kenny’s help and sleuthing skills and the dozens and dozens of hours he spent researching we may never have found the link we needed to lead us to his biological family. As they have shared this story with others many have commented on what an amazing true friend and brother Kenny is to dedicate so much of his time and energy to helping Ryan. He is the hero in this story. Ryan and Janae couldn’t agree more.

The Decision

The following is the beginning of several posts that I want to write to help remember an important part of Ryan’s life. Ryan was adopted at birth. He always new he was adopted, it was never a secret, just a fact. He also knew that he was meant to be with his adopted parents. Roger and Rhonda were always supposed to raise him, for some reason Heavenly Father chose to get Ryan to them in a more round about way, but Ryan always felt and always knew they were supposed to be his parents. He was sealed to them shortly after his first birthday in the temple and Roger and Rhonda, his siblings, and all his aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins are sealed together for eternity. He has always felt loved and cared for and known he was where he was supposed to be. He has also felt a piece of him missing or not complete, a small wondering that sometimes grew. He had similar features as his dad and brother but he didn’t know his biological history and ties. He couldn’t say he inherited traits or personality from his mom or a grandpa, or had the same features as a cousin or sibling. A few months ago Ryan decided to make the decision to dig in and see where his DNA led him. This is his story to the best of my recollection. I wasn’t there for all of it so some are stories other have shared with me. I want it to be as accurate as I can so as I learn more things or talk with others I will add and change things if I need too. It is an amazing story and it is full of many small and large miracles and tender mercies that have guided and directed Ryan and his family (adopted and biological) throughout their lives. With new events of the past few months some of these miracles can now start to be discovered and realized. Ryan’s story is a testimony to me that Heavenly Father is actively involved in each of our lives. He knows and loves us as individuals and has a plan.

On June 19, 1979 a little boy with fiery red hair was born in Monett Missouri. His birth mom loved him fiercely but her life wasn’t on the path that she wanted it to be to guarantee him a happy, stable, gospel centered home. Despite the inability to guarantee any outcome with any choice she made, with confirmation from the Holy Ghost, she made the hard, heartbreaking decision to give the little boy up for adoption. After being born, she signed the final paperwork and Baby Boy Turnbull was turned over for adoption. For the rest of her life she would not know what happened to her child. His location, hair color, likes, dislikes, strengths, talents, struggles, favorite foods, even his name, would all be a mystery and an ache in her heart.

That same day Rhonda Terry was at work going about her day. She and her husband, Roger, had been trying to have children for several years. Several months earlier after tests, doctor visits, and many prayers they decided to begin the process to adopt a baby through LDS Adoption Services. Once the numerous and long steps were complete, they were told to wait, they would be contacted when they had a baby for them to adopt. That particular day in June while she was sitting at her desk she had the thought come to her mind, “Your son is here.” She immediately called the social worker assigned to her and said, “My son was born today. When can I come get him?” This initially caused a bit of chaos. At that time the adoption process was closed, which meant everything was private and personal information was kept secret from all involved parties, except the social worker. The social worker was more then a little concerned that someone had leaked information to Rhonda and voiced that he could lose his job over this. Rhonda was, and still is, a very religious person and told the social worker that the Holy Ghost, not another social worker had told her about the birth of her son. He was very relieved and told her that in fact a baby boy had been born and the paper work was in process for him to be given to her and Roger. There was a slight hold up with paperwork due to the fact the baby would be crossing state lines from Missouri to Kansas.

The paperwork snag took six weeks to resolve. In the mean time Baby Boy Turnbull was taken from his birth mom and given to a sweet lady in a foster home to watch him until Roger and Rhonda could take him permanently. When the day finally arrived Roger and Rhonda anxiously met the social worker to bring home their baby for the first time. They were loving, happy, excited parents. Rhonda immediately began making up for lost time and embraced him as her son and began healing the loss of losing his first two earthly connections his birth mom and the foster parent of six weeks. For a time Ryan was not content with anyone holding him but Rhonda. After finishing the full adoption process and jumping through all the legal hoops and check lists, Baby Boy Turnbull was legally adopted and given his name of Ryan Evert Terry. His wife still remembers reading his adoption papers for the first time and getting chills at the very last sentence when is says his name is hereby changed from Baby Boy Turnbull to Ryan Evert Terry.

Ryan grew up in Manhattan Kansas. His parents adopted a baby girl a few years later. Then to their surprise ended up getting pregnant and having two more biological children. It was never a secret that he or his sister were adopted, it was something that he always new. He always felt like he was a part of his family and he loved and was loved by all his family members, immediate and extended. Around 5th grade her remembers when the teacher asked if anyone in the class was adopted. He raised his hand and then remembers being a little shocked to see that he was the only one. He didn’t realize it was something different about him from most other people.

Throughout his life people would ask him about being adopted. It just was what it was for him and he didn’t give it to much thought. As he got older people began asking him if he ever wondered about his birth mom. His inward thoughts varied from slight curiosity to a tinge of bitterness in not being wanted to gratitude for his family and the life he had and was grateful for. His out loud answer was usually along the lines of, “Mmmm not really.” At large family reunions he would occasionally notice and think that while he knew these people were his family, he wondered what it would be like to look like someone, and have a biological connection to someone.

He lived in Manhattan Kansas and made life long friend ships and memories there until he left for college in the Fall of 1997. His family, himself, and most of his extended family were all faithful devoted members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. About a year after bringing Ryan home he was sealed to his parents for time and all eternity in the temple on May 30, 1980 in the Idaho Falls, Idaho Temple. He was an active, happy boy. He loved to play with friends and ride bikes and explore the neighborhood. His dad was active in Boy Scouts and helped Ryan and his brother, Ross, get their Eagle Scout Award. As he got older he played basketball, baseball, and football. He also learned to play and was pretty decent at the trumpet for several years. He was a good student and decided he wanted to go to college to become an engineer.

Ryan was blessed to know his mind and self pretty early. His parents taught him right from wrong and he developed his own testimony of The Gospel and Heavenly Father and his Savior. He has a very logical mind and has always been a confident decision maker. After attending Ricks College for a year in Idaho, he went on a mission for his church to Bolivia in South America for two years. When he finished his mission, he went back to Ricks College in the Fall of 2000 to finish another year before transferring to Utah State to complete his engineering degree.

Ryan and Janae met in August 2000 and started dating in October of 2000. After several months of dating and getting to know each other they were spending another evening talking about anything and everything they could think of. At one point Janae asked Ryan to tell her something about him that she didn’t already know. He told her that he was adopted. She asked him the typical follow up questions people tend to ask when they find out someone is adopted. How old were you when you were adopted? (at birth) When did you find out? (I’ve known as long as I can remember) Have you ever wanted to find your birth mom? (Not really) After a few minutes we moved on to another topic.

Ryan did go to Utah State for a year (2001-2002) but when he and Janae got married in May 2002 they moved back to Kansas to finish both of their schooling.

Over the years after they were married, occasionally the topic came up between them, or with his parents, or by other people that new or found out and wanted to ask questions. Other than his mom telling the story of his adoption the questions were usually the same as the ones Janae asked when they talked about it the first time while they were dating. With the progression of his life from child to adult to husband, to father, some of his thoughts about his own birth started evolving in his mind too. He found himself thinking and occasionally voicing different thoughts about his adoption like;

“Sometimes I’m curious but I don’t want to look.”

“I wonder if I have siblings, or half siblings.”

“My kids are the only DNA relatives I know.”

“I’m curious about my health history.”

“I’ve started to wonder about her sometimes. I’m grateful for my life and glad I have it. She could have made a different choice then adoption.”

When COVID started in 2020 Ryan worked from home but it was a little slow. Everything was slow. Like most people all the projects that had been put off forever were finally done and then they had to start getting creative with things to keep them busy. Ryan new very little about his biological mom other then where he was born and the last name Turnbull. Which is a Scottish name. One of the shows that was binged watched during this time had a lot of Scottish ancestry in it and it kind of piqued their curiosity about Ryan’s ancestry. One afternoon the topic of looking into his health history came up. There was a flurry of investigating to figure out what is would take to look into finding out who his birth parents were. Janae even printed off a request for sealed documents for Ryan to fill out and send in to the State of Missouri if he wanted. Work began picking up again and it was left on his dresser in a pile of papers that got deeper and deeper.

Over Christmas that same year, Kenny and Sherri came to visit. It wasn’t the first time Kenny had asked Ryan about his adoption but the topic came up again. Kenny loves solving a good mystery and considers himself a good internet sleuth. When Ryan mentioned he was more and more curious about his healthy history Kenny was all over him to send in a DNA test. This particular conversation, Ryan’s curiosity got the best of him and he decided to do it. Kenny also told Ryan when he was ready to let him know and he bet him he could find his birth mom within 30 minutes. Ryan decided instead of hovering around the door and wondering he would finally open it and see where it lead him. He ordered the kit from 23 and Me. It arrived a few days later. He filled it out and submitted his sample.

About 42 years earlier…When Baby Boy Turnbull’s mom was about 6 months pregnant, she went and stayed with a foster family for the last few months of her pregnancy. She was only with them for three months but developed a strong friendship with the wife of that family and kept in contact with her for years afterwards. Eventually their contact lessened and then stopped. Around Christmas in 2020 after years of not speaking with each other, the foster mom called Baby Boy Turnbull’s mom and said she had been on her mind and she wanted to see how she was doing and they reconnected.

December Get Away

Last December when we went on a cruise with the kids for Christmas, Ryan booked a cruise for just the two of us for this December. When COVID hit in March we were not even concerned about it affecting our cruise. When school started we thought surely we would still be going on our cruise in December. The beginning of November we were told the cruise had been canceled. We rescheduled it for April 2021 and are hoping that will happen.

Even though our cruise was canceled, Ryan decided he still wanted to go on a trip for a few days with just the two of us. Ryan is awesome to vacation with. He takes care of everything. I really just have to show up. He arranges the travel, hotels, car if we need it and does the research to see what to do and where to eat. I love it. The best part of vacation for me is just being able to show up and not have to plan anything.

He came up with a train ride to St Louis. We were thinking of a few other locations but a lot of places are still pretty shut down with COVID so we went with St Louis. We have wanted to try a train ride and see if it is something the kids would enjoy. So Thursday morning we drove downtown to Union Station and got on our train. About six hours later we arrived in the St Louis Union Station. It was nice to be able to talk and walk around and not have to be driving ourselves. It is a lot like a plane but more space and less restrictive on moving around. We stayed at the Hilton Union Station Hotel. It was a pretty awesome giant old stone building. Lots of cool architecture. They had it decorated gorgeous for Christmas and in the evenings they had laser light shows about every 30 minutes to watch. We met some long time friends for dinner one night, otherwise we just hung our around the hotel area. There were lots of restaurants, and a Ferris Wheel. We went through the aquarium and went to a movie. The Aquarium was small but nice. They had several petting/feeding areas that were not crowded at all so we got to take our time. The picture with our hand in the water is some kind of fish that eat all the dead skin off your hand when you put it in the water. It felt very creepy and weird but I made myself do it. There was one other person in the movie theater with us. I haven’t gone to a movie since January. I miss going to the theater. There wasn’t a lot of people around but there was still small crowds. Lots of little kids running around in their PJ’s on their way to see Santa.

It was a great long weekend. We had no schedule. It was very relaxing. We rode the train back Saturday afternoon. The kids spent one night at the Terry Grandparents, and one at their cousins. They were waiting for us when we got home that night.

Question.

How many Terry’s does it take to hang a TV on the wall?

Answer. Five. Two workers, one supervisor/vacuumer, and two wives with uncanny eye leveling skills.

Matthew vs Dad Race-Age 14

On his actual birthday this year Matthew was to cool to race his dad. He was sulking a little bit about not having grown as much as he wanted to for the past year. A week or two later he changed his mind and challenged his dad to their annual race. They actually did three races this year. Matthew won the last one by a smidge but we told him the only one that counts is the first race, and he lost. Dad gets to keep the bragging rights for another year at least.

Just in case the video leaves any doubt, here is the photo finish.

Who Ate Pretzels In My Car?!

My sweet husband is pretty patient and tolerant person. If you listed our family in order of who has the most pet peeves or gets irritated about stupid things he would be towards the bottom for sure. There are a few things he has a hard time ignoring though. One is glasses full of liquid left on the island in the kitchen that are inconveniently the height of his elbow so he constantly knocks them over. The one that tops all other misdeeds in his eyes is anything to do with his car. The number one pet peeve is now no longer an issue. It was getting in his car and banging his knees because I am shorter than him and had the seat up. His Tesla has a fancy function that will move the seat back when ever I get out so he doesn’t hit his knees anymore. However, his second pet peeve of his car appearing like it has been sat in, touched, or used in anyway is not so easily fixed. EVERYONE knows you can’t eat, drink (not even water) or even bring food into dads car. You can’t cross your legs and rest your foot on the dash or console. You can’t touch or breath on the windows. You can’t leave anything in the car that came in with you. As you can imagine, his car is pretty immaculate and frequently cleaned and checked to make sure it is up to snuff. These rules apply to dad’s car whether he is in it or not. Ironically I have tried to enforce these same rules in my own car with ZERO success.

At some point last week I took his car to take someone somewhere and may or may not have been finishing a handful of peanut butter pretzels when I got in the car. When I got home I forgot (admittedly AGAIN) that I was supposed to plug the car in to charge and went into the house and continued on with my day.

The next morning Ryan left early to travel somewhere for work. I was still in bed and heard my text message ding. I looked and it is a picture of his car not plugged in. I curse myself for forgetting and debate on just apologizing or being snarky and tell him it was probably him that forgot.😁 But as I was debating I got a second picture from him.

Caught by a stupid pretzel!🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Firebird Baseball Club Fall 2020

Matthew started his new baseball team for Fall. I mentioned it a little before but Ryan and Jimmy joined with another coach named Robby and they combined part of three teams into two teams. For Fall they will be mixing and matching the boys up different for each tournament and then settle into more permanent teams in the Spring. It is still new but we have played several times and are getting to know each other and learning to play with each other. Matthew caught a ball with his cheek bone the other day and has a nice black eye to show for it. They have finished in the top three for several of tournaments we played which is fun and encouraging.

Spring Baseball 2020

Spring baseball for Matthew didn’t end up starting until June, so it was more like REALLY HOT SUMMER BASEBALL but Matthew and the rest of the boys didn’t care. They just want to play and have fun. We did lots of tournaments and played League games so we were able to get plenty of games in. The girls have a good group of friends that they run around with during the games (other players younger siblings) so they love it just as much.

Matthew likes to wear silly socks to games and practices. These are the best ones.

We had a fun tournament scheduled in Branson Missouri in June. We decided to post phone until July to have more/better competition. Then to make a long story short a few lame parents were able to manipulate the head coach into canceling it all together. Instead of Branson Missouri we went to Liberty Missouri which is not the same, but we tried to make the best of it and planned some team activities to get the boys together on the days we were supposed to be in Branson. They had a sleep over with the whole team and basically stayed up all night. We went to a baseball museum and lunch at Chicken-n-Pickle were they could play pickle ball for an hour or so. We also scheduled a parent vs player whiffle ball game but that hasn’t happened yet because of weather.

One of the highlights of this season for Matthew was his double that ended the game with a walk off. I made a little ‘news shot’ from the Game Changer recap of the game. I was the one keeping score and I know the score would actually be 4-3 since it was a walk off hit, but since he hit a double the App recorded both runners that came in. Anyway, it was an awesome hit and the boys were pretty excited to win.

Matthew just his a double and they won with a walk off.

The parent that takes all the awesome pictures for us is moving so this is probably the last season she will take picture for us. After this the quality of pictures will change drastically because I am the one taking them. I am trying to improve my photography skills though.

Another big change for baseball is that Ryan and Coach Jimmy Adams didn’t like the way the 14 year old program is run so they have decided to leave NBA (the academy Matthew has played for the past three years) and do their own team for at least the next year. They are combining teams with another coach and are planning on having two teams that will practice together and mix and match through the Fall then be divided into more permanent teams in the Spring. Matthew will now be on a team called FBC (Fire Birds Baseball Club). We played a tournament with some of the boys on his new team this past weekend. There were a few bloopers because they had never played together but they ended up winning the tournament. Matthew is pretty excited, they will be a pretty competitive higher end AAA team. Ryan likes to say, “They will be a really salty team.” Once they practice with each other and get to know each other. I think it will be good for Matthew because instead of being closer to the top of the team talent, he is more mid range so he will have to challenge himself more to get better and have more kids to learn from.

This is a tournament that his new team FBC played and won together.

Emilee and Allison have a group of friends they hang out with during the game. The younger siblings of players group. They all have a good time together. At one of the last games, the boys dugout had some weird holes in it, probably for drainage, but the girls decided to make good use of them.

The last two league games for NBA were back to back. The first game was a blow out. The final score was 18 to 3 or something like that. One of their players ended up getting hurt and they didn’t have enough so we lent them one of our just so we could keep playing. The coaches let the boys try spots they usually don’t play, one player even tried batting left handed and got a double. Matthew got a chance at pitching, which he has been begging for all season. While he was warming up the score was 17-0 us, the catcher and him were joking around that hopefully their lead was big enough Matthew didn’t blow the game. He only gave up 3 runs though.

The last event of our season and time with the NBA-Adams team was a parent vs player wiffle ball game. It was a lot of fun. A lot of cheating from the parents, but a lot of fun. For example, after each hit I relocated second base to give us the advantage of them not knowing were the base was to get them out.

Dad’s Birthday

Dad turned 41 this year! We went out to one of his favorite restaurants, Sake Lounge, and had a lot of yummy sushi. In the past he has requested his mom’s chocolate cake but this year he changed it up and asked for a lemon cake. I only have one cake recipe that has lemon in it so I made that. I nailed it. It was delicious. Not what he wanted, but still delicious. The cake I made had a glaze instead of a frosting and he said he had envisioned frosting. It was still delicious though.

We were a little short on gift ideas so he got some new pajama pants and some snazzy socks. I remembered him mentioning that he wanted a good chopping knife, ours are getting pretty dull. I found him one, and it is definitely sharp. It has cut all of us that have used it. Apparently we need to work on our knife safety skills. Allison decided it needed to be named so we now refer to it as Kevin.