We only have one week of school left so there are a lot of "winding up" activities going on and we are keeping busy. Last Friday Scott & Tanner both ended up going to spend the night with their friend Ryan and Jared was at his friend Sage's house so it was just Frank, Seth and I at home. (That happens more and more frequently these days.) I got up Saturday morning and decided to get some weeding done before it got miserably hot. I worked for a couple of hours and it was still quite warm and humid, but not unbearable (although I definitely needed a shower when I was done). I got the large front flower bed completely done, too. Later on that evening Jared mowed the lawn and Scott & Tanner did weeding in the back so our yards look presentable. I still want to do some cleaning out in the backyard and we need to get a new weed eater so we can edge everything but at least the basics got done.
Meanwhile, in the middle of the day after I picked up all the boys from friends' houses, we all went to the outlet stores in Hagerstown to get some clothes shopping done. Most of the boys needed new shoes and since their shoes seem to be wearing out way too fast, Frank wanted to get them some higher quality shoes. We found shoes for all the boys (including Frank) for really good prices at the Nike outlet store, so we were happy about that. The boys also acquired some shorts and shirts and I got a dress and a skirt at a petites store. After that we headed home--we were tired and it was really hot & humid! Frank had me drive home because he was tired and hurting by then. Jared went to a party at a ward member's house that evening (interestingly, it was a girl who invited him).
Frank made it to church on Sunday but he had to stay out in the foyer most of the time (sitting up in the pews / chairs put too much pressure on his right side) and he went home for the last hour because he was feeling pretty tired and sore. It was a very hot day again. That afternoon, Scott went with the missionaries and a teen age investigator down to the visitor's center by the temple to see a movie about Joseph Smith. While he was gone, a fairly severe thunderstorm blew in, with sheets of rain and lots of wind as well as lightning. We were really nervous about Scott driving home in that kind of weather but he did fine. The sky looked pretty cool when the storm was coming in; I tried to get a picture of it:
No one had school or work on Monday because of Memorial Day, which was nice! It was also Seth's 5th birthday. (He was born on Memorial Day, too!) We had to drag the older boys out of bed so that Seth could open his presents. We got him two main things--a small personal game player with a Cars 2 game for it (it came with 2 or 3 other games loaded on it) and a Batcave playset. We got both of them used on eBay for a lot less than new, but we weren't positive that the Batcave was going to arrive in time for his birthday, so I had also picked up several little items at the dollar store for him. As it turns out, the Batcave arrived in plenty of time so he ended up with a lot of presents.
Here he is before unwrapping
Card from Granny and Grandpa Cleveland
Dollar store kaleidoscope
Dollar store bug catcher
Cars 2 game
Leap Frog Explorer
Card from Grandma & Grandpa Pew
Opening box from Grandma & Grandpa Pew
A dinosaur book!
The Batcave was too big to wrap, so we hid it in our shower and put a note in his card from us that he had to go look for one more gift. He was very excited to get the Batcave--that was the main thing he asked for.
Here he is with all the loot--in addition to the things mentioned above, he got a pinwheel, some small plastic dinosaurs, some plastic garden shovel & trowel sets (he loves to "help" me weed), and a new doodle pad (he has completely used up his last one). Honestly, I think we could have got him just about anything and he would have been happy. Kids are so easy to please at this age--something I really appreciate now that I have picky teenagers!
That morning we had a ward service project / activity. Scott represented our family at the first part of the service project, which was doing yard work at the church. (The rest of us weren't ready to go yet.) Then we all went to the park where I helped do some more weeding and then there was a picnic. It was not quite as humid as it was on Saturday, but it was very hot--in the high 90's--so we tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. Seth had a great time playing on the playground (the heat didn't bother him) and the older boys hanging out with friends. Frank helped a little bit with the cooking, under strict orders from me to sit down often and not to over do it. He was careful, but he admitted later that he must have done more than he should have done because he was really tired and hurting more than usual by the time we came home. We all collapsed for the rest of the day--Seth wanted pizza for his birthday dinner so we ordered that and Frank and I made his cake, but other than that we just relaxed. Here is Seth with his cake:
"I blew out the candles!"
"Looks delicious! Let's eat!"
It is hard for me to believe that Seth's birthday was only four days ago; it seems like a long time ago to me for some reason. Frank put in a full day at work on Tuesday and even did some other work for a client afterwards but it really wore him out. He worked about 6 hours on Wednesday and on Thursday he worked from home because he had a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day. We had a lot going on that day, though, so today he is very tired although he did go in to work for about 6 hours. His appointment yesterday was a follow up from his surgery and was supposed to be with the surgeon who took out his appendix although the surgeon got called into emergency surgery so his nurse checked Frank instead. Everything looks good; he is healing properly. He still has to be careful and can't lift anything over 10 pounds or exercise for the next 6 weeks but after that he should be competely back to normal. The report came back from pathology and they said that his appendix definitely needed to come out (no surprise); it was still in the beginning stages of appendicitis but would have continued to get worse. Why his appendix hovered in the beginnig stages for nearly a week is a mystery, but I'm just glad they figured out what the problem was before it burst. On his way into his appointment he happened to run into another member of our ward who asked him if he could help give a blessing (to yet another member of our ward) so after his appointment he was able to do that.
The rest of the week was busy for all of us. I had a presidency meeting and book club on Tuesday which pretty much took up the whole day for me. Scott didn't have anything that day but he had graduation practice on Wednesday and an awards ceremony yesterday. He had another graduation practice today (all three events were mandatory if he wanted to participate in the graduation ceremony). Getting home from that practice turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. They finished practice right around the time as the high school's normal dismissal time. At the same time, however, a tornado warning was issued for our county so they sent all the kids to classrooms and would not allow anyone to leave until the warning was lifted. Meanwhile, Tanner had already called me from his classroom a few minutes before dismissal to ask me to pick him up because it was raining so hard. I said I would pick him up and told him to stay at the school until I got there but he decided to leave right at dismissal, thinking that I would already be at the school by then. He managed to get out of the school right before the tornado warning was issued and I met him while I was driving over to pick him up, a few blocks from the school. He was soaked to the skin! Seth and I were also pretty wet--we got quite soaked in the run from the house to the car because the rain was really coming down. Driving over to the school was like driving through solid water, almost! After I picked Tanner up, I called Scott and that's when I found out about the tornado warning (except Scott thought it was only a watch) and the fact that Scott was stuck at the school. I decided to take Tanner home so he could dry out and then head back to the school to get Scott--I expected the warning to be lifted soon because it was starting to clear up. It took longer than I thought, though, so I ended up sitting in the car outside the school waiting for about half an hour, along with probably a hundred or so other parents. I couldn't help wondering how much sense this really made, leaving hundreds of parents stranded outside in their cars during a tornado warning--really safe!! Our carpool guy had the same problem over at Jared's school, stuck in the car line with a lot of other parents. Well, the lock down plan probably works well enough most of the time--just not when the lock down happens to coincide with dismissal.
Anyway, back to earlier this week. On Wednesday night we had a combined YM / YW activity where the boys made dinner for and served the girls. It was to help them to learn about etiquette and respecting women. The YW president and her husband did a skit where they pretended to be on a date and they exhibited all the things not to do then we discussed what was wrong. It was pretty funny. It was nice that I didn't have to help with any of the planning for this activity although the evening before Jared just casually mentioned that he had to bring a bottle of salad dressing which prompted me to ask the other two boys what they were supposed to bring. Tanner had to bring a salad and Scott had to bring a loaf of garlic bread. Good thing I asked...and I was grateful that I found out the night before I went to the store instead of right after.
Yesterday was also rather crazy. Jared had a special field trip for just the 8th graders--they went to a new museum down in Washington DC called The Newseum (all about broadcasting important events) and then they had a nice (late) lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. He had to be at the school at 7:45 so I made two trips to the school that morning--one with Jared and the other with Seth and Javy. Jared was supposed to get back at 5:00 but they were late so it was closer to 6:00. Meanwhile, we had planned to go to the senior awards ceremony, followed by the parent / senior picnic. We planned to leave Seth with Tanner to go to the awards ceremony but there was a miscommunication with Tanner; he actually was helping with the lighting and sound for the ceremony so he didn't come home from school like we thought he was going to do. Of course this was also the day he forgot to take his phone with him so we couldn't get in touch with him. I also messed up and scheduled Snickers for a grooming appointment that day and had to pick him up shortly before the awards ceremony was supposed to start. So the end result is that we ended up arriving at the ceremony about a half hour late, with Seth in tow. (Thankfully the kids handing out programs at the door happened to know Tanner and told me where he was so we weren't worried about him anymore at least.) We had to sit on the very back row of the balcony where we could barely see and Seth was bored silly through the entire thing which wasn't fun for any of us. I did enjoy the video they showed at the end with pictures of all the seniors. I was glad Scott was in a few pictures that others had sent in since the week we were supposed to send them in was the week Frank had his appendix out and I never had a chance to send any in myself. Here are a few pictures I took right after the awards ceremony:
Doesn't he look handsome?
Scott with some friends
By the way, Scott got a Maryland Scholar award (but lots of people get that so it wasn't even announced, just on the program.) They also did the typical "most likely to suceed / cutest couple / etc." thing and Scott was second runner up for "Most Likely to Brighten Up Your Day", which I think is something to really be proud of!
After the awards ceremony, Frank found Tanner in the sound booth and quickly took he and Seth home. While he did that, Scott and I went to get food--I knew Jared was going to be calling any moment to be picked up from his school so I wanted to eat first. I had just finished filling my plate when he texted that he was only a few minutes away from his school, so I called Frank and arranged to meet him out front. He went in to get his food and I took my plate with me and ate it on the way to pick up Jared. The picnic was catered by a local (very expensive) restaurant and we paid $17 for each of us (Scott was free) so we wanted to make sure we got our food! The food was very good, but not worth $17 a plate, in my opinion. But maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I was sitting at a table savoring it instead of wolfing it down while driving.
I think I mostly covered the events of today. Before all the rain started, Jared had a trip to a park with all the 8th graders to relax and have some dessert. We had the missionaries over for dinner, which fortunately coincided with a break in the storms. We don't have another tornado warning, thankfully, but it is certainly raining very hard again and we do have flash flood warnings. Scott is working tonight--he's doing sound and lights for some sort of religious revival type event. He is finding it to be quite an eye opening experience--he and I have been having a conversation via text messages about some of the things that are happening. For example: "Wow, now they are asking for money and they are actually passing around little baskets to collect it." Me: "Yep. Welcome to the world of churches with paid leaders and no tithing!"
Until next week, then...unless we wash away!
2 comments:
crazy storm cloud!
and congrats scott!
wow sounds like crazy weather! I am glad you are all alright! Fun to catch up on your happenings!
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