Weekly Reviews July 3, 10, & 17 '15

I have a lot to cover, obviously, so I will try not to get too detailed here! The last few weeks have been great, and also a bit of an emotional roller coaster, so I feel proud of us all for surviving!

Back to Saturday, June 27th--it was a crazy busy day because we were trying to get packed for our trip and Tanner was getting packed up for his mission. I also had some RS stuff I needed to get wrapped up before leaving (mostly writing a message for the July newsletter), Seth was giving a talk the next day in Primary, and of course Tanner was speaking the next day in Sacrament Meeting too. Besides all that, Tanner had a friend he wanted to spend some time with and Tanner and Jared both were invited to go see a movie with their former YM president, which they went to.  So I ended up throwing most of Tanner's stuff into his suitcases because he really wasn't around that much. We were all up pretty late (me most of all) but we got everything done somehow.

Sunday I had my regular meetings, plus an extra because the bishop wanted to meet with me before I left (we usually meet the first Tuesday of each month, but I was going to be gone by then.) Tanner gave his talk in Sacrament Meeting and it was excellent...I wish I had thought to record it.  There was a really sweet spirit. Also, it was really cool to see the large amount of people from the YSA ward who showed up to hear Tanner speak and show their support for him.  He's was home for a relatively short amount of time, but I think he had a big impact on some people during that time.  I saw a couple of the girls in the restroom later that day, and they told me how great Tanner is...so funny, so kind, so dependable! Well, I knew that already!  But it was nice to hear anyway. One of the girls who is polynesian made him a "lei" out of ribbon. It's really quite clever.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of him wearing it.

Immediately after church, one of the counselors in the stake presidency set Tanner apart as a missionary.  He really did a beautiful job, and I was struck by how much that blessing fit Tanner's personality...who he really is!  Hard to explain in words, but I know it was inspired.

Monday morning we were just busy with last minute things getting ready for our trip.  Frank took us all to the airport, where we dropped Tanner off first for his flight, which was on Delta airlines:

This was a bit emotional, of course, especially for Frank since he wouldn't see Tanner again for 2 years. I even saw him get a bit tearful, which he doesn't do very often.

Then Frank dropped the rest of us off for our flight which was on Southwest airlines. Our flight left five minutes after Tanner's, but we got to Utah about 2 hours before Tanner because he had a stop in Atlanta and a plane change.  We were on a nonstop flight.  The trip was pretty uneventful, just kind of long as always.  Jared took some pictures:

After we got to Utah, we had to wait for Tanner but that didn't matter much because it took forever to get our rental car too.  I have the worst luck with picking up rental cars at the Salt Lake City airport!  There is always a problem, no matter which company I rent from.  Not sure if any rental companies understand what the word "reservation" means anymore.  The car I reserved was not ready and they tried to talk me into getting a larger car, which was ready ("only" $30 extra per day) but I was not about to agree to that.  So we waited & waited, and I finally had to send Jared to meet Tanner's flight.  He got back with Tanner right when the car was finally ready...and then it was still the larger car, although they "upgraded" me to that car for free.  Why on earth I had to wait 2 hours for the car that was supposedly already ready, I will never know! (Or why they didn't have the car I reserved ready in the first place.)

We finally made it to Mom & Dad's house (after stopping to see Scott for a bit), where we got to see Taran and meet his fiance, Lisa.  Mom had leftover yummy dinner for us, and some of Amy's family came to see us that night too. Actually, Jared stayed with Scott that night for some "brother time".

The next morning (Tuesday June 30th) we drove back up to Scott's house to pick him and Jared up. The family he is living with have two large dogs who were really sweet and fun to play with (they LOVE to fetch balls and frisbees) and they also have a trampoline which the boys enjoyed jumping on:

 Then we did some shopping to get a couple of things Tanner still needed and after that I took them all to lunch at Kneaders. We headed back to Mom & Dad's house for a while after that. Tanner watched a couple of church videos that he was supposed to watch, and Scott & Jared watched something else on Jared's phone:

That evening we all went to dinner at Chuck a Rama to celebrate Dad's birthday. It was nice because most of the extended family came. Afterwards, most of us went to Tim's house for more visiting, and we all stayed up way too late:

The next morning we took Tanner to BYU so he could walk around and visit his old haunts one more time.  Seth enjoyed seeing where Tanner had lived and where he ate! We got some Jamba Juice and we were going to get ice cream at the BYU Creamery on 9th, but it was way too crowded with a super long line, so we didn't have time.  We also visited the BYU bookstore, where Scott was dismayed to discover that they were all out of Utah Salt Lake City South Mission pins:

 We did get some cookies and cream milk at the creamery, and then it was time to drop Tanner off at the MTC:

I thought they were going to hurry us out of there, but the volunteers helping were really nice and offered to take those pictures for us. We said our goodbyes and I didn't cry too much!

Then we drove to a flag store in Provo to get an Arizona flag for Mom & Dad's mission flag display, but they were all out of Arizona flags! They had all of the other 49 state flags, but no Arizona.  It seemed to be our day for stores to be out of things we wanted.

I spent that afternoon trying to resolve a problem with the rental car. When we were coming back from the Salt Lake area the day before, I had some problems with the car that made me think there was something wrong with the transmission. That made me anxious and I didn't want to have more problems with it, so I tried to get it exchanged for another car. Should be simple, right? Of course not!  I will not go into all the details but to make a long story short, I didn't get another car. It turns out that Hertz did not have any cars available in all of Utah valley!  Plus the fact that we prepaid for most of the rental cost complicated things.  Overall, it took way too much time (and lots of phone calls) before I gave up in disgust. You would think they would bend over backwards for someone they rented a defective car to, but no. I was very unimpressed and will never rent from them again. In the meantime, it had been necessary for me to drive the car several places and thankfully I had not had any more trouble with it, so I decided to take a chance on it rather than go to any more hassle to try to get it exchanged. I never did have any more trouble with it, thank goodness!  Left me wondering what I would have done if the car had broken down somewhere, though. I would have really been up a creek since they didn't seem willing to get me another car.

That evening we spent some time at Amy's house. Wednesday was a "catch up" day.  We got laundry done and I got a prescription filled for Tanner.  I got a package put together and sent it to him too...a few goodies and some glow sticks for July 4th, along with the medicine. So nice that in Utah valley they have places who have same day delivery service to the MTC! After mailing the package, we took a drive up Provo Canyon. We stopped a couple of places to enjoy the views and for Seth to play on the playground. Actually, all three of the boys played a game on one of the playgrounds! It was a bit hot, but nice in the shade:

The next day (Friday, July 3rd) I took Scott back up to his house so he could get some laundry done and get a few things he needed.  I left he and Jared there for a lot of the day. Meanwhile, Amy and I took Seth, Jeremy, and Ammon to see the candy bomber.  When we got to the park, I realized that I had forgotten to bring sun screen...whoops! We waited in the sun for about an hour and a half. There were a ton of people there (later I read they estimated there were 50,000 people!) and it was super hot and kind of mess. But it was really exciting to see the vintage WWII bomber and escort planes fly over:

I don't know exactly what happened, but they missed the drop zone somehow and all the parachutes with candy fell on the other side of a chain link fence.  I guess some kids climbed the fence and got candy, but I only saw 2 or 3 kids (out of the thousands there) with candy.  It didn't matter, though...Seth didn't really care about the candy and he said seeing the planes fly over was totally worth it. I think I got heat stroke or something because walking back to the car I got very short of breath, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the car without collapsing.  But fortunately I made it and then I had to sit there with the A/C blowing on me for quite a while to recover before I could drive. Maybe my heart was acting up a bit too...I noticed it fluttering a bit, especially the first 4 or 5 days I was in Utah.  I don't think my heart likes the change in altitude.

Anyway, we stopped at Macey's on the way home and got ice cream cones and some candy too so all the boys were happy.  I also spied a big display of salt water taffy, so I had to get some of that.  I got some to send to Tanner too.  I was sunburned but thankfully not too bad. We went back up to get Scott and Jared that evening, but I don't remember what else we did.

For some reason, I don't have any pictures of the 4th of July! I thought about going to the parade, but after the candy bomber experience I decided one hot, crowded event was enough for me. We did have a nice cook out at Amy's house at lunch time with most of the extended family.  Then that evening we went to a party given by a family that Scott knew on his mission. It was a lot of their extended family and some other friends, so there were a lot of people there and I didn't know any of them, but they were extremely nice and many of them came over to introduce themselves to me and they talked with me a lot too and made sure I felt welcome.  There were kids for Seth to play with and Scott and Jared enjoyed playing volleyball as well as water balloon volleyball, which is apparently a family tradition. It was fun to watch them. We had a yummy dinner (two cook outs in one day!) and when it got dark that got a HUGE box of fireworks to set off.  I'm not kidding...that box was bigger than me! A lot of nearby neighbors were setting off fireworks too so we saw lots of fireworks.  They had several large aerial fireworks that went off right over our heads. We brought a package of glow sticks that we shared with everyone, and they all liked that, especially the kids.

I don't have any pictures of July 5th either!  We went to church with Mom & Dad, and I kept forgetting that it was actually my birthday!  I skyped with Frank that afternoon and after dinner the whole family came over to celebrate all the June and July birthdays.  And everyone gave me money and gift cards, which I appreciated! We had several kinds of yummy cake and two kinds of home made ice cream too.Very nice!

Monday the 6th was another catch up day.  We got some laundry done and I took Jared to buy some shorts he needed and some snacks for his return trip home, because he was leaving the next day. That evening we went up Provo Canyon with Amy's and Tim's families. Oh, and Anna and her girls too!:

We made s'mores and played some games; it was fun!

The next day (Tuesday the 7th) I got Jared to the airport in the morning.  I left Scott at his house to do some laundry while I did that.  Then I picked Scott back up and we spent the day visiting people from his mission and we also went to the Draper Temple and did a session:

I got to meet his mission president & his wife (again; we talked longer this time) as well as some of the other people he knew and got close to. When I was talking to his mission president's wife, we discovered that her younger sister had served in the North Carolina Charlotte mission at the same time that I did and that we knew each other (although we were never companions).  I enjoyed seeing the Draper Temple inside for the first time...it is really beautiful! We also went to a Mexican restaurant that Scott liked while on his mission. Besides the people we visited, we ran into a few more that Scott knew.  Everyone I met (both this day and also on the 4th of July) told me what a great missionary Scott was! That was really nice to hear.

Meanwhile, Seth spent the day at Amy's house with Ammon doing mostly this I think:

 
I'm sure he enjoyed that much more than visiting people Scott knew on his mission! But when we were at the last place, Amy texted me to say that Seth had thrown up! So we decided we'd better hurry home. It turned out to be a freak thing because he didn't get sick again, thankfully.  He was even able to eat some soup and crackers for dinner.

We thought about going to Seven Peaks with Shellie's family on Wednesday the 8th but since Seth had thrown up and there were supposed to be thunderstorms, we gave up on that idea. Also, Scott hadn't been feeling very well the whole time I was in Utah so I took him to see a doctor and he was diagnosed with a sinus infection.  He got some medicine for that, which helped a lot. We got back from the doctor in time to see Timo, who had just returned from his mission that morning. We enjoyed visiting with him and his family for a while before they had to leave and we also left to go up to Salt Lake to have dinner with some friends from Maryland who live in Utah now. We had a yummy dinner with them and enjoyed visiting. On the way home, we watched a thunderstorm come in...the lightning was beautiful!

It actually rained quite a bit while we were in Utah, which was unusual.  When we got there, it was extremely hot! Then on the 4th of July it cooled down and it was really quite pleasant the rest of the time we were there, with short thunderstorms a lot of days. The humidity when I got back to Maryland was really yucky for the first few days and hard to get used to!  But it has cooled down here too and the humidity has dropped a lot so it feels quite nice.  Hope that lasts a while!

Thursday the 9th was also a catch up day.  I took Scott up to his house and we got to meet the family he is living with (they had been on vacation the whole time we were in Utah up until then). They are super nice and we enjoyed visiting with them. We also moved over to Amy's house that day so that other people coming in for the wedding could stay with Mom & Dad and so that Seth could have more time to play with his cousins. We got packed up and I cleaned the bathroom at Mom & Dad's since Seth has a tendency to get bathrooms pretty dirty! At Amy's house we also did laundry. I mailed Tanner a package with the salt water taffy and some pictures drawn by Hazel, June and Seth too.

Friday the 10th was Taran and Lisa's wedding day, and that took up most of the day. Scott and I were able to go to the wedding ceremony in the Mt. Timp Temple and it was really sweet. Afterwards we hung around to take some pictures. We were worried it was going to rain on the picture taking, but it only sprinkled a little bit and it was nice that it wasn't hot and no one was squinting in the pictures because the sun wasn't very bright!:

After picture taking, we went to the luncheon which was at the same location as the reception. We had yummy soups, salads, and sandwiches. There was great entertainment too...Emily and Taran both sang some songs and then Tim and his four boys (besides Taran) did this hilarious dance to the song "My Girl".  It was a hoot and a real treat!!

In between the luncheon and the reception, Amy and I went to visit our high school friend Paula, who lives in Orem. It was nice to see her and get a little caught up. Then we met our families back at the reception.  It was really nice and they played some fun games and everyone had a ball dancing!  I preferred to watch the dancing, but it was really fun to watch. Tim and his boys did an encore performance of their dance. The cake cutting was funny too. Apparently, it is a tradition in Lisa's family to use a sword to cut the cake. Taran really seemed to enjoy that...hollering "hi-yah!!" every time they cut into the cake:

They also smeared cake all over each other's faces, although I've never seen anyone do that better than Tim and Rachelle:

On Saturday I had planned to take the boys back to BYU to look around some more and hopefully get a mission pin for Scott. They both decided they didn't really want to go, though, so I just went by myself. It was actually kind of nice, because I got to wander around all I wanted, reminiscing and taking pictures, without anyone complaining about how much time I was taking! I actually plan to do a separate post about BYU when I get some time so I'm not going to say a lot about it or include all the pictures, but here are a few:

I have a lot of great memories of my time at BYU and it was kind of sweet and kind of sad walking around!

On he way home from Provo, I drove up University Avenue, noticing things that were the same and things that were different, and then into Orem and down my former street and then up the hill past the Orem City Cemetary and down 1600 North to get to the freeway. I stopped at my former elementary school (Northridge) to take a picture too:

(I attended this school in 6th grade only...it was a brand new school that year.) It looks almost exactly the same except I think they added on a small wing onto the north end.

After I got back from that excursion, I took Ammon and Seth and met Erick's family at Erin & Dan's hotel to go swimming.  Anna and Buck were at the temple, but Ericka and Liz had June and Hazel with them. It was fun to swim for a bit and enjoy seeing them all:

After swimming, we all went back to Amy's house and ordered pizza for dinner.

On Sunday the 12th we went to church with Mom & Dad again. We had to leave early because Erick's clan needed to head back to Idaho and they needed to eat lunch first. But we did stay for Sacrament Meeting and also for Sunday School...we wanted to go to Sunday School because they were reading and discussing the letter from the 1st presidency about the supreme court decision on same sex marriage. There was a pretty good discussion about that.

We had a really yummy lunch and enjoyed visiting with Erick, Liz, Erin, Dan, Ginny, Anna, and June as well as Lee & Diane. It was really nice to see all of them! Laurel and her daughter Mindy came by for a visit too which was really nice since I hadn't had a chance to see Laurel in many years.After everyone left, we went back to Amy's house. She fed us dinner and afterwards Tim's family came over to visit one last time and to say good bye. (I was sorry I didn't get to see Shellie's family again before I left!) After that I took Scott back to his house and said good bye. It was a sad night with so many good byes!

Monday morning we got up pretty early to finish packing up and get to the airport on time. We stopped by Mom & Dad's to say good bye. Right before I left there, I got a text message that the flight was delayed but since I had to get the rental car back, we headed up to the airport anyway.  That was probably a good thing since my GPS routed me a strange way...I ended up on I-15 even though I hadn't planned to go that way! There were a few areas of slow traffic. Then when we got there, the line to check our luggage was incredibly long and there was a decent line to go through security too. So I was glad that I wasn't worrying about getting to the gate on time! Our flight got delayed again so it actually ended up leaving about 2 hours later than scheduled. We got to the gate shortly before it would have been time to begin boarding if the flight had been on time. So it was nice to have some time to get some lunch and relax a little, and there was a television with Cartoon Network on so Seth enjoyed that.

I was feeling bad for all the people who were supposed to be on a flight to Las Vegas...it was supposed to leave at 8:00 am and it got delayed until 3:00 (they announced) and then around 1:00 they cancelled it.  No more open flights until 9:00 that night! So a 2 hour delay didn't seem so bad.  Apparently there was bad weather in Chicago, which is where our plane was coming from, so that was the reason for the delay.

The trip home was also pretty uneventful, and went faster than the trip out. (Although Seth has decided he is scared of flying and is quite unhappy about take offs and landings. The guy across the aisle from us on the flight home was quite amused by Seth's wail of "Next time we should drive!" as we were preparing to take off.) We had a girl from Denmark sitting next to us on the flight home...she was nice.

Frank and Jared met us at the airport and it was really nice to see them again! It was pretty late by then and past dinner time so we stopped at a Taco Bell on the way home to get some dinner. By the time we finished unpacking, it was close to 11:00 so we collapsed into bed.  I didn't have any trouble falling asleep even though it was only 9:00 in Utah.

Jared left early Tuesday morning for "Camp Helaman"...a high adventure trip for all the teachers and priests in the stake. This year they are going on a 50 mile canoe trip on the James River in Virginia. Since he left so early, I have barely seen him and haven't had a chance to find out how Youth Conference went.  (He was gone on that from Thursday July 9th to Saturday July 11th. They went to Kirtland, so I'm sure it was pretty cool. I'll have to tell more about that next week.)  

Since getting home, I have mostly been "hibernating" so I can get caught up on things around the house.  Sooner or later people are going to discover I am back and then the phone will probably start ringing, but I am enjoying the solitude while it lasts!

I got to talk to Tanner briefly on Tuesday morning because he was allowed to call from the airport. It was nice to hear his voice!  He sounded well. We only got the one letter from him in the MTC since his P-day was Wednesday, and he left on a Tuesday. (Although it was a great letter!) We also got an email from his mission president that night with pictures, so we know he got to Arizona okay. I am guessing we won't hear from him until Monday.

The last few days I have been very busy restoring order to the Cleveland universe! On Tuesday I sorted all the mail, washed, dried, folded and put away laundry, swept and vacuumed the living room, emptied the dishwasher and loaded it again. cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned out the refrigerator, went through both freezers, made a grocery list, and went to both Walmart and the grocery store to replenish the food supply.

Yesterday I cleaned bathrooms and swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Today I did laundry again (to get back on schedule) and vacuumed the rest of the house. I think I am mostly caught up with all the housework now! I also made some phone calls and started working on visiting teaching stuff...getting back into the groove a bit with RS responsibilities. Tomorrow my big job will be to get all the finances caught up!

We had the Elders over for dinner last night and made home made pizza, which they loved! One of the Elders said "every time we see your name on the calendar, we're so happy because we know it's going to be good food and a great atmosphere!" I thought that was a really nice compliment, especially since we don't usually make anything special.

Today the weather is particularly nice so I took Seth to the park this evening. Another family from our ward happened to be there, who have a son near Seth's age so that was particularly fun for him. I enjoyed visiting with the mom & dad too.

So what did Frank do all this time? Mostly he worked his tail off.  He got caught up with work and did a lot of projects for clients. I think he got some rest too, which he definitely needed! He has improved quite a bit and seems to be mostly healed. His back is not hurting much at all anymore. It is a bummer that he couldn't go on vacation but I think he really needed the time to get caught up and to rest.

Since getting home I have enjoyed spending my birthday money & gift cards. I have ordered some books from Amazon and I got a new hair dryer too.  While I was in Utah I also picked up a few little things, like these salt & pepper shakers:

I knew Frank would like these, because it says "salt" and "pepper" right on the helmets! And when I took them out of the box today, I discovered that on the back of the jerseys there is a big "S" on one and a "P" on the other. So no confusion from the front or the back!

I had to get some salt water taffy, as I already mentioned:

And whenever I'm in Utah I also have to get some of these:

 I also decided to try some of these:

They aren't as good as I thought they would be, but they are all right. At the flag store I also got this book:

Because I am a total history geek!

Back in June, I also got another salt & pepper set that I need to document. I have so many sets now that I try not to buy any more unless I REALLY like them.  But I couldn't resist these. Who could resist these, I'd like to know?!:

But don't tell Frank...these are the ambiguous kind that he hates.  Which one is salt and which one is pepper? :)

One last thing! While I was in Utah I managed to read most of the book we are reading for book club, which is called And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. I'm not sure how I did that since it was close to 400 pages and I didn't have much free time.  But it was really good and an easy book to read. I was reading it on the plane on the way home and didn't even notice we were so close to landing until I felt us touch the ground! I finished up the last 20 pages or so on Tuesday. Then I finished up the Scientist in the Crib book and today I started reading a book called The Language of Flowers. I have no idea if it will be good but hopefully it will.

Whew!  That was a marathon! I doubt any of you made it through the whole thing (especially since a lot of you know what we've been doing the last few weeks, since we were with you!) but I needed to record it all for the family history books!

Weekly Review June 26 '15

I got a new set of salt & pepper shaker because...you know, I don't have enough already! But seriously, I had to get these ones for Frank:

So he can tell which one is salt and which one is pepper!

We've made it through another week and I'm not sure yet, but I think when Tanner gets on the plane Monday afternoon he will actually have everything he needs for his mission in his suitcases.  Plus everything that needs to be done before then will be done too I hope.  And if I'm really lucky, Seth, Jared and I will also have everything we need in our suitcases when we get on the plane Monday afternoon as well!

Going back to last Friday, we had a stake picnic.  I waffled back and forth a bit on whether or not to go.  We finally decided to go for a while.  We didn't stay a long time because Frank was uncomfortable sitting at the picnic benches, but we did stay long enough for Jared to participate in the pie eating contest:

He didn't win but I think he enjoyed it.  I mean, he got a whole apple pie to himself, after all.  Tanner didn't go with us because he went to a play that a friend was performing in.  On Friday I also made cookies (more on that later) and all the other regular Friday chores.

Saturday Frank and I went on a short walk.  The Primary president and I met at the church to assemble bags of cookies for all the men in the ward for Father's Day.  (That's why I made cookies on Friday.)  We had several women in our ward contribute cookies so it was not a lot of work and all the men seemed to really like getting them on Sunday.  After that, Frank and I went to the store to get some new blinds for the windows and a new outside light for the front porch.  The HOA said we need to replace the light (it's broken) and Seth broke one of the living room blinds last week.  Since the blinds are all very old (they were here when we moved in, I think) and we've been planning to replace them anyway, we decided to just replace all of them.  That trip ended up taking up more time than we anticipated...the light we wanted had to be retrieved from a high shelf and the blinds had to be cut to fit...so Frank was hurting quite a bit before we were done.  We actually only brought one blind home to make sure it was the right fit before they cut all of them, so Jared and Frank went back to get the rest right after dinner.  Meanwhile, I had a boy in the ward come over to pass off the Personal Management Merit Badge, the Elders came by, and before Jared & Frank got home a huge thunderstorm rolled in.  It was kind of a crazy night.

On Sunday, because of Father's Day, I didn't have any meetings.  So I got to sleep in a bit and I was home to make some breakfast for Frank.  (He chose waffles.)  After the boys got up we gave him some cards and some presents.  Frank's back was hurting and he was lying on a heat pad, so he said he didn't want me to take pictures of him lying down, but I told him it was okay because we'd always remember that this was the Father's Day that he was still recovering from a car accident:
 

There were a lot of people on vacation or something, so attendance and church (and RS) was pretty sparse again.  But we did have some good meetings.  I made dinner for Frank too (usually his job on Sundays, since I'm not around much) so hopefully he felt sufficiently pampered.

Oh, and I got a new counselor and secretary for RS.  My 1st counselor needed to be released because she just had a baby AND her husband was called to be the YM president a couple of months ago.  My former secretary is now my 2nd counselor, my 2nd counselor became my 1st counselor, and I got a new secretary.  So the whole presidency got released except for me, and then of course 2 or the 3 who got released got put right back in.  It was stressful figuring out who needed to be the new counselor (and secretary) but now that they've been sustained, I feel quite a bit of peace and relief.  So I think we're going to work together just fine.

Monday morning I met with my two counselors (the new secretary, understandably, couldn't make it since she just found out about the meeting the day before).  We actually didn't have a formal meeting, I just went over a bunch of things that I wanted to make sure they knew about before I am out of town for a couple of weeks.  While I was gone, Jared had a friend over and they finished spray painting all the signs for Jared's eagle project.  Then I took he and his friend over to a ward members' house so they could mow the lawn for them.  I did shopping (grocery and a few things for Tanner's mission) while they mowed, then picked them back up.  Jared went with the Elders to a dinner appointment that evening.  We had family night without him because Tanner was leaving for YSA family night before Jared was going to get back.

On Tuesday I went in and got my driver's license renewed because it would have expired while I'm in Utah.  It didn't take too long, thankfully, and my new picture turned out okay too.  The boys and I kept busy with cleaning and such too.  The Elders came over for dinner that night.  One of the Elders was going home the next day, so we took some pictures:

Tanner and Jared are in Sunday clothes because they were going to the temple right after dinner.  The youth had a temple baptism trip, and Tanner was asked to go along to help do the baptisms.  I think he enjoyed that a lot.  While I was waiting up for them, I watched a Netflix movie called The Age of Innocence.  We've had it for a while and I've been trying to find the time to watch it.  I read the book a few months ago so I was interested in seeing the movie.  It was pretty good. I enjoyed seeing 1870's New York City come to life, anyway.

Tanner was up early the next morning because he had agreed to drive the Elders to Columbia, MD for the transfer meeting and it began at 8:00.  There were a ton of missionaries going home and the mission president goes home next week so the meeting was super long. He had an appointment at 1:00 and barely got back in time for that.  I was supposed to meet with a sister in the ward at 1:00 so I had to push that back a few hours since I didn't have a car. Jared and I worked on his Eagle project.  We made one of the signs (we want to work out the kinks in the process before we have a bunch of people working on them at once).  It was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot and low humidity so it was nice to be outside.  While we worked, Seth played on the hill with Snickers:

(When Seth saw the circular lines left by the lawnmower, he said "Mom, come here!  I think I just found evidence that aliens actually exist!  He is so funny sometimes.)

One side of one sign completed:

Well, sort of.  I think it's going to need a few more coats of polyacrylic.  And even though it looks pretty good, the paper with the picture of the carrots is rather wrinkled so I'm worried moisture is going to get in there.  We're still trying to figure out a better method.

That evening Jared and I went to the church to attend an Eagle Court of Honor for one of the boys in the ward.  I also got a food order signed by the bishop, and delivered it to the family that needed it.

Yesterday, besides the usual Thursday chores of laundry, grocery shopping, and such, I took Seth to get a haircut and Jared to the bank to cash a check.  Jared had a Seminary party that evening and Tanner went to Institute. Most days this week we have tried to do some work on Jared's eagle project but the weather has not been cooperative.  Most days there has been rain at some point, and we have to have several hours to allow things to dry.  If we had a garage, it would make this project a whole lot easier!!!

Today has not gone as planned because Frank ended up needing to go to the doctor and then to the ER.  To make a long story short, while he was at PT today he got really light headed and his blood pressure went way up and his heart rate went way down.  So after he got home he called our doctor and they told him to come in.  The doctor decided to send him to the ER to have his blood checked and some other tests run to make sure his heart is okay.  Everything checked out fine, thankfully, but we still have no idea why that happened.  So he'll be following up with our doctor.  Of course, that ended up taking up all afternoon and into the evening.  I'm not feeling too great about leaving him alone for two weeks!  I wish we knew what was going on with him.

I signed up to take dinner to my former counselor tonight, which turned out to be a little crazy since I was at the ER with Frank.  But I was hungry anyway and the boys needed to be fed also.  So I left long enough to come home, make dinner, deliver some to my counselor's family, and then took some back to the hospital for Frank and I.  They did x-rays and blood tests while I was gone, and not long after I got back they decided he was okay and sent him home.

I've enjoyed being on a more relaxed schedule this week with the kids out of school, but I haven't exactly been sleeping in or anything.  The dog has been waking me up pretty early every day.  He has been sleeping in his crate every night since we got him (6 years ago) but about a month ago he started scratching and barking every night, all night.  (He does that once in a blue moon, but not every night, and he would stop when we told him to stop.)  It was keeping us awake and after a few weeks we couldn't stand it and started letting him sleep on our floor in our room.  He quieted right down, but now he is free to roam around the room at a very early hour.  I don't like it.  I'm thinking about moving his crate up to our room to see if we can get him to sleep in it again.

In between all the other stuff, I've been doing whatever I can to check things off Tanner's mission "to do" list. I also read a book called The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (so so) and then I started reading a book called The Scientist in the Crib, which is a nonfiction book all about how babies learn.  It's pretty fascinating, and I am coming to appreciate even more what a miracle our bodies and minds are!  Things for RS have calmed down a lot and most of Tanner's stuff is done so this week wasn't nearly as stressful (at least until today).  

That's everything I can think of for this week, and I still have lots to do tonight.  I'll finish up with another quote from Seth: "Mom, everyone knows that underwear is indestructible."  I'm looking forward to seeing many of you in a few days!

Weekly Review June 19 '15

It is our first day of summer vacation.  Finally!!  It feels like the whole world has been out of school for a month now.  It's finally our turn.

When I left off last week, we were having dinner and then going to pack meeting.  This is the first pack meeting we've been to for a long time, since Jared hasn't been a cub scout for over 5 years now.  This particular pack meeting was at a park and we had a beach theme for the activities.  It was pretty fun.  Everyone brought snacks to share.  All of the boys got awards, too.  Even boys like Seth who just turned 8 so they haven't had a chance to do any cub scout stuff yet.  They just asked each of the parents to tell them an accomplishment that boy had made in the last year. So I talked about how Seth learned to play the piano and just had his first recital.  Seth had a lot of fun at the park.  Frank was hurting because picnic benches are not comfortable places to sit, though.

Tanner and Jared didn't go to pack meeting with us because they went to see Jurassic World.  They loved it, of course!  Tanner has never completely grown out of the dinosaur phase!

Jared had a really busy day on Saturday.  First of all, he got up really early because our ward was having a sunrise devotional / testimony meeting and breakfast for the youth.  The sun comes up pretty early this time of year so he had to be at the church at 4:45 am.  He was home by 8:00 but went straight to the school from there because he was running lights and sound for a big dance recital and there was a lot of setting up to do.  He was gone all day because they had some problems with the light board so the setting up took a lot longer than it should have.  He didn't get home until 9:00 that evening, but he will get paid for working all day at least.

Meanwhile, Frank and I got to go on a date.  Frank really wanted to see Jurassic World too, so we went to a matinee for that.  Then we had lunch.  That is not my first choice in types of movies to watch, but I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.  It was nice to get out alone for a while, too.  It's been a while since we've been able to do that.  After we got home I had lots of things to do and I almost forgot to take Seth to his eye doctor appointment that afternoon!  But I remembered just in time.  We ordered new glasses for him and now I just need to remember to go pick them up.

Sunday was the usual...lots of meetings!  Our ward was a bit on the sparse side for some reason.  A lot of people were missing, including one of my counselors because she had a baby that morning.  We only had about 13 people in Relief Society!  I think a lot of people were out of town, though...vacations planned when we thought we'd be out of school already.  I found out that morning that a sister in our ward had broken her ankle the night before.  Another sister (besides my counselor) had also had a baby earlier in the week.  Her mom was visiting to help, so she had told me she didn't need any help until after her mom left.  But on Sunday I found out that her visiting mom was sick!  So this week was a little crazy, making sure that everyone who needed things were taken care of and doing okay.

Monday I had lunch with my friend Rebekah.  I also took milk to a family who needed it (I messed up their food order somehow so they didn't get any milk) and dropped off a card and some flowers for a sister whose mom died last week.  Oh, and took dinner to the sister with the new baby and sick visiting mom!  In between I managed to squash in things like laundry and grocery shopping, and every day I tried to do some small thing on Tanner's mission prep list. Frank had a busy day too.  He has worked every day this week...Wednesday he worked from home but every other day he went in to work, and put in full days.  He is doing ok but it isn't easy for him.  On Monday after work he spent the rest of the evening down in his office doing work for some clients.  He's had a lot more going on with his business the last week or so.

Tuesday morning I had a lot to do but I felt like I needed to visit a couple of sisters.  So after dropping Seth off at school, I went to the store to get some flowers and then stopped by one sister's house to give her the flowers.  Her dad just passed away and she also has some really difficult things going on with one of her kids.  I wasn't sure if she would want to talk, but she invited me in and we did have a long, but very good talk.  She'll be okay...but again, sometimes I wonder how people manage to keep going!  After that visit I took flowers to the sister who broke her ankle and found out that it had been broken in three places and she had to have surgery on it the next day.  She has older kids living at home including one adult daughter, so thankfully she has a lot of people to help her.  But I still plan to keep in touch with her to make sure she doesn't need more help later.  She'll probably be down most of the summer and I imagine it will be wearing on her and her family!  After I left her house, I checked my phone and discovered I had a message from another sister who sounded pretty upset and wanted to talk to me before she had to leave for work, if possible.  I realized I would be driving right by her house on my way home, so I just stopped at her house.  I was able to talk to her and help her feel a little better...she had a crisis with her daughter.  By then it was lunch time!  Needless to say, I didn't get everything on my list done that day.  But I've been able to catch up over the last few days and I'm sure that was the right thing to do.  I got a few household chores done and called my compassionate service leader to ask her to get a few things done for the sisters I visited.

Tanner and I went to the temple on Wednesday.  We were hoping to get there in time for the 10:00 session but the traffic was terrible so we just missed it.  Rather than wait an hour for the next session, we decided to do initiatories.  I'm really glad we did because it really helped me to hear those promises again.  I felt some of the weight I'd been feeling over the troubles of others lifted, I was encouraged that I can continue to do everything I need to do to help others, and I was reminded why those women are able to keep going in spite of how difficult their lives are...because their temple covenants give them power.  Some of my own burdens felt lighter too.  So that was a really sweet experience.

I came home and got shopping done, and picked up Seth from school.  I don't usually pick up in the afternoons but I had offered to pick up my counselor's son (the one who just had a baby) on Wednesday and Thursday because he goes to the same school as Seth.  (Her husband had to go back to work on Wednesday so he couldn't pick up after that.)  The Elders came over for dinner that night.  Jared was helping with a theater thing at the school that evening.  Tanner and I were somewhat interested in going to a choir performance at the stake center (a special musical fireside thing done by a group visiting from Utah) but I had a lot of catch up to do and so we decided not to go.  Then one of Tanner's friends called so he went to spend the evening with him.  I made a lot of progress on my list of things to do so Thursday wasn't as stressful

Wednesday was Jared's last day of school because the last day for the high school students is a test make up day.  If you don't have any tests to make up, then you don't have to go.  Seth's last day was yesterday, and it was a short day.  They got out two hours early. It was also pajama day, and I'm pretty sure they didn't get much done in the way of learning!  I got my regular chores done and made some phone calls and such for RS before I had to go pick him up.  My counselor's son (Lyndon) and Seth wanted to have a play date right then, but I had made an appointment to get my hair done that afternoon.  So we decided that Lyndon could come over that evening (after talking to his mom, of course!)  I got my hair done and Frank (who had just come home from work) went over with me and got his hair cut too.  He hadn't had his hair cut for a couple of months!  He was already a few weeks overdue to get a hair cut when he got in the wreck.  Since then, it has been too painful for him to think about it since getting a haircut involves looking down and turning your head, not to mention sitting in a chair for a while.  So he had really long, curly hair!  After haircuts and dinner, Lyndon came over to play with Seth for a while.  They had a lot of fun.  Tanner went on exchanges with the missionaries and then to Institute.  I was able to do quite a bit of reading and finished the book for book chat.  We chose a book called Little Bee, and it was pretty intense and had a few pages I'd recommend skipping, but it was a pretty compelling story and the writing is beautiful.  Before bedtime, we went outside and Jared and Seth chased fireflies for a while.  One of my favorite parts of summer!!  Just wish that could be captured on film.  The fireflies have been slow to come out this year and there still aren't as many as usual, but we're starting to see more of them.

In between everything else, I managed to get a car rental booked for our trip to Utah.  It looks like, unfortunately, that Frank is not going to be able to come at all.  He has a lot of projects piled up at work and doesn't feel like he can miss any work until he gets caught up.  I am really bummed about it!!  We also got a call from missionary medical to arrange getting Tanner's medication for him while he's on his mission.  I hadn't had a chance to follow up on that yet when missionary medical called me!  So that was helpful.  Tanner and Jared went out one day and bought a lot of the smaller things Tanner needs for his mission (like first aid and hygiene items) so the shopping list is dwindling, thankfully.  There is still plenty to do, but I think we will manage to get it all done.

That brings you up to date on all of our adventures until next week.