Weekly Review July 12 '19

This week was not quiet. It was stressful and crazy and it was mostly all about Snickers. So I guess I will start with him.

Snickers: You'll maybe remember that I mentioned last week that he hadn't been feeling well and that I was planning to call the vet on Monday if he didn't improve. Over the weekend he stopped eating his treats, which he normally loves, so we knew something was really up. I called the vet Monday morning but they couldn't get him in that day. (I could have asked to have him seen as an urgent care case, but I didn't realize how sick he really was then.) They had appointments the next morning and he could see the doctor that he normally sees, but I had a my appointment to get my crown so the timing didn't work for me. However, they said I could drop him off before my appointment and they would keep him there until I could pick him up after my appointment. So that's what I did. Shortly after I finished at the dentist, I got a text message from the doctor saying that his lab work was suggesting that he had developed diabetes. His blood sugar was sky high and he had blood and ketones in his urine, which meant he was actually in diabetic ketoacidosis, which is a medical emergency (as in, he probably would have died if we hadn't taken him in when we did). They did a secondary test which confirmed the diabetes. He had to stay at the vet all day, getting fluids and medications. We were able to bring him home Tuesday evening but they wanted us to bring him back the next morning for more testing and to get more fluids. Ditto for Thursday. It took those 3 days to get him stable, to get him eating a little better and able to take his medications orally (instead of in an IV) and to start to figure out what dosage of insulin he will need each day. (They are still adjusting that, but we have a starting point.) When we picked him up on Wednesday, they had us watch while they gave him an insulin shot and yesterday when we picked him up, they had us practice on a towel, and then I gave him his insulin shot for the evening. He has to have 2 shots each day, approximately 12 hours apart, so I gave him another shot this morning and Frank gave him his shot this evening. He is starting to act a little more like himself, although he's still tired and he still doesn't have much of an appetite. Right now he is getting spoiled rotten because we are supposed to be trying to entice him to eat, so he is getting things like chicken, steak, pork, and ham. He has to eat or he can't get his insulin, and besides that he has lost about 3 pounds, which is a lot when you only weigh about 12 pounds in the first place! He has 3 different pills he has to take right now and that is a real pain because he doesn't want to take them. He used to gobble up pills as long as they were wrapped in cheese but now he is spitting them back out. It's been a real ordeal!

Added to the stress of worrying about the dog and realizing that we now have a dog who needs special care on a daily basis, we have been really anxious about the fact that we are leaving next week and we need someone to take care of him while we're gone. We've already been struggling to find someone to watch him, and now we need to find someone who's willing to give him shots twice a day as well? And give him 2 or 3 different medications, which he doesn't want to take? What are the chances? And will he stabilize before we need to leave, or will he still be in a crisis situation? It's been awful worrying about all those things. The first day I took him to the vet and we found out all the problems, I told her that we needed to be at our son's wedding on the other side of the country next week and we didn't know who we could get to give him shots and everything. She said that a number of the people who worked with her do pet sitting and that one of them could probably watch him, so she would start putting the word out. Frank also talked to someone at his office who has a daughter studying to be a vet and she thought her daughter would be willing to watch him. We actually had that worked out, but then this morning she changed her mind. Thankfully, when I took Snickers in to the vet this morning (he just had to have his blood sugar checked this time, he didn't have to stay) the technician that saw him said that she could watch him. So we have that worked out now and that's a relief (although I'm still worrying that something is going to come up!) Tomorrow I have to take in a urine sample for them to test and we will probably have to take him in on Monday or Tuesday to get his blood sugar tested again. Everybody please pray that he will keep improving and that he'll start eating better and that we'll be able to get him to take his pills. I admit that I am still feeling pretty overwhelmed by this whole situation. As you can probably imagine, this has also been a huge financial burden and I am honestly scared about what else could be coming in the future. It's just been one problem after another with him lately and every time something goes wrong it costs us hundreds (or in this week's case, thousands) of dollars. He now has diabetes, a liver condition, a history of bladder stones, and a herniated disc. I just feel like he is a time bomb waiting to go off, with more problems, and I don't think we can do this much longer. (Yesterday we noticed he is walking kind of funny and holding one of his legs at a weird angle, which means his herniated disc may be acting up again. Or something new, who knows?) It's just been a lot to deal with, on a lot of different levels.

Snickers on Tuesday evening--totally worn out and feeling pretty rotten.

Snickers last night--feeling a little better, but still pretty tired.

Well, we did do a few other things this past week although all the trips to the vet and the phone calls and trying to get Snickers to eat every few hours, and giving him shots and medicine and all the discussions about what can we do have taken up a lot of time.

Wedding Stuff: Wedding stuff has also been stressful. The dress I ordered for Tanner's wedding came and it really didn't fit well. I mean, I could make it work in a pinch but I'd be uncomfortable all day and having to constantly tweak it here and there, which I really don't want to do. So this week whenever I got a chance in between all the craziness, I shopped--either online or at local stores. And I couldn't find anything!! If it was modest enough and they had my size, it wasn't the right color (I even have 4 or 5 colors to choose from, and I couldn't find anything any of those colors!) I finally found a couple of good options online--right color, right size, modest--but none of them would get here in time. I finally found a dress one of the right colors online that will be arriving on Sunday; I'm just praying that this one fits! If it doesn't, I don't know what I'll do. Seth's pants arrived this week and they don't fit either! So I ordered another pair that came today and hopefully they will fit (I haven't had a chance to get him to try them on yet.) Frank ordered a tie which also arrived today and which he needs to try on to make sure it will work. Besides trying to find wedding clothes, I also had to get the final count for the luncheon by today so I spent some time trying to get in touch with people about that (including contacting Darlee and her mom to get numbers from them) but I finally got that figured out this morning so that's one less thing I have to do now.

Dentist fun: I already mentioned that I got a crown on one of my teeth on Tuesday morning. It wasn't too bad, really. My mouth kind of ached on Tuesday but it feels better now. The crown is actually temporary--the real crown will not come in for a few weeks, which means I won't have the real one put on until after I get back from Utah. The tooth with the crown is still feeling kind of sensitive--I don't like chewing hard things with it and it sometimes hurts a little when I drink ice water. It has been getting a little better every day though.

Seth was supposed to go to the orthodontist yesterday, but they called that morning to reschedule because the orthodontist's mother had passed away yesterday morning. I'm sorry for the orthodontist, of course, but I was kind of relieved to have one less thing to do, with all the sick dog drama going on. Plus Seth still has teeth that need to come out, and now we have another 6+ weeks in which to wiggle them and hope they all come out of their own accord so he doesn't have to have them pulled out. Fingers crossed!

Cats: We have been watching some cats this week for the carpool family, who have been out of town. We go every other day to let them in the house in the morning and let them out of the house at night. We had a really huge rainstorm in the early hours of Monday morning (over 6 inches in a few hours!) and when we went over to let the cats in, one of them came running up as soon as she saw us opening the front door and had her paws on the door, trying to push her way in before we could even unlock it! That was kind of funny. I ended up going over again that day to check for flooding in the basement because they had heard about the rain and sometimes their basement floods when it rains hard. There was a little bit of water in one room, but not much at all thankfully. The rest of the week both cats have been a bit elusive and we've had to chase them out from under beds with a broom to get them to go out at nights. Not too fun. But tomorrow morning is the last time we have to go over.

Celebrations: Now for some fun stuff. We had a great time with the Hatches on Friday evening. We had a yummy dinner and all the kids went swimming. They had a few fireworks they set off, but their neighbors set off fireworks too and it was fantastic! An even better show than the city of Frederick does every year. And we had front row seats with no crowds! So that was awesome. They also made brownies and put a candle in them and everyone sang Happy Birthday to me, so that was nice. On Saturday evening Jared and Jessie came over to share my birthday cheesecake and we played games too.

And everything else: We went to a baptism on Saturday for an 8 year old girl in our ward (we're pretty good friends with her family). I filled out a bunch of paperwork for Scout camp for Seth. I wrote the monthly music spotlight for our ward newsletter (part of my job as ward music chair). I taught Primary on Sunday (we only had 4 of our 9 kids...it's definitely summer) and prepared this week's lesson. I found substitutes to cover the 2 Sundays that I will be gone. I went to the religion class. I exercised most days and Seth and I did chores and brain balance every day. Frank mowed the lawn for me on Tuesday. Our RS had their monthly meeting that evening too, but I missed it because we were picking up Snickers from the vet. That's it!

To finish up, here's the pictures from my birthday that I promised last week to include in this week's post:

When we got back from the Hatches, I had to get on my computer for something, and I noticed Google looked like this:

 (And when I scrolled over the Google logo, the "Happy Birthday, Annette!" greeting appeared.) Not sure how Google knew it was my birthday--it must be in my account profile or something like that. Kind of creepy, though! Big brother is watching you!!

Here's a bonus photo from Tanner & Darlee's openhouse, because the girl who took the photos for us also sent them to us on my birthday:

And here's a few from Jared & Jessie's reception that Frank took with his drone (they all look a little blurry and distorted on the blog, for some reason. They don't look that way in my computer files):

Pretty cool, right?

Now it's super late and I have a lot to do tomorrow so good night! 

Weekly Review July 5 '19

This was another fairly quiet week, which was nice. It's decided to really be summer here lately, which means it's mostly been hot and humid. We've had a few thunderstorms and the last few days have been cloudy and kind of gloomy (but hot) although the sun just came out a while ago so it's more cheerful now. Here's what we did this week:

Saturday: In the morning we edged and mowed the lawn. I say we, because Frank did the edging and Seth helped with the mowing--I was showing him how to do it. It was nice to have help; it got done faster! In the afternoon we all went to see Toy Story 4. It was a cute movie, and we all enjoyed it. The rest of the day I worked on music calling stuff, cleaned the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and filled out my time sheet for my Arc job.

Sunday: We had a "muscial testimony meeting" for our sacrament meeting and it was really wonderful. Maybe you've done this in your ward at some point, but it's the first time I've been in a meeting like that. Anyone could go up and share why a particular hymn is meaningful to them, and then we sang one verse of that hymn (whichever verse they chose). It went really well--one person after another got up without any breaks in between and each person's comments were brief but powerful. I knew a lot of our hymns were focused on the Savior, but I don't think I realized before that actually ALL of them are focused on Him. There was just a really beautiful spirit in that meeting. In Primary, my companion teacher taught. At one point, she was giving them clues to help them guess what was in a box that she had and they all looked so cute as they gathered around her, I had to sneak out my phone and take a few photos:

(Only 6 of our 9 kids were there.) They also sang to me for my birthday, and I got a notebook & pen.

Monday: I worked with my Arc friend for about an hour in the morning--she just needed to go to a doctor appointment. I spent the rest of the day getting the regular chores done, as well as making several phone calls related to doctor, dentist, and vet appointments. I also ordered some ties for the boys for Tanner's wedding. For family night activity we played a game and we got frozen yogurt at one of those places where you can add multiple toppings, and you pay for it by the ounce. The nice thing is, this place has "$5 fill your cup" day every Monday, which means you can put as much in there as you want and it's only going to cost $5. Very convenient for us--I'm sure a place in Utah would never choose to do that on a Monday!!

Tuesday: I had a ministering visit in the afternoon. I have a new companion now--a 17 year old girl--so I picked her up and we went together. I took Seth to look for some pants for Tanner's wedding but we couldn't find anything so I ordered some online (I hope they fit!). We had a fairly heavy rainstorm shortly before we left to go to the store, and on the way there we saw a rainbow (in two pieces):

Here's the other side, which had more showing, but wasn't as bright:

Wednesday: I had a dentist appointment early in the morning and as I anticipated--I have to get a full crown. I got back next week to get that done. I had religion class and shopping to do on Wednesday also, so I was not home a lot. For YM that night, the Deacons had a cook out--they grilled hamburgers and everyone brought something to contribute to go with it. Seth seemed to enjoy that a lot.

Thursday: It was the Independence Day, of course, and we enjoyed a pretty quiet day. I still exercised and did brain balance with Seth and did the regular chores, but we had a lot of free time too. It was nice to have Frank home all day. Originally, we were going to go to Jessie's grandparents' house for dinner, swimming, and fireworks, but the weather forecast wasn't looking good so they decided to postpone that until today. As it turns out, the weather wasn't too bad yesterday. Hopefully it will be okay tonight, because the forecast looks about the same. Since I had originally planned to order Chinese food for my birthday dinner, we decided to do that last night instead. Except our favorite Chinese take out place was closed, so we ended up going to a Chinese buffet place instead. It wasn't as good, but it was still pretty good. In the evening, we watched the fireworks in DC on the television and then went outside and lit a few sparklers. We'll be seeing more fireworks tonight with the Hatches, hopefully.

Friday: Today I am 51! Frank had to be at a store at 5:00 am, and I woke up when he was getting ready and didn't go back to sleep so the day started early for both of us. I didn't mind, though--I exercised and showered and had breakfast and read scriptures before Seth even woke up! It was nice to have that quiet time. I've mostly had a normal day, working on the budget. But Frank got off work early (around noon, but by then he'd already put in a 7 hour day, so it really wasn't that early) and this afternoon I got to open presents. And I was thoroughly spoiled. Frank took lots of pictures of the present opening, but he hasn't sent them to me yet so you'll have to wait until next week to see those. I did take this picture afterwards:

Books, music, a movie, candy--yep, that's pretty much all I need to be happy! I got a set of dishes, too (dinner plates, salad plates, and bowls) but I didn't get a picture of them because we put them in the dishwasher since we were ready to run it. They will be in the photos that Frank took, though. It's been a nice day and tonight should be fun too.

Seth and I did pretty well at sticking with our schedule this week. I exercised most days and we did brain balance and chores every day. He did get some extra screen time yesterday and today. I did a lot of reading this week. We are well into These Happy Golden Years. I finished the book chat book and started on the new one (Northanger Abbey), but I have also been re-reading some old favorites.

Snickers has not been feeling well this week and I am probably going to have to take him to the vet next week. He started refusing to eat his regular food a few weeks ago so we tried canned food and he gobbled it up! So we knew he wasn't sick, just didn't want his regular food for some reason. After a few days of canned food, we tried switching back to the regular food (last week) but he stopped eating again, even after we didn't offer him anything else for about 5 days! At that point, I felt like we were starving him, so we went back to the canned food and I called the vet to get advice. (He is supposed to be on a low fat diet for his liver problems, and the canned food is not low fat, so not a long term solution.) The vet recommended a canned dog food that is low in fat, so we got one can of that to try (he'd tried it before a few years ago and didn't particularly like it). I gave that to him this morning and he did eat it, so maybe we will get more of that for him. Meanwhile, although he wasn't acting sick when this all started a few weeks ago, sometime last week he started leaving "presents" for us on the carpets in various rooms of the house. And then this week he has had diarrhea and has continued to leave messes around the house. So fun!! (I was especially upset that he even pooped on the carpet in Frank's office--that carpet is only a year old.) The last couple of days have been better, because we have been more vigilant about offering to take him out frequently. We have also been shutting all the doors to the rooms in the house when we leave, which keeps him off most of the carpets in the house (although the stairs and upstairs hallway can't be shut off like that). If he is still having problems on Monday, I am going to take him back in to the vet. Meanwhile, I'm feeling kind of stressed because our normal dog / house sitter can't watch him when we go to Utah and we are having a lot of trouble finding someone else who can watch him. Most people say they can't stay overnight, but we have never left him alone all night and in his current state of health I don't feel comfortable doing that. Hopefully we will get him healthy again and someone will agree to watch him for us!

We have actually been watching a dog for someone else this week--a family in our ward who have been out of town. We only had to go each morning and evening to let him out and make sure he had food, but they live a ways away so it's been kind of crazy. They get back today, though, so we are done with that job.

We are going to get ready to go to the Hatches now and I need to cut up some watermelon and a few other things first, so that's all I've got for this week.

Weekly Review June 28 '19

Well, this was a pretty quiet week for a change! Last week I was still trying to get caught up on everything. This week I was mostly caught up and it's been kind of strange. I am really glad not to be swamped with things to do, but I also felt this unexpected let down. I felt really restless and felt the lack of having something really constructive to do. It's hard to explain. Although it's really stressful and difficult to have a lot of things to do, there is also no doubt that working hard is good for the soul. And in particular, I think having those quilts to work on every time I had a free minute was very fulfilling (as well as overwhelming). I really do love creating things. So I think I need a new project! In the meantime, this week was kind of empty and I felt like I wasted most of my free time. But I'm sure I'll adjust! There are still plenty of things I could be doing or should be doing. Here's a summary of what we did this week:

Sunday: I enjoyed teaching my Primary class again. (I miss the kids when I don't see them for a week.) My companion teacher didn't show up--no doubt she was recovering from her son's wedding--but one of the counselors in the Primary came to my class with me. We were supposed to have the Elders over for dinner but they bailed on us at the last minute. I wasn't too thrilled about that because I had cooked quantities of food with 3 hungry Elders in mind, and now I had way too much. Jared & Jessie stopped by here for a little while on their way back home, though, and Jared ate some of the excess. (Jessie wasn't hungry.) Frank and Seth had a stake priesthood meeting so I had a quiet house to myself for a few hours.

Monday: We officially started our summer routine this week and so far it is going pretty well. Seth has to eat breakfast, shower, and help me with chores (whatever I'm doing that day) and then we do brain balance. After that, Seth is free to do what he wants although he only gets a couple of hours of screen time each day. On Monday he totally shocked me by choosing to go through all his school papers and throwing out what he didn't want to keep. He was in his room for at least an hour doing that, and when he finished his trash can looked like this:

I don't think any of you can fully appreciate what a miracle this is!! My pack rat, distracted son who normally won't part with a single thing he has scribbled on, voluntarily (I didn't even suggest it!) decided to go through his school papers and he actually threw away something. And not just a few things, a LOT of things!! This is totally unprecedented. But I'm NOT complaining!! He didn't even turn on the television until late afternoon. It was awesome. Meanwhile, I kept pretty busy with stuff I had to do, which included figuring out some issues with the business finances. For family night activity we played bowling on the Wii and Seth chose to get chocolate chip cookies for treat. (Just what we need in this house--more baked goods! We still haven't made it through all the leftovers from Tanner's open house!)

Tuesday: We stuck with our routine and it went well. In addition to the usual chores, I also worked on some things for my music calling. I also sat down with Seth and went over the information for scout camp and he picked out the classes he wants to take. He has mostly decided now that he doesn't want to continue in scouts after this year so I told him to just pick things that sound fun to him. He's not totally convinced that he wants to go to scout camp, so I want him to have fun if he goes.

Wednesday: I went to the religion class and in the evening I had a ministering interview with my companion and the RS president. Seth had YM (scouts)--they took the deacons to a park to do a fitness test and then took them to get ice cream. They got back really late; all the parents were wondering where they were! But Seth had a good time.

Thursday: Seth had a pretty busy day. He went to play with the car pool boys for a few hours (meanwhile, I met Frank for lunch) and not long after he got home one of the neighbor girls invited him over to go swimming in her yard. I like seeing him get out of the house and I especially like it when he plays outside. It was a good day to be in a  pool because it was really hot! Actually it's been pretty hot all week. He had to come in from the pool because a thunderstorm was coming. Jared & Jessie were going to stop by for dinner but Jessie had an appointment that ran late so they ended up not having enough time. They did stop by and get some plates of food, though, at my suggestion--I didn't want a lot of leftover food again!

Friday: Tonight Seth had a deacon's activity at another boy's house. They played a board game and then played outside, which is what they were doing when we went to pick him up. Frank and I had run a few errands on the way--we returned some things to the storage unit and returned some white Christmas lights that we had borrowed for Jared's wedding reception. After we picked Seth up, we decided to go to Rita's to get a treat. Seth got a root beer ice / vanilla custard shake, I got a blood orange ice / vanilla custard gelati, and Frank got a chocolate custard cone.

Frank started exercising again this week. He has had some issues with his heart beating really fast in the mornings sometimes so he has had a number of doctor appointments for that over the last few weeks. He had a stress test and a non-stress test and an EKG in the last few weeks and yesterday he had a 24 hour holter monitor (he wore it overnight and had to return it this morning). So far, none of the tests have showed anything unusual, although we don't have the results from the holter monitor yet.

I've been exercising every day too. Seth and I have been doing quite a bit of reading--we finished reading Little Town on the Prairie finally (we didn't read much the last few months!) and now we have started These Happy Golden Years. Seth has done quite a bit of reading on his own and I have been doing a little reading too. I'm still working on finishing our last book for book chat before I start on the new one. Seth is re-reading the Wings of Fire series, and I am still reading the second book in that series. (It's good, I just got bogged down during the wedding craziness.) Speaking of weddings, I ordered a dress for Tanner's wedding this week and I have also been trying to figure out what ties to get for everybody else and I've been looking for gray pants for Seth too.

Seth and I have also been enjoying the fireflies!! We have gone on walks many evenings this week at dusk so we can enjoy the fireflies. We take Snickers with us too and he is always really happy when he can get out of the house. Tonight I think there were a lot more fireflies than there have been up until now. I could stay out there all night watching them, I think! Fireflies are one of my favorite things about summer. They are just so magical!

I spent quite a bit of time this week looking at quilt books as well as some dollhouse catalogs--I'm trying to decide on a new project to start on. I'm thinking about maybe starting to build that dollhouse that I got the kit for several years ago. I'm not sure I'm ready for a big project like that, though. I may decide to do some kind of quilting project instead. Or crocheting? Or sewing? There are lots of possibilities.

Jared & Jessie have come by a couple of times this week but have not stayed long--mostly they have just needed to pick things up or drop things off. We are worried about their car because Jessie's dad was changing their oil and he thinks there was water in it. Which means that there's a blown gasket or a crack in the engine or something really catastrophic like that. It's still running, but we are wondering how long it will last. I'm not sure what they will do if they need a really expensive repair.

Sorry to end on a worried note, but that's all I can think of to write about this week!

Weekly Reviews June 7, 14, & 21 '19

Warning: this post is going to be long! But the good news is, I can't remember a lot of details of our daily activities for the last few weeks, so I'll be doing a lot of summarizing. Still, we had a lot of adventures and there is plenty to write about! So here we go...

May 31st to June 7th
This was a difficult week. I was super busy and didn't feel like I was getting nearly enough done each day. I had long lists to get through every day and I felt like the days would just disappear and I wasn't checking off a lot of things on my lists. The week was slipping by and I still had lots of things to do. Besides that, a lot of complications kept coming up with different things, such as Jared noticing that Jessie's name was wrong on their marriage license. He called on Monday (the 3rd) to find out what to do about it and found out he had to pay $60 to petition a judge to have it changed and it could take up to 2 weeks. And of course he didn't have 2 weeks because he was getting married in less than 2 weeks! He ended up having to take time off work to drive up to Pennsylvania to hand in a letter with his petition, which begged them to fix it before his wedding date. And thankfully, they did fix it in a few days, but in the meantime that caused a lot of stress. Jared also hadn't had his car inspected or anything yet so Frank & I were stressing about that. And he was trying to finish up an online class he was taking too! The end result of all these things is that I had a bit of a meltdown on Friday morning. But you know what? After I had a good cry, I felt so much better!! I think I just needed to get all of that tension and anxiety and stress out of my system!

A few things we did that week:

I mentioned that we had Deacons coming over to our house for an activity on Friday the 31st. That worked out well. They played some games and did sports on the Wii and it was fun to watch them interact together. They laughed a lot and cheered each other on and no one seemed to mind if they weren't doing very well at the games. We had leftover birthday cake to give them too, so they liked that.

On Saturday the 1st, I spent half the day going down to the bishop's store house to pick up two food orders for a couple of families in our ward. The RS president had sent out a message to a group of us to see if any of us could do it and for some reason, in spite of my busy schedule, I felt like I should do it. I don't know why, and  I probably never will, but I'm glad I did it. Meanwhile, Seth went to a birthday party for a good friend. I spent the rest of the day working on the quilt and on wedding stuff.

On Sunday the 2nd I prepared an article for the ward newsletter (I do a music spotlight every month) and we made chocolate chip cookie bars that evening for Seth to take to school the next day. They were for his birthday celebration--because they had field trips and a camp out the week before, there was no chance to celebrate his birthday that week. As always, the cookie bars were a hit!

I picked up my friend's kids from school on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (the friend who had surgery recently). Their dad came to get them right after we got home on Tuesday and Wednesday, but on Thursday I got a call from my friend in the early afternoon; she asked if I could keep her kids until about 5:00 because she had just found out she had blood clots and fluid in her lungs and she needed to go back into the hospital for the weekend. So they needed to stay somewhere until their grandma could pick them up on her way home from work. Of course, I said yes to that! It was no problem to have them here a little longer and Seth was glad to have some time to play with them. And thankfully, my friend only had to stay in the hospital for a few days and she seems to be doing a lot better now.

The storage shelves for my office / sewing area finally got put together that week and they look nice:

(And yes, they are already full!)

I was supposed to take Snickers to the groomer on Wednesday the 5th, but I was so distracted that I actually forgot to take him! I had to call and reschedule for the following Tuesday and thankfully I remembered to take him that time. (It had been so long since he'd been to the groomer that he was really shaggy and his hair was really matted, so they ended up shaving him! He looks like a big white rat!!)

On Thursday the 6th I went to a meeting for the parents of kids going into middle school this fall (middle school is only 7th and 8th grades at Seth's school). It was interesting and helpful and I think Seth is going to really like middle school.

Seth worked on his Mars project during the week and got it mostly completed.

Frank went with me on Friday the 7th to pick up some prints and order a cake from Costco, and to a party store and to Walmart to get paper products for Jared's wedding dinner and for Tanner's Open House. We also ordered the catering for Jared's wedding dinner. It felt really good to get those things done finally.

Amy, Maddie, and Ammon arrived really late on Friday the 7th (or more accurately, they arrived really early on Saturday the 8th). I stayed up to let them in the house, but that was okay because I finally finished quilting Tanner & Darlee's quilt while I was waiting for them. And thus began 10 days straight of staying up really late and getting up early!!

June 8th to June 15th

Otherwise known as the week of the wedding celebrations!

On Saturday the 8th, I got my hair done in the morning. Amy & crew were just getting up when I left but they needed time to recuperate from their long day so they were still hanging out when I got back home. Shortly after that, they headed down to Washington DC for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, I had a list of things to do which included making cupcakes for my Primary class (another birthday!), reviewing my Primary lesson, and the inevitable wedding stuff, quilting, and cleaning. That evening we had an event to attend for a family in our ward--they had a picnic at the park in honor of their oldest daughter and her husband. They were married about 18 months ago, but she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 2 weeks after the wedding so they had never had a chance to have a celebration for them. They were here visiting, so they decided to do it now. Their daughter is still very sick (just finished her second round of chemo) but she's a trooper!! It was good to see her. She was one of my secretaries when I was serving as the Primary president. We had a lot of good times! I forgot to give Amy a key to the house before she left (pretty much forgot to do that every day) but I managed to sew together all the pieces for the border of the quilt while I was waiting up for them to get home. They had a lot of adventures every day, but I can't remember them all now so you'll have to ask Amy or Maddie or Ammon to tell you about them.

On Sunday the 9th we all went to church, had some lunch, and then Seth & I went with Amy & crew to Gettysburg. (Frank had to do some urgent work for a client and Jared had stuff to do with Jessie.) We started out going to the visitor's center, where there is a movie, cyclorama, and a large museum. There was so much to do there that we spent hours there before we actually started driving around the battlefield. I have a battlefield tour on CDs which we listened to, but the tour takes about 3 hours and we didn't have enough time to do that--it would have been dark before we got halfway through! So we kept the CDs playing as we drove around but we got way ahead of the CD. It was a beautiful cool day with low humidity and sunshine, and Gettysburg is very beautiful! We enjoyed it, but we didn't get home until bedtime.

Amy and kids spent the next two days visiting places in Washington DC and on Wednesday the 12th they left for Pennsylvania (they visited the Priesthood Restoration Site, among other things.) They were gone until late every night; I really don't know how they kept up the pace! I kept staying up late to let them in, but I always had stuff to do so it didn't matter.

On Monday the 10th, I had a list of 18 things to do! It included regular chores (like vacuuming and sweeping), several chores that I had to get done early since I knew I wouldn't be able to do them later in the week (such as cleaning bathrooms, planning menus, and paying bills), and the inevitable long list of wedding stuff (which included looking for some shoes for me, finding a place that had brownie bites since the place I ordered them from called to say they didn't have any and couldn't get any until the 16th, picking up table cloths from the church for Tanner's openhouse, and picking up white Christmas lights from a friend who was loaning them for Jared's reception.) That's not all the things on the list, just a sampling!! Jared got his car inspected that day and thankfully it only needed the headlights cleaned and two new tires in order to pass inspection. (We thought there were going to be more things than that.) So he got the new tires and got an industrial strength cleaner for the headlights that day.

My list for Tuesday the 11th had only 10 things on it--more cleaning and wedding stuff, plus I mowed the lawn. I picked up the flowers from the florist that I had ordered for Tanner's open house. I took the flowers, along with a bunch of photos of Tanner & Darlee, to my friend Starr's house. I took all the paper products, tablecloths, and the guest book to my friend Tammy's house. I ended up ordering more prints of photos of Tanner & Darlee later that evening. Snickers went to the groomer, I swept & mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors, and did laundry. I also worked on the quilt, and got the border sewed on but then discovered my tension was weird on one side, so I had to re-do that side. Frank unpicked the whole thing for me while I folded laundry so by staying up late, I was able to finally finish sewing the quilt the day before Tanner & Darlee got here! (Some friends in our ward offered to let Jared stay at their house at night, so he slept there every night from Saturday to Tuesday, which meant I still had access to my sewing room. Big help!) Jared got his car inspected again and it passed so he started to take it over to the MVA to get it inspected but then realized he didn't have the title because the place he bought it from hasn't sent it yet. So that will have to wait until after he and Jessie get back from their honeymoon. Jessie came over for dinner on Tuesday evening.

I forgot to take pictures of the finished quilt, but Tanner & Darlee sent me these photos of the quilt after they got back to Utah:

There were 14 things on my "to do" list for Wednesday the 12th. I put food in the crock pot that morning so that people could eat dinner whenever it worked for them. Seth was doing his presentation of his Mars project that morning so I went to that. Thankfully, he finished it up with minimal help from me (Jared helped him a little bit). I had to kind of laugh about his presentation. It was pretty disorganized and he kept having trouble remembering where he had put information on his board. He could definitely work on his presentation skills! I asked him if he knew what to do for his presentation and he said he did, so I left it at that because I didn't have time to have him practice it for me. Oh well! After I left the school, I ran some errands and did some cleaning before I had to leave for the airport to pick up Scott, Tanner & Darlee. (Meanwhile, Jared was taking the final for his online class. Thank goodness he finished it!) It was great to have all the boys plus Darlee here! Their flight left really early from Utah so after I got them home and they had something to eat, they did this:

After dinner Scott, Tanner, Jared, and Seth went to a movie together (Jared's "bachelor party"!). Meanwhile, Darlee came with me to the store to pick up all the baked goods I had ordered for the open house, plus a bunch of strawberries for the open house too. Then we took photos to my friend Starr (Frank had picked up the new prints I had ordered on his way home from work), all the baked goods to my friend Jane, cupcakes to one of my Primary kids and her family (I made them for her birthday, and then she wasn't there on Sunday!), and all the strawberries to my friend Sherrie. I also gave Sherrie cash because she had volunteered to pick up the Costco cake for the open house so that we wouldn't have to, plus I gave her payment for her neighbor who was making a bunch of fancy little pastries for the open house. After that, we went back to the store to buy some groceries! Darlee was a trooper and helped me a lot!! I had planned to pack for our trip to Philadelphia that night, but by the time we finished all of that, it was late and the boys were returning from their movie so I decided to wait until morning. Meanwhile, Jared reported that his car was overheating which was kind of alarming since he needed to drive it to Philadelphia the next day. Frank went with him to the store to get some radiator fluid and then helped him add it and drive the car around some more to see if it would stop overheating. All of that took a long time, and we didn't get to bed until about midnight (again!) Scott, Tanner & Darlee got to bed earlier because they stayed with a family in our ward (the same place Jared had been staying). Since Amy and her kids were gone, Jared came back home and spent his last night as a single guy in his own bed in his own room!

Thursday the 13th was complicated by the fact that it was supposed to be field day at Seth's school and he didn't want to miss it. We had to leave for Philadelphia by noon, so we had already told him that he was going to have to miss the afternoon. The weather forecast wasn't very good--cloudy, temperatures in the low 70s, and it was supposed to rain. I was hoping they would postpone field day, but that morning I got an email saying they were going to have an abbreviated version of field day in the school parking lot (instead of at the park) and that they wouldn't start until noon. Seth decided he wanted to go to school anyway so we got him off to school. Meanwhile, Frank's parents called and they had made it to Winchester, Virginia, which isn't far from here so we told them to stop by our house and we could all travel on to Philadelphia later. (Frank's sister Dawn and her husband Mike were with them too.) I was running around throwing things into suitcases and trying not to forget anything and trying to make sure everybody ate something (Scott, Tanner & Darlee had come over too) when we got a call from Seth saying that they had decided to start field day at 10:30 and he wanted us to bring him a towel (because of course we hadn't sent anything with him for field day since we thought he was missing the whole thing!). Thanks, school, for giving us one more thing to do in the middle of all the chaos! I had to go pick up a cake from Costco (for Jared & Jessie's wedding dinner) anyway, and Tanner needed to go to his former high school to get a transcript, so I dropped Tanner & Darlee off at the school, took the towel to Seth, and then went to Costco to get the cake. Somehow, we managed to get everything packed and ready to go and we all got on the road by noon. We had to take two cars since there were 6 of us (Jared was in his own car with Jessie and some of her family) and thankfully Scott agreed to drive one of the cars so that I wouldn't have to. (I hate driving in unfamiliar places, especially busy cities like Philadelphia.) We stopped to get some food at Roy Rogers and we made one other stop about half way there, but we made good time and arrived at our hotel by about 3:00. Jared had called us a couple of times--he was still having some trouble with overheating, but thankfully they made it okay and his car has been fine since then.

Scott paid a dollar to get this massage chair to work for 5 minutes, and he said it was totally worth it! (This was at the service area where we stopped on our way.)

We pulled into a parking place at our hotel and Hans pulled into another spot a few places down at the same time. It was cool that we arrived at exactly the same time! After we all got checked into our rooms, we sent Scott, Tanner, Darlee, and Seth to the church where we were going to be having the dinner to set things up (Hans went too) while Frank and I went to the Cracker Barrel to pick up the food, which we had ordered online a week before. We had set the pick up time as 4:30, but we ended up waiting a half hour before they had all our food ready! We weren't very happy about that, especially since the traffic was getting worse that whole time. Thankfully, it turned out okay--we got to the church right before all the guests arrived and were able to get everything ready quickly so we were able to start the dinner at about the time we had intended. We got everyone eating, and then we took turns going around the room to introduce ourselves and share funny stories about Jared and Jessie. It was a lot of fun and the food was good and there was plenty of it. Jessie's family are all really nice and easy to get to know and they like to laugh. I think everyone had a good time.

Cutting the cake for dessert!

When we were done, everyone helped clean up so we got through that quickly. We had a lot of food leftover and since it was going to be challenging to keep it fresh and to transport it back to Frederick, we called the local missionaries (their number was posted on a bulletin board in the church) and asked if they wanted it. They did! So that was a win-win situation, and we were glad we could feed the missionaries. We were leaving the church by 8:00 to head back to the hotel and I was thinking that for once we would get to bed at a decent hour. Silly me! Scott, Tanner, and Jared decided they wanted to go swimming and they stopped at a Walmart so Scott and Tanner could get some cheap (and really ridiculous) swim suits. Thankfully, I had thought to throw Seth's swimsuit in his suitcase--just in case--so he got to go swimming too.

(Ammon had a swim suit too.)

It wasn't until after they finished swimming and we returned to our rooms that the trouble started. Our rooms smelled terrible!! It turns out that someone below us was smoking marijuana in their room and it got into the vents and up into our rooms. When Frank called the front desk to complain, they said they only had one empty room so they could only move one of us to a new room. The boys' room was worse, so we moved them, but our room got worse and both Frank and Seth started to feel sick. Frank kept calling the front desk and asking if they could do anything to help us and they kept putting him on hold and generally not being helpful and making us feel like we were being difficult. I was thinking "Just great! We are going to show up at the temple for our son's wedding smelling like marijuana and feeling sick." Finally Frank decided to go down to the front desk to talk to someone in person and they finally agreed to move us to a different room. So we did that, but by the time we got through all that and finally got to bed, it was midnight again. That hotel gets a 0 out of 10. It's not their fault that one of their guests decided to do something dumb like smoke marijuana in their room, but I was totally unimpressed with their efforts to make things right for us. It was just unbelievable! But thankfully in the end it all worked out and even though Frank's head hurt the next morning and we hadn't had as much sleep as we would have liked, it didn't ruin our ability to enjoy Jared's wedding.

I took this photo of Seth and Ammon still asleep on Friday morning. Can you tell who's who?:

Amy and I look alike too--especially when we are wearing the same color:

A few other people at breakfast:

So--finally!!--it was Friday, June 14th! It was really sweet to all be in the temple together to see Jared & Jessie get sealed. I know many of you were with us in spirit, and I'm sure Dad, among others on the other side of the veil, were there too. The sealer told them that they were not supposed to give a lot of marriage counsel, so he said that his one piece of counsel was to let the Lord be their marriage counselor. I liked that! After the ceremony, as we were heading downstairs, Jessie's parents came over and hugged Frank and I. It was a sweet moment, as we realized that we are forever connected to each other now, through our children. When we got out of the temple, it was cloudy, in the 70s, and windy! It was actually a little cold until the sun came out, but I was so glad that it wasn't super hot and humid! We took our family photos first since we were on a tight time schedule to get back to Frederick in time for Tanner & Darlee's open house. The photographer did a great job! Here are just a few:

(Yes, I forgot to pack Seth's Sunday shoes! But that's the only thing I forgot to pack, which is pretty good, all things considered!)

And here are a few more pictures that I took with my phone:

After we finished family pictures, we had to jet out of there. (Jared & Jessie stayed in Philadelphia overnight. So did Amy & kids. Hans headed back to his home, but we're so glad he could come for the wedding!) Frank's parents somehow went north instead of south and ended up taking an alternate route through Pennsylvania to get back to Frederick. Scott also got stuck in Philadelphia for a while, but once we all got out of the city the traffic wasn't bad and we sailed home with only one stop in Delaware for lunch and got home by 5:30 or so. Meanwhile, my totally awesome wonderful friends had set up everything for the open house, and it looked amazing!! Don't you agree?:

Okay, I was a little surprised when I saw the cake. Costco made a little mistake. Do you see anything about PINK on the order form I filled out?:

Yeah, I didn't think so! But that's okay. It still tasted good and it didn't look bad even if it wasn't the right color.

Here's the refreshment table:

A close up--they had cute photos of Tanner & Darlee scattered about:

These are the fancy pastries that my friend's neighbor made. They looked (and tasted) fantastic!:

My friends came up with this beautiful backdrop for Tanner & Darlee to stand in front of:

My friend Starr put together this display table of photos of Tanner & Darlee:

I made the guest book, but it was one of my friend's ideas--I never would have thought it up:

Each of the tables had photos of Tanner & Darlee--either engagement photos or photos of them as children:

One of my friends had her daughter take photos for us, so I didn't take any photos during the open house except for this one:

I haven't seen the photos my friend's daughter took yet, but I'm sure they'll be wonderful.

I can't really put into words about how I feel about all the things my friends did to make this open house happen. Without their help, we couldn't have had an open house at all. Not only did they help me plan and set things up, but many of them loaned us items for the decor. The blue tablecloths, glass jars, lanterns, lights, everything for the backdrop, all the serving dishes, wood circles, white napkins, porcelain doves, and all the little sign were all things that belonged to my friends (or that they borrowed for me). The only things we had to purchase for the open house were the food, flowers, guest book, photo prints, and photo frames. So not only did they come to my rescue time-wise and sanity-wise, they also saved me a lot of money. And since many of them have artistic / decorating talents, it looked so much better than anything I could have come up with as well. We all had a wonderful time at the open house, visiting with friends. I know it meant a lot to Tanner to be able to have an event in the place where he grew up, to share his joy with life long friends and to introduce Darlee to them. When I thanked my friends, one of them responded "We're so glad you asked us for help. It was a joy! The whole time we were setting things up, we kept saying to each other 'I can't wait for Annette to see this!'" I'm actually crying while I type this, just thinking about it. I felt so loved!! I'm so blessed to have friends like that. I hope I will have the opportunity to serve each one of them in some way in the future. It was a wonderful exhausting day. After the open house we got things cleaned up and went home to bed--really late again! Frank's parents stayed with us and Frank's sister and her husband stayed at a hotel nearby. Scott, Tanner & Darlee were still staying with friends in our ward.

I still woke up fairly early on Saturday, June 15th--I'm not sure why! Frank had to be at the church to help the people cleaning to get started (that's his calling now) and he also helped Brother Hatch load some tables and chairs into a truck so they could be used at Jared & Jessie's reception. (We got permission to use tables and chairs from our building because the chairs at our building are much newer and they're white instead of gray). Scott, Tanner & Darlee arrived at the church too late to help with the loading of chairs and tables, but they did help clean the church. We all relaxed a little bit in the morning and after lunch we drove out to the reception site (Jessie's grandparents' house) to help with some of the set up. I was driving my car, and realized that I was really tired. It was so hard to stay awake! When we got to Jessie's grandparents' house, I was amazed at how great it looked already--they weren't even close to done setting up, but it looked fantastic!:

Frank helped Brother Hatch finish stringing all the lights while I put out all these little solar lights and helped sort out which cushions went with which set of patio furniture.

Tanner, Darlee, and Scott helped move all the patio furniture into place. After a couple of hours, things were mostly done and we headed back home to eat something and change clothes. Then it was back out to Jessie's grandparents' house for wedding celebration #2! It was another lovely evening, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. It didn't rain and it wasn't hot or humid. It was in the low 80s with a light breeze and low humidity. Perfect! You have to realize how unusual that is for Maryland in June. We just felt so blessed. I admit as we were going through all the planning for Jared & Jessie's reception that I sometimes wished they were keeping things simpler, kind of like what we did for Tanner's open house. (And we didn't have to do any of the work. I felt like the Hatches had so much to do though!) But their reception was absolutely beautiful and it was a lot of fun, too. They did so many fun activities and all those projects (like building planters and making concrete fire bowls and so on) really made it unique and special. It was another wonderful evening of visiting with people we love. Here are a few photos that I took (or Frank took) with my phone:

This is my friend Rebekah and her husband. She was one of the friends who helped me with Tanner's open house. You can see one of the concrete fire bowls in this photo too.

They had tons of cookies! Yum!! They also had pulled pork sandwiches, cole slaw, potato salad, fruit, and raw vegetables (like carrots and cherry tomatoes) but I didn't get a picture of that.

They played the "shoe game" and it was hilarious. (They were asked a question like "who is more likely to lose their keys or wallet?" or "who is more romantic?" and each of them had to hold up the shoe of the person they thought was the answer to the question.)

Frank's mom and his sister Dawn. Dawn and her husband had to leave from the reception to go to their hotel in Baltimore because they were flying back home on a very early Sunday morning flight. This is while they were saying goodbye, so that's why they look a little teary eyed.

Jared & Jessie's first dance. (She changed out of her wedding dress for the dancing part.)

Seth playing corn hole. Doing this and taking photos kept him pretty occupied all evening, which was great.

The two couples responsible for all the craziness and celebrating!

Cutting the cake. And yes, they did smash it into each other's faces a bit!

More than one person got mixed up and thought Amy was me!

The same photographer who took photos at the temple also took photos at the reception. Here are some of those:

Dawn let Seth use her camera at both the reception and the open house. I am looking forward to seeing some of the pictures he took! (Frank also brought his drone and took some photos and did some video footage from above, but I haven't seen those yet either.)

Here's the cake; it was one of our jobs to get the cake arranged. One of our neighbor's daughters, who has a cake decoration business, made the cake. I think it turned out beautiful!

One of the fun things they did at the beginning of the reception was to introduce the "wedding party" to everyone. First they recognized the grandparents and parents. Then they introduced the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Jessie's sisters and 2 of her friends were bridesmaids, and all of our boys were groomsmen. They had each of the groomsmen escort one (or more) of the bridesmaids out as they introduced them. I love these photos of Seth as he escorts Jessie's sister, Emily!:

Tanner escorted Jessie's two friends. (Jenny and Allie, I think were their names):

Scott escorted Jessie's sister Kylie:

And of course Jared & Jessie came out last:

The whole scene (it looked even better in real life):

Playing corn hole--our bishop and his wife, and another couple from our ward:

Jessie's grandma is talking to Jared & Jessie:

The shoe game again:

Jessie's dance with her father:

Jared & Jessie's first dance:

More dancing with their friends:

Tanner & Darlee dancing:

(I'm sad the photographer didn't get a photo of Frank & I dancing.)

Cutting the cake:

Getting ready to throw the bouquet:

Jessie's sister Emily caught it. I don't think her dad liked that!! :)

At the end of the evening, we did a sparkler send off. Tanner & Scott had decorated Jared & Jessie's car. They wrote stuff on the windows with pink paint, and my favorite message was one on a side window that said "Leave room for Jesus". The funny thing was, Jared & Jessie are actually living at her grandparents' house this summer (in the basement apartment) so after they drove away, they just drove around for a while and then came back about an hour later! In the meantime, we all cleaned everything up and when they got back we all gathered in the house to watch them open presents. They mostly got cards with money or gift cards inside, which is nice since they have to take everything out west in the fall. They do have several presents at my mom's house, since things people purchased from their gift registry were sent there. After all of that, we headed home but Frank and the boys still had to go to our church to help Brother Hatch unload all the tables and chairs. They were gone longer than I thought, partly because they discovered that a couple of the windows at the church were broken--apparently someone tried to break into the building. So they spent some time searching the whole building to make sure no one was in there and that nothing was damaged or missing. The windows were not broken that morning when they were cleaning the church, so it must have happened sometime that day. At any rate, we all got to bed after midnight again. Frank's parents stayed with us again, Amy & kids stayed at a hotel nearby, and Scott, Tanner & Darlee stayed with our wonderful ward friends again.

June 16th to 22nd

Whew!! That was almost as exhausting to write about as it was to live through it! This last week was not nearly so eventful so hopefully this won't be too much longer. Sunday the 16th we all went to church together. For the second hour, they had a special meeting for parents of youth so they had got someone to substitute my Primary class so that I could go. This meeting was actually the only meeting for adults for the second hour so all the visitors came with us even though some of them (like Scott, Tanner, Darlee, and Maddie) are not parents of youth. The purpose of the meeting was (I think) to acquaint parents with the procedure for bishop's interviews for their kids but unfortunately it turned into a grievance session where a couple of people had to complain about bad experiences their child had or that they themselves had with a bishop's interview (and they wouldn't let it go). It was kind of crazy!! Our bishop handled it well, but I felt really sorry for him and I definitely would have preferred to go to Primary. Frank couldn't take it after a while and he left the room, but Scott had asked him to give him a blessing while he was here so that gave him the opportunity to do that. They just found an empty room! After church it was time for Scott, Tanner & Darlee to head to the airport so Frank took them there. Amy & her kids came over and visited for a while and we all had some lunch. (Frank's parents were there too.) They had a mishap with their keys getting locked in the trunk of their rental car, but thankfully a guy in our ward who is a police man came over and got them out so they were able to leave for the airport in time. We loved having everybody here and it was sad to see them all leave, but we couldn't have kept up that pace much longer!

On Monday the 17th, things started to get back to normal. Frank's parents started on their way home that morning, Seth went to school, and Frank and I went to work. Sometime in the middle of all that chaos of the weekend, the lady I work with at the Arc had texted me to ask if I could meet with her on Monday. She had some training she needed to do for her job and she needed me to help her with that. It was nice to see her again, and we got all the training done successfully. Funny story, though--after I dropped Seth off at school, I happened to glance over at the floor board of the front passenger side of the car and realized that when Scott & Tanner decorated Jared's car, they had left all the packaging of the stuff they bought on the floor of my car. This happened to include (ahem!) a package of condoms! Those crazy boys! I was so glad I noticed the trash BEFORE I picked up my Arc friend. I was able to hide the evidence before I picked her up. (Although honestly, she probably would have thought it was funny.) I spent the rest of the day doing mountains of laundry (lots of towels and sheets), planning meals, and otherwise trying to get caught up with a few things. I was still feeling really tired every time I drove anywhere, so I tried to take short naps whenever I could (which wasn't often, but it did help a bit.) That evening Seth had one of his strange episodes where he got a headache, felt sick to his stomach, threw up, and then felt fine and started eating a few hours later. He should have stayed home from school the next day, but he really, really wanted to go and they were doing a special "6th grade send off" for all the sixth graders in his class which would have been really sad for him to miss. Since he has a track record of throwing up and then being just fine the next day, I was naughty and let him go to school. And he was just fine, so I don't think I did the wrong thing. He came home with several gifts from his classmates, tailored to his specific interests, including a fun t-shirt:

 (The t-shirt says "I roared my way through upper elementary".) All his classmates signed their names on the back. He also got a sketch pad & pencils since he loves to draw, a small Lego set, and his favorite candy.

I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mostly doing basic chores and trying to get caught up on everything. I also spent some time reading the book for book chat because I hadn't had much time to read it up until then. I didn't finish it, but I did get over halfway through. By Wednesday I started to feel like maybe I wouldn't be tired for the rest of my life!! And honestly, I'm really grateful that I wasn't sick in bed or something, because after all the loss of sleep, stress, and hard work, I thought that was a distinct possibility! The last day of school was on Wednesday and school got out two hours early. I went to my religion class and left directly from there to pick up Seth from school. He was happy, but I think I am happier!! I told him he could have the rest of this week to fry his brains on television and games, but next week we will get back on a schedule with some chores and limited screen time.

Tuesday evening when we were eating dinner, a piece of one of my back molars broke off! Nothing like having a tooth fall apart to make you feel old. I called the dentist the next morning but they can't get me in for two weeks. Thank goodness it doesn't hurt or anything!

On Thursday I got most of the chores done in the morning and I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon helping a family in my ward set up for...their son's wedding reception! I can't get away from weddings right now! This son is one of Scott's good friends and his mom is my co-teacher in Primary. Needless to say, I knew how she must be feeling so I offered to help her with whatever she needs! I mostly spent the time putting tablecloths on tables and then helping tie chair covers onto 144 folding chairs. A lot of work, but everything looked amazing when we went to the wedding reception last night. Meanwhile, I had book chat Thursday evening, where we discussed In His Steps. It was a good, thought provoking book, even though I didn't finish it. We had a great discussion. Now we are going to read Northanger Abbey. I've already read it, but it's been a while. And I'm going to miss the discussion anyway because I'll be in Utah for Tanner's wedding.

On Friday I spent about an hour helping a family in our ward clean their new house before they move into it. Several other ladies helped too. I couldn't stay long because I had other things to do. In the afternoon I took Seth to the library where they were having an activity for kids his age--a couple of the other deacons in his quorum were going to that too. After the activity, we all went to the park for about an hour so they could play basketball / play at the park. It was another beautiful day, with sunshine, warm temperatures, a slight breeze and low humidity, so it was a great day to be outside and I enjoyed visiting with the other moms. Seth got on the merry go round, though, and that made him feel sick. He made it home, but then he threw up. (I'm glad he didn't do that in the car, though!!) He was okay after that. He just needs to keep off of things that spin! That evening, Frank and I went to the wedding for Scott's friend and it was really nice. They had a little ring ceremony (they got married in the Philadelphia temple that morning) and then they had a reception with a full sit-down dinner. The food was Cafe Rio, which is always good! We stayed until about 9:30, but opted out of staying until the send off, which wasn't going to be until 11:00 pm! No thanks, we've had enough late nights lately!

Throughout the week, I've been working on this post as well as trying to get the finances caught up, which was a big job with all the traveling and wedding expenditures. I'm mostly caught up now. Today I prepared my Primary lesson for tomorrow, practiced my ukulele (first time in weeks), wrote thank you notes to a bunch of my friends, mowed the lawn (Frank helped) and did some things for my music calling. I still need to clean the kitchen floor before bedtime, so I'd better go do that now. It was another really beautiful day today--how long can this last??! (We did have a couple of really warm and humid days earlier this week, which reminded us how lucky we've been.)

Jared & Jessie have spent this week at her grandparents' beach house at the outer banks in North Carolina. They left Sunday and they are coming back tomorrow. It will be nice to see them again. I've decided, though, that after one of your children gets married, the parents should get to go on a honeymoon. We could really use a week at the beach about now!

A word about Snickers before I finish up: we were kind of worried about him the last couple of days before we went to Philadelphia because he was shivering a lot and also wasn't eating his food. We left some soft food to try while we were gone and he did eat that. When we got back, he seemed calmer although he still wasn't eating. We think maybe he was shivering and acting upset because of all the different people coming and going at our house. It definitely was kind of crazy!! After we got back and he hadn't really eaten anything for a few days, we tried giving him some soft dog food again (he prefers that) and he gobbled it up. So we know he's not skipping meals because of a stomach ache or something like that. But we can't figure out why he is suddenly refusing to eat his regular dog food. I'd prefer not to take him back to the vet unless we have to. He ate well for 3 or 4 days so yesterday we switched back to his regular food. He's refusing to eat it again, but we're going to see if he will give up and eat it if we give it a few more days. It's perplexing.

Seth has had some nasty meltdowns during the last couple of weeks, but all things considered he's done pretty well overall with all the craziness. It will be good to get him back on a regular schedule, though.

And last but not least, we really enjoyed getting to know Darlee better while she was here! She just rolled with all the chaos and jumped in to help whenever there was a need. She was really patient with Seth and we discovered that she has a playful side and great sense of humor. She seems like a really good match for Tanner and we are really happy that she will be joining our family. It feels wonderful to welcome daughters into the family!! We feel really blessed.

And if you made it through this monster blog post, bless you!