Weekly Review August 26 '11

To start out this week, some pictures of a pretty cloud we saw one evening, close to sunset.

It would be nice if we had spent our week leisurely gazing at clouds, but we didn't. It was crazy busy! Our lazy summer days are over for sure. On Saturday we attended our ward's annual Crab Fest. Scott's friend Allie came with us and since there was a regional dance that evening, most of the youth went straight to the dance from the Crab Fest. The dance was in Annapolis, so Scott and Tanner didn't get home until around midnight.

Jared wasn't feeling very well on Sunday--he's had a bad cough for a week or two now. We decided to take him home after Sacrament Meeting; since Frank was substituting Tanner's Sunday School class, the plan was for me to run him home as soon as I checked the classrooms to make sure all the Primary classes had a teacher. It didn't quite work out that way--a few complications came up such as Seth was missing for a while (finally found him in the restroom) and some late teachers. We were well into the first hour of Primary by the time I managed to get away from the church, and then when we got home I realized I didn't have a house key with me! So we had to go back to get the key, and then back home.

Frank had a busy week--looking for a job is truly a full time job itself, I've discovered. But this week was busy in a really good way. He had one interview on Monday, a phone interview on Tuesday, two more interviews and another phone interview on Wednesday, and two more interviews on Thursday. After nearly 10 weeks of almost nothing, we were kind of in shock that he had that many interviews in one week! The best news is that one of those places made an unofficial offer yesterday. He interviewed through a recruiter and if he accepts this offer he will actually be working for the recruiter for 3 months. Then if all goes well, he will be officially hired. We are feeling cautiously optimistic about it. The offer is a good offer with a good company, so hopefully it will all work out. We are hoping it will.

The rest of us kept busy also. Of course, on Tuesday we had the excitement of a 5.8 earthquake! Not the biggest earthquake, I know, but not something you'd expect to happen in these parts. The three older boys were down the street at a friend's house and Seth, Frank and I were at home. Frank felt it first--I heard him exclaim "what was that?" I had no idea what he was talking about and then a few seconds later I started feeling the floor move. In my mind, I visualized the floor moving in waves--that's what it felt like. The windows started rattling and the shaking continued to come in waves. We also heard faint rumbling noises and my first thought was that there was some sort of explosion nearby, or even some heavy equipment moving down the street, but pretty soon Frank and I were both saying "Is this an earthquake?" Seth, sitting on the couch playing a game on the Wii nearby, said "No, it's just my game!" That cracked me up! (Later, that is--at the time I was a little too nervous to be amused.) I was standing behind the couch when the shaking started, and after a few seconds I decided maybe I'd better go sit down. I sat down next to Seth and the shaking continued and the windows kept rattling for several more seconds. I had enough time to notice that the television was shaking and to think "I hope this doesn't get more intense or last much longer, or else things are going to start falling and breaking" before the movement stopped. Frank and I immediately went to turn on a radio to see if we could find out what had happened. Within a few seconds, Scott called me, very excited "Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake? That was so cool!" The boys were very excited about it--they were really bummed when they slept through the 4. something earthquake that we had last summer, so they were really glad they didn't miss this one. We were just glad it wasn't worse and that damage was minimal.

I'm kind of annoyed by the superior attitude we've been hearing from the Californians out west, wondering what all the hooplah is about. Yes, we know they have earthquakes like that all the time out there--but that's just the point, isn't it? It's not news out there because it's a regular occurance. It's not a normal occurance out here, so that's why the media is making a big deal out of it. I also think it's not very nice to laugh at people out here who ran out into the streets. I don't know if they understand that the first thing that goes through people's minds in this area when the building they are in starts shaking is "terrorist attack", not "earthquake". It may not be very smart to run out in the streets during an earthquake, but in the event of a terrorist attack, it might be the best thing to do. That being said, I did get a good laugh over the photo circulating on the internet of the tipped over lawn chair with captions such as "we will rebuild".

We haven't felt any aftershocks (although there have been very mild ones) but I was kind of tickled when Frank told me yesterday morning (or was it Wednesday? Can't remember now.) that he heard on the news that there had been a larger aftershock (4.something) during the night because I had dreamed the night before that we felt an aftershock. I wonder if I really did feel it, but just didn't wake up enough to consciously acknowledge it.

Wednesday evening there was an unofficial YM / YW activity--they met at the home of one of the advisors for s'mores and visiting. Allie came over to go to the activity with Scott, so I finally got some pictures of her. As usual, Seth was sticking pretty close to her, so it was hard to get a photo without him in it:

But we did manage to keep him out of this one, where they were striking silly poses:

Allie came by again this evening for a few hours; Seth wanted her to pay Mario Kart with him, so here they are:

Allie will be leaving for college in about a week, so we won't be seeing her around here much longer.

Yesterday I took Tanner and Jared to meet with an architect so they could complete the last requirement for their Architecture merit badges. The architect showed them the plans for a house and then a virtual model (on the computer) of the same house. It was very interesting!

Today turned out to be extremely busy. Since we now have Hurricane Irene heading our way, I decided we should probably pull out our emergency kits and do a little updating. As we suspected, everyone has grown out of the clothes we put in there years ago and the food that was in there (not much) had expiration dates from a number of years back. We can't really afford to purchase 3 days worth of food for everyone right now, but we did make a trip to the store to get some bottled water, flashlights, a little bit of food, and a few other essentials. I also put together bags for Seth (last time we updated we had everything we needed for him stashed in his diaper bag, so he didn't really need a backpack) and for Snickers, using old backpacks we had in the house. Now we feel a little better prepared for an emergency, although at this point it looks like the storm is veering more away from us. Hopefully it won't turn into a big deal. An earthquake and a hurricane all in the same week is a bit much!

Besides the shopping trip, we also had to run several other errands such as putting gas in the cars, going to the bank, and sending a certified letter. I also took Scott & Tanner over to mow a lawn for some ward members, and Seth to the openhouse at his school. Seth was happy to see his teachers again (gave them hugs!) and enjoyed playing with some of the materials that he hasn't seen all summer (plus a few new ones). I actually had to drag him out of there--he would have liked to have stayed to play much longer! Tanner went to hang out with his friend Ryan for a few hours this evening and Jared was invited to a Frederick Keys baseball game with a friend. Tanner is home now (and still upset with us for insisting on no sleep overs this week!), but I'm still waiting up for Jared. Frank took Scott with him to take Allie home and they aren't back yet either. It looks like it is going to be another late night.

I finished The Persian Pickle Club--really good book. I also read a book I got from Mom last summer called Letter For Emily, which I enjoyed too. Now I am reading the first Harry Potter book--decided I'd like to read that series again. Those who have only seen the movies have really missed out, I think!

It's hard to believe that in a few days the kids will be back in school. I am mostly sorry to see summer end. I hope we all start going to bed at a more decent hour, though! :)

Weekly Review August 19 '11

When I wrote last week, the boys were on their way to an Orioles game. They had a great time, and they even got to be on television for a few seconds. They were able to call us to let us know they were about to be on television, so we were able to switch to the correct channel just in time to see them. (They were in a group of fans, cheering and screaming!) The Orioles lost the game by one point, unfortunately, but that didn't seem to damper the boys' spirits at all. I'm really glad they got to go with some friends--that made the experience a lot more fun for them, I think.

We picked them up fairly early Saturday morning because we'd been asked to help clean the church. The rest of the day was busy with errands and chores. We had the missionaries over for dinner that evening and Scott also had a date with Allie (they doubled with another couple) which meant we were up quite late since Frank had to take Allie home afterwards. Frank and I were both pretty tired--it is not easy sometimes to be the parents of teenagers with active social lives! (And we know this is just the beginning.)

It wasn't a great week for getting a good night's sleep. A car alarm in our neighborhood went off several times Saturday night (Sunday morning?) and then again Sunday night (early Monday morning) which disrupted our sleep a lot. Then we had a pretty large thunderstorm last night that went on for over an hour. Snickers does NOT like thunderstorms, and he ended up sleeping on our bed for part of the night. (He barks, growls, whines, and scratches so loud if we leave him in his crate that we can't sleep anyway.) After the car alarm went off for the third time in about 45 minutes early Monday morning, Frank decided he'd had enough and he called the police to report it. He went outside and pointed out the correct car to the patrolman when he arrived; by then the alarm had stopped. He let the police know it was the second night in a row and that it had also happened a week or so ago. The policeman said he'd contact the owner and let them know it was going off (I have no idea how the owner was managing to sleep through it) so that they could get it fixed. That must have worked because we haven't heard it since. We can't do anything about the thunderstorms or the teenagers' social lives, though!

Tanner gave a talk on Sunday and he did a great job. He was asked to talk about tithing. All the speakers had the same subject, and they all had really good things to say--a lot very applicable to our lives right now. I particularly liked the idea of "learning to have faith in God instead of faith in the amount sitting in the bank account."

The rest of the week has been pretty busy. I met with one of my counselors Monday morning do some things for Cub Scouts, in preparation for a meeting we had Wednesday evening with the entire Cub Committee. I don't usually attend Cub Committee meetings (my counselor does), but I went to this one since we are starting off a new year, have a new committee chair, and wanted to set a few new things in motion.

Monday was also Scott's 17th birthday. Allie came over in the morning (she had to work that night) and that evening Scott's friends David & Ricardo came over to share pizza and brownies with us. Scott received two gadgets for his Ipod and the movie Inception, which is all he asked for. So he wasn't surprised, but he was happy.

Tuesday the youth in our ward had a trip to the temple to do baptisms. Frank signed up to help with that, so it was just Seth and I at home for a good portion of that day. (They left in the morning and got back in the mid afternoon.)

Tanner & Jared spent the night with Ryan & Bryson on Wednesday night; Scott went to Ricardo's. Tanner told us the next morning that he used his key to get in the back door to get his wallet out of his room around 10:30. I guess now we know someone can get in that door without our hearing it! We were still awake at that point, but up in our room. We did hear some noise, but after checking on Seth and finding him sound asleep in bed, we decided we must have heard noise from next door. (The neighbors did make some noise a few minutes later.)

Jared's friend Sage came over Thursday morning and stayed until early afternoon. Scott went on a camp out this afternoon. The 11 year olds in our stake are having a camp out, and the stake 11 year old leaders asked the older boy scouts to come help with that, so Scott went. Tanner will be going over to help later; he has a birthday party for his friend Danny to go to first.

Frank had a job interview yesterday. It was a very long interview (3 hours); he met with about 6 different people. He felt like it went really well but this morning they called him to say they had chosen to give the job to the other guy who interviewed. He feels pretty bummed about that, of course. He has interviews scheduled for Monday and Wednesday next week for two other jobs, though. At least he is starting to get interviews now; the job search wheels were grinding pretty slowly at first, but they seem to be picking up lately. The way things are going, it looks fairly likely that we will stay here--he hasn't received even a nibble from any of the positions he's applied for out of state. We think a lot of places are not willing to pay for relocation expenses and are ruling him out for that reason. But who knows? Something we didn't expect could come up tomorrow.

We are finding that being unemployed is very emotionally draining--some days you just feel awful, no matter what happens. Other days things don't seem so bad. I think it's all the uncertainties and not being able to plan for anything that makes it challenging. However, I do see that blessings are coming to us in lots of different ways. We've had lots of people do nice things for us to help out--anything from sharing produce from their gardens to anonymous gift cards arriving in the mail. We appreciate that a lot! We've also had enough income trickle in from various jobs that I haven't had to start dipping into our savings yet, and after 10 weeks of being unemployed that is truly miraculous. So overall, I can see that we are being taken care of--but that doesn't mean that some days I am just really weary of the whole situation. I'm human!

We've had quite a bit of rain this week, which seems strange for August. Like a lot of other places, it's been very dry lately, though, so it is good to get some moisture. I really like thunderstorms (just not in the middle of the night).

Movies we've enjoyed recently: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and The Lake House. The second one is a "chick flick" but the boys were intrigued enough by the time travel element of the plot line that they wanted to see it. They liked it, too.

I finished A River Runs Through It and then watched the movie. The book has a lot of swearing but is fairly delightful anyway. The movie also has swearing and I wouldn't recommend showing it to your teenagers either (there's some back side nudity) but it is a fairly good movie overall. There's some deep thinking / truths going on in there. The movie stayed pretty true to the book, also. I also finished the geography book I was reading; I learned a lot about some areas of the world that I didn't know much about. Now I'm reading The Persian Pickle Club and enjoying it a lot.

Now I need to take Tanner to get a gift for his friend Danny, so I'd better post this and get on my way. Thank you all for your love and prayers!

Quote of the Week

Jared: "Seth, if you loved me, you'd share your soda pop with me."

Seth: "I do love you, Jared, I just don't like you!!"

Very profound, actually--there is so much truth in that statement!

Second PS to Weekly Review August 12 '11

How could I forget to mention these two momentous events?

First, Scott finished all the paperwork for his Eagle Scout project!!! (Can you see me dancing around the room?) Now all he has to do is have a conference with his scoutmaster and get it sent in, and he will hopefully be ready for his Board of Review.

Second (and even more momentous), I actually won a round of Mario Kart! As in, 1st place!!! I am still in shock. :)

PS to Weekly Review August 12 '11

Blogger is doing crazy things again--won't let me save my previous post after adding to it--so I am finishing this weeks post in a separate post. If you haven't already read the Weekly Review for August 12 '11, please go read it first! This post is just finishing that one up.

So, to finish my thought, I am hoping that when we get to the judgement day that Frank's former boss and his wife will finally understand what we were really doing--just trying to take care of our family without causing harm to them--and maybe then we can be friends again. But even if they don't understand, it won't really matter what they think anyway. What the Savior thinks of our decisions, though, will matter very much indeed.

That was a lot of "thinking out loud"; I hope I haven't put you all to sleep! I wanted to write down some of the things I've been thinking and feeling the last few weeks so I won't forget them. I think Frank feels much the same as I do, but all of this has been so much more personal for him and he feels the weight of needing to provide for our family even more than I do. It is hard for him to have faith that it will all work out. Please remember him in your prayers. We know you are all praying for us, and we really appreciate it!

Weekly Review August 12 '11

I have 15 minutes before I need to go. Do you think I can get this done in 15 minutes? Probably not, but I'm going to see how far I can get.

The older 3 boys were all invited to attend an Orioles baseball game tonight with another family in our ward. Since they will be getting home from the game late, they are also going to spend the night with this family also. That is good news for Frank and I; it means that for once we don't have to wait up really late for a boy (or boys) to get home!

Frank is at a meeting with a career counselor--that's through the county; he signed up for that after his long boring meeting last week. I hope the counselor will have some good ideas for him.

When Frank opened the front door to go to his meeting, he was confronted by a wall of boxes--computers and monitors that were sent by the church for the buildings in our stake. We never heard a knock on the door or the doorbell ring, so we were very surprised. The boxes literally took up the entire front stoop; it was difficult to get the screen door open. Now they are taking up a whole side of my already crowded living room. I hope they aren't there for long.

Other things we did this week: I stood in line for two hours in the hot sun in order to collect free school supplies for the boys. Not too fun, but I did get almost everything they need, so it was worth it. I was talking to some of the other people in line and discovered that most of them do this every year; I feel grateful that I've never had the need to do that before. We've been very blessed.

A recruiter from the Army Reserves came to talk to Scott and us one day. I don't think Scott is seriously considering joining the Army, but he has thought about it. There are definitely some benefits to doing that, but overall my feeling is that he's too young to make a decision about that right now! I'd rather he wait until after his mission to decide. I liked the guy who came to talk to us, but as most things like that go, it took him much longer to convey the information than it should have!

Scott went one night to stay with Danny, the autistic boy in our ward, while his family was out. (He did that once before a few weeks ago.) He also went with a friend (who can drive) one day to "kidnap" Allie and take her to lunch. He did warn her ahead of time, which led to Allie's younger brothers camping out in the front yard with water guns, waiting for him!

Tanner and Jared spent the night with Ryan and Bryson one night. Tanner also went swimming with Ryan. He works out with Ryan about twice a week as well.

My visiting teacher came to see me Thursday morning. I'm still doing a lot of reading. I've finished several books, though, so I'm not reading 6 at one time any more!

We are finding that unemployment is set up like every other government help program--it is not set up to reward you for taking the initiative to try to work as much as possible and to take care of yourself as much as possible. It is easier to just be a drain on society! Every time Frank earns more than a certain amount per week (and that amount is nowhere near enough for us to live on, I should point out) we have paperwork hassels to work out, which slows down getting the benefits we do qualify for. They don't really encourage honesty, either! But we are persevering!

Ok, so I didn't finish in 15 minutes, but I did get all of the above written in that time. Now I'm back home and Frank is also. In his interview he found out that he can get help paying for MCSE courses, so he is going to look into doing that. He has to research and find what courses are available and the cost; once he has that information he can apply for help. It's possible that he may be able to get the entire cost covered.

In the meantime, he is also interesteed in learning more about Linxus, so he got a book from the library and he's been using one of the old computers we have to experiement with that system. So far, he seems to be enjoying learning something new. He did have one interview this week with a place in northern Virginia. It's just a temporary position (3-6 months) but may possibly turn into a permanent position. He heard back from the recruiter today that the people he interviewed with were pretty impressed with him, so that was good to hear. They were particularly impressed that he is taking the initiative to learn something new. (He mentioned that he was starting to learn more about Linux.)

Although these are positive developments, I think Frank is going a bit stir-crazy being stuck at home, and it is hard for him to keep his spirits up. I know he worries a lot about the things his former employer is saying to prospective employers, and fears that he will not be able to find a job because of that. I've mentioned before that we've considered starting our own business, but it's a big decision to make with a lot of uncertainties involved. On Saturday we went to the temple and on Sunday we fasted about it. Then on Monday morning we sat down and talked about how we were feeling. As we talked, we realized that we had both been feeling the same way, and that is that Frank needs to keep looking for a job--that starting our own business is not the right way to go at this time. To be honest, that doesn't seem like the most logical course to take considering the pretty dismal response he's had so far (only 2 interviews in 2 months) and considering how many of his former clients would be willing to give him work to do if he did start a business, but then how often is the right thing to do the logical thing to do? I've certainly done a lot of illogical things in the past when prompted by the spirit to do so, and it always turned out fine. So that is the course we are going to pursue at this point.

For me, that has really made a big difference. All the waffling back and forth, wondering what to do, has been the hardest part of this situation for me. I can't say we got any "lightning bolt" revelations, but the fact that we are both feeling the same way is enough of an answer for me, and I feel a lot more at peace than I have the last two months. I still feel like getting a new job is going to take some time--I don't expect one to drop in our laps next week or anything--but I feel like it will all work out somehow.

Along with trying to decide what course we need to take, I've been doing a lot of soul searching, knowing that at some point I need to forgive Frank's former employers for how nasty they've been to us the last few months. I've been trying to see things from their point of view as much as possible, and actually I've said all along that I can understand why they've made some of the decisions they have made, even if I don't agree with them. But still, it has been very hard not to be very angry with them! The last few weeks I've been praying a lot about it, and I have been reminded by the spirit, gently, several times that if I didn't have the gift of the Holy Ghost with me all the time to help temper my natural emotions, that I would probably be behaving in as nasty a way as they have been behaving. That has helped me to feel very grateful for that gift that I have. I've had it for so long that I'm sure I take it for granted most of the time. I still have a long way to go before I reach the total forgiveness level, but that has helped me a lot.

I also had another very comforting thought this week--someday we will all be judged for the decisions that we make, and I think when that day comes that in the process of that judgement a lot of the misunderstanding we have with others will be cleared up. One of things I really hate and have always hated is being misunderstood. In this particular case, I hate the fact that because two Griffin clients left when Frank was laid off and Frank subsequently accepted work from those two clients, that the owner of Griffin and his wife both think that we are these horrible people who are trying to steal their business and ruin their company. It doesn't matter how many times Frank has explained to them that he only accepted work because these two clients told him that they would not give the work to Griffin no matter what--they don't believe him. It also seems to mean nothing to them that about 7 or 8 other clients also offered him work and he turned them down because he knew they would probably stay with Griffin if he turned down their offers. Honestly, how many other people who had just been laid off without severence and with a family to support would have done that? Ok, that sounds a bit like a rant and maybe it is but what I'm trying to say is that I am comforted by the fact that maybe someday we will all be standing before the Savior together and they will know the truth--that we only tried to take care of our family without causing harm to them. At that point, I want to be able to know that I tried my best to act in a Christ-like way and that I tried to do the right thing in spite of the wrongs done to us. We could probably start our own business and take away a lot of Frank's former clients and even be legally justified in doing that, but it just doesn't seem like the right thing to do. And the fact that they are not doing the right thing by us (lying about Frank, etc.) would not justify wrong-doing on our part.

Weekly Review August 5 '11

I wrote last Friday, so
I'm trying to remember what we did last Saturday. I can't remember anything!
I'm sure we didn't sit around all day doing nothing...as a matter of fact, I'm
pretty sure that the boys and I got down on our hands and knees and scrubbed
the kitchen floor. But the rest of the
day isn’t very memorable, apparently.

We had a cool Sharing Time
on Sunday (prepared by one of my counselors) to help the kids become more
familiar with the scriptures; it ended with them having to look up references
and locate certain words. The words put together were a clue, which led them to
a treat that was hidden in the room.

Our bishop was out of town
Sunday (still is) but I had an interesting conversation with the counselor
who's in charge of Primary. We were discussing some callings that need to be
filled and then he asked me how the job search is going for Frank (still not
good). His next question was "How long have you been the Primary
president? Has it been a few years?" (Yes, as a matter of fact I just hit
my two year anniversary a few weeks ago.) "Hmmm..." he said,
"that's a long time...." We got interrupted at that point and I
needed to get back to Primary, so I headed down the hall but it got me
thinking...are they thinking about releasing me? My reaction to that
possibility was stronger than I'd expected--my eyes were full of tears by the
time I got back to the Primary room! Don't get me wrong...there are certainly
days that I would like to be released. But most of the time not. The only thing
I really don't enjoy about the calling is staffing issues. And it can be very
time consuming! But I really do love it. I know I'll be released someday, but I
just wasn't thinking about it yet. The bishop has always joked with me that
I'll go out when he goes out...which is still a year and a half away. Well, for
now I am just trying to forget that conversation happened! Maybe nothing will
come of it.

Sunday night after Seth
went to bed he woke up again (around midnight), thrashing around and
crying. He said his stomach hurt. We got him settled back down and he went back
to sleep, but about 15 minutes later he woke up again and immediately threw up
all over his bed. Then he went all limp
and scared the daylights out of us. I
think he just had a breath holding spell—he used to do that when he was younger
if he got really upset. Frank ran into
the bathroom with him and got him conscious again; then he threw up violently
all over the bathroom. Lots of fun! We had a major clean up job which included
bathing Seth and mopping the bathroom floor, among other things. We got him settled on our floor with pillows
and blankets. He thrashed around a lot
for a while but finally went back to sleep (by then it was probably around 2:00
am) and never got sick again.

Seth felt a bit feverish
in the morning but I gave him small amounts of soda at intervals and he was
able to keep that down. So after a few
hours of that he tried some crackers and that stayed down also. By early afternoon he was running around the
room, acting fine, and he’s been fine since.
I guess we’ll never know if it was just a weird short-lived stomach bug,
a reaction to the immunizations he had on Friday, or (highly unlikely)
poisoning. You see, we did have to make
a call to poison control earlier that day!
Seth has a small Magna Doodle thing and he came downstairs and said
“there was something on this (holding the Magna Doodle) that looked like food,
so I tasted it but it tasted really yucky.”
We checked and discovered that he had managed to punch a hole in it and
there was some liquid leaking out of it that smelled like petroleum. He said he’d just touched it with his finger
and then licked his finger, but we decided we’d better call anyway, just in
case. The lady at poison control did say
that the substance inside would be very dangerous if he had inhaled it into his
lungs but was probably ok since he had just licked a little of it. She said if he were coughing we would need to
take him to the ER. But he wasn’t
coughing and seemed fine the whole day.
It definitely crossed our minds later when he was so sick! I think we have had to call poison control
more for Seth than for our other three kids put together, by the way. And if you have a Magna Doodle, beware! (Ours went in the trash.)

The rest of the week has
been busy, but not terribly eventful. I had quite a bit of work to do for
Primary and I also visited some kids. I went with my friend Christine, who is
one of the teachers, to visit one of the girls in her class. Christine took me to
lunch first, which was really nice of her! We haven't had a chance to talk to
each other much lately and we needed to get caught up. I also went with my secretary to visit a new
family in our ward who have three girls—all in Primary. It was fun getting to know them better.

Frank went to a workshop
yesterday that was required by the Maryland Department of Labor. It was all day, and he said it was rather
boring and could have been completed in a lot less time. However, he did get a lot of useful information. They have all kinds of resources, such as a
professional resume writer who will look at your resume (for free) and give you
pointers on how to improve it. He can
also sign up for a personal career counselor, so he did that. There is a possibility that he may be able to
get help paying for some career training—such as some certifications that would
be very good to have. So it may have
been boring, but well worth the time in the end.

I spent a lot of yesterday
shuttling Scott and friends around. He
had set up a double date with the girl he likes (Allie) and one of her cousins
(Amanda) and one of his friends (Colton). They had it all planned out and then Colton’s
plans changed so it got a little complicated and resulted in a lot more driving
on my part than we had originally intended.
But it all worked out. The things
we do for our kids! It would be great if
Scott could get his driver’s license but we can’t afford to add him to our
insurance. He wouldn’t be able to drive
with friends in the car for the first six months, anyway (just family members).

The package we got on
Wednesday from you Utah
folks was great! I wish I had videotaped
when we opened it so you could all see how thrilled the kids were! They loved all the shirts (Seth and Tanner
are wearing some of them in the photos above), the fry sauce got a huge cheer,
and of course they are always happy to get candy! They thought the cards from the cousins were
great, also. It really cheered us up and
we appreciate the thought that went into it.
That meant a lot to us! Last
night we enjoyed watching a movie together while munching on all that candy.

Jared attended a
basketball camp every morning this week.
A couple of people in our stake did one for all the YM and YW who were
interested in attending for free, which I thought was really great. They had a large turn out (I’d say about 50
kids) and Jared had a lot of fun and hopefully learned a lot, too. He had very positive things to say about it
every day when we picked him up. Scott and
Tanner chose not to attend—crazy guys!

I can’t think of anything
else to say about this week except that I have spent a lot of time
reading. We’ve gone to the library a lot
lately. I think I am reading about 6
books at once—not such a good idea! I’m
reading the book for book club (A River Runs Through It—really good) and a
children’s Newberry winner called Kira-Kira, as well as several non fiction
books. I finished the disaster book (so
many sad stories!) and I’m about half way through the geography book. I’ve learned quite a bit about various
countries—it’s very interesting.

That sums it up for this
week!