Weekly Review January 27 '12

Since I didn't take any pictures this week, I thought I'd share a few photos from our past. This is what we were doing five years ago. The boys look so little to me! So in January 2007, we were in the middle of science fair projects and building Pinewood Derby cars. Jared was growing crystals for his science fair project, as you can see in the picture above.

Tanner was studying waves or something like that for his science fair project--I can't remember now.

Jared won 3rd place in the Pinewood Derby.

Tanner got a medal for participating.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that little jog into the past! Now on to the present day. So I was wrong about a couple of things when I wrote last week. First of all, I thought that the week end was going to be busy. I also thought we were all getting better. The week end turned out not to be so very busy, mostly thanks to Mother Nature. We got a few inches of snow plus freezing rain early Saturday morning and in Maryland, that means everything got cancelled. No basketball games and no dance. I can't say I was too disappointed about that. Instead of running around like a crazy person all day, I got to stay home in my warm house. We didn't lie around all day but it was a lot more relaxing than it would have been. We took some time in the morning to break down a bunch of empty cardboard boxes that had accumulated over the last several months and to do some general cleaning up / tidying. Now there is only one box of computer stuff on the lowest downstairs landing instead of several boxes covering most of both downstairs landings, so it looks a lot neater (and is much easier to go down the stairs). We had the missionaries over for dinner that evening.

Sunday wasn't as busy either because our bishop wasn't feeling well so both of the meetings I was supposed to attend were cancelled. Frank was busy--he had two ward conferences to go to so he didn't make it to our ward meetings at all. The boys had a fireside that evening; it was a musical fireside that all the youth in our ward and another ward had put together. The idea was to invite their non member friends to attend. I hear it was very nice; I didn't make it to the fireside myself.

Frank came home from work on Friday not feeling very well at all and he started coughing again. That lasted for a few days; he seems to be mostly feeling better now. Both Scott and Tanner started feeling sick on Monday again. They didn't have school that day so they rested a lot but they didn't get better very fast. Tanner made it to Seminary on Tuesday morning but came home after that; Scott started throwing up right before we left for Seminary so he didn't make it to either school or Seminary on Tuesday. Jared also woke up with a bad headache and congestion so Seth was the only one who went to school that day. (A great way to start out a new term, right?) Scott made it to school Wednesday (but not to Seminary) and so did Jared but Tanner continued to suffer with congestion, headache, slight fever, and fatigue and didn't go back to school or Seminary until today. Scott started coughing a lot yesterday, so he still isn't feeling very well. I am starting to wonder if this is ever going to end!

In spite of all the time I spent taking care of sick kids, I still managed to get almost everything done I needed to do this week, except for exercising. I do that on the Wii, and the televison was kind of monopolized by sick kids. I made it to book club on Tuesday--we were discussing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. Now we are reading a non-fiction book called "The 100 Thing Challenge", about a man who decides to get rid of all but 100 of his personal possessions and live that way for year. I also made it to choir that night, which I always enjoy.

Wednesday was busy with shopping and errands. That evening I met with one of the boy scouts so he could pass off his Personal Management Merit Badge and then had a presidency meeting with the Mia Maid class president before YW started.

Thursday was more shopping and errands. Frank and I went out for dinner that evening--we had a gift card for the Olive Garden. That was a nice break after a busy, somewhat stressful week.

Today I went visiting teaching and worked on the budget. Frank and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out a glitch in our budget spreadsheet--we still don't know what's wrong! In between everything else, we applied for a home equity loan so we can do a few repairs / improvements on the house--mostly replacing the floors. We also got pre-qualified for a loan (they are willing to loan us a lot more than we can actually afford, of course) and looked into the cost of renting a storage unit--all this in case we ever find a house we actually want to buy.

Seth said something funny to me this week. I was in the kitchen making biscuits and he wanted me to move a chair to the doorway so he could stand on it and see what I was doing. I said "Why don't you just come over here next to me? Then you can see what I am doing." Seth's reply was "My feet are not floor proof!" (He further explained that they were carpet proof, but not floor proof, so he couldn't walk onto the kitchen floor. Who knows how he got that crazy idea into his head!

What will the coming week bring? Good health for the whole family? I hope so!