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.
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 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.
If they aren’t playing they are watching.
Lots of practice in the garage.
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.
Negro Baseball Hall of Fame Museum
The boys were playing hide n seek in the hotel and we found them and told them to go to bed at 11pm.
Recovering from the all night sleep over.
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.
Team running out to celebrate.
Yay! Matthew!
Walking off the field.
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.
Matthew takes the mound
So excited he gets to pitch.
He did a pretty good job.
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 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.
Ever since I did the questionnaire with the kids answers the other day they have been asking to do it again. They loved it. So I am working on finding another one for them to do. In the mean time Lauren posted one for spouses today on Facebook that was fun to read so I am copying it for Ryan and I to do. You have to write EXACTLY what your spouse says for their answer.
Ryan’s answers for me:
How tall am I? 5’6″ (nope 5’5″)
What is my favorite thing to eat? chocolate lava cake
What do I do when I’m not with you? read a book, take naps (read yes, I rarely nap unless it is Sunday)
What is my favorite movie? The Notebook
If I could go anywhere, where would I go? Anywhere with my sisters
How do I annoy you? You don’t…Make me take these dumb quizzes.
What is my favorite show? Seal Team (Yep!)
Who is my celebrity crush? Chris Hemsworth (Very good guess , but it is Ryan Gosling)
You get a phone call that I am in trouble, who am I with? DeAnna
What do I hate? Being cold (very true)
What is my favorite drink? I don’t know, milk? (Vanilla Italian Soda)
What gets my temper going the most? Something with the kids, them not listening.
What is my shoe size? I don’t know, 7? (7-7.5 depends)
Describe me in three words. Loving, good mom
If I became famous, what would it be for? Your organizational skillzzz.
What makes you proud of me? When I see your influence on our kids. (Awe)
Where can I most likely be found? In our house.
What is my favorite restaurant? Bonefish Grill (Yes!)
Who is my favorite person? me
Where would I go for a long weekend alone? In our room on our couch with a book.
My answers for Ryan:
How tall am I? 5’11” but you will say 6″
What is my favorite thing to eat? You are a foody, anything yummy, but you love burned popcorn (kind of the opposite what a foody would eat) and Extreme Moose Tracks Ice Cream (Ok, I like Sushi)
What do I do when I’m not with you? Hang out with friends, play board games (Probably golfing)
What is my favorite movie? I don’t know, you like the new Star Trek movies and Avenger movies a lot though. (Probably one of the Star Trek movies)
If I could go anywhere, where would I go? A cruise
How do I annoy you? making ‘noise’ when you are sleeping
What is my favorite show? Seinfeld
Who is my celebrity crush? Scarlett Johansson
You get a phone call that I am in trouble, who am I with? Michael Aaron Johnson
What do I hate? Pickles
What is my favorite drink? Lime or vanilla coke, smoothies
What gets my temper going the most? being woke up from a nap
What is my shoe size? 10.5 (11, my feet are growing)
Describe me in three words. Driven, intelligent, dramatic-I mean passionate.
If I became famous, what would it be for? Some business idea
What makes you proud of me? You are a very good dad
Where can I most likely be found? Watching or playing sports-specifically baseball
What is my favorite restaurant? K-Machos, Sake, or The Thai Place
Who is my favorite person? Me
Where would I go for a long weekend alone? Las Vegas and you would meet Michael Aaron Johnson there.
The range of flexibility in our family goes from Allison doing full splits and bending over backwards to Ryan and Matthew who can barely bend forward let alone touch their toes.
The past year Matthew has started having issues because he works out so much and then doesn’t stretch enough. On top of his lack of flexibility his muscles tighten up from working out and make him even less flexible and more tight. He has had to do several rounds of physical therapy. Of course Ryan and I have been nagging, harping, reminding, lecturing, begging, threatening, and anything else we can think of to get him to stretch 1-2 times a day. I’ve made him do Yoga with me. He is pretty ornery about it ,mainly because it hurts, he doesn’t like it, doesn’t get the importance of it, he is not good at it, and he is a belligerent teenager.
Our chiropractor gave us a video to use with some basic stretching. Ryan realized he needs to do it just as much as Matthew so the two of them have been doing it together at night. It is so ridiculous watching them. I switch between laughing so hard my eyes water to rolling my eyes as they moan and complain and roll around on the floor supposedly stretching but looking more like they are having a seizure or full body muscle spasm.
Kudos to them for trying though. They get an ‘A’ for effort. Well Ryan gets a ‘B’ and Matthew gets ‘C-‘
Last year four families from our baseball family got together for a Friendsgiving. We did it again this year. It is a fun time. The kids like it because there is a group of them to play and all of them have at least one buddy. We are all very different families but we get along really well and enjoy each others company. Everyone brings a few appetizers and we visit and hang out for a few hours then eat a dinner together. Then play games and visit some more.
This year there was minute to win it games that we all did. We divided into five teams and each team rotated between five games. There was potato rolling, apple stacking noodle fishing, cotton ball flipping and cookie eating contests. The winner of each team wrote their name down on a paper. After all the teams finished we went to each game and the five winners from each team played the game. Those people earned a laminated turkey medal. Then the winner of each of those games played against each other in a final championship game. The final championship game ended up being Cam, Matthew, Jake, Allison, and Frank (his mom actually one but requested a proxy for the championship game). They each had a paper plate with 10 candy corns on it that were covered in whip cream so you couldn’t see them. Whoever found all ten and put them on a napkin next to their plate-without using your hands of course- was the winner. The kids loved it. Jake was the winner and he got another laminated turkey medal for his efforts.
It was a nice relaxing enjoyable evening. The friends that have done it every year are moving to Poland this summer for a couple years. One of the rest of us will have to try and live up to the Friendsgiving tradition while they are gone.
I have been waiting to post this post to add some fun pictures to it…long story short-they aren’t coming. So take my word for it, we had a fun time and looked ridiculous doing it.
To explain this title. I will need to back up a little bit and go back about a three weeks ago. I wanted to give the outgoing Primary Presidency and small gift as a thank you for their service so I went online and found a website call Zazzle and ordered my gift from them. They do personalized gifts, so you design it and then they put it on a picture or shirt or whatever you want. So I ordered something it came and I delivered it and was done with Zazzle.
Fast forward a few weeks an I find a box in my mailbox from Zazzle. I was immediately confused because I had already received the order I placed and hadn’t ordered anything else. I open the box to find this little item featured below. This leaves me more confused. Then I think, maybe it is a promotional item (a very tacky bad one but still) and they just sent them out to a bunch of people. I then find the receipt in the box with the hat that says I designed and paid for this tacky thing.
I go to the website and login and look at my orders…nothing. So I somehow designed this ugly hat, ordered it, paid for it, and had it shipped to my house and there was no record of it on my account. I thought maybe it was another persons order that had been delivered to me but it had my name and address on it too. Slightly annoyed now thinking about how long I am going to have to spend on the phone to get this figured out, I start looking for a customer service contact number.
At the same time I was texting with Ross, Lauren, and Ryan on a group text about some random stuff. I sent them a picture of my perplexing hat. After I send the picture Ryan texts back, “Hey that is mine!” I thought he was messing with me. After some very confusing but now hilarious texts I found out that he had decided to order a hat from a movie for a friend for Christmas. Coincidentally he came across the same Zazzle website I had used a few weeks previously, made his own account and ordered it.
So we actually did pay for an ugly hat! Luckily it has a purpose though. Also, luckily he let me know it was his before I got ahold of Zazzle customer service and got irritated with them. It was pretty funny.
Matthew and Ryan race every year around his birthday to see if it is the year that Matthew can beat his dad yet. He is getting closer, we had to do a photo finish this year.
Last week was a pretty normal week. For the upcoming Labor Day weekend Ryan and I were planning on going to Lincoln for a few days. I had to work on Thursday and Matthew had baseball practice Friday so we were planning on leaving early Saturday.
I was trying to figure out what to do with Peanut while we were gone. Ryan pulled me aside and said that our plans weren’t exactly what I was expecting so I didn’t need to worry about Peanut. Then I found out that he called the office that I was working at on Thursday and told them that he had planned a surprise trip for me and asked them to find someone to work for me. Then on Thursday he told me to pack my bag for warm weather and include a swimsuit. He came home early Thursday afternoon and I found out we were going to start our trip to Gulf Shores!
He had made arrangements and worked out all the rides for the kids activities while we were gone. Ross and Lauren helped out a ton with getting them to school Friday and watching them the rest of the weekend. I have heard great things about Gulf Shores and mentioned that I want to go there sometime so Ryan rented us a fun little condo right by the beach. We packed up and headed for Alabama.
Thursday we drove a few hours and actually had dinner with a work client of Ryan’s that he has become friends with. After a nice dinner and visiting for a while we stayed the night in West Plains Missouri. Ryan woke up early the next morning and packed the car back up and we continued on our way. We drove his Tesla, so when we stopped to charge we went on a walk or shopped a little or grabbed something to eat. It takes about 15 hours of driving to get there plus charging time. I enjoy a road trip so I am glad he decided to drive instead of fly. I was able to see two states that I had never been in before as we drove through them-Mississippi and Alabama. Ryan said he was excited to get there and get checked in so he wanted to get to a fun recommended local restaurant by six Friday night.
We talked and listened to music, napped, and enjoyed the scenery while we drove. Sometimes when we go traveling I like to send pictures to family or friends and have them guess where I’m at. I asked Ryan if he had told any of my family and he said no, so I started sending them ‘picture clues’ of where we were going. They had some good guesses but no one got the exact spot. Once they had figured out it was on the coast in Alabama we were just pulling up to the restaurant where we were going to eat so I sent them a picture of the sign, ‘Lulu’s’. After they sat us at our table Ryan went to the restroom, I was looking at the menu and I got a text on the family thread I had been on. I looked to see and it was a picture of me sitting in the restaurant. I thought Ryan had sent the picture for some reason but then I realized the sender was my sister Sherri. I looked around and sure enough her and Kenny were sitting at a table across the room. I was pretty surprised! I usually figure out surprises before they happen so it was fun to have no idea where I was going on my trip until we left and then have one of my sisters there as another surprise. We joined them at their table and I was happy to find out that they were there for the weekend too and were going to stay in the same condo. We talked and enjoyed the rest of our dinner then went to check into our place.
These are some of the pictures I sent my family so they could guess where I was.
This is the picture Sherri sent me of myself to surprise me.
The town motto at Gulf Shores is, “small town, big beach”. It fit perfectly. They have done a great job at keeping it a smaller, family friendly, laid back little beach town. The houses were bright pastel painted colors like a lot of beach towns. They were also up on stilts. Kind of different but the ground floor on all the houses was just support beams and the house was up in the air. The underneath area was used as a garage. Our condo was down the main street kind of separate from the main tourist area, surrounded by houses. It was on the far side of the road from the beach so we literally had to walk across the road and we were at the beach. We were up on the 17th floor and had a gorgeous view of the beach and town.
The view from the balcony.
This is what I saw when I walked out of my room in the morning. So pretty!
I had never been to a beach at night so I wanted to check it out. It was so dark we could see the Milky Way Galaxy and a ton more stars than usual. We had a hard time finding the stars and constellations we usually could because there were so many more.
Night walk on the beach
We had a very relaxing nice weekend. We tried out some local restaurants, slept in, napped, read a book on the patio, walked on the beach. We tried an Escape Room. We technically didn’t pass it due to a glitch in a door. That was not our fault and we would have finished in plenty of time if it had worked so we counted it as a win. I finally talked Ryan into trying a pedicure, all four of us got one together. Ryan was not a fan, Kenny loved it. One of the nights we ordered a pizza from a local place and watched a bunch of Friends reruns. The beach had a flag up for moderate waves, and jelly fish. There was a hurricane on its way in from the Bahamas so the usually calm gulf waters were not so calm. By moderate they meant 8-10 foot waves. Ryan and Sherri did some body surfing. We were all amazed at how fast it wore you out just to stand in the water. Ryan and Sherri were stung by jelly fish, they were just little ones that felt like a little sting or shock. They left a red mark but it wasn’t to bad. Sherri and I saw a few of them along the beach, they were only 1-2 inches wide. We also saw a sea turtles nest and lots of crabs. I collected a few shells to add to my collection. I now have a little jar with shells from Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Gulf Shores.
Jelly Fish Sting
There was a strong rip tide that also exhausted you quickly.
body surfing
huge waves
Getting ready for his first ever pedicure
Found a “poop” donut for Allison. He didn’t taste very good though.
Kenny told us if we saw a Bucee’s we had to stop. It is the biggest gas station ever basically. There are over 100 pumps for gas too.
Ryan had gotten an air mattress that fit in the back of his car. We decided to start heading home late Sunday when Sherri and Kenny went to bed then just stop and sleep in the car while it charged when we got tired. We also wanted to stop at a place called Mammoth Springs, and not get home to late so we could see the kids.
Ryan sleeping on the air mattress in his car.
Mammoth Springs is a huge natural spring-almost 10 million gallons of water per hour come out of it. The water is a really pretty blue, and the whole area is pretty. It is speculated by some that this area is the place that Alma baptized and hid with people from King Noah in the Book of Mormon. It seemed like a plausible theory to me.
This is where the water is coming from, it is so deep that you can’t tell though.
They built a damn and had an electric generator working for many years.
I thought the mattress in the car wouldn’t be that comfortable but it actually was. We took turns sleeping for a bit then we both slept for a few hours. It was pretty handy. The Telsa keeps the A/C going too so your comfortable temperature wise too. Ryan was pretty happy with it. In fact, there is a camp out with Matthew this weekend and the two of them decided to sleep on the mattress in the A/C cooled car instead of taking a tent.
It was a very nice weekend. It was good to see the kids when we got home. I started planning out a family trip to go back there this summer with the kids. I think we will stay in the same place and have lots of beach time. There were a lot of things we didn’t get to that the kids would enjoy too. There is a battle ship and Ferry crossing and some other fun stuff. There are lots of different ice cream shops we need to sample still too. Ryan did a good job surprising me for my birthday.
