Welcome to Ryerse Tropical Sno, L.L.C. May I take your order please?

Recently, we saw the Tropical Sno trailer up for sale. We looked into it, talked to the Gunters selling it, and thought about it and decided it would be a good business for our family to do during the summers as we have lots of kids that age or coming up on the working age. So we bought it and will be making lots of shaved ice in the near future! There's been a learning curve for sure and lots of paper work and cleaning and making syrups and organizing to get things started. Our plan is for Em and Cal to work at the stand, along with a few friends we are going to hire and Lucy and Cov can earn money doing the behind the scenes work like making ice and cleaning. It has been a lot of work so far and I can't say I'm totally in love with the whole thing. But so many in the community are excited as many thought someone out of town would buy it and the shaved ice stand would be gone. And it will be a good experience for the kids to see what goes into it and put in some hard work. So we will see how this goes!

Memorial Day Weekend

We got the opportunity to help out with the Tabernacle Experience in Urie Memorial Day weekend. We got to see it in Utah last year but got to volunteer this year. It was awesome and I love all the symbolism and how all of the ancient tabernacle points to the Savior, and how many things are similar, in different ways to our temple worship today.! Dave and I got to be hosts and greet people, sign them in, and play the video about the ancient tabernacle. Lucy was at the station about the coverings of the temple with Addi West, Callahan was at the outer gate station with Jacob Platt, and Emma got to be in the Holy of Holies with Kabrie Whitbeck. It was special to see these youth teach about the sacredness of the tabernacle of old and bear testimony. They will be amazing missionaries someday! You can check outTabernacleutah.com for more about this traveling tabernacle.. While we were gone, Grandpa Scott came up this weekend to help us get the Tropical Sno shack washed, cleaned and ready. He played with the younger kids and took them to Arctic Circle to get ice cream and play, they went tot he park and played board games like checkers. It was so nice of him to come all this way to help out and they all had fun ! 

 "Holiness to the Lord, House of the Lord".

This year for Memorial Day, Dave woke up early to put up flags for Rotary. we made syrups for our snow cone stand almost all day! On a scale from 1-10, how sticky was our kitchen? 100!! It was a sugary, sticky mess but we got it done. We had to turn down boating and barbecues to do this. Then we grilled some yummy steaks, and had corn, watermelon, baked beans and salad with s'mores pie for dessert. We visited our Veteran's Memorial, which we have never done, then ended the night playing at the park together and taking down the flags before dark. We honor the soldiers who have died to keep our freedoms here. I am grateful for their sacrifices and the sacrifices of their families forever.

“Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as best he can, the same cause—honor to him, less only than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.” -- Abraham Lincoln

Mel's 20 Year High School Reunion

Our 20 year high school reunion was really great! It was so nice to see the new and improved school and so many great people but missed a lot of my friends who couldn't make it! We wore name tags that were of our high school cards, enjoyed the fun decorations, looked around the remodeled school, had Costa Vida for dinner, Crumbl and WX cookies, watched a slide show of old pictures from high school, played a game where they found out who lives furthest/closest to the school, who has the most kids, who got married to a classmate, etc. They also had a "where are they now" slideshow, and we laughed when we saw I was married to Ryan Ryerse...who dat? We ended the night by taking a class picture and "prom" style pictures. It was fun to catch up with Kaylin, Kevin, and Hailey, who sat at our table, along with Angelyn, Melanie, Nicole, Stef, Carmen, Crystal, Kelly, and others. Some of my friends contacted me for a recap of the events as they couldn't make it. Amanda and I talked for an hour on the phone about that and to catch up. Being there made me grateful for the friends I had who have helped inspire me to be who I am and be a better person. Everyone is someone at Woods Cross High School! Wildcat Pride!