Happy 5 Year Anniversary - BEE Yourself

Before I get started, I want to take a moment to send a thank you to our fans who love watching our channel and have enjoyed watching us grow over the last 5 years! If you haven't seen the video yet, check out the link below.

https://youtu.be/gOlI-yrWHQU

5 years is a long time. This adventure has been incredible. We started out in 2020. When we started out Preston was 5, Isabelle was 6 and Jordan was 7. It started as a fun activity and a workout from home. People loved our journey and our family dynamic, and they have tuned in daily to watch us. This has led us to over 17M subscribers on YouTube. Because of our fans, we have had such a great opportunity to spend more time as a family. We have experienced so many more moments together then we did when I had to go to an office to work 40 plus hours a week. We have cherished every moment we have been given together. We cannot thank our fans enough for giving us this time together.

Kellie always has a vision. She is really good at theming and finding props to fit the theme. She began ordering the supplies a few weeks ago for our big celebration. The theme is Bee Yourself. Her plan is to turn our house into a garden filled with bees. As a sidenote, I don't like bees. Maybe that isn't harsh enough. I hate bees. Amazon boxes start showing up for days. They are filled with yellow balloons, bumblebee balloons, flower balloons, yellow floating lanterns, and flower chains with sunflowers. She also has found a Pinata, Pinata toys, fly swatters, and chalk bombs.

The Day I was Attacked by Bees

It was a normal day when it all started. I arrived home from the store where I was picking up some groceries. As I pulled up the driveway I was greeted by a panicked Isabelle. "Daddy, I got stung by a bee in the house." I responded with "AAAAHHHH!" My worst fears are coming true. Bees in the house. This is not cool. I'm not going in there.

Let me take you on a side quest that happened the day before. PSEG our local gas and electric supplier is trying to have customers change over their old equipment. Originally proposed as a "free upgrade". Obviously, it's really expensive and not free but here we are. There was a gentleman here doing a full house assessment on the lovely price we would get to pay for the changeover. Anway, he was in the attic, and he shared pictures with me that there were wasp's nests up there. He couldn't say if they were active nests or not, but I knew. They were definitely up there plotting an attack on me. 

Back to Isabelle telling me she was stung. I'm trembling. Am I going to walk into this house and be attacked by killer bees. I don't know. All I know is one of them tried to take her out and I could be next. I cautiously open the door and what do I see! There were about a dozen bees flying around in the entryway! And these weren't typical bees. They were easily 50x larger than a normal bee so I did what any self-respecting adult would do. I screamed my face off and ran around in circles. It turns out they were just balloons. The girls picked up a helium tank and pranked me. Very funny. But just remember, real bees are not funny.

Why do Party Games Hurt?

I was minding my own business hanging out in my banana outfit when Kellie captured me and tied me up on a chair in the front lawn. When things like this happen, I am genuinely afraid. "Can I please just have sunglasses?" You never know when something might hit you in the face. It turns out she had this incredible idea to have a chalk bomb fight, and the winner was the person that left the most marks on me. Let me tell you something. When people whack you with the chalk bomb or pelt you with a chalk bomb instead of tossing it at you. It hurts! Did it feel like rocks you ask? Did I have a couple of welts? It sure did feel like rocks and yep, a few welts to go with it. As the chalk bombs were raining down on me, I saw my opportunity to struggle until the chair fell over. I popped out of my chair and ran around the yard. But they were able to catch me and continuously pelt me with the chalk bombs as I lay there with tears streaming out of my eyes. Winner? Certainly not me. Apparently, Jordan covered me in the most chalk.

It gets better. Ready for another fun game to start? Next, Kellie tied balloons all over me. There were almost 30 balloons. The kid that pops the most balloons wins. How are they going to pop these balloons you wonder? It turns out they have fly swatters that have pins on them. The object is to whack at the balloons attached to me with a pin. Great! These kids either have really bad aim or they just wanted to hit me with the fly swatter. Again, I am in the front yard running for my life. The kids capture me and toss me to the ground. They both start slamming the fly swatter into me and the remaining balloons. Isabelle won with 15 balloons popped. Jordan had 12. Which means Jordan probably hit me more times than Isabelle did. 

I'm glad game time is over. Wait its not over. There is a pinata. Like a normal family we can hang this thing up right? Nope! I am holding it by hand with the tiny little handle on the top while to kids storm me with their weapon of choice. Did they use a bat? No. They used a baby doll. Hard plastic baby doll. Perfect for holding the feet while you swing that baby's big head at my hands. Fearful I'm going to break a finger or two, I pull the pinata up and out of harm's way. Well guess what, their eyes swelled with rage and that made me a bigger target. The swinging got more intense. Their screams got louder. My fear grew. Luckily Isabelle raged out on the pinata and destroyed it before any harm could be done to me.

Circus Time

Do circus tricks really scare you? I get this question a lot. Witnessing something live is a lot different than seeing something on video. Think of how crazy some things have looked when you are watching them. Now add in more of your senses. We can start with sound that isn't present in the videos. You can hear the apparatus creaking before a drop occurs. You can hear the metal-on-metal crack as a drop is complete. Next, sight. You can see the participant almost touch the mat and the angle is way scarier than in the video. Smell. We can skip smell that's usually me because I'm scared.

The children are determined to scare me with their drops today. So, they take turns. Preston does a star drop. Jordan does a double 360. Isabelle does a Death Roll. Kellie does a Front Dive to a Star. Oh, and guess what? I have to do a drop to. So, I do my best backfall. My backfall is usually described as elegant, graceful and inspiring. The footage shared may not have illustrated the excellence of my drop.

More Scares

Earlier in the day I was peacefully drinking my water when Isabelle dropped down the silks soaking me with my water bottle. Then my family has other plans to scare me. Because I lost one of my balloons in the house, Isabelle has to jump off the ledge to obtain it. Can't we just have cake like a normal party?

It turns out there is cake! Great! Let's eat the cake. Oh, we can't just eat the cake. Isabelle does a drop with the cake. She is able to successfully drop without destroying the cake. Excellent news! We get to eat some cake to celebrate!

Thank you for coming along on this journey of ours. Hopefully there are no more bees in future celebrations.