Weekly Review June 27 '21

 I'm getting this week's post written super late because this weekend was Girls' Camp so I was super busy. I didn't have a spare second to write until yesterday evening and by then I was too tired. So here goes.

Last Saturday (the 19th) I was really busy all day getting shopping and planning done for Girls' Camp. I placed orders for food for both dinners, bought a few of the non perishable items, and went the church to retrieve paper products from the closet. On Saturday I also got together with a couple of friends to play the ukulele and to have a potluck lunch. It was fun to get caught up with them.

Sunday was Father's Day so I made some breakfast for Frank and we gave him presents.

Back in May when my YW class made Star Wars themed Mother's Day cards for an activity, I secretly made a Father's Day card for Frank and had Seth sign it. It has a pop-up picture of Yoda inside and says "Yoda Best Dad". As you can see, Frank really liked it. He laughed really hard!

He got some shorts, a cool flashlight, and the boys sent him this shirt. 

For dinner I made chicken cordon blue casserole and a lemon pie for dessert (his request). I hope he felt loved and appreciated! 

The rest of the week was dedicated to Girls' Camp. The camp itself was only 2 1/2 days but I spent a good part of Monday through Wednesday getting ready. I purchased the rest of the nonperishable food on Monday. On Tuesday we had a final planning meeting for camp--this time in person--that lasted a couple of hours. On Wednesday I went back to the store to get all the perishable stuff. In between I was organizing everything into bins and gathering utensils, ice chests, water coolers, etc. Because of Covid, we had to do catering or use pre-packaged items, so we weren't actually doing any cooking which simplified things a lot, thankfully. But it was still amazing how much stuff I ended up with, and how much time it took to organize things for only 4 meals! (Plus snacks and--of course--s'mores.) The girls were asked to pack a lunch for both Thursday and Friday, so I only had to provide breakfast for Friday and Saturday and dinner for Thursday and Friday. Our living room looked like a warehouse:

Besides all that, I also had 3 ice chests and 2 water coolers in the kitchen. I did manage to get everything ready, but I was pretty tired by Wednesday evening. 

Camp began on Thursday...all the girls met at the church at noon. They went to a place called Tree Trekkers which is a ropes course / zip line place that afternoon. Then everyone met at the campground...which was a farm belonging to a couple in our stake...for dinner and the evening activities. The second day we had classes at our church building (cake decorating, self defense, first aid, and painting) and then went back to the campground for the evening. On Saturday morning we we packed everything up and then had awards and then a color war. I think all the girls had a really fun time. I participated in the activities as much as I could but since I had to pick up food and deliver it, I wasn't there for everything. I met at the church on Thursday to deliver snacks and water for them to take to tree trekkers, but I had to pick up pizza to be delivered for dinner so I didn't go to tree trekkers with them. I did get to go home for a little while that afternoon and I was able to finish up laundry and do a few chores around the house that needed to be done. I slept at home both nights (they didn't need me to stay overnight) but arrived back at camp both mornings at 7:15, in time for flag ceremony, devotional, and breakfast. During the day on Friday I was going back and forth quite a bit but I was there for part of the classes and after I picked up dinner and delivered it, I stayed for the rest of the evening on Friday for all the activities including testimony meeting. On Saturday I didn't stay for all the awards and the color war because I had all the food and equipment packed up in my car and I knew it was going to take a while to get everything unpacked and cleaned up (and it did). 

Overall, camp was really fun but exhausting. Even though I slept at home, I still didn't sleep well either night and I was getting to bed late and getting up really early. Then during the day I was running from one place to the next, it seemed like, all day. I really enjoyed being there as much as possible, though, and throughout the days I had a lot of opportunities to just sit and talk with the girls and get to know them better and I really enjoyed that. I may have mentioned before that this camp was just for our ward and the Spanish branch so we had a relatively small group and that meant we were able to be much more flexible with what we did so it was more relaxed in a lot of ways (even though it was busy!). There was a really sweet spirit there, I thought. All the girls in the Spanish branch are just lovely and I really loved getting to know them better too. We were also super fortunate that the weather was just perfect! We had temperatures in the low 80s, low humidity, sunny skies, and no rain! Today it is in the 90s and high humidity which is much more typical for this time of year. So we felt really blessed to have such nice weather. 

A few favorite photos from camp:

(They weren't officially fully vaccinated until the next day)

One of the activities was ax throwing, and she got one right in the center!

There were a few bunnies at the farm...the girls loved to cuddle them!

Naptime in the car

Playing badminton with our bishop

Meanwhile, a few other things happened this week besides Girls' Camp. On Monday evening we went to a farewell party for a family in our ward who is moving...it was held at a park. A lot of people in our ward and stake were there and it was fun to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in a while. The family who is moving have been here a few years longer than we have, so we have known them for over 20 years. Their older daughters are close in age to our older sons, and they have all been good friends. We will really miss them! I did get to see them a lot this week, though, because the mom, dad, and one of the older daughters were all asked to be our camp directors and their two youngest daughters were at camp. I'm glad I got to spend so much time with them right before they leave.

On Tuesday evening we didn't have an official YW activity because of camp, but my class wanted to get together to give gifts from us to the girls who are moving soon (3 of them 😔) We met outside since the weather was nice (it was pouring rain that morning, but it cleared up before evening). 

Seth didn't have a YM activity on Tuesday evening either because the YM had a trip to the Philadelphia Temple to do baptisms on Friday. Their appointment time was 8:15 am, which meant they had to leave here by 5:10 am. Seth wanted us to wake him up at 4:00 am. So I was up at 4:00 am on Friday and didn't go back to bed since I was going to camp a few hours later. After they did baptisms, they had lunch and did a photo scavenger hunt of historical sites in Philadelphia before coming home. Seth got home around 4:00 pm. I barely saw him that day since I had to leave shortly after that to pick up dinner food for Girls' Camp and by the time I returned home on Friday night, he was asleep. 

Frank had a busy day with work on Thursday so when I got back from camp at nearly 10:00 pm, he still wasn't home. He got home around 11:30 pm, I think. So you get the picture...it was a busy and hectic week for many reasons!

On Saturday morning Seth and Frank helped clean the church. They got back from that shortly after I got home from camp. I had just finished unloading all the ice chests, water coolers, and food bins onto our front lawn so I could sort through things and empty them and wash them out. There was a ton of food leftover because a) I overestimated how much food girls eat (I mean, I have more experience with teenage boys, not girls!) and b) I was told to plan meals for 30 people but there were never that many people there. Even though we did camp on a ward level, they had everyone register through the stake and we kept getting conflicting lists. So we were never really sure who was going to show up and things kept changing anyway up until the last minute...we'd hear one girl was coming who hadn't been planning to come and then the next day we'd hear someone else wasn't coming when we thought they were. At least one girl showed up the first day that we hadn't been expecting at all and several girls came and went...were there for some parts and not others. The end result is that we had to over prepare and I don't think we ever had more than 16 girls there for meals, with assorted leaders added on (which also changed for nearly every meal). So anyway, there was a lot of leftover food. We called the missionaries and they came and got a bunch of it, and I will also be returning several unopened packages of things. With the help of Frank & Seth, I did get everything put away and all the containers rinsed out. We returned a couple of coolers and a bin to the other YW counselor, who had loaned them to me. 

By the time we got all that done and I showered, it was noon and I watched the Worldwide Missionary Broadcast from the church, because I was supposed to watch that as a YW leader. It was really good! Our ward had a ward activity that afternoon, which was planned by the Elders Quorum. We met at a park to play games and have dinner. The nice weather held, and it was really pleasant sitting in the shade and talking with other ward members while we ate. It's the first ward activity we've been able to have for over a year so it was really nice! 

So as you can see, we had a busy week. Frank's back has been hurting since yesterday morning...it started with cleaning the church and I'm sure all the stuff he did to help me put away the things from Girls' Camp didn't help. So I'm trying to let him rest as much as possible. 

This week is going to be a lot calmer, which will be nice! 

Weekly Review June 18 '21

When did I get so busy??? I have definitely been running around a lot this week. I don't know where today went...not sure how it is nearly 5:00 pm already! So I will try to get this week's review written quickly, because I still have a lot to do today.

Last Friday Jared & Jessie arrived back at our house around 6:30. We enjoyed spending the evening with them, hearing about their trip and playing a game called Monopoly Deal. They left here about noon on Saturday to head to Jessie's parents' house and from there to the airport. We're glad they got to visit, and glad that we will get to see them again soon.

About the same time that Jessie & Jared were leaving on Saturday, Frank took Seth to get his second Covid-19 shot. He didn't struggle this time since he knew it wasn't really going to hurt. After they got back, Frank and I did some shopping. We decided it was high time to replace the microwave since the protective coating on the inside was wearing away and the metal underneath was rusting...plus Frank said he thought he even saw a few sparks inside while warming things up in there. This microwave never fully rcovered from the time it caught on fire inside because Seth forgot to add water to his mac & cheese cup! It's nice to have a microwave that isn't smoke damaged! We also got a new lawn mower (again!) After purchasimg and immediately returning two others, we decided to go with a different brand and we also sucked it up and got a more expensive model. You get what you pay for I guess because this one actually works! Seth got to break it in that evening, after we had time to fully charge the battery. Earlier in the week, Frank used some gift cards to purchase a fancy new thermostat and it arrived on Saturday also, so he spent a lot of time installing it. This thermostat connects to the echo dot, so we can change the settings simply by asking "Alexa" to change them. Like I said, fancy!! 

Sunday was particularly busy. Gone are the long, quiet Sundays of Covid-19 quarantine, when we didn't go anywhere or have much to do! The YW presidency met with the bishopric that morning (via Zoom) to plan out who would be in charge of each activity for the rest of the year. Then we had our regular church meetings, then I had a ministering interview with the RS president, and then I had a camp planning meeting. By the time all that was done, we had dinner and family night and the day was over! Seth had a sore arm and a headache and he felt quite tired, so we let him stay home and rest all day. That seemed to do the trick because he felt fine by Monday morning. We're really glad he had pretty mild side effects from the shot.

This was Seth's last week of school, and it was all field trips. On Monday they spent the day at a place called Thorpewood, which is a nice rustic wedding venue place up in the "mountains". This is the same location they were having the 8th grade promotion ceremony so the main purpose of the trip was to have a rehearsal for that. They also just enjoyed being outdoors all day. Meanwhile, I went out to breakfast with my friend Rebekah and got shopping and other chores done. Later, we had dinner and family night. I decided to clean the bathrooms that evening because I was going to be gone most of Tuesday (I usually clean them on Tuesdays) and Seth helped me. It actually went much quicker with him helping and I enjoyed it more too. I think I will have him help me more often this summer! By the way, the weather this week has been beautiful...mostly in the 80s with sunshine and--the icing on the cake--low humidity.

On Tuesday I helped chaperone Seth's field trip, which was a scavenger hunt in historic downtown Frederick. It was fun but we were walking around for 5 hours straight...my feet are still hurting, days later!! How lucky that the weather was so nice, though. Doing that in 90s with humidity would hav been murder. There were 53 places to find and our team found 34 of them. I had to take a photo of my group at each one we found. Besides that, there were several optional "extra" photos we could do, like our group on a staircase or everyone jumping in the air at the same time. We also got extra points for finding all the items in different categories like "bridges" , "animals", and "public art". My only regret is that we missed out on 23 extra points because we found all but one item in the "public art" category. Oh well!! To be honest, Seth and I were the only ones in our group who were really trying to find things. The other kids (2 boys and 3 girls, besides Seth) were more interested in talking to each other than looking for clues. Oh well. Here's a bunch of photos:

Downtown Frederick is really quite cool and we learned quite a bit of history in the process. Two of the stops were places where they had arranged ahead of time that the kids could get a treat...a pretzel place and a soda pop place.

We got home from the field trip and I was exhausted (and my neck was sunburned) but I had no time to rest. First of all, I needed to upload all the photos I took on the field trip to a Google document. Besides that, there was a YW activity that evening and my class was in charge (poor planning on my part to sign up to chaperone that day!) And of course it was a "hybrid" activity (some people attending virtually) and it was an activity where everyone needed paint and canvases so I had to prepare and drop off supplies to all the girls who weren't coming in person. (I couldn't do it earlier because I didn't know what paint colors everyone needed until the last minute. They had to fill out a survey but of course some people didn't do it until the last minute.) We also had a former sister missionary who served in our area who was visiting and trying to come see us that afternoon. She ended up being too busy, which was just as well since we were so busy too. I actually ended up not making dinner that night at all...we had all eaten lunch really late anyway. The activity went well and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. I started a painting but I didn't finish it and I'm not sure when I am going to have time to finish it but hopefully I will someday.

On Wednesday I got the chance to catch my breath a little bit but it was still fairly busy. Seth had only about an hour of online school...they just had their morning meeting. I had regular chores to do, plus a few I hadn't been able to do on Tuesday. I also had YW stuff to do. That evening was the 8th grade promotion ceremony for Seth. Frank had to work Wednesday night so he missed it. I wasn't very happy about it but it wasn't his fault. By the time I realized the date for the ceremony, he had a job scheduled and he couldn't change it. We were supposed to be at the location for the ceremony 30 minutes early, but we barely arrived a few minutes before it started because the address in the email was wrong (two of the numbers were transposed) so we went several miles too far north and had to come back once we realized we were not in the correct place. (Thankfully, we knew the name of the venue so I put that in my GPS and it got us there. I wish I had done that originally instead of using the address!) The ceremony was nice...a few of the students shared talents and then they all received certificates. After that there was a slide show with photos of all of the 8th graders as they were growing up. Unfortunately, it was really hard to see the screen even though we were in a nice shady grove of trees. After that, his teachers gave each of them a custom made sticker unique to each student (and they explained the meaning behind each one). Then there was cake and juice and everyone visited and took pictures. I was talking with the parents of Seth's friend Krish and they started discussing who was going to pick up Krish from school the next day (like Seth, he doesn't usually go to school on Thursdays but they had a field trip for the last day of school.) It was going to be difficult for both of them, so I offered to pick him up and bring him to our house until his mom got off work. So that's what we did. Here are a few photos from the ceremony:

Seth displayed this picture that he drew

This is Seth with is friend Eliza. They have been in the same class together every year since they were 3 years old, in preschool! Unfortunately, they will not be going to the same high school.

Most of the 8th graders.

Seth with his certificate

Seth with his personalized sticker.

Frank's job took all night, and then there were problems that had to be fixed so he did not get home until 10:00 am on Thursday. He got a few hours of sleep and then he had a couple of meetings in the afternoon. Meanwhile, I got Seth to school for his last day...they went to Baker Park and presented projects, then just played games and had fun. The assistant principal also arranged to have a snow cone truck come so every kid in the school got a snow cone. Seth came home sunburned but happy, and he and Krish had a lot of fun playing games until Krish's mom came to pick him up. While Seth was at school, I got grocery shopping and laundry done and I also had an online training meeting with the YW president and our new class president (just called on Sunday) to train her. Last night I had book chat, which was fun as usual. We won't be meeting again until August since so many of us are traveling (and summer is so short this year!). We are reading David Copperfield, which is pretty long but we have a lot of time to read it.

Frank had to work again last night. He only had a short nap on Thursday afternoon so he was pretty tired, of course. This time he got home about 5:00 am. He only slept a few hours before getting back up. He sort of took the day off...he didn't go in to work and he said he would only take care of emergencies. He did have to go to one store to solve a problem and he's been on the phone quite a bit too. He's also had some work to do for clients, so I can't say it was a restful day for him. I think he's had about 6 hours of sleep since Wednesday morning, so he's exhausted, of course. I worry about him a lot when he gets this busy. He really needs to get more sleep!

I have spent today getting the budget caught up / paying bills and doing stuff for YW. This afternoon I had another training meeting with the YW president...this time we were training the 2 new counselors in our class presidency, and I was in charge of doing the training. I think it went pretty well. This whole week I have been feeling anxious about the food for Girls' Camp because I have not been able to get in touch with the young woman who is in charge of it since last week. (I've texted her several times.) This morning the camp director contacted me to let me know that something is going on with this girl (I don't know details, but I doubt it's her fault) so she is not going to be able to do the food. So now it is my job. At least now I can jump in and start doing stuff but I wish I had more time. Not really this poor girl's fault, but I never would have left things until this late if I hadn't been waiting to hear back from her. I do have a pretty good idea what we need to do already, at least, so hopefully it won't take too long to get everything done, since I have only 6 days.

Seth got to start out his summer vacation by mowing the lawn this morning:

Don't feel too bad for him, though...he spent the rest of the day playing games and watching television!

Frank got the news on Tuesday of this week that his boss has accepted a position with another company. His last day will be this Friday. He's been a good boss, so neither of us are very happy about it. You never know if the new boss is going to be better or not. We'll just have to wait and see, and hope for the best.

Now I'd better go work on the food for Girls' Camp!

Weekly Review June 11 '21

 I have about an hour before my YW presidency meeting starts so I will try to be quick and get this post done before then! 

Remember last week I mentioned that Frank had a big online presentation at work and that it went well? The presentation was for the company who provides their security cameras, showing other potential buyers how they use the cameras in their company. On Friday Frank came home with this nice gift basket from the security camera company, as a thank you for his part of the presentation. I didn't get a photo before he dismantled it, but here is one after he removed all the items from the basket:

We've been enjoying the variety of tasty treats, which includes crackers, candy, cheese spread, mustard, and cookies.

Jared didn't make it over to our house on Friday after all, but on Saturday morning he and Jessie met us at a place called Adventure Park to play mini golf. It was excruciatingly hot & humid, but we still had fun. It was a close game, with Jared winning closely followed by Jessie, me, and Frank...all four of us were each one point apart! Then Seth was only 3 or 4 points behind Frank. I was slightly disappointed that I didn't win, since I was in first place until the last couple of holes when I messed up! Oh well! After that, we went to Red Robin for lunch. Then we went back home and Jared finished going through all of his boxes. He managed to get rid of so much stuff that we only had to take 3 boxes back to the storage unit...not bad, since he had 11 boxes before that! We had Chinese food for dinner and later we went to Rita's to get some gelati. Jared & Jessie stayed at our house until Monday morning, when they left for Tennessee.

On Sunday we went to church as usual. The one difference is that we didn't have to wear masks for the first time...that was nice. Everything is back to normal except that they are still taking a lot of precautions with preparing, blessing, and passing the sacrament. Also, to help with passing the sacrament they are still having us sit on every other row. But it is great to be mask free, to be able to sing, and to be able to talk to people afterwards. Sunday went by fast because I had a class presidency meeting before church, a camp meeting after church (online) and Jessie was going to her sister Emily's seminary graduation that evening. We had to fit dinner in there too, and our church meetings are from 1:30 to 3:30 so we had a lot to do in a few hours. Also, Frank had an overnight job on Sunday night and had to leave about 6:00. Jared, Seth and I played a game while Jessie was at the Seminary graduation. It's called Forbidden Island and it's a group game where you are trying to capture 4 treasures and get everyone off the island before it sinks. The island is made up of 24 tiles when you start the game. We won the game, but barely! I had to take this photo to show how close it was:

Only 4 tiles left when we finished capturing the last treasure and made it to the helicopter pad! It's a pretty fun game.

Jared & Jessie left early Monday morning, as I mentioned. I got Seth to school and then I had shopping to do. I needed to get some groceries for us but I also took time to price a lot of items for Girls' Camp. After I got home, Frank went with me to Goodwill (he was awake by then) to donate a bunch of stuff (Jared's and some of our own) and then we went to Costco to get a couple of things and I priced some more items for Girls' Camp. After we got back home I was finally able to vacuum and sweep the whole house...I hadn't been able to do that for a few days because of Jared's boxes that were everywhere. Frank worked about a half day, since he worked all night the night before. We hadn't had a chance to do the lesson portion of family night on Sunday (as we usually do) so we did that part as well as the activity / treat part that evening.

Tuesday was a pretty normal day with Seth going to school and the regular chores, plus YM / YW activities that evening. Frank had to work again on Tuesday night, though, so he left around 9:00 for work. The YM played badminton for their activity. They opted to play inside the gym instead of outside because it was still really hot and humid. The YW had a farewell party for all the girls who are leaving...two just graduated and are headed out west for school, plus 6 other girls (from 3 different families) are moving. We are sad to be losing so many girls! There are a lot of families moving out of our ward right now...not just those three families with YW age girls. For our activity we played a game and made memory books for the girls who are leaving.

Wednesday was quite busy because besides the usual school and chores, Seth had an orthodontist appointment in the afternoon...they put his bottom braces on. Also, that evening the Elders came over to our house (first time in over a year!) to do another practice discussion with us, and right after that I had a RS activity. For the RS activity we were making encouraging cards to give to foster kids who are aging out of the foster care system soon. It was really fun to visit while we made cards. Besides all of those activities, I was busy during the day with ordering some supplies for our next YW activity, working on calculations for food for Girls' Camp, and I also sewed a button onto some shorts for Frank. So as I said...it was a busy day.

This last week has mostly been very hot, with temperatures in the 90s, but yesterday we got some rain (short but torrential) and today it is raining and supposed to rain all day and the high temperature is only going to be 68 degrees. Yesterday I didn't wake up until nearly 8:00 for some reason so I got a late start to the day but thankfully I just had the usual things to do mostly. Frank and I also took our cars in to get oil changes and I took the time to watch the Church's broadcast for parents and leaders of children and youth. The broadcast was on Sunday but I didn't have time to watch it then. It was really good and the advantage to watching it later was that I was able to pause it and write down notes. I took a lot of notes...both of things I want to do as a parent with Seth and things I want to do with the girls as a YW leader. Frank had to work again last night but thankfully only for a few hours this time...he got home shortly after midnight. He planned to take today off, except for emergencies, but he started working this morning around 8:30 and I haven't seen him yet (it's nearly 1:00)...so much for taking the day off! 

Today I have just been working on the usual chores. As I expected, Seth has not had a lot of work to do for school this week. He and a couple of other kids in his class were in the local newspaper this week though. They all did "social awareness" projects this term and his group recycled plastic grocery bags into yarn (they call it "plarn" for plastic yarn) and then a few of the girls in the group are crocheting the plarn into mats to be donated to homeless shelters. A few kids in his group filled out a press release and a reporter from the local paper decided to do a story on them. She visited the school on Monday and the story appeared in Tuesday's paper. Just a note: Monday also happened to be pajama day, so that's why Seth is wearing pajamas in the photos!! Here is a link to the article if you would like to read it.

Seth is in the Paper

I think it is cool that they did this, and definitely it was a worthwhile project, I just wish they could have done this in addition to studying United States history, instead of studying United States history. (He was supposed to study US History this year and then they changed the curriculum.) Seth is going into high school and still knows very little about US history, which is ridiculous. He will have a US History class in high school, thank goodness. In the meantime, we may do some studying of our own this summer. 

I have been busy reading in between everything else we've been doing and I am almost finished with the book for book chat (The Girls of Atomic City). It's definitely been an interesting book to read and has led me to doing some online research about atomic bomb testing and stuff like that. 

Jared & Jessie are returning from Tennesse today and they will be staying with us tonight before returning to Utah tomorrow morning. We are looking forward to seeing them again, even though it will only be for a brief time. I think they had a great time in Tennessee with Jessie's family.

Well, I managed to get this post written in time so I will publish it and go on to my meeting! 

Weekly Review June 4 '21

 When I left off last week, I was about to frost Seth's birthday cake. I did that, and we sang Happy Birthday and had him blow out his candles. Then Frank went to pick up the pizza. He stopped on his way back at our house to drop off the pizzas and to pick up 2 pieces of birthday cake. Then he took a pizza and the two pieces of cake over to the Elders for their dinner. After he got back from that, we all had pizza and cake. 

On Saturday I was busy with YW stuff and errands. I also recorded my part for another virtual choir song...this time we did an arrangement of America the Beautiful. I sang soprano for this song because the director wanted more sopranos. That made it easy to learn, although there was a descant for one verse. I enjoyed it. Frank and I went on a short walk that evening also, and I did a little bit of sewing on the skirt that I may finish someday...and got to talk to Mom for a while since of course I had a question about how to sew something!

On Sunday Frank wasn't feeling really great--his blood sugar must have been off somehow--and his vision was kind of blurry. He ended up staying home from church. Seth and I went, and it was the first time I got to meet with the YW in person for a YW lesson. Since it was a 5th Sunday, all the yough met together though so it was different than it will be when we meet with just the YW. A few families came to church that I haven't seen since quarantine started over a year ago. We also had the sacrament near the beginning of the meeting instead of at the end, as we've been doing since we returned to in-person church. Now that we can sing the hymns and the ordinance of the sacrament is back to its normal place in the meeting and more people are coming, it is really starting to feel like normal church again although we still have to wear masks and they are still taking a lot of precautions with how the sacrament is passed. 

After church I was supposed to have a meeting for camp but I got permission not to attend because we had visitors. Frank had noticed on FB that one of his cousins (who lives in Florida) was traveling in our general area, so he contacted her and invited her to dinner. She was in Philadelphia but she and her friend had been wanting to visit Maryland so they accepted the invitation and came to dinner. It was nice to visit with her and to meet her friend. We enjoyed their visit very much. I also had a virtual bridal shower that evening for a really good friend who used to live here in Maryland but now lives in California. She actually got married already, but she and her husband will be sealed in the temple tomorrow. I have not spoken with her face to face since she moved 9 years ago (we text often) so it was really nice to see her (and she was so happy that she cried). We played 3 games (I won two of them!) and then she opened presents that we had all sent to her house ahead of time. Not sure why they picked Sunday to do it--maybe that was the only time that most of her family could attend.

Monday was Memorial Day, of course, so Frank and Seth were both home. I still had regular chores to get done (grocery shopping, laundry, vacuuming...) but Frank helped me with everything so I got done sooner. I needed to go to the fabric / craft store to get some things for an upcoming YW activity and I also wanted to look for supplies for a new project so I made a trip to JoAnn's. I found what I needed for both the YW activity and the project. I am going to attempt to make a couple of throw pillows for our bed because the ones we have are getting really beat up. I haven't been able to find any new ones that I like and I've been wanting to try making some woven ribbon pillows for ages. (We got a woven ribbon pillow as a wedding gift and I really liked the idea although the colors of this pillow were pretty awful...orange and maroon and shades like that. So ever since I've wanted to try making one with colors that I like.) We'll see if I manage to figure out how to make one. For dinner we grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and had watermelon and potato salad. It was a nice day, and we are grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy every day.

The rest of the week has been mostly routine with Seth doing school, Frank working (too much), and me doing the usual chores. However, Jared and Jessie are here visiting so we have been able to see them, which has been great! They arrived late on Monday and they came over on Tuesday afternoon to visit and stayed for dinner. Frank had to work Tuesday night and he had to leave at 6:00. Meanwhile, I had a Zoom meeting with the YW (her name is Nicole) who is in charge of the food for camp because I am supposed to be helping her. So we discussed ideas and started planning. Then Seth had an in-person YM activity (they played ultimate frisbee) and I had a virtual YW activity (we made friendship bracelets). Since I couldn't be two places at the same time, Jared & Jessie helped me out by taking Seth to his activity and picking him back up afterwards. 

Frank was hoping to get home by 1:00 or 2:00 am but it ended up being 4:00 am instead. He only slept a few hours and then woke up and couldn't go back to sleep so he was really tired on Wednesday. He had a big online presentation he had to do that afternoon for work and in spite of how tired he was, he said it went well. After he got home from work, he fell asleep on the couch for a while:

He did get a good night's sleep that night, thankfully.

We didn't see Jared & Jessie on Wednesday because Jessie's sister graduated from high school so they were busy celebrating with Jessie's family. On Thursday Jared came over in the afternoon and stayed until late in the evening (Jessie was spending time with some friends). We went over to the storage unit and pulled out all the boxes with his name on them and brought them back to the house so he could go through them and decide what he wants to keep. He is not finished with that project yet...there are 6 large boxes, 3 medium boxes, and 2 small ones!! He has made some progress, though. Seth wanted some of the things Jared is willing to give away (Nerf guns, etc.) but I told him he couldn't keep anything unless he went through his stuff and got rid of some things. So he did. I don't think his room looks much better but he did fill a kitchen size trash bag full of stuff to throw away, so that is a lot of progress, for him. While they were in the middle of all their sorting and cleaning, I went to a hair appointment. After I got back, we all had dinner together (Frank was home by then) and then Jared helped Seth with the new game that Scott sent Seth for his birthday. Frank took a nap because he had to work again last night. He got home by about 2:00 am this time, which was better. 

That brings us to today, which has been pretty quiet so far. Seth is done with school for the day except for his "specials". They have been doing some testing this week and he always gets done early with that. He still has two weeks of school left, but I don't think they're going to be doing much work these last two weeks. The last week they have a field trip planned 3 out of the 4 days! Jared will be coming over sometime but I haven't heard from him yet. I've been busy with the budget and writing this post. 

I started reading the new book for book chat this week which is called The Girls of Atomic City. It's about women who lived and worked in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during WWII, helping to develop the atomic bomb (although none of them knew that's what they were doing). It's pretty good so far. The chapters alternate between stories of the things happening to the women and chapters explaining the basic science behind the atomic bomb. I've really enjoyed the science chapters...I've learned a lot about basic nuclear physics this last week! 

Now it is past lunch time so I will publish this post and go eat some lunch.

Weekly Review May 28 '21

 Life seems to be speeding up a lot lately, so I have more things to write about. 

Last Friday (the 21st) we took the lawnmower back to the store and exchanged it for another mower...same kind. Then we went to dinner at Olive Garden. I got some chicken and pasta, and the serving size was so large that it was enough for 3 meals! It was nice to get out of the house a bit, and Seth tried something new--chicken gnochi soup--which is always exciting for us. He usually gets chicken strips and / or macaroni & cheese when we go out to eat, no matter where we go, but lately he is showing a willingness to at least try new things sometimes, which is a step in the right direction. He actually liked the soup, too, although he didn't eat very much. (Not unusual for him to only eat a little and then decide he's not hungry...even of things he really likes. Then he will eat more later.)

On Saturday Seth and I were both scheduled to get Covid vaccines, but at two different places at different times. Our appointments were only about 30 minutes apart, so Frank took Seth to get his vaccine and I left a little while later to get mine. I went to the same place as last time but this time when I arrived there was a LONG line coming out of the building and snaking all around the parking lot. It was like getting my driver's license all over again, except the line was even longer this time. I fully expected to have another sunburned neck before I got inside (that happened last time and it was a very hot day). However, I'm happy to say that this line moved a lot more quickly. I was only in line for 30 minutes (instead of an hour) and once I got inside the whole process of getting through check-in and getting the shot only took about 15 minutes. They only made me wait 15 minutes this time instead of 30; not sure why but I wasn't going to complain. I saw two people I knew from church there. 

Meanwhile, Seth got his shot...not without difficulty; Frank said he had to hold him down because he freaked out. Seth got his vaccine at the same pharmacy where we get our prescriptions filled so they got his new medicine while they were there. Then they went to Walmart to get a few things and to Costco to get a few things and they also returned the lawnmower we had purchased the night before because when Seth mowed the lawn Saturday morning the self-propelled feature wasn't working at all--none of the wheels would turn. He did mow the lawn anyway, but of course we didn't want to keep a mower that didn't work properly. We also decided we'd better try a different brand, since we aren't having much luck with this particular brand. We have not yet purchased another lawn mower, though, because Frank didn't want to make that decision without me. 

The rest of Saturday was pretty normal and Seth and I both felt fine, other than sore arms, for most of the day. We even went on a long walk. But about 9:00 pm that evening when I started to get chills. I decided to just go to bed and thankfully I fell asleep quickly but I woke up sometime in the night because I was really hot. Then after being awake for a while I got really cold again--teeth chattering and everything!! I went back to sleep eventually but when I woke up on Sunday morning I felt achy all over, I had a headache, and I was still having chills. I took my temperature, and it was 100.8 which is really high for me because my normal is below 98.6. So I stayed home from church that day...as a matter of fact, I stayed in bed all day. I took Tylenol every 4 hours which helped relieve some of the symptoms but I felt pretty rotten all day. Thankfully, Seth didn't feel sick; his arm was still quite sore but that is the only side effect he had. Frank decided to stay home to take care of me and Seth didn't want to pass the sacrament with his sore arm so none of us went to church in person. We did attend all of our meetings virtually, however, and Frank got permission from our bishop to do the sacrament at home. I was sad to miss YW--it was our first time to meet together in person since I got called to work in YW--but the group who met virtually was happy to have me join them. I also had a planning meeting for camp via Zoom. I was supposed to have a Zoom meeting with my class presidency but I cancelled that since I wasn't feeling up to it. There was a stake youth fireside that evening and since there was a virtual option for that as well, we were planning to watch it but then I forgot all about it. Oh well! I was sad to miss it. Frank did a great job doing all the cooking and bringing me whatever I needed. He took really good care of me.

I woke up feeling MUCH better on Monday morning. I had a slight headache and I was a little tired, but mostly I felt back to normal. I was relieved that I didn't have a fever anymore because I had a doctor appointment that morning...a follow up visit with my cardiologist. I knew if I had a fever, they wouldn't allow me to come in. The visit went well. He said that the mitro valve regurgitation looks worse than it did the last time I had an echo (in 2009...it was mild then, now it is "mild to moderate") so that is why he wants me to get another echo in a year...to compare and see if it gets any worse in that time. It's still not bad enough to really worry about it. My holter monitor picked up quite a bit of PVCs...which stands for premature ventricular contractions. That means that I get "extra" heartbeats...usually earlier beats than expected...which disrupts the regular heart rhythm. They are very benign...lots of people get them, and I really don't need to worry about them. When I have been feeling fluttering lately, that is probably what I've been feeling, not atrial fibrillation. He says PVCs have showed up on some of my previous holter tests as well. I just don't remember anyone mentioning them to me before. So overall, my heart's in pretty good shape and he is convinced that my heart was NOT the cause of the chest pain I had. Who knows what it was? Thankfully, I haven't had any problems since then so maybe I will never know. 

The rest of Monday was a pretty normal day. I stopped at the store to get a few groceries on my way home from the cardiologist and got the rest of the regular chores done. I should mention that for family night activity we played Clue and Frank won. He actually beat me! He says that is the first time in his life he has ever won a game of Clue. 

On Tuesday I wrapped Seth's presents while he was at school. I met a few other women from my ward at a park and we talked while we ate lunch. Some of them I had not seen in over a year. It was really nice to get caught up with them. It wasn't very warm though. This week has been really weird with temperatures yo-yoing a lot. It was really hot on Saturday and Sunday, not so hot on Monday, cool on Tuesday, warmer again on Wednesday and Thursday and today it is only a high of 70 and it's cloudy. It's supposed to start raining later and rain all night and into  tomorrow morning. The predicted high for tomorrow is only 55 degrees. (It's a holiday weekend so of course the weather is going to be bad!) 

On Tuesday evening there was a combined YM/YW activity which Seth and I both attended. They played soccer. A large group of girls came and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun so that was really nice. One girl came who hardly ever comes and she didn't want to play soccer so the other leaders and I sat and talked with her the whole time. It was really great to get to know her better and to find out how she's been doing. 

Wednesday morning was the last day of Seminary for the year and they had a breakfast and invited all the incoming freshmen to come to it. That means Seth, so we were up pretty early for that. My friend Rebekah's daughter is in Seminary so she and I hung out and had a nice chat while they had the breakfast. Seth seemed to have a good time, and it was encouraging that he actually woke up earlier than normal without too much prodding. (The breakfast was at 7:00 and the normal start time for Seminary is 6:15, though.) I kept busy with YW stuff that day because we had a presidency meeting and I also had a "meeting" via text with my class presidency. (To make up for the one we didn't have on Sunday.) I also contacted the girl I'm working with to plan the food for camp, and we have a meeting set up for next week. We had a big rainstorm on Wednesday evening...a little thunder and lightning, but mostly wind and torrential rain. It didn't last long, though, and then we got a rainbow:

 It was a lot brighter in real life than in the photos. We found out that the missionaries haven't been getting fed much and no one was signed up to feed them this week so Frank picked them up on Wednesday and took them to Roy Rogers for dinner. We also signed up for tonight and will be taking them pizza and birthday cake (Seth's). 

Yesterday I had book chat in the evening. For the first time in over a year, we were able to go without masks and sit together at the table (instead of wearing masks and spread out in a big room). It was really fun. We discussed The Good Neighbor. Now we will be reading a book called The Girls of Atomic City. I arrived home from book chat to discover that Seth was having one of his headache / throwing up episodes. He went to bed soon after, though, and as usual he woke up feeling fine this morning. 

And that is good because today is his birthday. It would have been a real bummer for him to be sick! He actually woke up really early today...around 6:00 am. I woke up shortly before that, so I was already exercising when he got up. (Frank was up too.) After I finished, I made blueberry muffins for breakfast because that is what he had asked for. He also opened presents. He's always very enthusiastic about opening both presents and cards:

He got a card from us, and when I picked up the mail a little later he got two cards from Granny & Grandpa and another card from a lady in our ward. He loved all of the cards. I wish I had recorded him opening them!

Since he was up so early, Seth had time to put together a few of his gifts (almost all Legos and Mega Blocks) before school started. He is done with school now. He finished putting together all his gifts, played with them for a while, and now he is playing a new game that Scott sent him. I have been busy updating the budget and I also baked his cake. And now I need to got frost his cake, so I will publish this post and go do that. 

We are excited to see Jared & Jessie next week and we are also looking forward to seeing a lot of you later this summer. 

Weekly Review May 21 '21

This week was farily busy too.

On Friday after I finished last week's post, I worked on some tax returns and got 2 or 3 done. I didn't end up doing any on Saturday because someone else was supposed to be working on them too and I was waiting to hear which ones they were going to do so we wouldn't duplicate our efforts.

On Saturday, I had a lot of stuff to do for YW. We also finalized our travel plans for the summer and purchased airline tickets for Utah. We will be going to NC for a long weekend as well. This summer vacation is really short, so it was hard to find times that worked for everyone but we got it figured out. Besides that, I also practiced ukulele, cleaned the kitchen floor, we did some stuff we need to do to set up an investment account, I called a friend to set up taking dinner to her this week, and I spent a lot of time going through photos of Seth for an 8th grade slide show. They are going to have a promotion ceremony in June for all the kids finishing 8th grade, and as part of that ceremony they want to have a slide show with 8 -10 photos of each of the 8th graders. So I needed to choose photos of Seth to send to the parent who is creating the slide show. That took a lot longer than I expected, but I did get it done. We planted a tomato plant in our garden and pulled some weeds and Seth mowed the lawn. While he was doing that, he noticed that one of the wheels on the mower wasn't turning anymore (it's self-propelled) so now we have to return it and get a new one.

On Sunday we had our two hours of church in-person for the first time since March 2020. Our meeting time changed too...we don't go to church until 1:30 now, which I don't love but it's worth it to be able to meet in person again. Our governor lifted the mask mandate on Saturday, unexpectedly. Since our church leaders hadn't had a chance to discuss how to handle this, they asked us to wear masks and use all the regular precautions as usual on Sunday. It was really nice to have Sunday School in person though! Later this week we got an email saying that they are going to have a big regional meeting with all the leaders next week, so they still want us to wear masks to church and so forth until after that meeting. It is nice to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, though!

Monday turned out to be a bit crazy. I went into VITA to finish reviewing a couple of tax returns which I got done. The rest of the returns were being completed by someone else so I didn't have to do anymore. But shortly after I got home, the site coordinator texted me and said the other person wasn't going to be able to do those returns after all and asked if there was any way I could do them. I told her I'd see what I could do. I reviewed one return, which took a long time because it was complicated and I had a few questions about it before I was ready to approve it, which I sent to the site coordinator. I started reviewing the next return which was also complicated (about 50 pages of documents to go through!) But after I got through sorting through all the documents and logged in to start the actual review, I discovered that it had been approved. And so had all the other remaining returns, including the one I had reviewed earlier. So I didn't have to do anymore. All I can figure is that the other person got them done after all. Or someone else did. I was a little annoyed that no one had let me know since I had spent a lot of time on those two reviews, but mostly I was just glad that everything was done and I didn't have to do anymore! 

Besides working on taxes, I also went to Walmart on Monday to get a few groceries. I was curious to see how many people would still be wearing masks. Since I am not fully vaccinated yet, I wore a mask. I saw a few people not wearing masks, but I'd say the majority (probably 90%) of people were still wearing them. I think we will see fewer and fewer people wearing them as time goes on...especially as more people get vaccinated. My second dose is tomorrow, so I only have 2 weeks left to go. I also set up an appointment for Seth to get his first dose of vaccine tomorrow. 

We usually have our family night lesson on Sundays and our activity on Mondays, and that's what we did this week. For our activity we played a game called the Amazing Labyrinth, which we've had a long time and played often. It's a kid's game but can be quite challenging. This time was funny because we ended in a 3 way tie...so everybody won!

Tuesday was the first day in a long time that I have been home alone for more than an hour or so, since most of the days Seth has had in-person school I have been going into VITA for a lot of the day. It was nice for a change but kind of strange. I noticed my house makes lots of noises...settling or whatever. Also my ice maker makes lots of noise! They've always made noises, I'd just forgotten what it was like because the house is never quiet anymore. Seth and I both had virtual youth activities that evening. My class played online Scattergories. Seth's class played online Boggle. 

Wednesday was quite busy from early afternoon on. First I had a YW presidency meeting and before that even ended I had to log on for an online doctor appointment for Seth. His medicine has not been working well so we needed to talk to the doctor about that. We decided to go back to his previous medication until school gets out, since we know the previous medication was working. We would like him to be able to have more hours each school day that he is on his medication once he's in high school though, so we may try a few other things over the summer to see if we can find anything that stays in his system longer but is still effective. After the doctor appointment ended, I made dinner for a friend and took it to her. Then I came home and finished making our dinner (most of it was already done), we ate, cleaned up, and then immediately had an online meeting with the missionaries who are serving in our ward. They wanted to practice teaching one of the discussions on us, since one of them is really new and needs practice. We enjoyed doing that. But as you can see, it was a busy afternoon / evening! At our YW presidency meeting we mostly talked about camp. Our bishop called a camp director for our ward (actually called her husband and YA daughter to help too, which is great). So she came to the meeting and filled us in on what is happening. I have been asked to help one of the youth camp leaders plan the food. I'm sure that will entail a decent amount of work, but it won't be too bad because camp is only going to be 2 days, plus a Saturday morning, and all the girls are bringing their own lunches and the families will be providing their own dinners one night. So that leaves one dinner and one breakfast to plan. We are only allowed to do prepackaged food or catering because of Covid restrictions. We ended up talking about it quite a bit during our meeting and we came up with a basic plan so I feel like it won't be too difficult to take that and go forward but I'm sure there will be unexpected snags!

Yesterday I kept pretty busy just doing the usual chores of laundry, grocery shopping, and vacuuming. I can't think of anything else to say about it--just that it was nice to have a day that was less crowded with stuff to do.

In between everything else I have been reading the book for book chat which is called The Good Neighbor and is about the life of Fred Rogers. It's fairly intersting, but kind of long and cumbersome. I think the author included too many details! (And if I say that, you know there are too many details!!) It has brought back some memories though of watching Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood as a kid. I remember thinking that show was pretty dumb, actually, but I did like some parts of it. Reading about it has been interesting--I can appreciate better now what he was trying to accomplish and I can see that it was actually really well done.

I also went online to purchase birthday gifts for Seth. Hard to believe he will be 14 in just one week!!

We've had some really hot days this week...a few in the 90s! But we've had a few 70s and 80s days too which I appreciate. Looking ahead, it looks like we are going to continue to bounce back and forth between the pleasant 70s or 80s and the hot 90s. I'm just glad we aren't staying in the 90s every day yet.

I guess I didn't take any photos this week and that's everything I can think of that we did so I will publish this post and go eat some lunch.