Moran Family Fun

One major news event from each year I've been alive. Wow, that's a lot of years! 1978 - Polio was eradicated 1979 - 52 Americans were taken hostage at the embassy in Tehran, Iran 1980 - Ronald Reagan is elected President of the United States 1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor is the first woman nominated for the Supreme Court 1982 - First artificial heart transplant was performed 1983 - The space shuttle Challenger made its first voyage including a successful spacewalk 1984 - Apple introduced the first Macintosh computer 1985 - New Coke is introduced and is a big flop 1986 - Nintendo debuts in the United States 1987 - Stock market crashed 1988 - George Bush is elected President of the United States 1989 - San Francisco earthquake measuring 7.1 1990 - Iraqi troops invade Kuwait setting of the Persian Gulf War 1991 - First transpacific hot air balloon flight from Japan to Canada 1992 -William Clinton is elected President of the United States 1993 - Maastricht Treaty ...

When was the hardest you ever laughed? Write down the jokes you tell, don’t forget the punch line! Who is the funniest person you know? Why?  Today's questions are kind of tricky for me. I'm not a person who makes laughter a priority and I've always been a more on the quiet side of the personality spectrum. I was never anywhere close to being a class clown. Despite that, I like spending time with people who make me laugh, I enjoy comedies on TV and in movies, and sometimes I even manage to be funny.  I love puns and witty wordplay. Anything that mixes up words in a humorous way is funny to me. Every time I've seen this one it's made me laugh because dad jokes are my kind of jokes.  And I'm sorry everyone, but farts are always funny. I know this is generally a type of humor reserved for teenaged boys and I can't help it. I wish I was more mature. Whoopie cushions aren't funny though, that's just mean.  I also really enjoy jokes that are ...

Have you ever wondered what the story is behind me and Jared meeting and falling in love? How did we become such a dynamic duo? I mean, we're currently the world's second cutest couple (behind my parents, as ranked by Abigail) but were we always such a cute couple? Keep reading to find out... It all began thirty years ago in a small West Virginia town when I was twelve and Jared was sixteen. My family moved there for my dad's work and Jared had lived in West Virginia his whole life. He was my older brother's friend and just one of the guys at church. I was the twelve-year-old he barely noticed. That's cool though because I didn't care about boys at that point and if he had liked me then it would have been creepy. I was twelve, you guys. Fast forward four years. I've just turned sixteen and Jared was almost twenty and on a mission in Sacramento, California. One day in February I receive a card from Elder Moran wishing me a happy birthday. You see, before ...

Traveling, seeing the world, going on adventures! I love it and I hope I always take opportunities to travel and explore this beautiful world we've been given. Mark Twain said "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." Thanks to the Air Force I've lived in Europe for 19 years of my life and have been able to see some really cool places. I think now that I'm back in the United States I really should shift my focus to all the cool places that are here in this country - once we're able to be out and about a bit more anyway. There are beautiful places and beautiful people everywhere. Today, I thought I'd share some of my favorite travel memories. Jared and I had a few nights in a nice hotel for our honeymoon, but not in any sort of exotic...

As it's Mother's Day, it's not surprising that today's questions about my life are all about my Mom. In November I wrote 70 memories I have of my Mom in honor of her 70th birthday. Here are those memories, reposted for Mother's Day 2020. ******************** This weekend my Mom turned 70 so I thought I'd share 70 memories I have of her through the years. Happy birthday Mom! Going with her to Myrtle Grove Elementary School when I was a preschooler and watching her teach music classes to the kids. Learning (and singing!) the song Kids are Music in the auditorium at Myrtle Grove. Counting to ten in Italian for each curl when she would do my hair in the mornings.  Not curled this day, but this was the haircut that I remember from those days. Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove, dieci While out running errands, always knowing I could find her by looking for her red hair. Staying home from school the first day after Christmas break to...

Today's post is about friendship and friends, but I feel like I covered that a little earlier this week when I wrote about mentors. I was grateful for the questions in today's prompt because I wasn't sure where to start with this one and they helped to focus my thoughts. What do you look for in a friend? It's important to me to feel like a friendship goes both ways. What I mean by that is that I don't want to be the only one reaching out or trying to put effort into the relationship. I've had friendships before where I've realized I'm the only person reaching out and the other person would rarely if ever contact me. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I'm the one who is guilty of not taking the initiative in a friendship. No one wants to feel like they're expendable so I've tried to be more aware of that and be intentional about staying connected to the people that matter to me. True friends are okay with taking off the mask and be vu...

Today's post is all about GAMES!!! In case you didn't know, we love games at our house and we play a lot a lot of games. I've even written about games on the blog multiple times. In early 2019 we started playing a "game of the week" and for a brief period of time, that tradition actually stuck. We'd pick a new game each Sunday and play it every night that week, time permitting. I even did a short-lived series of blog posts that were basically game reviews of our weekly games. You can find those HERE , HERE , and HERE . The other mentions of games are sprinkled in throughout the eleven years of posts. So yes, Morans love games and we're aware that we're game snobs. We look down on games like Monopoly, Life, and Sorry and don't want to waste our time on mediocre games. We try to buy the Spiel des Jahres every year and are always looking for more great games to add to our growing collection. We're going to be living at my parent's house for t...

My work history has been all over the place because I've had the girls to take care of and I could never have made enough money working to cover the cost of childcare, we moved every few years, I don't have a degree so the jobs I want I'm not qualified for, and financially we've usually been okay without that second income. I have almost always done a few things here or there to bring in a little extra money, but it's rarely been full-time work or much of anything that one could consider a career. Here we go, from my very first job to my most recent work experience! Taco Bell, 1993-1995 (I think?) - My older brother and sister also worked here so it was kind of the family tradition to work at Taco Bell during high school. I lived for the bottomless sodas and half-price Choco Tacos. Geoffrey Beene, 1994-1995 - Yes, for a period of time in high school I had two jobs. My older sister's friend's mom was the store manager and so I think being hired was almost...

Today I'm going to share my day in pictures. So easy, especially compared to the emotions of yesterday's writing. My bedtime lately is right around 1 am and I wake up at 8 am. I usually spend a half hour or so lying in bed thinking about the upcoming day while I'm kind of half asleep or just scrolling through my phone before I actually get up and start moving. Normally what finally propels me out of bed is a desperate need to use the bathroom.  Today what got me out of the warm embrace of my covers was a phone call from Jared. He's doing all the hard work of getting things lined up so he and the younger two girls can leave England and he has to do everything in just about a month. This morning we were talking about the logistics of it all. Moving is no joke, particularly when you're moving from one country to another. I'm grateful that I have the very legitimate excuse of living on the other side of the world to keep me from doing much of the work for t...

I've always considered mentors to be a workplace thing and that a mentor is someone who shares their wisdom with a less experienced colleague. Thinking about mentors in a personal sense, as someone who has given support, advice, and motivation in my personal life was a shift for me. Even though I've never formally asked someone to be my mentor when I considered the questions for today's prompt two people came to mind and strangely enough, both of them have gone on vacation to Ireland with me. So whether they know it or not, through some sort of leprechaun magic, these two people have been there for me as examples, advice givers, and motivators. I first met Larisa at church in Bitburg, Germany in the summer of 2000. We invited their family over for dinner one Sunday soon after we had both moved to the area and a friendship was born. It's been twenty years now that I've been watching Larisa - not in a creepy way, I promise - it's just that she's so outstandi...