Weekly Review October 9 '10

Pumpkins!

Pansies I planted (I know, our lawn is sad...lots of dead patches.)

Jared helping defend the goal (He really isn't scratching himself!)

Playing defense

The ball is coming his way...

Running down the field

I feel like I spent this week "catching up" after being gone last weekend. It was worth it, though! I wasn't just catching up on work...I was catching up on sleep, too! Saturday night I stayed up all night. That wasn't intentional...we were just talking, and didn't stop. Rebecca fell asleep sometime around 4:00 or 5:00, I think (there wasn't a clock in the room) but Marci and I were talking until 7:00 am! I feel a little bit hypocritical after telling my boys not to stay up late every time they spend the night with friends. Then my crazy brain woke me back up at 9:00 am, and I stayed awake all day Sunday (even through both sessions of General Conference!) so my body has been feeling pretty sleep deprived and trying to make up for the punishment I gave it. Oh, well...I won't have the chance to do that again for a long time, and I feel like it was productive, healing time for both Marci and me. The whole weekend was so good for all three of us, I think. I'm really glad I got to go. It's kind of strange to realize how much has changed in our lives since we were "sewing buddies". Rebecca is going through a difficult divorce and Marci is a widow now. It leaves me feeling very grateful for the blessings I have and I am so impressed by my two amazing friends who are so strong and dealing with their trials so well.

On Sunday after General Conference, we went to see the animals at a farm (Marci's daughter, Haley, has a boyfriend (Evan) who lives on a farm.) We saw horses, goats, sheep, llamas, and alpacas. It was fun, but it was also too cold to enjoy being outside for very long. Then we went inside to see all the cool things that Evan's mom has made from all the fibers she has woven and dyed from all the animals. She had done some pretty amazing things.

The drive home Monday was pretty uneventful, in a good way. Just more talking and the same beautiful scenery. The weather got colder and cloudy on Sunday, and when we got back to Frederick we found the weather the same here--quite cold and cloudy. This weather continued until Thursday. I was starting to think we'd never see the sun again! But on Thursday the sun came back out and the temperatures warmed up nicely, too. We are really enjoying the nicer weather while it lasts, and I think appreciating it more after several cold and gloomy days.

Tuesday started off with a bang--Scott threw up in the night and Seth wet the bed (he did that 3 times this week, for some reason...) Then when Jared got up, he wasn't feeling well either, so both he and Scott stayed home from school. Fortunately, neither one of them got very sick, and they both were able to go back to school on Wednesday. Snickers was feeling under the weather that day, also--we discovered he had pooped in his crate (which he has never done) as well as thrown up in there a few times. Yuck! That was a fun mess to clean up. Tuesday was busy because I was trying to get 2 days' worth of work done. I also did some weeding in the front yard and planted the pansies we bought last week. I can't remember everything I did; I just remember by the end of the day I was really tired! I was glad Jared wasn't up to going to soccer practice that evening.

I was busy Wednesday also. I had a presidency meeting that evening while the boys were at scouts. Seth came with me because Frank had a lot of work to do. We got the write up for Scott's eagle project done and both his scoutmaster and the scout committee chair signed it, so now we need to get it to the eagle advisor for the council so he can approve it.

By Thursday I felt like I was starting to get caught up on things. I helped take kids from Seth's class to the library; that's always fun. That evening Frank and I went on a little "date"--he wanted to go to the bookstore to look for a book that just came out. He ended up getting more than one book, and I got a couple also. I told him afterwards that we need to remember that going to the bookstore is not a "cheap" date!

Frank had to be at work at 4:00 am on both Tuesday and Thursday, so he's been tired this week also. We slept in a bit Friday morning--thankfully, I woke up in time to go get the boys from Seminary to take them to school. I decided to exercise that morning since I hadn't had a chance to take a shower yet. It always feels good when I get the chance to do that; I wish I found the time to do it more often Tanner went to his school's football game that evening, but the rest of us stayed home and watched Iron Man 2 on the new Blue Ray player that Frank bought.

Today we all went to help clean the church at 10:00, then Jared had a soccer game at noon. I took him to that; his team dominated the game as they have been doing all season and won 6 (or maybe it was 7) to nothing. I actually remembered to take the camera to get some pictures of him playing, but it wasn't the best day to do that since he was on defense almost the entire game (his request--he hurt his leg last week and it was still bothering him.) Scott and Tanner took Seth to the park while I was gone. It was definitely a nice day to be out--warm and sunny. I love "Indian Summer" weather! This afternoon Frank and I did some cleaning up in the basement. He worked on his office space while I worked on the laundry room / storage room. We made some progress, but we still have a long way to go. We threw out tons of stuff, though, and have a decent pile of "give aways" also. Unfortunately, I threw away a lot of food storage. I haven't been good about rotating it the way I should--mainly because it was so messy in there that it was hard to gain access to the food storage shelves. Now that I can get to them a lot easier, I will be a lot better about rotating the food storage. The boys helped us a lot by carrying loads of garbage out to the dumpster, and Tanner also kept an eye on Seth for us. This evening we had the missionaries over for dinner.

I hope Shellie had a happy birthday this week--we were thinking about you!