2024 Nuggets

Here comes 2025! Ready or not. We are definitely not ready for what 2025 will bring. How can I, Jason, be so sure? Because I've lived 48 years on this earth now, and I have never yet been ready for what the new year brought. Ok, at least not everything it brought.

As 2025 approaches, many around the world and here at home are anxious over it. Violent conflict in Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, South Sudan, DRC (Congo), and other places have many millions of people separated from loved ones and their homes, grieving countless deaths, and worried about what's coming next.

Much of this is part of the alarming global trend of political/religious/ideological/xenophobic extremism and intense polarization (partly fueled by the nature of the internet, among other economic, climate-driven, and population factors). We've seen this trend here in the U.S. as well, which has brought plenty of cause for our own brand of worry, and sets the tone for many other countries to follow.

All of this has been heavy on our minds, and has us looking towards the turn of the year with ample concern. But as usual, that's not the whole story.

Simultaneous to the continuation and development of these global and domestic crises, we, the Myers-Benner family, have continued to exist within our nest of relative safety, peace, and plenty. We are still homeschooling (not for the purpose of isolating our kids against indoctrination...that is very scary, as demonstrated in the docuseries Shiny Happy People that Janelle and I just finished), and we are still self employed and spending as much time at home together on the farm as we can. Not every moment is perfect, and we do work hard, but, relatively speaking, it's idyllic. 

Many things are left out here, especially all the meaningful relationships with those outside our immediate family that have sustained, encouraged, and challenged us, as well as filling our lives with additional fun, meaning, connection and much more. For the purpose of this (relatively short) update, here are a few nuggets of what we've each been up to this year, going youngest to oldest:

Terah, 9: Terah is nearly always up for an activity or adventure, provided it doesn't involve getting lost. One of her biggest adventures of the year has been turning the corner on reading. She has been plugging away at it for years, really, but all of a sudden, a few weeks ago, she finished a chapter book she'd been laboring through for months. At that same time, she expressed her annoyance that she couldn't yet read as easily and seamlessly as she wanted, and started reading a book to herself that she'd heard a few times before, Louis Sachar's Sideways Stories from Wayside School. And all of a sudden she was IN IT! She was walking around the house with her nose hidden by the pages, she was thinking about it when she wasn't able to read at the moment, and for a few nights she furnished her own nighttime reading session. She gobbled it all in just a few days.

Reading came later for her than for her sisters, and maybe that was because with so much interesting stuff going on around her, she simply had other stuff to concentrate on. But it did seem that it didn't come as easily, and we offered to engage a reading specialist to give her a leg up, but it seemed to be something she wanted to tackle in her own way, so we supported that.

After a weekend away with friends that included some great cello/banjo/guitar jamming, Terah expressed a distinct interest in the guitar, but was finding it hard to handle, given its relative size to hers. The idea developed that she might want to buy her own, smaller guitar. Soon thereafter, that became a reality, and we came home with a nice little Alvarez that she has enjoyed learning some things on (I am not a qualified guitar teacher, but I try my best). In her stocking at Christmas were finger protectors that she can hopefully use to blunt some of the discomfort that pressing strings for chords was inducing in her soft, 9-year-old fingertips.

This year Terah has organized many drawers, assembled many puzzles, played quite a few online games, fed her and her sisters' chickens and ducks many times, carried babies on her hip, helped out with chicken selection, banding, and butchering, wore herself out in quite a few formal and informal soccer games, and invented her share of recipes. She enjoys joining me in the shop for projects. In the new year, she looks forward to joining her sisters as a volunteer junior usher at the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriar's Playhouse in Staunton.

Each kid is unique, and Terah has our family's most interesting mouth. At least, it's the one the orthodontist is paying the most attention to. We joke with her that we ran out of any more large mouth material by the time she came along. The conclusion has been reached that she'll likely need several more extractions, including adult teeth, before braces. Wow! But she takes it in stride.

Alida, 13: Alida officially passed Kali in height this year, and is pushing towards Janelle. She spent goodly amounts of time in what must be nearly her favorite way: adoring the sweet and cute things and people of this world. Most notably, perhaps, was the arrival and subsequent taming and tending of her new favorite special chicken, Olivia. Olivia (a Cub Run Crele by breed) was hatched on April Fool's Day (no joke), in our incubator, and brooded inside. She was quickly identified as calm, tamable, and overwhelmingly cute and cuddly. She was also just about the color of a black olive, hence the name. As the year has progressed, she has been a partner in many hours of garden play, has received innumerable special treats, and warmed her human companion's young heart unto melting point by coming in for a hug or a treat when called, or even just when Alida shows up at the coop door. Encouraged by this and other rewarding animal fun, Alida's penchant for adoration is now extending into a lasting desire to raise quail, and just today burst into the realm of cattle. Specifically, a milk cow. Stay tuned. It is well advised not to plan around even the most ardent of declarations of intention unless they are sustained over time. She's a special teenager, but she's still...a teenager. She can go from 0-100 and back again within a few seconds.

Alida's enthusiasm for motion and object manipulation kept up, with two full soccer seasons and myriad informal sports sessions in a full palette of genres, sometimes invented. Her soccer coach from the spring season, who had coached her a few times before, noticed her powerful kick that had a natural curve to it, and her skill at placement, and it dawned on him to give her a few pointers on taking corner kicks. He then gave her a corner kick opportunity in a live game, and on that first try she rainbowed that sucker perfectly into the zone, where it ricocheted off a defender (so, technically it was an "own goal", but still) and popped right in. She usually gravitates to defense, so that was her only goal of the year. In fall, she was assigned to a team as #13 with a different coach, and it was funny to hear her former coach, now on the opposing team, liberally sprinkling his [let's call it...umm...steady] stream of advice to his team with the occasional admonition, "WATCH OUT FOR NUMBER 13!!!"

Her interest and skill in baking flourished, which nobody is complaining about. She loves beautiful things, and we helped her and Terah set out a much larger flower garden this year.

Alida enjoyed reading and drawing, and learning by question, video, and one formal self-paced online class in geology, which, being organized like most online classes, failed to inspire in pedagogical form, even if the information was intriguing, so she's still working on that one. She joined Terah in helping out with some child care tasks. Carpentry still tantalizes her fancy, even if executing a whole project under her own steam is still more of an ambition than a reality. She very much enjoyed her volunteer junior ushering role at the American Shakespeare Center (ASC). She likes online games, like Terah, but this year branched out into game creation, using a website that allows users to create their own multi-level games. She is also has a penchant for wearing many levels of dress-up clothing of various materials.

Recently, Alida has become fluent in a new language (she picked it up in a few hours from a friend of ours on a weekend away together) known to the initiated as "The-The-Guh, Guh-The-Guh". Well, technically it's a code. Similar to pig latin, normal English is modified to disguise the syllables. The specifics of the code are beyond the scope of this letter, and anyway they're secret. All three girls have learned this very well now, but Alida took it upon herself to take the next logical step and combine The-The-Guh, Guh-The-Guh with Pig Latin for a truly indecipherable mode of speech.

Kali, 21: Kali was still a college student this year. You can tell this by the hours she kept! To be fair, the only time our house is quiet enough to concentrate is from about 11 pm-7 am, so she is often still shuffling around or reclining in some pretzel shape or other, laptop balanced on some body part or other, tapping away, for a goodly portion of those hours. She took two courses at Blue Ridge Community College in the spring semester, and three this fall. She plans to continue in 2025, whether part-time or full-time remains to be seen.

When I needed a hand on a job this year, Kali spent a few days with me helping hoist rafters into place, and proved the value of the few carpentry projects we had done at home together over the years. She's not ready to head up a worksite just yet, but she's fully qualified to be a useful helper, and she has a natural sense of the geometry and physics of structures. These traits were on even finer display twice this year when she took it upon herself to create architecturally accurate (somewhat accurate, Kali disclaims) gingerbread houses. The first was for the Mininger reunion in Harman, WVA, and was patterned after the water-powered grist mill that the Mininger/Bucher clan owned and operated in Harman for a number of decades. The second was a design concept piece for Janelle's and my "retirement cabin" that we dream of building on the half acre lot that came with our 5.5-acre parcel. This was a joint project with Alida. Terah designed and built a smaller concept of the same thing, but Kali headed up the making of the templates for both.

Kali coached Terah's soccer team in the Harrisonburg Rec League, both spring and fall, in various capacities. She also had to coach her mother occasionally on her cheering technique, which, according to the guidelines Kali found online, made too much use of verbs. She enjoyed ushering at ASC also (in fact, Alida couldn't have junior ushered without having an usher over age sixteen to volunteer with, and, anyway, she needed the ride). Kali keeps up with the needs of her aging duck flock (Duckie is over ten years old now!) and helps with homeschool times with the younger two. As you might have gathered, Kali is still immersed in home and family life, which suits all of us. Should the time come when she wants to relocate the center of her life, of course we will celebrate and support that with her, but we're in no hurry, that's for sure!

Kali's penchant for wordplay furnished plenty of entertainment for her and us this year: online daily word games, creating palindromic sentences in her head, making lively contributions to whatever pun string is at hand, and word-based table/group games...she enjoys and excels at them all. Whenever I go looking for Kali with something to say to her, it's a decent bet that I've got a word joke in mind, and she usually humors me with at least a smile. 

This morning, Kali and I woke up at 6:00 (believe me, that's a stretch for her) in order to be at the blood donation center when they opened at 7:00, to donate platelets. It was her first time, and she was successful! Kali had made a prediction at last year's New Year's Eve Benner Zoom Call that she would donate platelets in 2024. Suddenly a week or two ago she realized that her chance was almost gone, so she called and made appointments for the two of us. I don't know how she rates, but I have donated platelets many times and have rarely been given one of the complementary t-shirts. On her first time out, we each came home with two! Long SLEEVE, even!! Some people have all the luck (she also didn't get arm cramps!). She has even inspired her mother, who has just made the same prediction for herself for 2025!

Janelle, 46: Don't you hate it when people send yearly letters or Christmas cards and loudly proclaim their kids' ages while remaining conspicuously silent about their own? As if another year of life ceases to be an accomplishment! We're curious, friends, and you deserve credit. Janelle is 46 and doesn't care if you know it.

And she'll probably be able to recommend a podcast that would help you understand her thinking on this or nearly any other topic she cares about, because she has listened to A LOT of podcasts this year. Her curiosity about the world never wanes (at least now that her burnout symptoms have mostly eased), and when she feels a sense of duty to learn more about something, she's finding that a podcast can usually be found on the topic. Janelle keeps busy most of the time, so sitting and reading is often hard for her to find room for, but podcasts can be consumed on the go. And when a task is uninspiring or routine, a podcast is a good audio companion/distraction.

Often her chosen podcasts will center around birth work, from the technical, justice, and emotional angles. Not only have birth and babies held a lifelong fascination for her, but she has continued her part time work as a birth doula in 2024, and coming up in 2025 has a good number of births to accompany also. Several years ago in a class she was taking they engaged in a process to create a 9 word purpose statement. Hers still resonates (I exist to: support practices & accompany people in the work of healing). She hopes her continued learning and experience will enable her to live even more fully into a trauma-informed, anti-racist, health at every size (HAES), inclusive model of care for every birthing person who invites her to accompany them. 

Janelle still enjoys playing in the kitchen, and is enjoying it even more these days since her therapeutic (and podcast!) work in shedding moralistic attachment to food has reduced her anxiety greatly around using certain ingredients. Food is fun again! Janelle spent lots of time in the garden tending and harvesting, and also back in the house, preserving what she picked.

She enjoyed lots of walks and visits with family and friends of all ages. She's a popular walking buddy! One of the most fulfilling parts of life has been caring for our little friend Bear, who is one of her doula babies, and whose parents are close friends of ours. She enjoys a special connection to him as his Auntie Janelle, and one can see where Terah and Alida get their penchant for adoring. She spent the better part of two days per week with him, most weeks this year (with help from the younger two girls on his days at Tangly Woods).

I said she keeps pretty busy and doesn't have much time for books, but when she does get to lay down with a book, she enjoys that thoroughly, and if it's a romance novel, it might even not immediately put her to sleep! Yes, she's had her first sleep study, and, yes, she has sleep apnea. So her longstanding superpower of being able to sleep anytime, anywhere, might actually have a cause, and I might get a comrade in extreme nighttime dorkiness if she ends up wearing a CPAP, too. 46, folks, and she's earned every year of it.

In 2024, more than ever, Janelle recognized for herself that she could wear her comfy clothes every day of the year and never miss dressing up. She's found she's a homebody, and will nearly always choose one-on-one and more intimate, smaller group times with other humans over large crowds or public venues. 

Me (Jason), 48: Where to start with me? I'm still the same, exasperatingly (extremely lovable - Janelle addition) childlike man you've always known. But...now we know part of why! I underwent psychological evaluation this year, and came out with the expected official diagnosis of mild, inattentive type ADHD. This could never define me, but it does explain some things.

Despite the obvious hurdles to it that this state of being presents, I have managed to keep my part-time construction business, Sassafras Enterprises LLC, afloat (and very appreciated - Janelle addition) for another year. I thank my clients for their patronage and, at times, their forbearance. Projects ranged from the building of an air prune nursery bed to a set of retail cabinets for a local apothecary to tearing into a 1930s vintage wall to make way for two large room-transforming windows. In all of this, there is the mix of excitement and anxiety at tackling a project for someone, and the constant pull towards spending time in other ways, at home and on the farm.

Farm projects have included mostly the maintenance of farm and garden structures and plantings, and preparation for the screened pavilion (with second story room) we have planned for construction here in 2025. Also significant has been the implementation of a SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education...a program of USDA) grant I was awarded last year to study and develop and educate around some edible winter peas I have been working to develop for the past number of years. 2025 will be the more intensive year for that grant work. Now that I've learned the SARE grant system (I think), it is very possible I'll try for another one soon. Among my many self-initiated (but public interest) ag projects, there are several candidates for future study and development. Parker Palmer says one's "calling" is where one's greatest joy meets the world's deepest need. While the notion of a specific "calling" contains numerous pitfalls, if that's the definition, then this kind of work probably counts for me.

I did two workshops this year at Oak Spring Garden Foundation; one on chicken flock establishment and care, and another on grains. I enjoy the preparation and presentation aspects of the education work, and enjoy my contact with folks who understand and appreciate similar parts of agriculture, including using some Tangly Woods (our home farm) original breeds in their chicken flock!

When not busy with these things and with basking/working in my role/duties as father, spouse, and general family-member-at-large, I take some time out for writing, including especially poetry, which is one of the ways I make sense of life. I also continue my interest in appreciating, writing, and making music, and I'm always looking out for chances to make music together with others.

Whole Family: There are some things we've enjoyed doing all together. We like regular visits with family and friends near and far, but about everybody's favorite thing is just spending time together in the evenings at home. Lots of laughter! Table games sometimes provide much of the context. Watching a few videos or a show or movie (nothing too suspenseful, please!) can be good fun. Olympics, anyone? Also All Creatures Great and Small and The Great British Baking Show.

2024 saw us continuing to enjoy life in this semi-joined household with Janelle's parents. Three generations under one series of interconnected roofs has been a dynamic and beneficial way to live, and we count ourselves fortunate that we've had the opportunity to live this way and doubly fortunate that it's been working well for everyone.

The third of those generations continue to each have their own strain of popcorn, and are responsible for directing their own breeding project, but we all help shell out and evaluate the corn at harvest according to each person's priorities, and of course we all help with taste testing! We also taste test our cantaloupe, peppers, tomatoes, and squash together, in the interest of developing more favorable traits within each population.

We worked together to provide for ourselves. Or rather, we worked to craft the abundance of nature into useful provision. Hog butchering was again a favorite weekend of the year, and it's a family (and a few friends) affair. We usually spend Mondays working together in some way, be it gardens, home organizing, electronic scrapbooking, raking leaves, or gathering brush or firewood. When weather is hot and kids are wilting and/or grumbling and parents get testy, or when the work seems to issue less reward than we'd hoped, it does feel like a qualified form of bliss, at best. But we have frequent reminders that these are the good problems to have.

Another thing we've enjoyed doing together is helping use Kali's comp tickets that are awarded with her ushering work (Alida is a junior usher until age 16 and doesn't earn comp tickets just yet). Yesterday we took in the ASC annual production of A Christmas Carol, based on Charles Dickens' classic novel. Brilliant performance, as usual, and I found myself with a distinct Dickens allergy as the play reached its conclusion. Or anyway my eyes and nose were running for some reason. Of course there is the scene of the Cratchit family losing Tiny Tim that, in its maudlin way, always reminds me of our journey with Nora and gets the leaks going, but it also was that usually-naive hope in the possibility of repentance and redemption for hearts and minds captured by greed. It was the reminder of the reality that we all know, if only we'll take notice: that financial competition and material success are meaningless in themselves, and we all need love so much more. But bumper stickers notwithstanding, love doesn't always win. Back at the parking garage after the show, a different bumper sticker caught my eye, one that hints at how redemption can sometimes come. It said, "Be careful who you hate...it might be someone you love." My prayer for this perilous moment in our society and around the world is that those we sometimes despise as "weird" or "unnatural", or dismiss as "collateral damage" or Scrooge's "surplus population", or fear as political opponents will, in some gentle moment or other, somehow become visible to us again as someone we love, or someone we could. 

Happy New Year, everyone!

We continued the tradition of taking first-of-the-month family photos - unpolished and with whoever was around/with us/absent from us on that day!

P.S. For those that have not been keeping track, Janelle and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in May. For reasons that have nothing to do with a change in our commitment or a reduction in our affection, which are both stronger than ever, we commemorated our 25th by ditching our wedding rings and darkening the door of a tattoo parlor for the first time in our lives. If you want to see the ink up close, visit! If you want to know the meaning, ask!

Photos to fill in the gaps...

As you know if you read the post back in late July, we left our very forlorn children in WV for a few days after the Mininger reunion. You can see here what an absolutely "miserable" time they had without their parents!!

It was a very (too) full time on the home front for me and Jason and was confirmed again that if we really want relaxed time together without our kiddos, it needs to happen somewhere other than Tangly Woods (esp. in the summer!). We did enjoy a lovely few hours with Karen and Sue one day, enjoying some time together just the four of us (something we hadn't done for a very very long time...). 

In the weeks since, there have been many sweet summer moments (some routine and some out of the ordinary). Here's a little smattering of ones that feel worth sharing!

We normally get our weekly pig scraps at the co-op on Fridays but a few weeks back we got a call on an off day that they had a load of watermelon if we wanted it. I made a run to town and came home with a trunk loaded full along with much of the back seat. It made for some very happy pigs and chickens, not to mention humans! Here Olivia is experiencing the delight of watermelon!

We seldom make use of all the coupons the summer reading program dishes out to the younger girls or make much use of the free friday wrist bands, but here the girls are trying out the various climbing walls at Horizon's Edge. Terah and Kali thought it was fun. Alida hadn't gotten fully comfortable falling before their free 1/2 hour was up. 

Alida IS comfortable dog sitting! And, yes, the Myers-Benners have dog sat for a 2nd (and now 3rd) time!!! What is this world coming to?! Alida is definitely the one of the family that Zoe has warmed up to the most. This was a very common sight in our house when she was with us. 

This cutie pie is already counting the days until her birthday - and not just the one where she turns 9 this fall but the following one when she turns over to double digits! 

The 2024 garlic harvest is processed and tucked away in its various categories (seed quality, storage quality and first use). This year we are trying a new thing and that is putting the first use in the fridge to slow down the bugs and deterioration process. Oh the joys of that extra fridge upstairs - it is working beautifully and I'm loving using garlic by the bulb!

Speaking of bugs, we have garden chickens again and they are delighting in scratching around in the garden and finding prime dust bathing spots. Olivia is on Alida's shoulder and I believe she is carrying Buddy. They know the drill now and come to her when she goes to their coop. Olivia hops right up and stays on Alida's shoulder until they are in the garden.

Terah has become our burger maker and none of us are disappointed about that! She doesn't mind working with raw meat, though does have to put her safety glasses on for working with onions (the girls all take after their daddy with very sensitive eyes). Anyway, she makes a DELICIOUS burger...

...but one that is very hard to fit in one's mouth with all the toppings!

In other news, we grew another pineapple. It's been a few years! I don't even want to admit it, but this one was kinda disappointing to me. It just wasn't the sweet succulent melt in your mouth fruit that some previous ones have been. Not sure if we should have let it ripen even more or what. We are hardly pineapple growing experts!

We got our August 1 family photo in the bean patch when Jason was still hauling in large quantities of beans. It is now official: the bean beetles have taken over. We are still enjoying the small dregs of the patch, but the end is easily in sight now. And that's more than ok with me!!

This has been a common counter look in recent weeks - produce everywhere and my doula bag packed and ready to go!

I am not someone who likes to do things halfway and so the experiment of being a civic scientist (along with Terah and Alida) for the Perennial Atlas Project through the Land Institute has been a bit of a challenge. I feel like we are just doing the bare minimum and even that feels like a stretch some days. And I know we are contributing to a larger body of research so I want to do a good job of it but... We've enjoyed the annual sunflowers a lot and watching other things flower. But there are also disappointments, like watching the lentils come up so cutely and grow well and then slowly yellow and ALL die. I guess that's data!

When not in the gardens, you might find us sporting our fancy dermatology gowns at our annual mole checks - all cleared for another year. Yay!

Are you feeling whip lash yet? The gardens are calling (it's harvest day) so I'm not working very hard to make connections between the photos I chose for this post. So now we move to the kitchen where I'll report on the girls making a quadruple batch of bagels for the PA trip. I've learned that if I buy cream cheese, they will make bagels. I think that's a pretty good deal!

Oh how I love a colorful summer meal. This was the first meal (of several) in honor of Kali's 21st bday. Jonathan, Christen and Luca joined us and we savored fried eggplant sandwiches and corn on the cob (no, we do not grow eggplant or sweet corn, but I enjoyed a rare trip to the farmer's market!). 

And, for dessert, I used the last few peaches from our trees to make peach kuchen. We didn't get a lot of peaches but every one we got we were grateful for!

While on the subject of food (again), Jason's breakfast looked particularly delightful the other morning, so I told him he should really take a photo of it! We are enjoying the first paw paws from our trees.

There is that saying that "many hands make light work!" I certainly have been very grateful for the extra hands on some food processing days, but even more the company. I will be honest to say that food processing is not always so hilarious! But this kiddo sure can make it more fun!

And, I never thought I would see the day, but we are running out of canning jars!!!

This one is still at the "helping" stage of things but he is, hands down, my current favorite baker helper! He was VERY pleased the other day when I put him up on the counter and let him help stir the cookie dough!

So, I'm very happy to report that I am no longer severely anemic. My doctor even gave me the green light to give donating blood a try again (but only a few times a year). So, Jason and I went last Sunday and I gave blood successfully for the first time (it was also the first time I had to answer "yes" to the tattoo question). I don't have any photo proof but I did have the phlebotomist get a photo of Jason. And, I'm happy to report that his blood took a "long" 5 minutes to fill the bag and I clocked in at 4 min 20 sec - but who's competing?! I did wonder if that is why I felt flattened by it this time?

I'm still feeling grateful that amidst the whirl of life, we are still (mostly) keeping Sundays free of big projects and a focus on the "to do list." And part of that is feeling thankful for our Mommy/Daddy time with each of our girls on a rotating basis. It was sweet this past Sunday to walk up the hill with Alida and sit on Samuel's bench at the top for a little bit. It's still one of the most breathtaking views in this area, in my opinion. And it felt good to be up there around the time that we marked 7 years since we lost his physical presence with us. We still miss him a lot!

My heart feels particularly full when we savor moments with loved ones in our lives, especially the little people. These moments are so dear to me and I feel like I'm having more and more times where I stop in my tracks and just try to take it in. Life feels both precious and precarious!

This week, I enjoyed a morning keeping little ones to give parents a few moments together. The youngest is one of "my doula babies" from last summer and my how she has turned into a little monkey in a year's time. I was very grateful to return her in one piece to her parents with not scrapes, bruises or broken bones! 

At our family meeting last night we came up with a new set of guidelines for free ranging the chickens to get them out and about again. We've been very cautious with all the fox pressure and Jason continues to see the gray fox around many nights when he is shutting in. We are happy for nighttime foxes, just not ones that wish to hunt poultry in the day! Anyway, there are treasured pets in the mix (Olivia!!!), so this is a difficult topic, But I think we got to a good agreement for the next stint of time. Anyway, the other day I was on a long call with a dear friend in Canada and so I put my blanket in the middle of the area where three coops range from and some chickens were curious about what I was doing there! 

Monday of this week we had another meal in honor of Kali's 21st, this time with my parents, Karen and Ezzie!

Kali has enjoyed the opportunity a birthday affords of picking out what game we play. There was a lot of laughter and none of us, other than Alida, got anywhere near cracking the code to her pattern!

And my poor sister was not sure she could be out at our place with Kali and not give away TODAY'S birthday surprise. We jokingly taped her mouth so Kali could understand the level of restraint this was requiring of her! BUT she did it! And over this week Kali has asked for TINY clues, that we have willingly given. And, as of last evening, she figured out where we are taking her today and for what. But now I will leave you in suspense and a slightly more detailed account of Kali turning 21 will be for a future post!