Weekly Reviews July 18 & July 25 '25

We were out of town last Friday so I have two weeks to write about. When I left off two weeks ago, I was recovering from an eye infection in my left eye. It continued to bother me a bit for the next several days but thankfully I didn't have any relapses and it steadily improved and seems to be completely better now. I was able to do everything I wanted to do on our trip, so I am grateful for that. Today my right eye is red and irritated, though. I seem to have something going on with at least one of my eyes more often than not.

On Saturday the 12th I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. She kindly picked me up so that I wouldn't have to drive since my left eye was still pretty sensitive to light at that point. We had a good visit while we ate. 

That afternoon I decided to try sewing together the pieces for the Cathedral Window pillow because I thought that kind of sewing would be easier on my eye than hand applique sewing. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a total disaster! My sewing machine kept stopping and giving me error messages, and the thread broke a few times too. It seemed like the needle couldn't penetrate the fabric. (I was sewing through four layers of fabric, but it was lightweight cotton, so that normally isn't a problem.) I tried everything I could think of--different thread, a heavy duty needle--but nothing seemed to help. I tried sewing on other fabric and my machine worked fine, so I knew the problem wasn't my machine. All I can figure is that I used too much starch on the fabric pieces when I was folding and ironing them. The tutorial I watched with instructions for this pillow recommended using starch to help create crisp folds and I used the kind of starch recommended, but the tutorial didn't actually demonstrate how to starch the pieces, so I think I must have used too much. So frustrating! The only thing I could think of to do is to wash all the pieces (to wash out the starch) and start over, so I did wash them on the following Monday. I haven't had a chance to do anything else with them because we left for Utah the day after that. Maybe next week I will be able to start working on them again. It was really discouraging to have to start over because all that folding and ironing took a long time, but I hope it will be worth the effort. This big "hiccup" (along with my eye infection) pretty much dashed my hopes of getting the pillows done for the beginning of August, but hopefully I will get them done before August is over. I did do a little more of the hand applique on the other pillow before we left for Utah, but I have only finished 5 of the 7 pieces so I still have a lot to do on that one too.

I can't remember much about Sunday the 13th except that we went to church, of course. I remember that the talks were about reverence and one speaker talked about how we should be reverent in our everyday lives...not just while at church. I liked that, and I realized that I would probably have a lot of opportunities for reverence in the coming weeks...and I was right. Seth had his last temple prep class and he also went to the broadcast commemorating the 150th anniversary of the YM organization. 

Monday the 14th Seth worked (he worked on Saturday too) and I was busy with household chores, packing, and getting ready for our trip. Frank worked that day, too, of course. We were up pretty late finishing things up and we had to get up really early because our flight left at 8:00 am. Or more accurately...it was supposed to leave at 8:00 am. Boarding was on time, but then we sat at the gate for a long time (something about finishing some paperwork) and then after we left the gate we parked out on the tarmac for quite a while because they couldn't take off until they got a weather report from the Provo airport and the tower in Provo was closed. (Not sure why.) Somehow, in spite of all the delays we still landed in Provo on time. The flight was pretty uneventful except that the lady sitting behind us brought her cat along and it didn't like flying. The cat (in it's carrier) was stowed under my seat and it meowed through most of the flight...pretty annoying! But we had a lot of leg room, so I enjoyed that.

Thanks to our early flight and the 2 hour time difference, we arrived in Utah before noon and had the rest of the day to visit and relax. Frank, Seth, Scott and Hans went to see the new Jurassic Park movie that afternoon while I stayed behind to visit with Mom. (My preferred activity...I didn't have a great desire to see the movie!) Later, we went to the store to get a few things for our roadtrip the following morning.

Wednesday morning (July 16th) we headed up to Yellowstone National Park. (Scott was able to come with us...as a matter of fact, we used his car and he and Frank did all of the driving.) We talked about driving through Grand Teton National Park on the way, but ultimately we decided not to and it's probably a good thing because we had limited time. We'll have to visit that park on another trip in the future. We had a slight slow down when we stopped in Blackfoot, Idaho for lunch. After eating, we stopped to put gas in the car and just as we were finishing, we heard a lot of sirens and some emergency vehicles drove by--heading in the direction of the interstate. When we got to the entrance ramp for the interstate, a police car was there blocking it off. A police man came over and told us there had been a bad wreck on the freeway and it would probably be blocked for at least an hour. Fortunately, he was able to tell us which way we should go to get back on the interstate further north, past the accident, so we were able to do that and it didn't slow us down too much. I looked up the accident later and was glad to hear that miraculously, no one was injured although it took four hours to clear everything up. 

Scott doing calisthenics while retrieving his soda that had rolled under the seat 😂:

We made it to West Yellowstone, Montana in the early afternoon and from there drove into the park. We stopped at McDonald's for ice cream cones first. Even the McDonald's there looks like a log cabin:

We had talked to Liz earlier that day (while driving up) to get her suggestions for things we should do / visit, and following her suggestion, we took a short loop off the main road to drive along the Firehole River. It was so beautiful!! Scott turned to me and said "We spend millions of dollars building beautiful temples, but we still can't top what God can do." So true!

We also stopped to see the Grand Prismatic Spring (Midway Geyser Basin) on our way to the Old Faithful area. (We wanted to do the hike to see the spring from above, but didn't have time.)

We got to the Old Faithful area (Upper Geyser Basin) in time to buy some dinner (Seth and Scott tried the Bison Bratwurst, and liked it) and then we walked over to Old Faithful to snag some seats and ate our dinner while waiting for Old Faithful to erupt. This was the first trip to Yellowstone for both Scott and Seth so kind of exciting for them to see this famous geyser erupt (although Scott said he was a little disappointed). There are definitely more impressive geyser eruptions in Yellowstone besides Old Faithful, but they just aren't as predictable so it can be a real time commitment to see them.

Smaller geyser going off in the distance while we waited for Old Faithful:

After some shopping, we headed to our Air B&B, which was a few miles north of West Yellowstone. It was located in a small neighborhood near a lake. The houses were not close together and it was a beautiful, peaceful location. The house did not have air conditioning and it was really hot inside when we arrived, but after opening all the windows we got some air flow and it cooled down. (We left the windows open all night and since the temperatures drop into the 40s at night, it was pretty chilly by morning.)

Signs on the way to our Air B&B (we didn't see any animals, though):

Photos of the Air B&B (plus surroundings):

We were really tired after an early start and a lot of traveling and walking, but with the exception of Seth (he was sound asleep by 9:00 pm), we stayed up to do some star gazing and that didn't disappoint. Even though there were other houses fairly nearby, there weren't outside lights or street lights so we could see millions of stars, the Milky Way, lots of satellites going by, and even some shooting stars. It was beautiful!! We also saw some bats. First we saw a few dark shapes fly by, and a while later a bat flew so close to my face that even in the dark I could see the shape of it's wings...that definitely startled me!!

We spent the whole day on Thursday (July 17th) in Yellowstone. We drove to the Canyon area, stopping to see Gibbon Falls and Artist Paintpots on the way. 

We didn't see any wildlife (other than birds / chipmunks) the first day in Yellowstone but on the way to the canyon, we saw a deer because it ran across the road right in front of us. We ate lunch at Canyon Village and did some shopping before we went to see the canyon. We ate at a cafe where everyone was seated at a U-shaped counter. (Scott tried the bison / elk burger and Seth tried the huckleberry soda and both were really good.) While we were eating, a couple with a young adult son was seated next to us and I noticed the son had on a t-shirt that said Linganore, with a Maryland flag logo underneath, so we asked them where they were from (there's a Linganore High School in Frederick County). Turns out they are from Mt. Airy, about 20 minutes from Frederick. Such a funny coincidence!

We spent several hours exploring the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, including quite a bit of hiking. We saw the lower falls (Seth, Scott and I hiked down to a vantage point to get a closer look) and we also went to the brink of the upper falls. 

Lower Falls:

Upper falls:

We returned to Canyon Village and looked at some of the exhibits in the Visitor's Center and got more water and some ice cream cones before heading to the West Thumb area of Yellowstone Lake. On the way, we drove through Hayden Valley, where we saw a lot of bison and also some elk.

Next, we spent some time exploring the West Thumb Geyser Basin next to Yellowstone Lake:

Then we drove back around to the Old Faithful area where we had dinner at the Old Faithful Inn. (Our server was from Lehi, Utah.) 

On our way back to the park entrance, there was a slow down at one point and Scott and Frank were able to briefly see a bear that was scrambling up a hill. Seth and I were in the back seat and weren't able to see it before it was out of sight, unfortunately. We also drove the Firehole River road again and soaked in the beauty again.

As we were exiting the park, we wanted to get a photo next to the entrance sign, so we did a u-turn and parked by the side of the road to do that. As we were getting out of our car, we spotted a fox and it very obligingly posed for photos for us...so cool!!

We saw a beautiful sunset as we drove back to our Air B&B, but I couldn't get very good photos from the car. (And it was mostly faded by the time we got back to the Air B&B, but I tried to get a few photos anyway:

We did a little more star gazing that night, but the people staying in the other part of the duplex we were in left their porch light on all night so we couldn't see the stars nearly as well as we did the first night. We could still see the Milky Way very faintly, though. 

On Friday July 18th we drove back to the Lehi area. We didn't go back into Yellowstone because we wanted to get back to Lehi in time to go to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple for the 5:00 pm session, as Gwen was receiving her own endowment. We stopped in Rexburg on our way home for about an hour to visit with Scott's former mission president and wife, who live there. (They were recently called to be the new temple president and matron of the Rexburg Temple.) 

Shortly after we got back to Mom's house, I tweaked my back somehow. All I was doing was bending over to put something in my backpack! I just love getting old. 😒 It was the lower left side of my back that I hurt, and it still hasn't healed completely although it's a lot better than it was. I have definitely had more severe back injuries in the past than this one was, so I'm grateful for that at least. We were still able to go to the temple, and I'm really glad we went although I was pretty uncomfortable. We were able to be in the temple with a lot of family and Gwen looked so beautiful!! (Scott and Seth came too and Scott took Seth to do some baptisms.)

After the session, we all went to a place called Village Baker for dinner...it was yummy!!

On Saturday July 19th we did laundry and I rested my back while Frank did a lot of grocery shopping. We had invited all the locals to come to dinner on Sunday so we were preparing for that. I felt bad that I couldn't help much, but Frank was a real trooper and did so much without complaining! We also enjoyed visits from Shellie and Tim & Rachelle.

We went to church with Mom & Hans on Sunday July 20th. My back was still hurting quite a bit, but other than that I enjoyed church. After church we relaxed some, but mostly worked on dinner. On Saturday Frank made a potato salad, started chicken marinating, and baked a cake. On Sunday he baked some brownies, put some baked beans in the crock pot, and together we made a strawberry shortcake layered dessert (using the cake). Seth cut up a watermelon and Scott cooked the marinated chicken in his smoker.

We really enjoyed seeing and visiting with everyone who was able to come (it was a houseful!) and missed those who couldn't make it. Unfortunately, we forgot to get a photo with everyone.

On Monday July 21st we visited Dad's grave.

Then we drove up to Salt Lake City to have lunch with Tanner. (I forgot to take a picture at lunch and I don't have a single photo of Tanner from this trip!) We stopped on the way at an outlet store and got some new running shoes for me and a couple of shirts for Frank. That evening, Tim & Rachelle brought over a yummy Mexican dinner for all of us and we enjoyed one last visit with them.

On Tuesday July 22nd Frank, Hans, and all our boys went to see the new Superman movie together. I went shopping that morning to get some clothes and then went to my friend Paula's house for lunch and to visit. (My back was hurting, but improving so I was able to drive and do some things, thankfully.) The guys were still at the movie when I got back (I left to go shopping before they left for the movie) but they arrived an hour or so later. I helped Mom with a small sewing project and was doing that when they got home. We had dinner, watched some Wheel and Jeopardy, and then we spent some time repacking all our suitcases since we had acquired quite a few things during our visit. 😅

Wednesday July 23rd was mostly spent traveling home. I enjoyed sitting by the window.

Going over mountains in Utah:

Coming in for a landing at Dulles:

We unpacked and got some dinner and I did some meal planning and we collapsed into bed. We had a wonderful visit, but it is good to be back home. Ironically, Seth's girlfriend called him up right after we got home and broke up with him (he's okay though, and they are still friends). Then on Thursday morning one of Frank's clients called and said they were going to hire someone else to do their IT work. That's a long, annoying story that I won't get into right now since there may be more to say about it in the next few weeks. This is the client he has been doing the most work for, so it will impact us financially but we'll be fine. Also, Frank will enjoy not having to drop everything to go solve their IT problems, which he has had to do very frequently over the last 14 years. 

It's been extremely hot and humid since we got home...yesterday we had an extreme heat warning because it was in the high 90s and felt like 113 with the humidity. Thankfully, we can stay in our nice air conditioned house most of the time so it's not too bad.

I had a dentist appointment Thursday morning (6 month check up) so I went to that. Frank decided to take the day off on Thursday to recover from the time change and lack of sleep...we were all exhausted! He did help me a lot, though, by going grocery shopping with me. We had to go to both Wal-Mart and Costco, so that took up a good chunk of the day. He also helped me with laundry. Meanwhile, Seth had to work that afternoon. On Thursday evening I started working on getting the budgeting updated. I knew it would be a lot of work since I had two weeks to get caught up on, not to mention all the receipts we had from all our travels. I didn't finish that night, but I got a good start on it.

Yesterday morning (Friday July 25th) I went to the temple to do initiatories. I have medical appointments next week so I can't go then and the week after that I have Girls' Camp and the temple closes for a couple of weeks so I wanted to squeeze in another temple trip before all of that. I'm glad I did!

I spent the rest of yesterday finishing the budget and then I started on this post but didn't have time to finish it. This morning I had a hair cut appointment. We're having the Elders over for dinner tonight and in between then and now I need to practice a song for church tomorrow and I'm hoping to get some sewing done too. 

I should mention that Scott is going through some challenging stuff right now, so please keep him in your prayers. He's struggling with some depression and is really stressed with some things happening in one of his relationships. He has also decided that his current job is not the best thing for him. He did well and made some good income, but the ups and downs and uncertainty associated with that job are too much for him. He already has another job lined up, but it doesn't start until the beginning of September. 

We didn't get to see Tanner a whole lot while we were in Utah but he seems to be doing okay. He is taking a couple of classes and finding them challenging. He keeps very busy with school, work, and his social life. He did get a good raise at work and he is hoping he will be able to work out doing an internship at his current job in the spring. He seems to really enjoy going to game nights and other activities with friends in his ward and he just started going on dates with a new girl. 

I didn't get to talk to Jared this week since we were out of town but I will probably be talking to him tomorrow. Whenever I talk to him, he mentions how well Jessie is doing in school. They seem to be happy and doing great. 

One last thing I wanted to mention: we are really sad about the big forest fire at the north rim of the Grand Canyon that has burned so many things, including the lodge. When we were planning this trip, we considered going to either the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. We're really grateful that we chose Yellowstone! If we had chosen the Grand Canyon, we would not have been able to go. Hopefully that area will recover soon and everyone will be able to enjoy the beauty of that area again in the future.

That brings you up to date on all of us!

Weekly Review July 11 '25

 Shortly after I finished last week's post, we went to watch fireworks. We found a good spot a couple of years ago that has a good view and isn't too crowded. Seth met us here after he got off work...the fireworks had already started. 

Saturday was, of course, my birthday. Frank ended up having to do a lot of work for a client that day (including a trip to Waldorf, MD...about an hour and a half away) but he still made time to give me presents, take me for a drive / hike in the woods, take me to dinner, and frost my cake. (He baked the cake the day before). It was a nice day! Oh, and first thing in the morning, I was greeted by this deer in the common area behind our house:

Presents:

Gift from Tanner:

We drove up to Catoctin Mountain National Park and went for a short hike:

Then had dinner at a Mexican restaurant:

Back track to present opening:

And cake:

I decided to try something different from my usual cheesecake. This was an almond cake. It was really good!

During the day while Frank was gone, I got to talk to Amy for a few hours and I also talked to both Scott and Tanner. While I was talking to Amy, I did some sewing and sewed this quilt block together:

I also did a lot of folding and ironing of pieces for the Cathedral Window quilt block, but didn't take any pictures of those. (They aren't much to look at yet.) 

Sunday was pretty relaxing...since it was a holiday weekend, Seth didn't have temple prep or mission prep classes. The boy in my Seminary class who was baptized in January started boot camp on Monday, so Sunday was his last day with us for a while. He shared his testimony, and he expressed that he felt like he was leaving his family. He shared the scripture in Matthew 25:31-40 and then said to us (as a ward) "I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink..." He also expressed how grateful he was that the Lord led him to this church. It was really sweet! He will be missed, but I know he is going to be a huge impact for good wherever he goes. Boys in the ward saying goodbye:

I love what good friends they have all become!

Seth shared his testimony too...kind of a recap of what he said in Kirtland. I think that is the first time he has got up in Sacrament Meeting to share his testimony, and I love that he did that!

On Monday evening we went to an open house at my friend Rebekah's house. All of her kids were visiting and they were celebrating Rebekah's birthday, her daughter's graduation from BYU, and her son's wedding (which actually happened last year, but they got married in Utah so this was their first chance to celebrate in Maryland). It was a fun evening visiting with many people in our ward.

On Monday and Tuesday I did some deep cleaning in the kitchen and I also did some sewing. I basted all the purple pieces for this quilt block and started to applique them onto the block. 

I was planning to do a lot more of the applique work on Wednesday but unfortunately things didn't go as I planned. That morning I had a follow up appointment with the eye doctor to make sure my trial contact lenses were the correct prescription. My new glasses had also just come in that day, so I was able to pick them. up. I wore contact lenses to the appointment, but then removed them so I could try on the new glasses so I wore my glasses home. I hadn't been home very long when my left eye started to hurt. It was tearing up a lot and it got really red and it hurt to keep my eye open. By mid afternoon I just had to give up on doing anything except lying down with my eyes closed. So frustrating!

On Thursday morning I already had an appointment at the doctor to get my second dose of shingle vaccine, so I called and asked if there was anyone available to check my eye while I was there. Fortunately, there was. Also fortunately...Seth can drive so he drove me to the doctor since I couldn't keep my eye open very well. It appears that I have another eye infection similar to the one that I had in December. This one isn't as severe as that one was, but it is still plenty uncomfortable. The doctor prescribed some eye drops, which thankfully seem to be helping. My eye is a lot better today than it was yesterday although it's still somewhat painful. Anyway, after going to the doctor I couldn't come home and collapse because Seth and I had signed up to help with a lunch service program in a nearby neighborhood. The school system provides the lunches, but a group of local churches (including ours) provides volunteers to serve the lunches. Even though my eye was bothering me, it wasn't too bad. Only about 20 kids showed up, so we spent more time visiting than working (another sister in our ward was there to help too). After I that, I kind of collapsed for the rest of the day. Frank made dinner and Seth kept laundry moving. I appreciated being able to rest my eye in a dark room, but I was also pretty bored because I couldn't read or sew or watch a movie. Makes me really appreciate that my eyes are usually working fine!!

Today I haven't been feeling too great although my eye is better than it was because I've been dealing with the after effects of the immunization I had yesterday. My arm is really sore and I have felt a bit tired and achy and had a headache most of the day. Still, I have been able to do more today than yesterday and I've been grateful for that. I folded laundry and updated the budget and I've been able to watch a few things too, including a funeral for a good friend of ours. (He lived in our ward for about 20 years before he and his wife moved to Alaska several years ago. He was killed in a car accident nearly two weeks ago so it was very unexpected and sad. He is one of the guys that Frank used to cook with for all the church events and we have always planned to visit him and his wife in Alaska someday so we are really sad we didn't get to do that before he passed away. The funeral was very nice, though!) Frank has been great to help me out the last couple of days. He has cooked dinner and today he also went to the store for me. Seth has also been helpful and has cheerfully driven me all the places I need to go and has helped with some household chores.

Now I am definitely ready to lie down and rest my eyes for a while. Here are a few more pictures to finish up. I finished this color by number on Sunday:

The trash corrals in our neighborhood were removed on Monday and Tuesday. As you know, we aren't too happy about it, but it does look nicer without the trash corral there (or will, once the grass grows):

Flying our flag on the 4th of July:

I enjoyed a good 30 minutes of deer / firefly watching on Tuesday evening (fireflies don't show up in the photos, unfortunately):

And finally, I really like the bandaid the technician put on my arm yesterday:

Weekly Review July 4 '25

Last Saturday turned out to be a lot more eventful than I thought it would be. When Seth came home early from work on Friday (June 27th) he told me that he needed to go to a doctor because he had some kind of growth on his bottom. He said he first noticed it the previous Monday but thought it was just a pimple. But since then it had gotten a lot bigger and it was really sore. Saturday morning it hurt even more...he was walking funny and it hurt to sit down. So after I ate breakfast, I took him to our doctor's walk-in clinic that is available on the weekends. The doctor there took one look at it and said "That is a really bad abscess. It needs to be surgically drained right away, but it is beyond what I can do so you need to take him to the ER immediately." So, we spent a fun-filled day at the ER. They actually got him back into a room almost immediately--no long wait in the waiting room, which was a miracle. The doctor came to look at him pretty quickly too but after that things slowed down and we did a lot of waiting. They sent him to get some imaging done first to make sure there was nothing below the surface of the abscess. Eventually we got the results from that and there was nothing of concern, thankfully. Then we had to wait for the surgeon to come drain the abscess. We ended up being there until about 4:30 pm, so that was mostly our day. Seth really doesn't like needles, but I was proud of him because he held it together even though they drew blood, put in an IV, and then gave him shots to numb him up before draining the abscess. That was a lot of needles!

When we were driving over to the ER, Seth said he would like Frank to come give him a blessing, so Frank came over to meet us there and gave Seth a blessing. When lunch time rolled around, he stayed with Seth while I ran home to eat some lunch and grab a few things (like a book to read and a sweater because I was cold in the air conditioning). Then I went back to the hospital to stay with Seth and Frank went home to eat and to get some work done for clients. He also made dinner because we had signed up to feed the Elders that night. Seth and I didn't get home until about 15 minutes before the Elders arrived for dinner. 

After dinner, I was able to sew the backs onto the July pillow covers so they got done just in time:

The backs were made from this fireworks print fabric:

Sunday was fairly busy. Besides church, Frank and I also went to a baptism and Seth went to temple prep and mission prep classes. The baptism was for a woman named Christine that the missionaries have been teaching. I went to more than one lesson with them so I had gotten to know Christine pretty well and she asked me to say the closing prayer at her baptism. This is the third convert baptism we have had in our ward this year and that's been wonderful! The spirit at the baptism was beautiful!

I also had a visit on Sunday evening from the new Seminary & Institute Coordinator for our area (and his wife). He had called earlier in the week to introduce himself and said he wanted to bring his wife and come meet me. I nearly fell off my chair in shock (but a happy shock)! That's because the previous coordinator never contacted me or my team teacher when we got called. We felt like we were just left floundering, trying to figure out everything on our own, without any direction or training. I'm really impressed that this guy is trying to do better. We had a nice visit and they brought me a little gift too:

On Monday I took Seth to the doctor for a follow up visit. Youth Conference was this week, so both he and I wanted to make sure he was healing properly and that he would be okay to go. I really wanted him to be able to go (and Seth wanted to go too) so since Saturday I had been praying that he would heal quickly and be able to go to Youth Conference. The doctor reported that he had completely healed--he couldn't even tell where the abscess had been. This also meant that he wasn't going to have to worry about soaking the wound twice a day, as he had been doing since Saturday. (That would have been very difficult for him to do on the trip since they were staying in college dorms with no bathtubs, just showers.) Very good news, and an answer to prayer!!

They went to Kirtland for Youth Conference this year. I had to drop Seth off at the stake center at 4:30 am on Tuesday morning. After I got back, I exercised and showered and then took a 2 hour nap. Tuesday was a very quiet day because that's the day Frank has his temple shift after work so he didn't get home until nearly 11:00 pm.

Seth sent me this photo of himself and his friend Henry on the bus:

And Henry's mom (who is also my Seminary team teacher and who was one of the chaperones) sent me this photo taken at their first restroom stop:

Tuesday was also the first day of July so I put the July pillow covers on the pillows:

Frank worked from home on Wednesday and it was nice to have him around and not be all alone all day again! I spent a lot of time that day cutting out pieces for the August quilt blocks. Here is how one of them will look:

Well, it will actually have some other pieces appliqued onto it, so it's hard to tell from the photo exactly how it is going to look. I cut out some of the pieces for the other quilt block, too, but it is going to be a pattern called Cathedral Window, which requires a lot of folding and sewing before it really starts to take shape so I can't get a picture of it yet. Today I finished cutting out all the pieces for that block, as well as the pieces for the backs for both pillows so now I am ready to do the fun part (sewing and quilting)! 

One of my other friends who was a chaperone for Youth Conference sent me this photo on Wednesday evening with the caption "After testimony meeting at the Kirtland Temple. Seth and (one of the girls) both bore beautiful testimonies":

Is that not a beautiful picture?!! It almost looks like there's a rainbow over the temple! I responded that I wished I had been there to hear what Seth said and she sent me this summary: "It was very sweet. He talked about how he tends to be a very logical person, which you would think would make some of the church history seem implausible but that as he looked around the temple and saw how beautiful it was and learned about how it was built by people with litle means and little education that it's evident it could have only been done with the help of the Lord and how that also goes for other creations that we can look around the world and see--he said we can see God in the trees and the birds and bugs and all the beautiful things." 

Yesterday I went to the temple because the temple was closed today because of the holiday. I keep thinking that today is Saturday because yesterday felt like Friday. 😂 

It was a busy day because after I got home from the temple I still had grocery shopping and vacuuming to do. Then I went to pick up Seth (around 5:00 pm) and then there was laundry to do. Seth seems to have had a great time at Youth Conference and he says he's really glad he was able to go. At both drop off and pick up, I saw a number of the kids in my Seminary class. I always feel so happy whenever I get to see any on them! I am grateful for the break from lesson prep and early mornings, but I have really come to love them and I miss seeing them. I feel a burst of joy whenever I see any of them. 😊

Today we all got to sleep in which was so nice for a change. I still had some work to do (updating finances) but it's been a fairly relaxing day. Seth had to work today, but not until 4:00 and he gets off at 9:00. We are grateful to live in this country where we enjoy so many freedoms! Now I need to wrap this up so that we can go watch fireworks!