Weekly Review July 29 '11

When I got the photos off the camera this week, I found several pictures that Seth took himself, apparently--like the little "gem" above. He looks like an alien with no mouth!

And this one, where at least you can see his mouth!

And this one, where he has the cutest cheesy grin (although he's still washed out).

He took this one of me, which is much better than the one Frank took at the zoo (I don't always wear that shirt, by the way). Not bad for a four year old!:

And here is one that I took of Seth--you can see his new haircut! (All four boys got haircuts last Saturday evening.)

That's all the pictures for this week; we didn't do anything very exciting, obviously! It was a very quiet week. The boys kept busy hanging out with friends, Frank looked for a job, and I kept the house in order. That mostly sums it up!

I had a presidency meeting Tuesday evening, the boys had YM Wednesday evening, and our home teachers came to visit us on Thursday evening. Scott had an orthodontist appointment Thursday morning and Seth had his yearly check up this morning. Scott goes back to the orthodontist in October for an x-ray to see how how his top wisdom teeth are doing; I hope he is not going to need to get them out yet--it's expensive. He also gets an impression for a new retainer because his 12 year molars have finally come in all the way (now that he is nearly 17 years old)! Seth had to get 3 shots at the doctor; he was pretty traumatized by that but he's recovered now. At least he got cool band-aids, a lollipop, and a little frog toy. He doesn't have to get shots again until he's 11, thank goodness! He remembers the older boys getting shots earlier this summer and he tried to convince the doctor that he is "not big enough to get shots yet"! He's obviously forgotten all those shots he got when he was a baby.

The boys enjoyed sleepovers and swimming outings with various friends. The weather cooled off a little bit the beginning of this week, so it was actually nice enough to do things outside like play basketball. It has gotten super hot again the last few days, though. We've been trying to let them have as much fun with friends as possible this summer since they are not going to get a vacation at all.

Frank has been trying to convince me to take the boys and drive out to Utah for a few weeks. As much as I would like to see everyone out there, I don't think we'll be doing that. Besides the obvious expense involved, the boys are not enthusiastic about a long drive like that, and I know I'd be miserable thinking of Frank all alone out here, trying to find a job and most likely feeling down. This has really not been a good week for him although he doesn't complain.

Frank has done a little bit of work this week, but the job search is pretty much at a standstill. After 7 weeks of being unemployed, applying for tons of jobs and only having one interview, it's hard to feel optimistic. Besides that, he found out that his former employers are not being honest with prospective employers who call them--they are telling them that he was laid off for financial and "other" reasons, which leaves them wondering what those "other" reasons might be. It's really frustrating that they would do that, when the only real reason he was laid off was because they couldn't pay him. I have a lot of very angry thoughts about all that, but I will keep them to myself! Considering that the job market is so slow right now and his former employer is trying to sabotage his ability to find employment, we have started to think a lot about starting our own business. This week we talked to an accountant who gave us a good idea of how we should set that up and what kinds of things we would need to do. Of course, the key part of making a business run would be getting clients, though--and that could be very difficult to do. So we haven't decided what to do yet, but we are keeping it in mind.

We did have some fun last week--on Saturday Frank and I were able to go see Harry Potter 7, part 2. We had some complimentary tickets to the local movie theater that we have been saving for several months--we're glad now that we didn't use them sooner! It was really nice to get out of the house and do something just for fun. We really enjoyed the movie, too. We mostly liked it, although we didn't like some of the things they changed from the book. But overall, it was really good and I was surprised at how emotional I got at some parts! Tanner got to see it with his friend last Friday, so Scott is the only one who hasn't seen it yet. He's not all that anxious about it though--he actually says he'd rather see Captain America! (What's wrong with that boy?!) I guess Seth hasn't seen it, either, but he's too young to see it.

Tonight Scott is hanging out with the girl he met at Youth Conference again. Her name is Ally. I met her when I dropped him off tonight, and she is definitely a cute girl and seems really nice. The bad news for Scott (but maybe good news for us?!) is that although she is his age, she skipped a grade in school so she just graduated from high school in June. She'll be going to LDS Business College in Salt Lake City this fall. So I guess he'd better spend time with her while he can!

Seth made a large purchase this week--he decided he was tired of trying to convince the older boys to let him play with their nerf dart guns so he got one of his own. I found him dumping out his piggy bank--I didn't even know he remembered he had one! But he did, and since he's never spent anything before he had a pretty decent amount accumulated in there. Now he has his own dart gun, but I've noticed he still plays with the older boys' guns!

That brings you all up to date on us, until next week....

Weekly Review July 22 '11

Let's see if I can get blogger to work this week! I am thinking pretty seriously about going back to email, but I'll give it another try. Especially since my address book got wiped out several months ago....

This week was fairly eventful, with some sort of event nearly every day. On Sunday evening Frank went to a resume writing workshop done by a guy in our stake who has been in HR for about 30 years. He enjoyed the workshop and learned some valuable information. Afterwards, he ended up talking to the guy giving the workshop for a long time, so he didn't get home until late.

Frank had an interview with a recruiter Tuesday afternoon and a job interview Wednesday morning, so the job hunt is starting to warm up a little. The job interview went very well; the guy said he'd probably hire Frank on the spot except that he couldn't pay him enough. Frank told him if he made an offer, he'd consider it. The guy was going out of town for a few weeks, though, so we won't hear back from him for a while. In the meantime, Frank did quite a bit of work this week which always helps.

I got my hair done on Monday, which meant that Seth got to play with his good buddy Tyler (his mom cuts my hair). Tuesday I had book club. The book we read this time, Perelandra, made for a very interesting discussion! Wednesday night our ward had a combined Preparedness Fair / Pioneer Day celebration with lots of booths on various topics such as making homemade bread, food and water storage, 72 hour kits, disaster preparedness, etc. There was also pioneer music, dutch oven cooking, a pie eating contest, first aid demonstrations by the cub scouts, a taffy pull by the activity days girls, and a candy store. I thought it was pretty nice and we had a pretty good turn out. I think there would have been even more people if the weather had been more cooperative. We've had temperatures in the 100's this week with humidity to boot--not very pleasant weather to be outside! (The fair was held in the parking lot, not indoors.) Jared's friend Sage came to hang out all day on Thursday. This morning Seth went to a birthday party for Tyler and this evening all the boys and I went swimming. My visiting teaching companion has a pool at her house and she thought it would be fun to invite all the ladies we visit and their kids over to swim. The kids swam while we visited. We had fun, but only one of our three ladies was able to make it today. We'll have to catch the other two another time. Tonight Tanner is spending the night with his friend Seth--I think they are going to go see Harry Potter 7, part 2. Scott is staying with his friend David's younger brother, Danny. The rest of Danny's family went to DC to see the play Wicked, but since Danny is autistic, they didn't want to leave him alone for that long. (Danny is Tanner's age.) Danny came over earlier and went swimming with us. After dinner, Frank took Scott and Danny back to Danny's house.

Besides all that, the older kids had various social activities. Tanner and Jared spent the night with Ryan and Bryson Tuesday night. Scott met a girl at Youth Conference that he really likes; he spent Wednesday afternoon and evening at her house. Scott's friend Ricardo came here one day and Scott spent time with his friend David another day. I'm sure I'm forgetting something! These guys really keep me going, trying to keep up with their social lives.

The older three boys, to my surprise, watched the movie Pride and Prejudice with me one evening. I had to explain a bit to them about how 19th century English society operates! They didn't think it was a great movie or anything, but they did watch the whole thing.

Frank and I went to the library to pick up a book for Jared and while Frank was browsing in the Sci Fi section, I ended up in non fiction and wound up bringing home The Idiot's Guide to Geography, Life 20th Century in Pictures, and The Greatest Disaster Stories Ever Told. I'm still wondering what that combination of books has to say about my personality!

Fun quote from Seth. He asked me Wednesday night at bedtime where Scott was, and I told him Scott was hanging out with a girl that he likes. Seth asked "Is she a hot girl, or a warm girl?"

We are really glad that Anna & Buck's little Ivory June arrived safely this week! What a sweetie for coming a little early. :) So now I'm a great aunt! I can't wait to meet her someday...

Weekly Review July 16 '11

So we did a few fun things this week. Yesterday we took Seth to the National Zoo. (Did you know that admission to the National Zoo is free? Well, it is. Your taxpayer dollars are paying for our free entertainment. The parking isn't free, though.) Poor deprived Seth has never been to a zoo before now! He seemed to have a good time. He says the tiger was his favorite animal. He is looking at the map of the zoo in the photo above.

I do not like this photo of me (I have a funny look on my face because Frank didn't give me a chance to smile), but pictures of me are hard to come by, so I included it so that someday my great grandkids will know that I really existed!

One of the cheetahs. We really enjoyed watching them. We also liked the lion cubs.

Seth is watching the zebras. He loved the noises that they made!

Only Seth, Frank and I went to the zoo. The oldest two boys were at Youth Conference and Jared had spent the night with a friend from the ward on Thursday--they had invited him to go with them to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter 7, part 2. (He enjoyed that a lot, by the way.) We figured it was a good day to go since we knew the older boys weren't interested in going to the zoo anyway, and Frank and I needed a break from the harsh realities of life when unemployed. Thankfully, it wasn't a super hot day, but we did get pretty tired and hot anyway. I don't think we will be doing that again for a while!

Other fun things about this week:

Scott had his friend Abbie over on Tuesday morning to "hang out". She was arriving early, so Scott was up early too. (Frank's comment: "We should let him invite a girl over every day!") They spent quite a bit of time down by the river talking--I admit there is sadly no place in this house to entertain a guest with any semblance of privacy!

On Wednesday the women in my book club got together to celebrate all the July / August birthdays since there are quite a few of us with birthdays in those months. We met at a park that I've never been to before. It was a bit of a drive--it was way up by the Pennsylvania border--but it was a beautiful drive and the view from the park was fantastic. It's located on the edge of a mountain. A long time ago it was a major tourist spot with hotels and an amusement park but all of that disappeared around World War II. Now it's just a really nice community park. The weather was nice and cool up there and I really enjoyed visiting with friends.

That evening my friend Jeanine and her boys came over. Jeanine had asked if we could have her two oldest boys, Joey and Kalvin, spend the night with us since they all had to be at the stake center at 5:00 am for Youth Conference. They live in Westminster, which is about an hour away from the stake center but it is only about 10 minutes away from our house. We were glad to have them stay, of course. Jeanine insisted that they bring us dinner that evening, and she did--along with several other bags of assorted groceries that she thought we could use. That was really thoughtful of her, and it really cheered me up!

On Thursday I enjoyed going to Barnes & Noble to spend the gift card Mom & Dad sent me for my birthday. Frank came too--he still had some of his gift card from his birthday left! I have a weakness for children's books so that's what I ended up getting. When I was a little girl, one of my favorite series of books was the Betsy-Tacy series. The author wrote 3 other books that were not officially part of that series but that included some of the same characters that appeared in that series. Those books were out of print for a long time but now they have been reissued, so I got two of them. (I already own the other one.) I've been wanting to read them for a long time, so it was fun to do that this week. I'm looking forward to reading the other two books that I got, too.

Tanner and Scott were at Youth Conference from early Thursday morning until this evening. They went to Kirtland, Ohio this year. I think it is really great that they got to do that! I haven't heard a whole lot about their experiences yet since they've only been home a few hours but I think they had a really good time. They were not allowed to take any electronics of any kind--even their phones. Before they left, they were moaning about how boring the bus ride there and back was going to be, but now they admit that the bus rides were a lot of fun. (I told them so!) They both met lots of cute new girls, too! They had a testimony meeting this morning in the Kirtland Temple before they left and they both admit that they (and everyone else, apparently) cried through the whole thing because there was such a strong spirit there. Scott's bus was in a very minor (thankfully) accident on the way home; no one was hurt but it delayed them a bit so they got back about an hour later than planned. I am looking forward to hearing more about their experiences over the next few days.

I think that covers the fun things we did this week. We did all the more ordinary things such as cleaning house and buying groceries, of course. Jared mowed the lawn and Frank trimmed the apple trees in our front yard. I met with one of my counselors to talk about the Cub Scout program. Frank did some work on computers in the stake. Snickers got a haircut. I worked on Sharing Time. Frank kept looking for a job. He had another very interested recruiter call him this week but so far most of the positions they are trying to fill are temporary and too far away to commute. He would be willing to do something temporary if it were nearby, of course, but if it isn't commuting distance it doesn't make sense to move. This is just not a great economy for looking for a job and I'm afraid it's going to take some time to find something. Some days I feel ok about that and other days I panic. On a good note, though, we are definitely seeing some of the blessings of paying tithing including the fact that the little that has been coming in is stretching a lot farther than expected.

Update on Seth: the last month or so he has begun to dress himself. He's known how to do it for a while, but now he goes to his room most mornings after breakfast and gets dressed without me asking him to. Very nice! I've had some interesting conversations with him lately, like the time he told me that when "you and Daddy got married, I watched you through a window. Scott and Tanner and Jared were there, too." He also told me once recently that Jesus loves him all the time and that He wants him to be nice. Even if Jared is mean to him (Seth), Jesus wants him to be nice back. What do you know--he really is listening in Primary! Hard to tell, because he rarely sits in his seat for more than a minute. And last week when we were talking about families being sealed in the temple and I showed them a picture of a sealing room and asked them if they would like to go to a place like that, he loudly proclaimed that he did NOT want to go there and that he did NOT want to be sealed to his family! Tough luck for him, since he already is. :)

I have finally succeeded in getting all the boys to bed, and it is my bedtime, too, so I'd better post this and get to sleep!

Sorry for the Difficult to Read Posts

I just want to apologize for the last several posts, which I realize must be hard to read. The last one (July 9 weekly review) is particularly crazy, with some paragraphs squeezed together and others with huge breaks in between. I have no idea why blogger is mangling my posts or what to do about it (if I did, I would fix them!) It's very frustrating to me. If any of you more experienced bloggers have any suggestions, please let me know!

Thanks!

Weekly Review July 9 '11

The photos above were taken on July 4th, while we were
waiting for the fireworks to start. We went to our usual viewing spot--the top
of the parking garage at the hospital. Several families in our ward go there
too, so it's always fun to visit and share snacks while we wait. I was trying
to take Seth's picture, but he kept moving around! The one in the middle was
the best I could do. In the bottom photo, you can see Scott enjoying a popsicle
along with members of the Hernandez family. These photos were taken before the
rain started! The fireworks started shortly after the rain (thankfully) and the
show was pretty short, but we still got soaking wet. We didn't let that
interfere with our enjoyment of the show. Seth was really enthusiastic--laughed
and clapped through the whole thing--which was fun.

I didn't mean to start out by talking about the fourth of
July, but blogger is being difficult and won't let me put the photos anywhere
else, so I thought I should explain them.
The reason I am late gettting this week's post done is because blogger
was down when I tried to post on Saturday, and this is the first chance I've
had to do this since then.

Sunday (the 3rd) I had visits after church so the day seemed
to go by fast. Scott and Jared both bore
their testimonies that day but I missed them both because I had taken Seth out
to get a drink and use the restroom.

The rest of the week was quieter than usual because Tanner
and Jared were both gone to scout camp from early Monday morning (I had to get
them to the church at 5:30 am) until Saturday morning. Frank was up even earlier than I was on
Monday because he went to help cook for the annual 4th of July breakfast that a
family in our stake always does. It's
become quite a large event, with a really great program and a lot of people
from the community attending as well as church members. Scott got a ride to the breakfast with
friends, but I skipped it this year because I knew Seth would be bored and I
didn't like the idea of trying to keep him happy and entertained for
hours. Frank is always too busy cooking
to help with him, so I would have been on my own trying to eat and get him
fed. I just decided it wasn't worth
it!!! We had a nice dinner of grilled
hamburgers and such before we went to the fireworks, though, so it was still a
nice 4th of July. We missed having
Tanner and Jared there, though.

I didn't write down much on the calendar for last week, so
now I can't remember much else that happened.
My birthday was relaxing but quiet, with Tanner and Jared gone. We waited to have cheesecake until Sunday,
after they got back. I got several cards
from friends and family, which was nice.

I think Scott missed having Tanner and Jared around,
although he would probably never admit it!
He tried to keep busy with friends.

Frank and I went to the temple on Friday afternoon. We didn't think to check the weather, so we
were surprised when we got ready to leave and discovered that it was
raining. We hadn't made it very far up
the road when the rain turned into a torrential downpour--it was very hard to
see the road! We kept plugging along,
though, and finally got out of the worst of it although it continued to rain
fairly hard all the way down. The
weather caused traffic problems so we ended up missing the session we were
trying to get to by just a few minutes.
During the day, the sessions are held an hour apart so rather than wait
for the next session we decided to do sealings instead. That turned out to be really great--there was
a sister there with some family file names, including her own parents, to be
sealed. The feeling in the room when
those sealings were done was just amazing!
Another fun thing that happened while we were at the temple that day was
that when we first got there we saw a wedding party out front and I recognized
one of the people there as a member of our ward in Delaware. I greeted him and asked if he was there for a
wedding, and he said "Yes, my son's!"
So that was neat to see them on their special day. On the way home from
the temple, we stopped to have dinner--a late birthday celebration for me. At church on Sunday they announced that the
temple is now closed through the end of the month for maitenance. I knew that was going to happen soon (they
close the last half July every year) but I didn't realize it was closing this
week. I am really glad we managed to get
there before it closed!

Saturday morning there was a baptism for two of the kids in
our ward; both families are pretty good friends of ours, so Frank planned to
come as well. We were about to leave
when we got a call from Tanner--they were arriving home from scout camp much sooner
than we had expected. So Frank went to
pick them up first and he arrived at the baptism a little late. He was still there in time for the baptisms
and was able to assist with both confirmations, so that was nice. Afterwards, we were invited to join the
families for lunch, so we went home to change and pick up Tanner and Jared (who
had showered and unpacked while we were gone).
We had an enjoyable afternoon, visiting with these two families and
eating the yummy food they had prepared.

I think Tanner and Jared enjoyed their week at scout camp
and they got a lot accomplished. Tanner
completed 3 merit badges, a patch (for Kayaking) and almost completed one other
merit badge--he only has one thing left to do for swimming. This is the third year in a row he's done
swimming, and something always interferes with him being able to finish
it. The first year someone tripped him
and he got a big gash in his knee, so they wouldn't let him in the pool after
that. The second year he got an ear
infection after the first couple of days.
This year a thunderstorm prevented him from being able to get in the
pool to do the last requirement. But his
scoutmaster has promised to take him to the pool to do that last thing! Jared finished three merit badges (including
swimming!) and has two others that he almost finished. We are proud of them for working so hard.

Frank's left eye started bothering him late in the week and
by Saturday it was fairly red and swollen.
His right eye was starting to feel sore as well. So Saturday afternoon he called the doctor
and was able to get some medicated eye drops for his eyes (they think it is
pink eye). His eyes got worse on
Saturday and by Sunday morning they looked pretty bad and it was painful for
him to open them (especially in brighter light) so he ended up staying home
from church. They are looking better
now, but still not completely healed.

Job search update:
near the end of the week Frank was contacted by four different head
hunters who had seen his resume and feel that he is a good fit for some of the positions
they have available. Some of them are
temporary positions, but others are more permanent. He has been busy following up on those, but
doesn't have any interviews yet. He did
meet personally with one of the headhunters yesterday morning (Monday) and he
gave him some good ideas of things he can do to be more competitive. It is a little encouraging that someone has
finally started to contact him--up until now, he hasn't really received any
response from any of the positions that he has applied for. Frank also signed up to attend a resume
writing workshop this Sunday, which is being done by someone in our stake. Hopefully that will help him get his resume
looking even better.

I took advantage of the quiet this last week to get some
reading done. I finished Out of the
Silent Planet as well as the next book in that series--Perelandra. They were both interesting and I enjoyed
them. I spent quite a bit of time
working on Sharing Time for Sunday. Some
weeks I know immdediately what I want to do and other weeks I have to pray and
struggle a lot before I get it pulled together.
This was one of those weeks where I had to pray a lot! I ended up doing two completely different
things for the younger kids and for the older kids, but both went well so I
feel good about that.

We've been having some difficulties with Frank's former
employer this week over the health insurance payment we sent in the week before
last--they claim they never received it.
That has caused us quite a bit of stress the last few days, but I think
we have it cleared up now. We ended up
stopping payment on the first check and sending a new check and the paper work
again--this time by certified mail, so we will have proof that they have received
it. An extra hassel that we didn't need! I was quite upset about it yesterday--I am
just so sick of being treated like we have done something wrong! Even for someone like me, who always tries to
see the other person's point of view, it is hard not to get angry. The less contact we have with them, the
better it is for us. The weeks that we
have not had any contact with them have been much less stressful for us! So hopefully there won't be a need to have
contact with them very often anymore.

That wraps it up for this last week!