Category: family

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cross country bindings

since pam and i were doing the whole advent conspiracy thing it was my goal to doing something relational, sustainable, and cheap for pam’s CHRISTmas gift. therefore, i decided to refurbish a couple of old, trashed cross country skis because pam is pretty pumped about the thought of being able to cross country ski through the 20 or so acres of woods in our backyard. so i took the skis to our local place, the hostel shoppe, and had them put new bindings on the skis and wax them down so that they would be ready for us to put them into action. of course, pam and i would need cross country ski boots but i figure we could use a little of money we would invariably get for CHRISTmas to purchase a pair of boots each (thanks mom and dad). i also figured we would probably buy these somewhere other than the hostel shoppe because their cheapest pair was $109 each, when i had seen other pairs on the internet for $39 to $59.

the problem with my plan is that the hostel shoppe is the only place in teh nation that continues to use the sns style of cross country bindings. every other place uses nnn style bindings. this means that almost all of pam and my efforts to buy cheaper boots have been thwarted because they have the wrong bindings attachment. we have one more place looking for $49 boots and if they don’t work we’ll be going back to the hostel shoppe. darn them and their binding monopoly.

SIDE NOTE – the hostel shoppe was very good and helpful. they just messed up my plan for cheaper shoes.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – tonight i sent out a email reminder to people that we would have tapestry tomorrow. i made in a joke in the email that since we were having tapestry the weather would be “fowl.” so apparently there are a lot of birds involved in the weather on tapestry nights.

SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – i should win major husband points because i just finished watching “the thorn birds” with pam.

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2008 CHRISTmas family newsletter

i meant to post this earlier but i forgot to do so. this is the terrell family CHRISTmas newsletter that went out with our CHRISTmas cards. most of you have probably already seen it. if you didn’t then don’t blame pam because it was probably my fault. i probably forgot to tell her that we received your CHRISTmas card or something like that. i’m good that way.

anyhow, here’s the link.

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family traditions

i hope CHRISTmas day has been fun for everyone. i have personally really enjoyed tapestry’s  involvement in advent conspiracy. part of this is because i love new ideas for celebrating and experiencing things. it really effected pam and my’s gifts for each other. i also love traditions that have happened for year after year. therefore, i thought i would share a couple of the terrell family traditions.

  • CHRISTmas eve we do the following:
  • read the CHRISTmas story from the second chapter of the gospel of luke
  • typically we go to our church’s CHRISTmas eve service, though since tapestry is so new we didn’t have a CHRISTmas eve service this year. this means we bounced around trying to find one in point that fit our schedule for the evening.
  • we eat a supper that is composed of appetizers – each family member picks the one that they want to contribute to the family meal.
  • the kids open two gifts. it’s the same gifts each year – a new pair of pj’s and a new CHRISTmas ornament. this year’s pj’s were monty phyton based and the ornaments were simpsons based.
  • we watch the movie elf before the boys go to bed.
  • CHRISTmas day involves the following:
    • we have homemade pastalaya for lunch. it’s simple and everyone likes it.
    • naptime – it’s not manditory but it happens. pam and the cats do a particularly good job of following this tradition.
    • we go to the theater to watch a movie – this year CHRISTmas eve and CHRISTmas day have been spent with noah vomiting so we just watched fred claus at home. this was not quite the same thing as going to the theater but it was a decent substituted being as the boy felt like death warmed over.
    • i place a box of chocolate covered cherries in pam’s stocking – this has been happening since our first year of marriage and i’m actually pretty sure that i gave her some each CHRISTmas that we dated beforehand (which is 5 CHRISTmases).

    so i’m wondering what traditions you all have?

    the pj's the ornaments

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    sleigh bells ring


    for pam‘s birthday i bought her and i a ride on a one horse open sleigh. that ride was today and though it was a mighty cold day it was still a great experience. on a personal note, according to pam i have earn major “man points” because the second she posted photos on facebook many of her friends started responding with how wonderful that was. it’s always nice when your wife is proud that you are her husband. oh yeah, i like the main points.

    the funniest part off the sleigh ride happened half through it. at that point we stopped for a small bonfire. we had brought with us the supplies necessary to make smores. we heated our marshmallows only to discover that the chocolate was frozen so hard that the heated marshmallow couldn’t melt it. we only made one each because the temp hurt our hands too much to be without gloves for long.

    SIDE NOTE – we live on the southern edge of the village of plover. this means that while our front yard is a typical suburban neighborhood, our backyard is butted up against 20-30 acres of forest that will not be developed for 20 years. it’s great. it also means that we have deer that come into our backyard all the time. our oldest basset hound, montana, started barking at some deer in our yard this afternoon and pam thought it would be a great idea to show y’all what it was like when she cut out after the deer last week. thus the video below.

    release the hounds from Robert Terrell on Vimeo.

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    the terrell 2008 CHRISTmas card

    family christmas

    the terrell 2008 CHRISTmas card. if you didn’t receive one it doesn’t mean you are not loved. it just means that we don’t have your address. please consider this your card.

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    12”, 40”, 8”

    montana running

    what in the world would make a basset hound that has a shoulder height of 12” think that she could outrun and catch a white-tailed deer with a shoulder height of 40” when they are both running in 8” of fresh snow? i have no idea but i do know that this thought was stuck in montana’s head for approximately 30 minutes this afternoon. she tried to chase down a large white-tailed deer, i tried to chase her down, and roux walked behind us and made sure everything had been properly covered in urine. for such a lazy dog montana can really run when she wants to.

    the best part was that it was very easy to track montana because her body is slow low and the snow so high that she dug a trench along her path. all i had to do was follow the basset width indention in the snow till i found her.

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    the joy of having an 11 year old son

    i had a haircut today.

    when noah, the youngest terrell boy, saw me immediately after he got off his bus he said “hey dad. you got a haircut today, didn’t you?” after i said yes he responded with “dad, you should congratulate me on how good my eyesight is because you have so little hair up on top that it’s really hard to tell when you have less.”

    ah, the joys of having a pre-teen.

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    southern on the roof

    a view from above

    snow season is about to enter central wisconsin and leaf falling season has left. today this meant that i was going to seize our afternoon warm spell (it warmed up to 30º this afternoon) to blow all the pine straw off of our home’s roof. that way the straw wouldn’t be there to possibly cause problems later in winter when there will be two-three feet of snow sitting on top of our house. it’s a pretty quick job, only about 15 minutes, and since it was pretty warm i decided that i didn’t really need a coat on over my sweatshirt. this would have been right if it had not been for the ladder falling over when i was finishing the job.

    our house is a little tall and i am old enough now to where my bones get brittle in the cold weather. therefore, i thought that jumping off the roof was out of the question. thankfully in my wisdom i had earlier convinced pam to have two kids just for such instances (don’t ask me why i didn’t think of sending them on the roof in the first place). so i began to shout for the boys to come and help their wise father. the problem with having a tall house is that the family room is invariably always on the bottom floor (aka the former basement). this means that sound doesn’t travel so well to the family room. thus my shouting didn’t do any good. no problem, because i had my cell phone in my pocket (thus the above photo). i called the house.

    i’m not sure why but for some reason GOD has decided to make 11 & 14 year olds deaf. HE is wise so i am sure there is a good reason for making them deaf. i’m just not smart enough to figure it out (it actually seems like it would have been a better idea to have made them mute – but this is probably why GOD doesn’t ask me for advice). the result of my kid’s deafness was that while i could clearly hear the phone ringing within the house yet my adolescent boys where not able to hear it. at this time i decided to take the above photo so that pam and the boys would know how i had died of exposure. the photo would also serve two other purposes 1) proof for life insurance – thus taking care of pam, and 2) extreme guilt for my deaf kids.

    i called three times with no answer.

    while i was calling our home phone number a breeze began to develop. even without a jacket 30º is really not that cold. however 30º with a strong breeze IS QUITE COLD. i stood on the roof facing the full force of the breeze which was strong enough to freeze me but not strong enough to have swept all the pine straw off the roof in the first place, which would have saved me from ever having entered into this situation.

    on my fourth call the phone was finally answered, the ladder was finally lifted up, and i decided not to shout at my kids because i realized they wouldn’t hear it anyway.

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    pam’s halloween costume

    DSC_0003-2_edited-1

    just in case you can’t tell she’s from alaska.

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    pumkin carving night

    it was pumpkin carving night at the terrell household. as always it was a ton of fun. i have a pretty great family.

    here are some photos from the evening.

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    DSC_0039_edited-1 DSC_0042_edited-1

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    SIDE NOTE – i got to do something cool today.

    up until last year i have been a youth minister. during my 18 years in youth ministry i have had some parents of students who were incredibly encouraging to me and the staff that i worked with. i know some youth ministers will complain about parents who are pains but my experience was that those parents are few and far between when compared to the encouraging parents.

    anyhow, today i got the chance to prove that i learned from my experience with such great families as the pierces, the pyles, the burgers, the wilkinsons, the stines, the armstrongs, the fletchers, the walters, the forts, the austins, the haltoms, the jones, the smiths, the fraziers, etc., etc. (there are more families than i could ever count so know that if you weren’t mentioned you are probably still in the “more than i can count” group). i called up the two youth ministers who lead the youth ministry that adam is involved in (a youth ministry at tapestry is not possible right now because the only adolescent we have is named terrell) and told them that i would either like to take them both out to whatever restaurant they would like or cook jambalaya (thanks again guys and girls for the cooking stuff) for their whole staff. they chose the jambalaya and so i cooked it today and fed everyone over at woodlands church. they lead a great youth ministry and i’m glad adam is involved in it. thanks to all my previous youth ministry parents for teaching me how to treat a youth minister.