Weekly Review June 12 '10

Tanner's 8th Grade Ceremony

Sorry for the blurry pictures! There weren't the best picture-taking conditions.

Getting his certificate from the principal and the assistant principle

With us

Seth playing with one of the carnations presented to us by Tanner.

Tanner with his Language Arts / Social Studies teacher. She just adores him!

Tanner with the middle school instructional assistant and his Science / Math teacher

With a good friend who came to the ceremony--she was in middle school with him last year.

Whew! It is late Friday night and I am tired. We had a very busy week, between last week of school activities and getting ready for vacation. If I gave you a play-by-play account of everything we did, I’m sure you would all get exhausted just reading about it, so I will spare you! But so you can get an idea of what we did all week, I’m going to give you a list of all the things we did instead.

So here it goes: checked on plane tickets & printed up boarding passes, checked on what we are allowed to pack (airline guidelines), arranged to have mail delivery stopped, went visiting teaching (Annette), eye doctor appointment for Scott, soccer practice, worked on the quiet book (the completed pages are all put together now!), worked on Eagle scout project application (Scott), visited new Deacons (Tanner), finished weather merit badge (Tanner & Jared), went to Relief Society meeting (Annette), got haircuts (Annette, Scott, Tanner, Jared & Seth), got hair color touched up (Annette), finished cleaning / organizing the kitchen (Annette), went to a birthday party (Seth, accompanied by Annette), pulled weeds in front and back yards (Annette), “graduated” from 8^th Grade (Tanner), went to an end-of-school-year party (Scott), got a learner’s permit (Scott), and packed & packed & packed!

Of course, in between all that, there was laundry, shopping, and cleaning. That translates into running from one thing to the next all day long, without stopping!

I just want to add a few details about some of the more notable events of the week. Scott got his learner’s permit on Wednesday. He is very excited about it and now asks if he can drive almost everywhere we go. He’s done a decent amount of driving the last couple of days, although we haven’t let him drive every time. Since he has not ever driven on the road until this week, we have opted not to let him drive in some of the trickier areas of town (such as downtown historic Frederick, with its one way streets and very narrow lanes) until he has a bit more experience under his belt. He’s done pretty well so far, though. Scott’s last day of school was Thursday—the high schools reserve the last day of school for make up exams, so if you don’t have any exams to make up you don’t have to go that day. One of his friends from church had the party that evening. Scott got a ride home with another boy in the ward, and got home very late!!!

Tanner had his 8^th Grade Ceremony Thursday evening as well. Seth didn’t want to stay home with Scott & Jared, so we took him with us. They had a nice little ceremony, including several students sharing talents. The most unique talent was one boy who played his accordion while singing “Another One Rides the Bus” by Weird All Yankovitch. He really got into it. At the end of the ceremony, they each got a certificate and then their parents had to come up so they could present us with pink carnations, and every student got a photograph taken with his / her parents. There were only 17 8^th graders at his school this year—10 girls and 7 boys—so that made it a nice, more personalized experience. After the ceremony, there were refreshments and mingling. They had a collage with baby pictures of all the 8^th graders displayed. Tanner didn’t want to leave as early as we did, but Scott was late for his party and Seth had had enough. We are proud of Tanner for making it this far. He has really grown and improved this year. He brought home his report card, and he got all A’s this term. His teachers had really good things to say about him. Next year, going to high school, is going to be a big change for him. I know he felt pretty sad today because he is leaving his little circle of friends (most of his class mates will go to different high schools) and the school that he has attended since 1^st grade. Because they are a small group, they have really bonded with each other. Thankfully, I do feel like Tanner is ready for high school now, and I know he will make new friends.

At the Relief Society Meeting, we had a yummy dinner of various salads (I wish I had the recipes) and I attended two classes--one on parenting and one on marriage. They were both very good, thought provoking and inspiring classes, so I am glad that I went.

Seth is still being stubborn about potty training, so I’ve just given up on it until after vacation. He has been giving me scares quite a bit lately because he has developed this habit of running away from me. Several times at the park or in other public places such as the library or restaurants, he has made a break for it—and I don’t just mean running to another part of the building—he goes straight out the door and heads for the street (or for the stream, when we are at the park)! He is remarkably fast, and I have discovered that the sandals I wear in the summertime are terrible when it comes to running in them. We have had several talks about why he can’t do things like that, but he just doesn’t get it yet. That is why we are taking a stroller with us to Utah!! He is doomed to be strapped into something until he learns not to run off.

Frank has also had an incredibly busy week. He’s had a lot of things to get done at work before we leave. We are all very ready for vacation!! It’s hard to believe that we will see so many of you so soon. We are very excited about it, though—even though we’ve heard the high in Utah tomorrow is going to be only in the 40’s. So that’s it for this week! Tomorrow we will be traveling most of the day.

Weekly Review June 5 '10

Seth is mesmerized by...

t...the recycle truck! (Sorry for the screen door marks. I didn't want to break his concentration by opening the door!) I had to get a photo because he hardly ever sits still for this long.

Mowing the lawn can be so exhausting!

Tanner with his recyclables creation (for art class)--a castle!

Last Saturday didn’t turn out to be all that quiet and restful—my sharing time preparations took a lot longer than I though they would, so I barely got every thing done. I think sharing time went pretty well on Sunday. I discovered a problem late Saturday night and I wasn’t sure how I was going to solve it, but I prayed that I would figure something out, and then I dreamed the answer! I woke up Sunday morning, remembered my dream, and thought “I bet that will actually work!” And it did! I also wore my new dress to church—the one I bought for the wedding—might as well get some use out of it! And I got a lot of compliments--mostly about how it’s a good color on me because it brings out the color of my eyes. Jared and I were the only ones who went to church. Frank, Scott, and Tanner were still sick (although the boys were starting to feel better) and I didn’t want to wrestle with Seth or spread our illness around the nursery (I still wasn’t sure if Seth was going to come down with it) so I left Seth home with the sick ones. As a result, I got a lot more out of Sacrament Meeting than usual, and one of the talks was particularly inspiring—I heard some things I really needed to hear. The spirit was really speaking to me personally about things I can do to meet some of the challenges I’m currently facing. I love it when that happens!

The rest of the week has been busy, busy. I sat down on Monday and made a schedule of the next 2 weeks to make sure I get everything done that needs to be done. That schedule looks pretty daunting, too, but I did manage to stick to it this week.

Everyone was home on Monday for Memorial Day. We didn’t do anything too exciting since Frank and the older boys were still not feeling 100% their best. They definitely were improving by then, though, and everyone was able to return to school and work on Tuesday. The boys got caught up on homework and we did some things for scouts. We grilled some bratwurst and hot dogs for dinner and enjoyed that along with chips and watermelon. It would have been more fun if we had invited someone over to share it with us, but I was glad we hadn’t tried to do that with all the illness going around.

Tuesday was busy with phone calls, e-mails, a trip to the library, and soccer practice. I have a new visiting teaching companion and all new people to visit starting this month and since I’ll be gone a good part of June, I knew I’d better make appointments right away. Frank went to work really early (got there at 4:00 am) but he did not get home early as he had hoped. Some emergencies came up with a couple of clients, and since one of the other IT techs is on his honeymoon (the wedding we missed) they are short a man this week. He was going to try to take Scott to get his learner’s permit that afternoon, but he didn’t get home in time to do that. At the library, I got the book for book chat this month which is called Life Is So Good. It looks like a good book, but I doubt I’m going to have time to read the whole thing before we leave. I don’t dare take it with me because even though I can go online to renew books, if there are any “holds” placed on the book, it won’t allow me to renew it.

Frank came with me to Wal-Mart Wednesday morning. I’m glad he did, because I had a long list and Seth wasn’t feeling very cooperative. I actually had a very short food list, but needed to get a lot of other non-food items such as luggage for our trip and some shorts & shirts for Seth. It took a lot longer than usual. We got an oil change for the Expedition also. I got Scott signed up for a driver’s education class; he’s going to do that in July. (They don’t offer driver’s education in the public schools here; you have to sign them up for a class with a private company. And yes, it’s not cheap!) The boys had scouts that evening. They are going to miss a Court of Honor while we’re gone, so I was getting blue cards filled out for the merit badges they’ve completed so at least they will get the merit badges, even though they won’t be there to receive their awards.

Thursday I spent a good part of the day helping my friend Alisa—she’s the one who has new twin babies. They are a couple of months old now, smiling, and oh so cute! The little boy is quite a bit “chunkier” than his sister now. Seth stayed with his friend Henry again and he had a great time. That evening I had a leadership training meeting at the stake center with a member of the Quorum of the Seventy—Elder Johnson. He’s from England and has a fun accent! He told some amazing stories and the whole meeting was very inspiring. Thursday was field day for Jared and Tanner. The middle school students plan and run the whole thing, so Tanner was running a station all day. Jared said it was a lot of fun, but it was also very hot and humid, so they were both very tired by the time they got home.

Yesterday I took the Expedition to get emissions tested—it passed. Then I went shopping again—I needed to get some things for Jared, who had a camp out that night. Tanner had his 8^th Grade trip—they went to the American History Museum (Smithsonian) and then on a Potomac River Cruise. Two days in a row for Tanner of fun stuff! I’m sure he’s learning a whole lot at this point! He got back late—about 7:30. He said it was fun, but the dinner buffet was open for only about a half hour, so he didn’t get as much to eat as he would have liked. Scott went to sleep over at his friend Ryan’s house, and Jared was on his camp out, so we had a pretty quiet house. I stayed up late watching “You’ve Got Mail”—I got that movie for Christmas, and that’s the first chance I’ve had to watch it. Tanner wasn’t too enthusiastic about watching it, but by halfway through he was totally hooked and laughing at all the funny conversations. He stayed up to watch the end with me, but Frank was exhausted so he went to bed not long after the movie started.

It’s quiet this morning, too—Tanner’s not awake yet and we won’t be picking up Scott or Jared until later. Frank and I both got our exercise time in. I have a long list of things to get done today, so I’d better get this posted and go take a shower!

Erick & Liz, Seth LOVED the e-card you sent him! He asked to watch it a couple of times. So when are you going to post photos of Alaska on your blog? Or are you just going to bring them all with you to Utah so we can see them? It’s hard to believe we’ll be on a plane one week from today!