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The Fortuitous Finding of Wheel of Fortune

Written on November 26, 2012 by Jennifer in Extended Fam, Hallmark, Pictures

It all started with my kids first ever episode of Wheel of Fortune. Wheel! of! Fortune!

It’s our family’s tradition. Every year I search the TV listings to find all of our favorite holiday shows. Frosty the Snowman kicked off this season and while we were waiting in front of the fire, with hot chocolate in hand for it to start (another part of our yearly tradition), we watched Wheel of Fortune.

Carson and Ella were enthralled!

“You mean, there’s a game on TV where you guess letters and WIN REAL MONEY?!?”

In between wowing them with my unbelievable puzzle solving skills (“How did you KNOW that, Mom!!!”), I told them about my summers as a kid where I’d go spend at week at my aunt and uncle’s house in Oklahoma City. Part of the tradition of my visits was to watch Wheel of Fortune every night after dinner and then take their dog, Vanna (yes, really), for a walk up the street to get frozen yogurt.

Carson has mentioned before that he thinks it would be awesome if we lived closer to family. Both kids would love to be able to spend a week during the summer at Uncle James and Aunt Melissa’s house, watching Wheel of Fortune and eating frozen yogurt. We’d love if someday their cousin, Riley, could come visit us for a week in the summer. For now, though, we live too far away and they’re still a bit too young for that to happen.

I worry a lot about my kids feeling like our extended family members are strangers and vice versa. It takes a lot of effort, but as often as we can, we drive the 500 miles to visit. We try to FaceTime every weekend. On holidays even when we can’t be there, we talk about Aunt Kate and Nanny and Papa and Nana and Paw Paw and James, Melissa, and Riley.

But it’s not the same as living close by.

I went up to the attic to search for my old Wheel of Fortune board game. I could picture it stowed away in one of many plastic totes, saved from elementary school days and later used during speech and language therapy sessions with my students. After searching a few totes, I finally found it, but underneath it, I found a true treasure.

I found this:

It’s a birthday card from my Papa, sent to me sometime around 1991 I’m guessing since the stamps were 29 cents. It’s a first generation (probably?) recordable Hallmark card. The battery is dead, but I remember that the message said something like, “Happy birthday Jenny! Sorry we won’t be there, but we’ll see you Easter.”

He passed away several years ago, so I haven’t heard his voice in years. Even though the card isn’t actually working, the memory of his voice came back to me. I can remember exactly the way his voice hesitated during the message and how as soon as I heard it, I knew it was something I’d save forever.

Now I just need to find a battery….

A few weeks ago, Hallmark sent me an “Until We Hug Again” recordable bunny. It’s been sitting on a shelf for the past few weeks while I tried to figure out exactly what I would do with it and who would be the lucky recipient, but after finding Papa’s card, I know exactly who’s getting her.

I’m going to have Ella and Carson record a message for their cousin, Riley. We’re going to tell her how much we love her and wish that we could see her everyday.

We want her to know us, even if we’re 500 miles away.

I’m really glad we stumbled upon Wheel of Fortune the other night.

A HUGE thank you to Hallmark for inviting me to be a part of their Life is a Special Occasion campaign this year. While I am compensated for my work, all stories are original and true.

Sign up here for Hallmark’s e-newsletter to get special offers and discounts!

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You might be able to get this express shipped, but only if you’re really, really lucky

Written on December 22, 2009 by Jennifer in Extended Fam, Huh?, Men?, Pictures

I suppose only hunters and spouses of hunters can truly appreciate giving a loved one fox urine for Christmas.

This gift made Tate disturbingly excited. Apparently it’s very difficult to find and “thanks” to his mom and dad’s Christmas shopping diligence, he now is the proud owner of fox urine.

So I guess in this case it’s appropriate to say, “Merry Pissmas?”

If you’re getting desperate and need to buy some super fab gifts for the hunter in your life (and they’re already lucky enough to own their own bottled fox pee), do I have some ideas for you!

Hoo-ahhs and Monkey Butt Powder, or The Butt-Out Tool.

(You can thank me later. *wink*)

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Shop now!

Get yer fox urine right here! (Not SO hard to find…)

Nothing says I love you like a good wipe. Buy them Hoo-Ahhs!

Anti Monkey Butt Powder, for those loved ones with itchy, monkey-like asses!

Buy the much coveted Butt-Out tool here!

Full disclosure…these wonderful products are linked via my Amazon affiliate account. If I sell enough of these fabulous treasures, I’ll have enough money in six or seven years to buy a can of pinto beans. Thank you!

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Fake robot hamsters

Written on December 3, 2009 by Jennifer in Extended Fam, Huh?, Little Monkeys, Pictures

My children each received these Zhu Zhu pets as an early Christmas present from their great aunt and uncle.

Surely I’m missing something here? The most coveted toy of the Christmas season is a fake robot hamster that moos like a cow and can sound like a car horn, amongst many other non-hamster-like sounds…um, why?

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Out of the goodness of my heart

Written on December 1, 2009 by Jennifer in Extended Fam, Need to Know, Pictures

My parents are THE HARDEST PEOPLE to buy gifts for. Hands down. If there was an award for “Couple who is most difficult to buy gifts for,” my parents would win, blowing their competition out of the water. If they were to win such an award, the people giving the award wouldn’t even know what to give them.

So, I felt a little bit like a gift-giving genius when I found this personalized sign on Etsy, for their 40th anniversary. Isn’t it cute? I think my parents even liked it. And it wasn’t yet another gift card to a restaurant or framed picture of my kids! (Sorry I had to pixelate their last name! The sign looks REALLY great without the pixelation!)

I found this sign at Define Your Space. I was able to get the sign personalized and I was able to choose the font and colors. It’s super heavy duty and I love that it’s 100% unique. Don’t tell my parents (HI MOM!), but it was NOT at all expensive, yet it doesn’t look cheap. She has all kinds of different styles of signs (not just anniversary gifts!) and vinyl wall decals. Possible Christmas gift? Hmm? Just so you know, if you were thinking about ordering something as a Christmas gift, you have to place your order by December 6!

Hey FTC, I’m not being paid and I wasn’t even asked to post about this! All I received for this post was the satisfaction of being a pretty awesome gift-giver. I’m just telling you all about this because I thought you might like it, too.

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I am an adolescent

Written on November 29, 2009 by Jennifer in Extended Fam, NaBloPoMo, Pictures, Randomness

{snicker} Kum & Go. Seriously. Could there be a more ridiculous name for a gas station? The answer to that question is, “I think not.”

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We were watching an episode of the Duggar’s show, 17 or 18 Kids and Counting on TLC. (I really love this show, but I forget how many they have, can you blame me?!)

During commercial break, the first ad was for the Nuva Ring.

{hee, hee!}

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While visiting my family this weekend, my brother and his wife stayed at a hotel. Snickering, my brother told me that there was a sign where you put your key card in that said, “Pull out slowly.”

{HA!}

He’s obviously not a blogger or he’d have taken a picture. I blame him for ruining this blog post.

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Ruby

Written on November 28, 2009 by Jennifer in Extended Fam, NaBloPoMo

My dad, home from Vietnam for one day, met my mother in a bar.

“He was wearing a suit, that’s what I first noticed,” she explained as I asked question after question about their courtship.

“You fell hard and fast, huh Mom?” my brother asked as my Mom smiled and nodded her head in agreement.

“This was even before I bought the Corvette,” my dad adds.

Shocked, I asked, “Even before you bought her a ring!?”

My Mom and Dad met in April and married seven months later on November 28, 1969. As my brother and I quiz them, wanting to know every detail of how their love came to be, I notice that they look at each other when answering the questions and finish each other’s sentences.

My parents recalled their first date, forgetting most of the details except that at some point they went to Dairy Queen. Most of the questions we ask, their answers are fuzzy. They do remember that there wasn’t an official get-down-on-your-knee proposal.

My mom did recall one funny detail, “Your Aunt Jeanie heard that we were going to go pick out a ring and showed up at my parent’s house wanting to see the ring.” The whole idea of marriage apparently was a surprise to my grandmother.

“When I got home Mother said, ‘well, show me the ring.’ My dad was on a business trip, I think. He called and Mother handed me the phone and said, ‘here, you tell him.”

“Well, what did your parents think, Dad?” my brother and I pressed for the details.

“I don’t think they’d met her yet,” my dad explained.

“You know, don’t you,” I asserted, “that this was completely crazy, right?”

And it was crazy. Meeting in April, marrying just a few months later, both of them so young, not even really knowing one another’s families. But crazy became 40 years, 2 children, and a mostly great life together.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. Here’s to 40 years, and to many, many more.

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So far away from me

Written on November 12, 2009 by Jennifer in Extended Fam, NaBloPoMo

I recently had a conversation with a friend who complained about having family so close-by.

“They just show up! Unannounced! They overstep their boundaries and discipline my kids, they never even give me a chance to correct them,” she lamented. Her list of grievances also included being dragged into family drama, feeling obligated to always participate in family functions, and never having weekends to themselves.

I smiled and nodded sympathetically in all the right places as I listened to her story. Probably, if we lived close to family, I might even feel the same way. I’d likely even need an anonymous blog to complain about those kooky people with whom Tate and I share history and DNA. Yet it’s hard to relate to these family “horror” stories since I don’t have family that is closer than an eight hour drive away.

I do not want to play the “who has it worse” game, because that’s unfair. Family that’s too close and family that’s too far away each have their fair share of pitfalls and annoyances. But last Friday night, my dad had a heart attack and I was 650 miles away. My mom waited in the hospital completely alone and I couldn’t be there to hold her hand and tell her that her husband of almost 40 years was going to be fine. I couldn’t just be there.

On Saturday morning, my mom called and told me the news about my dad. She assured me that he was fine, that he’d even driven himself to the emergency room. Early Saturday morning he received a stent in his heart and was recovering in ICU.

“You don’t need to come,” she assured me, “he’s really fine. He’ll be going home within a day or two.”

At 5:00 Sunday morning, Tate, the kids, and I set out for my hometown. Simply hearing, “he’s really fine,” was not enough. It’s not that I didn’t believe my mom, but I needed to see my dad and KNOW that he really was okay. I also knew that I needed to be there for my mom.

Maybe the fact that we live so far from our extended family makes me appreciate the time we do spend together all the more. But I’d give just about anything to be that person who could complain about having family too close. In these times of family crisis, too close would be a blessing.

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