Weekly Review July 2 '11

July? Can it really be July? Where is the summer going?! I don't think I'll ever get used to my kids not getting out of school until the middle of June.

So what is there to say about this week? I had ward council and Frank and the 3 older boys had stake priesthood meeting on Sunday, so that kept us pretty busy that day.

On Monday I helped drive girls to girls camp--they went to a camp in Pennsylvania about an hour and a half away. The drive was actually pleasant--it was funny to listen to the girls' conversations on the way there, and the scenery was beautiful, too. I drove through the largest orchard I have ever seen!

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. The boys were busy with various activities with friends and Tanner had a babysitting job one evening too. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with their comings and goings! I was busy with Primary stuff; I had a presidency meeting Friday morning and I spent a lot of time preparing for sharing time (the things I planned to do took more preparation time than usual). Jared had an orthodontist appointment Thursday morning because his wire came completely loose--Frank took him to that.

I started coming down with a sore throat early in the week and haven't felt my best--I'm a little congested and my head has been aching, too. So I've been trying to take it easy a little. I'm thankful it hasn't turned into anything too nasty. I used some of my down time to read the books for book chat. We are reading Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, both by C.S. Lewis, this month. They are the first 2 books in a trilogy he wrote. I'll probably read the 3rd book also, but we didn't think we'd have time to read all three in one month. So far, it seems like a pretty good series. I finished the 1st book today and started the second one.

Frank had quite a bit of work this week. He did a couple of small jobs for people in our ward and worked all day Wednesday, as well. We are thankful he is bringing in some income--especially since the full time job search isn't going well. He has applied for several jobs but so far hasn't heard back from anybody except for people that say he doesn't have enough experience or that they can't pay him enough. That's been discouraging. He did get a big compliment this week, though. He had two of the employees at FSA (the client that left Griffin back in May) contact him to tell him that three people from their new IT company were there this week and all three of them kept saying that whoever had been taking care of FSA's network up until now had done a fantastic job. Kind of ironic! (Which reminds me--the talks in Sacrament Meeting this week were on being prepared. The last speaker made the comment at one point that "Sometimes, it seems like the better you do your job the worse your boss treats you." I had a wild urge to yell "amen!")

Although the job hunt has been discouraging, I think we have felt a lot less stressed this week. I think that's mainly because we haven't had any contact with anyone from Griffin this week. I hope that continues. Maybe they are finally starting to realize that Frank isn't trying to take away their business.

Tanner and Jared are going to scout camp next week, so today they had to pack. Jared needed a new pair of shoes, so I took him shopping for that. Other than that, they already have everything they need. Frank helped do cooking for a meal for all the missionaries in the area, so he was gone for several hours in the middle of the day.

This is really a boring post, but I can't think of anything else to say. I guess that's good, though--at least there aren't a lot of bad things to report!

We hope you all have a great 4th of July weekend! We are so thankful to live in this wonderful free country!

Weekly Review June 25 '11

We'll start out this week with a little photo essay on unique things to do in the summer time, Seth style. First, you could have an indoor picnic on the living room floor. (Above)

Or, you can see if you can fit into one side of your brother's shirt and watch television:

Last, if you're not in the mood for either of those things, you can always persuade your older brother to help you build something with your moon sand:

(Which you immediately smash flat, within minutes of it's completion.)

I don't think there is a whole lot to say this week. Frank and I have kept busy trying to keep up with the kids' activities and the usual work that needs to be done to keep the household running smoothly, as well as working on his job search and trying to negotiate with his former boss. Oh, and I did get to do one very pleasant unexpected thing. That pretty much covers it, but if you'd like a few more details, you can keep reading.

Scott and Tanner have been gone since Wednesday morning, attending a high adventure camp that our stake does each year called Camp Helaman. It's for the boys 14 and up, so Jared can't go yet. We are expecting them back this evening, so I can't report much about it except that I know they were going to participate in water sports, white water rafting, spelunking, and paintball as well as camping in tents and having daily devotionals with church leaders. We haven't heard anything from them, so hopefully that means they are having a great time. I took them shopping on Tuesday to get the things that they needed for that, and Frank helped drive the boys and some of the equipment up (using another ward member's trailer attached to our Expedition.) It was a 2 1/2 hour drive, one way, so he was gone most of the day Wednesday doing that.

Jared had to go take the BSA swimmer test on Tuesday so that he can participate in swimming and other water events at camp in July. He passed the test, so he is good to go. I did some visiting teaching that day, too.

I was in the middle of making dinner Wednesday when my friend Susie called and said that she had been given 3 tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert (one of the missionaries who taught her the gospel got them for her--her husband sings in the choir) and wanted to know if I would like to go. Well, of course I wanted to go! The catch was that I had to be ready to leave in less than an hour. Frank, being the great husband that he is, insisted that I go and took over making dinner for me and took care of Seth and Jared for the rest of the night so that I could go. The concert was at a place called Wolf Trap in northern Virginia, so it was a bit of a drive. I rode with Susie and two other women in our ward (one of them is my Primary secretary, Ruth). The concert was, of course, absolutely fantastic! I don't think I've ever heard the choir live in concert before. (I have, however, been to General Conference a couple of times. But I think the last time I did that was when I was about 14 or 15.) Anyway, it was heavenly. Ruth and I had seats next to each other (Susie was several rows in front of us) and we ended up sitting next to several women who had husbands in the choir. They were very friendly and chatted with us about their trip. They wanted to know if the weather is always so hot & humid here during the summer! Well, it is (especially in August), but Wednesday was particularly bad so they got to experience the DC area at its worst! We felt so bad for the choir and orchestra members, under all those lights. We were in a partly open air building with a professional stage and a ceiling, but no walls and no air conditioning. Miraculously, no one fainted and the heat did not seem to hinder their ability to sing at all. When the concert ended, the choir member's wife sitting next to me (she had even insisted on switching seats with me at intermission because she noticed I couldn't really see very well around the person in front of me) gave both Ruth and I a sample CD with 5 songs on it, which we are both thrilled to have. It took a very long time to get out of the parking lot and we got home after midnight, but it was well worth it! I feel very blessed to have had that opportunity.

I was gone Thursday evening as well--I attended an interest meeting to discuss the possibility of starting a private middle / high school. A couple of women in my ward are hoping to start the school if enough interested people (and, of course, funding) can be obtained. They want to start a satellite school associated with a school out in Utah called American Heritage School. (I'm guessing some of you out there have probably heard about it; it's located right across the street from the Mt. Timp temple.) If you haven't heard about it, the school incorporates LDS doctrine into the curriculum and they teach the kids using a unique approach which involves research (from original source documents rather than text books as much as possible), reasoning, relating to self, and recording. Anyway, after attending the meeting I really like the idea but it would certainly be a lot of work to get it going and I'm doubtful there will be enough people to make it work. The school in Utah looks extremely successful and impressive, but they have a huge base of LDS people to draw on (although the school doesn't have to be exclusively LDS kids) for both staff as well as people willing to donate. I certainly couldn't afford the $5000 per year tuition per child that the Utah school is charging, even if Frank did have a job. They said they are hoping to find a way for it to cost less than that, though. So we'll see how it goes. I am disillusioned enough with the high school here that I am willing to look into other options.

I think Jared missed Scott and Tanner a bit this week, but he didn't lie around pining away. He spent the night with his friend Bryson on Thursday and then spent Friday afternoon at his friend Ian's house. He has a party with his middle school class this afternoon, but I'm not sure he's going to that. He is feeling "wishy-washy" about it. Right now he and Frank are gone--they went to mow the lawn for a single lady in our ward. They took Seth with them, too; he still has a certain fascination for lawn mowers.

I'll finish up with the job search update. With Frank's former boss, negotiations seem to have broken down. In response to our proposal, they sent an ammendment to the original agreement that they wanted Frank to sign. The amendment did change some things which would make the agreement a lot less restrictive, but there were still some areas that concerned us so Frank called to try to discuss it with them. He didn't get to say very much, though. It just turned into another conversation where his former boss was yelling and swearing at him while Frank tried to get him to see reason. Frustrating! Then the next day his former boss sent him an email that said "I guess Shelton went with you too" (Shelton is one of Frank's former clients.) We assume from that message that Shelton has decided to leave Griffin Networks and that Frank's former boss thinks Frank is responsible. Well, he's not--he hasn't spoken to them at all, and Frank immdediately sent him an email letting him know that. A few minutes later his former boss called again and yelled some more. So we've decided to keep any necessary communication to emails from here on out. Frank doesn't have to listen to that anymore. As far as the agreement goes, we've just decided to let it go on the back burner for now. The agreement as it stands would never stand up in court. Besides that, his former boss keeps saying things to Frank that are inconsistent with the written agreement he wants him to sign. So for now, we feel like it is more important for Frank to focus on finding a new job. He applied for several jobs this week, both in this area and elsewhere. If he gets a job here that his former boss feels is creating competition, then we'll deal with it then. If he gets a job somewhere else, then he won't be able to complain at all.

Certainly all this conflict and uncertainty is taking a toll on us. I haven't been sleeping well at all, my stomach feels upset a lot, and I have felt my heart doing a lot of fluttering. I'm sure everyone else is feeling at least some distress as well. Seth sometimes acts out and other times he is clingy. I'm certain he can feel the tension around here even though he doesn't know what's going on. Even our little Snickers seems to know we are stressed. He sticks pretty close to Frank most of the time. One day I found him curled up in a corner, not a place he normally chooses:

Well, in spite of it all, we are resilient people and we are trying to put our faith in God. We know He will always be there for us! I keep running into that theme in my scripture reading lately. I'm sure it's not a coincidence.

One final note: I'm sorry if my posts haven't been very readable lately. I've noticed that blogger didn't put in any of my paragraph breaks the last few posts. I have no idea why or how to fix the problem. So I apologize for that!

Weekly Review June 18 '11

Well, if someone asked me which weeks were the worst ones I've been through, this week would definitely rank in the top five. If you would rather not read the rest of this post after that kind of beginning, I will not be offended! But if you do keep reading, rest assured that I am going to spare you most of the excruciating details and just summarize! Looking back, it feels like I spent the whole week in a state of emotional upheaval with all of my energies going towards worrying about the situation with Frank's fomer employer. So when I looked at my planner I was really surprised to see that we actually had a lot going on this week! I'm going to start by mentioning all the other things we did, and then I will finish with a summary / update on the job situation.

Scott gave a talk in church on Sunday and he did a great job. It was one of those really rewarding parent moments when you hear your child give a thoughtful, heartfelt talk and you realize that all those things you've been trying to teach your child his whole life are actually sinking in! He had some great insights that I had never even thought of, like when he expressed appreciation for Joseph Smith and pointed out that we wouldn't have most of the Doctrine and Covenants if Joseph Smith hadn't been praying and asking questions. Then he went on to observe that Joseph Smith had a pretty hard life and there were a lot of other things he could have been praying about but instead he was focusing on trying to understand spiritual things. Sunday was a good day--I felt peaceful in spite of the turmoil in our lives. It was busy, too--I had ward council before church, choir practice after church, I went on two Primary visits in the afternoon, and then our home teachers came to visit.

The rest of the week was busy also. I helped with pledge stuff on Monday. Tuesday I had book club and that evening I helped with the set up and clean up for the 8th grade ceremony at Jared's school. (They ask 7th grade parents to help so that 8th grade parents can just enjoy the ceremony.) My job was to get the ice and ice cream, help scoop ice cream during the reception following the ceremony, and then help clean up afterwards. Tuesday was the last day of school for Scott and Tanner--the last day for everyone else is just a test make up day for the high school students so if you don't have any tests to make up, you don't have to go.

Wednesday was the last day of school for Jared and Seth, and it was an early release day for Jared. We were all invited to a pool party at the house of a family in our ward that afternoon. I took the youngest 3 boys and went to that--Scott was on a date and Frank stayed home to work on his resume. The boys had YM that evening and I had a bunch of paperwork to fill out for the high adventure campout the older two boys are attending this week (called Camp Helaman).

Frank and I went to the temple on Thursday morning. It was wonderful to be there and to feel some peace! It's always good to be reminded that Heavenly Father has so many amazing blessings in store for us and that all we have to do is keep our covenants. That's the main feeling I had the whole time I was there--"keep your convenants, and everything will be ok". Unfortunately, the rest of the day was extremely stressful and it was hard to hold onto that peaceful feeling!

Tanner had his friend Seth over to spend the night Wednesday night and he ended up staying until Friday evening! Not something we normally do but I was just in an "I don't care what you do" state most of the week. Seth's mom has been out of town since the beginning of March--she had surgery and then she's been recuperating--and his dad has to work all day, of course, so I figure it is probably good for him to be in other people's homes sometimes anyway (although I'm not sure our home was the best place to be this particular week).

The boys were all supposed to go to a party Friday evening but it got cancelled so we just stayed home and watched Gulliver's Travels, which we got from Netflix. I didn't pay really close attention, but my overall impression was that it was better than I expected it to be. I baby sat on Friday, too--one of my counselors brought over her two children while she went to do some Primary visits with one of the teachers. One of her kids is Seth's age and the other a few years older--the three of them had a great time playing together!

Today Scott had to be up early to help go through the stuff in the scout shed at church (in preparation for their trip next week). Then he and I went to a convert baptism--Scott had been asked to be a witness and the guy getting baptized has a four year old daughter who has come to church with him a couple of times so I wanted to be there too. It was very special, as those occasions always are. Then the older three boys went to help with an Eagle scout project and Seth had a birthday party for a child in his class at school. The party was at a nature center, so when I went to pick Seth up, we took some time to walk over to the pond to see the fish, turtles and geese and we also stopped in at the main building to see the turtles, toads, snakes, etc. that they have in cages there. Seth really enjoyed that! I think that nature center is one of my favorite places in Frederick. On the way home we also made a stop at the store to pick up a few things we need. Frank made a trip to another store to get a few things and to fill up his car. Tanner had a party for kids from his former middle school class this evening. I've also been doing a lot of Primary stuff this evening, to be ready for tomorrow and to catch up a little on some of the things that got neglected earlier in the week.

I think that covers most of what we did this week--I feel like the kids had a lot of last minute social things going on that I didn't write down so I've forgotten them now. They are very glad summer vacation has arrived and are living it up!

The situation with Frank's former boss caused a lot of stress this week. They had a couple of exchanges that always ended up with his former boss yelling at him and making accusations. At one point he was saying "if I lose one more client I am going to sue you" and we got a certified letter from his lawyer saying basically the same thing. That caused us quite a bit of anxiety since we don't have any control over whether or not any of Frank's former clients choose to leave Griffin. Although Frank hasn't done anything wrong and I'm pretty sure if he really did take us to court that he would lose, that's still not something we want to go through! Over the last week we have spoken to a couple of different friends who are lawyers, including my cousin McKay; we greatly appreciate them giving us their time and sound advice! In the end, we decided that we really needed to pay to have a consultation with a labor lawyer that practices here in Maryland, so we did that over the phone on Friday. The lawyer we talked to has a lot of experience with non-compete agreements and she said that almost all the ones she has dealt with have been able to be settled out of court. She gave us a couple of very good options to pursue. We ended up coming up with a proposal to offer Frank's former boss which involves asking him to void the original non-compete agreement if we agree to do a couple of things for him--mainly agree not to have any contact of any kind with a list of his clients which he will provide to us. We also invited him to offer a counter proposal if he does not like our proposal the way it stands, and we will consider it. So Frank called his former boss on Friday and offered the proposal. He did say he would think about it and get back to us, and they had the most productive, cooperative sounding conversation that they have had since Frank was laid off. So we are very hopeful at this point that we will be able to come to an agreement that we can all live with, where his employer won't feel like Frank is competing with him and Frank will be free to find a new job and take care of our family, without being forced to move somewhere else or severely limit his employment options. (Believe it or not, that was the short version of the story!)

Now that we feel like that part of our dilemma is in the process of being resolved, we can turn our focus to finding a new job. Honestly, the other problem has been taking so much of our time and attention that should have been focused on searching for a new job! Frank spent most of the day today getting his resume updated. He just needs to tweak it a little bit more and it will be done--then we can get it sent out to all of you people who have asked for it! The real challenge for him has been narrowing it down. The first copy he handed to me to proofread today was about 10 pages long! I told him no way would anyone read through that whole thing (except me, of course). He has it "whittled down" to about 4 pages now. I have to say that reading through it (and even as ignorant as I am about computers in general) I was so impressed with the wide variety of things he can do and all the experience he has. It seems to me that any potential employer looking for an IT person is going to drool over that resume and want to hire him on the spot! I might be a little biased, though. At any rate, I am pretty confident that the right job will come along.

The start of this post was pretty negative, but I did make it around to being positive in the end, didn't I?! Sorry no pictures this week! I think I took a few, but I don't have the energy to go get the camera and put them on the computer. Thank you to all of you for your prayers!

Weekly Review June 11 '11

Greetings! I guess I'll start with the bad news and get it over with (for those of you who don't already know). Frank was laid off on Thursday. As you know, we knew this was a possibility but we were still taken a bit by surprise since he actually was pretty busy this week. Frank thinks the other 3 employees weren't as busy and haven't been for the last few weeks, so we think that is why they decided to let Frank go, so there would be more work for everyone else to do. I really feel like things are going to work out in the end, but yesterday a lot of issues came up that have made things very stressful. Much to our surprise, one of the clients Frank was working with contacted him at home and told him that they were dropping Griffin as their IT company and asked Frank to do some work for them. When this client contacted Griffin, Frank's former boss called him, very angry about it and accusing him of "stealing my client". He brought up a non competition agreement that Frank signed when he was hired. We can understand that he's upset, but don't appreciate the accusations. Frank would never try to take clients away from Griffin--he has no intention of contacting any of his former clients and only considered doing any work for this client when he was sure that the client had no intention of giving the work to Griffin even if Frank wouldn't do it either. We're not sure yet how it's all going to pan out at this point. We feel really bad, though, that things are ending on a such a sour note. He really had a great working relationship with this boss and considered him a friend. I hate conflict and I hate being made to feel like the "bad guy". We've had some fairly sleepless nights; it hasn't been fun!

Now for the better stuff: I've been pretty busy this week with Primary tasks. I had a mini presidency meeting on Tuesday evening. It turned into a mini meeting when my secretary, who hasn't been feeling too well the last few weeks, was ordered to bed for 3 days because she may have pneumonia. One of my counselors was already not going to be coming to our meeting because she has a less than two week old baby. (Although she made it to church on Sunday--I was surprised!) So my other counselor and I got together to discuss the activity we were planning for today. We had to finalize plans and decide who was going to do what. So we were able to get that done, at least! The rest of the week I've been doing my assignments and attending to other Primary tasks, such as figuring out how we are going to split the nursery now that we have enough leaders to do that, contacting new nursery leaders, and making appointments for visits. You get the idea!

We had a great Primary moment on Sunday wit the older kids. One of my counselors taught sharing time and at the end she read them a scripture about the stripling warriors, and then asked the kids how it might apply to them. Everyone was quiet for a minute and then one ten year old girl said "Well, we're in a war fighting Satan and if we do the little things like read our scriptures, we can be protected too, just like the stripling warriors..." I can't really explain what that meant to me, but in my mind as I listened to her, I thought "they are getting it! They're really getting it!" Preparing these kids to stay strong and righteous in the world we live in now is one of my greatest desires.

Another great Primary moment from last week: I was teaching about testimonies. With the younger kids, I started out by asking them what a testimony is. I was getting all these answers that clearly meant they didn't understand the question and I was about to re-word it and ask again when a little visiting Sunbeam on the front row, who wasn't very happy and had been periodically calling out for her daddy (and who I didn't think was even listening), piped up "a testimony is that we know that Jesus lives." Kids are just amazing sometimes!

Monday we played a game called "Aye, aye Nephi" for family night. Tanner claims he's never won a round of this game in all the times we've played it over the years. He was completely chagrined when we let Seth play (for the first time ever) and Seth won the very first round! But then Tanner won the next round....

Tuesday was my errand day. Among other things, I took Seth to the library to get new books. The book I put on hold for book club next week finally came in, so I got that too. I only have a week to read it, but I think I'll make it--I read about 70 pages the first day without too much effort, and the book only has 280 pages. (Although I haven't made much progress the last few days.) It's interesting--it's a historical fiction book about the father in "Little Women" called "March". I'm not sure how much of it is true. Some of it probably is, but since I just read a book about Louisa May Alcott's life recently (Invincible Louisa) I am already seeing discrepancies. I've also been trying to read the book we read last month (I didn't get a copy in time to read it before our discussion.) That book is Out of Africa, and it is very beautifully written but so far isn't holding my interest much (I've also been too busy to give it much of my time). I just watched the movie of that one and enjoyed it much more than the first time I saw it (way back when it came out). I loved the scenery and the music back then, but the story depressed me. I think I understand the story a lot more now, and it seemed a lot more hopeful this time.

When I was coming in from some of my errands on Tuesday, I saw this little guy hanging out in the leaves right by the front steps:

Actually, he's not all that little--he's a pretty decent sized black snake. It's not the first time I've seen him, so I suspect he is living somewhere nearby. Maybe under the neighbor's steps. Thankfully, he looks pretty harmless. I wouldn't want to get too close to him, but he's not too frightening.

Tuesday was also the day that Tanner's Seminary class had a "Second Coming Breakfast". They've been studying about the signs of the 2nd coming, so his teacher told them that sometime in the next few weeks they were going to have breakfast at his house. He gave them several "signs" to help them know it was coming up but didn't tell them the exact day. He also told them that they would have to be on time to Seminary that day because they would leave right at 6:15 and anyone who wasn't there by then would get left behind (and have to attend the older kids' class that day). I thought this was a really cool idea. A couple of the kids were late that day and got left behind. Tanner and those who made it on time felt bad about that. A pretty memorable object lesson, I think!

I took dinner over to my counselor with the new baby on Tuesday also, so that was definitely a busy day. My counselor looks tired. Evidently, little Jacob is not sleeping very well yet! I remember how that feels....

Seth is still enjoying the presents he got for his birthday. It's nice to have new toys--keeps him busy! Here he is, playing with his new Zhu Zhu pet.:

One of the highlights of Seth's week is his show and tell day at school. This week he decided to take his Tanner bear. (It really is named Tanner--the tag says so.) He was afraid he'd forget to bring it, so he slept with it the night before. Here he is, looking so cute!:

(He's on the floor next to our bed because he woke up and came in sometime in the night. And yes, I know he is growing out of those pajama pants!)

Wednesday the boys had YM and I had RS. The boys played a game of capture the flag, using socks full of flour as "weapons". They had a lot of fun, but got very hot (and flour-y) because temperatures were back up into the low 100's that day, with high humidity. All three of them took showers before going to bed. For RS we did a twist on "speed dating"--we did "speed chatting". Basically the same idea as speed dating--we sat across from one sister and chatted for 5 minutes, then moved around the circle to the next person when the time ran out. We had snacks to enjoy while we were chatting, too. I had a lot of fun and got to talk to a few people that I haven't had a chance to talk to lately. Seth came with me because Frank had a lot of work to do, but there was a nursery for him so he had a lot of fun too.

Shortly before I was about to drive Jared and Seth to school Thursday morning, I got a phone call from one of the teachers at their school. The air conditioning was not working so they had cancelled school. (It was another 100+ degrees day, with a heat advisory from noon to 8:00 pm.) Talk about a dream come true for the kids! So what does a kid who gets a very unexpected day off school look like? Like this:

We still had to go to the school later that day for a meeting (I'm helping with the 8th grade ceremony) and right after that Jared had an orthodontist appointment. Having the school closed simplified my day a bit also, since I was planning to work on pledges that morning. Since the grocery store I normally shop at is near their school, I decided rather than driving over there I would check out the brand new Wegman's grocery store that just opened up on Sunday--it is very close to my house. It was a little bit overwhelming--that store is HUGE!!! (Pretty crowded, too, but I hope that will change when the newness wears off.) But they do have some really good prices, so I may be shopping there more often. The other thing that will be nice about it is that they will probably have all of those harder-to-find items that sometimes crop up in recipes. And they have a large food court area, too, with soft serve ice cream, pizza, breakfast sandwiches, subs, etc. The bad thing is that the increased traffic to that area (there used to be nothing but fields where the new shopping center now stands) is really messing up the traffic patterns at the closest intersection, which is one that we go through a lot, since it's the way we get on the main freeway that goes through Frederick. They did add a lane and change the intersection a bit before the shopping center opened, but I don't think it was enough!

Today has been busy and tiring, but good. We got up fairly early because Scott was taking the ACT and had to be there at 8:00. The rest of us helped clean the church in the morning and then this afternoon everyone helped me with our "Scripture Splash" Primary activity. The boys helped us set up, and all four of them were soaking wet before the activity even started! We had this activity as a reward of sorts to celebrate the kids' progress in reading their scriptures. We had four different water games; each related to a scripture story or concept. For example, my station was called "crossing the ocean"--they had to run from one side of a field to the other repeatedly while "Laman and Lemuel" tried to squirt them with water guns. The kids who got wet had to sit down where they were when they got hit. The last two kids standing got to be Laman and Lemuel for the next round. We related this game to the story of Lehi and his family crossing the ocean to the promised land and how Laman and Lemuel's attitude and wickedness kept everyone from progressing toward their goal. All the kids got wet and had a great time, I think. Frank was a real sweetie and filled in for the bishop and the bishopric counselor, both of whom couldn't come at the last minute--he had to sit in a chair blindfolded with a water gun (representing Laban) while the kids tried to "steal" the "brass plates" from him, which were under his chair. He would listen for the kids and try to squirt them; if a child was successful at getting the plates without getting squirted, that child got to dump a cup of water on him.

At the end of the activity we had lemonade and popsicles for everyone. (And the bishop made it to pick up his kids at the end; a water fight of sorts ensued and he got wet after all!) It was quite hot today and being out in the heat really drained me, but being with the kids really cheered me up! One of the ten year old boys came to me at the end and offered to help clean up and sincerely thanked me for planning the activity for them. What a sweetie! (And he is one of the more mischevious ones, which made it even better.)

After we got home, Frank and I both took a short nap and got showers. Now Tanner is babysitting and Scott is at a party for his Seminary class. Scott will be speaking in church tomorrow; they are focusing on Seminary. I'm sure it will be great. We are looking forward to a day of rest and some spiritual uplift--we really need that right now and are so grateful for the strength the gospel gives us.

Weekly Review June 4 '11

This week started out with a busy Sunday. I had Ward Council before church; choir and a Primary visit after church. We were "one man down" during Primary because one of my counselors (Michelle) had a baby Saturday evening (yes, we were expecting that to happen any day). My secretary was also out of town, but we have an assistant secretary now and she did a good job of filling in, even though she is very new and still learning. In between choir and the Primary visit, my other counselor (Tammy) and I went to visit Michelle and her new baby. It was very sweet to hold such a new little one. He is beautiful! Michelle has 3 girls; this is her first boy. We had a very nice (although short) visit with her. We were excited that Michelle had her baby on the 28th. That means he shares a birthday with Seth as well as Tammy. As Tammy says "Now we are all connected forever!"

Our ward had a picnic at the park to celebrate Memorial Day. Frank helped with the cooking, as usual--we had hamburgers and hot dogs. The food was very yummy and it was pleasant to visit with other ward members, but it was very, very hot and humid so no one hung around long after we ate. We all came home and kind of collapsed for the rest of the day--and felt very thankful for air conditioning!

The extremely hot temperatures continued into Tuesday and Wednesday, but after that we got some relief. As a matter of fact, Thursday was perfect--sunny, dry, and temperatures in the 80's. By a very happy chance, Thursday was also the day that was scheduled for Field Day at Jared and Seth's school. They really hit the weather jackpot with that one! A few weeks ago I was wondering if they would ever get a day without rain. Jared was very involved with Field Day because the Middle School kids plan and run all the stations. Seth didn't participate in Field Day at the park with the rest of the school--they have the preschoolers stay at the school and do activities in the courtyard, since they are only there for a few hours. He came home very enthusiastic about all the fun activities he had done. Jared came home tired!

The rest of the week has been blessedly uneventful. It has been so nice to have a little bit of "down time"! The boys had YM Wednesday evening as usual, I had a routine doctor appointment that morning, and I worked on pledge drive stuff at the school on Thursday. We got our copies of the new family cookbook on Thursday and I'm enjoying looking through it. Erin did such a great job putting it together--it looks fantastic! And I'm looking forward to trying out the recipes!

Seth kept busy playing with new toys. Here he is trying out his new "Moon Sand":

Another exciting event for him was the arrival of the ice cream truck on our street!:

(Tanner and Jared both bought ice cream, too.)

Frank had his last day at FSA on Thursday. He's been working there either full time or as a contractor for nearly 7 years; it seems strange that he won't be going there anymore. (Although I suspect he will still get a phone call or two from them, at least at first.) He went in really early on Thursday, but that is the last time he'll have to do that. Next week we'll see how things go with his hours. Hopefully, his time will be filled up with other things.

One other thing that kept me busy this week was planning for a Primary activity that we are going to have next week. We're having it as sort of a "reward"--to celebrate how well the kids are doing on reading their scriptures.

Last night Frank and I escaped for a quick date. We picked up some Mexican food at Chipotle and took it to a nearby park / nature center to eat. Then we walked around the pond at the nature center. We saw lots of turtles and fish! The weather was beautiful again so we really enjoyed that.

Tanner and Jared went to spend the night with Ryan and Bryson last night, but Scott stayed home and went to bed at a reasonable hour because he had to take the SAT this morning. After Scott got done with that, we got some shopping done. We had a lot of different things we needed to get--a few groceries, sandals for me, shorts for Scott and Frank, and so forth. We were unsuccessful in finding a Sunday suit for Scott--nothing in his size, as usual! We didn't find any shorts for him, either. We started looking at lawnmowers and weed eaters because ours are not working anymore and when we looked into getting them fixed, it was going to cost more to fix them than to replace them. (One of our nice neighbors edged our lawn for us today, and although it could use some mowing, it's not looking too bad so mowing can wait a bit longer.) We were tired after all that shopping!

This evening we are looking forward to a visit from Frank's cousin, Phil, who is here at the Frederick airport with the MetLife blimp--he's one of the mechanics. He was here last fall also--we got to see the blimp up close that time.

Only 1 1/2 more weeks of school!

Weekly Review May 28 '11

Happy Birthday to Seth! It is hard to believe that our "baby" is four years old today! He opened his presents in the early afternoon and we had cake and ice cream this evening.

A new "Cars" themed plate. He got a matching fork & spoon, too.

"Mater's Tall Tales"

That's one of the cars he "sorted" at the grocery store a few weeks ago!

A wooden train set

All the loot--are you seeing a theme here? Everything was either cars or trains! Even Grandma & Grandpa were coordinated with us, without any planning!

Cool Hot Wheels toy from Grandma & Grandpa

Playing with the train

The cake (see explanation about cake near the end of this post.)

Ready to blow out the candles

It was good!

We had a busy week again, with school in the "winding down" stages. Mentally, the boys are already "done". They are ready for school to be out, and so am I! It feels like summer now, too. We've had more than one day with temperatures in the 90's. There has been some rain, but not as much as we've been having and most of the severe thunderstorms missed us.

On Sunday I got to church early for choir practice--we sang that day. I had a Primary visit that afternoon and that evening I took the oldest two boys to a fireside--the purpose was to get them excited about Youth Conference. The fireside was excellent; a real spiritual feast! They are going to Kirtland this year. I am really excited for them! On my way out, Jolie (Ridd) Smith stopped me to introduce me to "another Oremite" as she called her, who has recently moved into our stake. The new sister said "you probably won't remember me..." but when she said her name is Daelyn Dorr, I said "Yes, I do!" I thought that would interest those of you who remember the Dorr family. She's married now--I think she said her last name is Heaps. She said her husband may remember Ben, because they are close in age. Her family moved to this area 4 months ago, but they came from Pennsylvania so it's not a big culture shock for them to be here.

Monday I was supposed to work on pledge drive stuff, but I forgot so I did that on Wednesday instead. I was busy with Primary stuff, phone calls, and emails all day that day. After family night and all the kids were in bed, Frank and I ran to the store to get a few things we needed and while we were there decided to get Seth's birthday presents. On Tuesday my visiting teaching companion and I had the two ladies we visit teach over to my house and we all had lunch together. That was very nice! I think it was that evening that the boys got out Seth's new sidewalk chalk. It was funny to see that the big boys were just as interested in the chalk as Seth was!:

They made some pretty colorful creations. The fun thing about this sidewalk chalk is that it is "3-D". After finishing a drawing, you can view it through these special 3-D glasses that came with the chalk and it makes the picture look 3-D. It actually worked--I was surprised!

Scott had a doctor appointment (dermatologist) Wednesday afternoon. We also picked up Tanner's prescription and took it to the pharmacy. When I went to pick it up later (after taking the boys to YM that evening) the copay was more than double what it has always been. I called the insurance the next day and discovered that a generic drug just became available, and since we got the name brand it cost a lot more. It would have been nice to know that! We'll be asking for the generic drug from now on.

Thursday I made two batches of cupcakes for Seth to take to school:

I have certainly had my share of cupcake and cake baking lately! On Thursday I also worked on Sharing Time for a few hours and got a much needed haircut and color touch up. Frank was supposed to have a meeting, but it got cancelled. He had a pretty busy week again at work, though.

At Seth's school they do a special ceremony called "walking around the sun" for their birthdays. They have a light in the middle (representing the sun) with the names of all the months of the year in a circle around the "sun". The child holds a globe in his hands and, starting at the month he was born, walks around the circle one time for each year of his age. We also had to put together a timeline with a photo for each year of his life, along with a few sentences about something he did during that year. He will add to the time line each year until he is 10. Because Seth's birthday is on Saturday this year, he got to "walk around the sun" yesterday. He also was allowed to bring three items that are special to him to show. Frank and I both went in to attend his little ceremony. Here he is eating his cupcake:

After the kids got home from school, Frank and I went to the temple. We were both feeling sleepy and they needed help in initiatories, so we decided to do that. We tried a new restaurant on the way home that was recommended by friends. It was a greek fast food place, and the food was really good.

Besides celebrating Seth's birthday, we have been busy today with several other things. Everyone but Seth and I went to help a family in our ward who are moving to a different house. (They will still be in our ward, thankfully!) Everyone but me got a haircut. Frank and I ran to the store for a few things. I baked a cake for Seth--not that we really need more cake around here! But he saw a Mickey Mouse theme cake online when I was looking for ideas for his party, and he insisted that he had to have that cake. (I thought it was a little strange looking, but he loved it!) I really preferred to do cupcakes for his party, so I promised him I'd make the cake for his actual birthday, so that's what I did. It turned out looking almost as good as the one in the photo online, except that the icing I used to write his name was not the right consistency so the letters kept running! I was also busy today trying to finish up preparations for sharing time. Since this is a 5th Sunday, I had to come up with the whole thing by myself. We had the Elders over for dinner tonight, so they got to share Seth's cake. All of that has filled up our day.

Now we are looking forward to teh Sabbath day, as well as a day off for everyone on Monday. We hope you all have a great weekend!

Weekly Review May 21 '11

Blogger is acting strange tonight, so I hope I'm able to get this week's post written without too much trouble. We'll see how it goes. For starters, it won't let me type above the photo above, so I couldn't start out by explaining that the first couple of photos are of iris blooming in our front yard. I took them last week, but forgot to include them in last week's post. Most of the iris have died now, but a few of them are still hanging in there. They were really pretty while they lasted!

The weather was funny this week--we had several days that alternated back and forth between sunshine and thunderstorms, all day long. Today is about as good as it gets, though--bright sun, no humidity, and perfect temperature; not too hot or too cold.

We had a very busy week. I was making all the final preparations for Seth's birthday party, for one thing. Besides that, there were just a lot of other things to do, too. I helped with pledge drive accounting on Monday, went to the library and had book club on Tuesday (I made little mini cheesecakes to take to that), had a presidency meeting on Wednesday, had a doctor appointment (just a check up) and took Jared to a city council meeting on Thursday, and went to Seth's "operetta" on Friday. Today was Seth's birthday party; in addition to that, Jared had to be at a Citizenship Merit Badge Day at 7:30 this morning (it lasted until 4:30) and the other two older boys had a service project from 8:15 to about 2:00. So we've just been running all over the place!

A few notes about some of the above activities. I took Jared to the city council meeting to fill a requirement for the Citizenship in the Community merit badge. I expected to be quite bored, but as it turns out I found the whole thing rather fascinating. (And I found out that the Maryland Shakespeare Ensemble wants to start holding a Shakespeare Festival in Frederick every year. I think that would be awesome!) Besides that, when we first got there the mayor came over and shook Jared's hand and asked what his name was and what troop he is in. Then when the meeting started, he formally welcomed him, along with another group of scouts who were visiting from another troop. I thought that was kind of cool.

The operetta that Seth's class did was very cute! Seth did a great job on his part. I videotaped it, but because the acoustics in the room aren't all that great, it's hard to hear him on the tape. So when we got home, I had him say his part again while I taped it. That video clip is at the bottom of the post--for some reason blogger won't let me put it anywhere else. I hope it works! And sorry it is sideways--I don't know how to fix it! Seth was extremely cute when he did his part--he kind of galloped over to the microphone and then galloped back when he was done. The little girl right after him was the one who stole the show, though. She got to the microphone and then said "I'm scared!" Seth's teacher was trying to let her know it was ok and she didn't have to do it, I think, but she kept saying "I'm scared!" into the microphone. Then after a minute or so, she sobbed out "I'm Sally Ride. I was the first woman to go up in space." The whole auditorium erupted into cheers! Softie that I am, I actually got all choked up.

The pictures below are from the play. The stage was decorated with artwork done by the kids. The one here is Seth's, of course!

So today was Seth's birthday party. He chose a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. It was pretty fun to put it together. Here is Seth with his friends, Paul and Henry, showing off their mouse ears. (An idea I found online. Very easy to make, using girls' headbands. The ears for the girls have a red bow on them.)

For each of the games, they needed a "tool". Here's the tool bag:

To get the bag, they'd have to say "O, Toodles!"

One of the games was "pin the ear on Mickey". Frank figured out how to get a large picture of Mickey. We printed one up from the internet on regular size cardstock. Then we cut it out, held it up, and shone a light on it to make a larger shadow on the poster. I traced the outline of the shadow on the poster. Then Frank used a marker to outline the outside and fill in all the details. I think he did a great job! (Hard to tell since most of him is covered up by ears.)

Here's the party table:

Opening presents:

We served lunch--Mickey shaped pizzas and fruit salad:

Henry enjoying his lunch!

Amber and Camilla chatting:

Logan, Tyler, Seth, Henry, Amber, Camilla, Melissa, and Paul--the whole gang:

Then we had cupcakes. I love this fun little cardboard cupcake stand I found at the store!:

Focused on cake!:

All the presents! That's a moonsand playset in front. (I haven't been brave enough to open up the sand part yet, but Seth seems perfectly happy to just play with the truck!) He also got lots of cars, a bubble wand, some action figures, a "grabber", a Zhu-Zu pet, and 3-D sidewalk chalk. It has all kept him pretty occupied for the rest of the day.

The other video clip at the bottom of the page is the kids singing Happy Birthday to Seth. Once again, sorry it is sideways.

Frank was insanely busy with work this week which I am certainly not going to complain about. But he hasn't been getting enough sleep and so he's very tired. He was a great help with the party today and now he is at a dance with the oldest two boys. They needed more people to help drive, so Frank ended up doing that.

We had a rough week with Scott. He got in a disagreement with Frank Sunday night and was so upset about it that on Monday morning he refused to get out of bed and didn't go to Seminary or school. Thankfully, he just needed to regroup for a day and he was ok after that, but it was a stressful day. Today he had another disagreement and he ended up leaving the house for awhile. It ended up with me taking him for a drive and talking with him. I think he feels better now, but it is hard being a teenager. And even harder to be the parent of one!

Tanner met with his guidance counselor about a month ago and this week he found a paper the counselor had given him which tracks his progress (he had forgotten all about it) and decided to give it to me. I was rather surprised to see that on the line for class ranking, it said 1 / 341. He's ranked first in his class? Well, his GPA is 4.0, 4.5 if it's weighted for his honors classes. I'm guessing that he is probably tied for first with at least a few other kids, but still--that's not too shabby.

Jared got a "100% A+ Great Job" on a poetry packet he did recently. He had to pick 4 different kinds of poems and write one for each type. I read them and I thought they were pretty good. He says I can share them with you, so here they are:

This first one is an example of Diamante (it was originally diamond shaped, but I can't reproduce that here.)

My Dog

Snickers

Fast, Barker

Barking, running, slobbering

White, small, black, small

Running, purring, licking

Caring, loving

Cats

The second one is a Haiku:

Storms

The wind comes in strong

The rain is going crazy

But calm in the end

This one is an Etheree:

Dissolve

My body, dissolving into nothing,

The pain of living on is too much.

Around the corner, I see light.

That will lead me to my end.

It is impossible

To turn back and look,

But I still try

to look back,

and see...

Nothing.

(By the way, he wrote this as if he were dying, but he says he doesn't really feel like the "pain of living on is too much". Good to know!)

The last one is an example of Nonet:

The thing that destroys all deathly Things

The thing that shoves out all darkness

The thing that helps all living

Secretly slipping in

and also leaving

without a trace

It destroys

It lives

Light

We only have 3 1/2 weeks left of school. I'm not sure who is happier about that--me or the kids!

Everyone have a great week!