Weekly Review July 20 '12

Let's get the bad news over with first--our insurance company decided to total the Prius after all.  We got a call about it this morning.  We are not happy about it, but I guess we'll deal with it.  Just bummed that we're going to have to find a replacement that is probably going to cost more than the insurance is giving us, which means we are no longer 3 months away from not having a car payment.  But we know there are worse things!

We've had another busy week (what week isn't?).  Scott spent most of Saturday taking the driver improvement course.  Seth went to a birthday party for his friend Tyler--had a great time!  Tanner went to a dance that evening.  My friend Jeanine came over for a lot of the day--we ran errands, including getting our boys ready for Trek--and she and her son Kalvin stayed for dinner. 

Sunday I taught in YW and went to choir.  The day went by really fast--not quite sure where it all went!  I talked to Hans; we had things to discuss since he is coming to visit us.  (They will be here tomorrow--we're excited!)

Monday morning I had a presidency meeting over the phone.  Scott worked that afternoon.  The rest of the day was very busy, but not doing anything that you will want to read about--just errands and house work.  We got donuts for family night and the boys played Mario Kart.  I opted out because I had a bad headache and was feeling a bit nauseous--thankfully, that went away around bedtime and I've been fine since.

The three youngest boys and I went to the Koettings' house on Tuesday.  Jeanine and I visited while she packed some boxes (she knows they'll be moving sometime soon) and the boys played games.  Scott didn't go with us because he had a river rafting trip with the young single adults.  He was gone all day and didn't get home until late because after rafting they went out to eat and then he was trying to help his friend Allie get home because her car was having problems.  We agreed to let him follow her home, but they didn't get very far before her car died completely.  Frank went over to help them move the car out of traffic and stayed with them until Allie's dad arrived and they determined that the car was going to have to be towed.  Jared had gone with Scott, so it was a late night for all of us.  (I stayed up waiting for them and worked on Jared's quilt while I waited and Tanner was spending the night with his friend Seth and so he was doubtless up late as well.) 

We were busy on Wednesday with the usual household chores.  In addition, I worked on some cleaning / organizing in the laundry room and took Scott & Tanner to get their eyes checked.  Our new eye insurance is very good, thankfully, which helps out a lot.  They both need new glasses as well as contact lenses.  They ordered their glasses and we go back next week for a a follow up on the trial contact lenses they gave them.  That evening we cleaned out my car's trunk, which included a trip to Goodwill.  I knew I needed the space to transport Trek equipment the next morning.  It is nice to have my trunk space back!  The older boys did not have YM that night, but Jared did have a meeting at the scoutmaster's house to get all his scout stuff updated.  He's ready for his board of review for his 1st Class now.  We tried to get to bed early, but were only slightly successful.

We had to be at the church at 5:15 in the morning for Trek.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 3:00 am and never went back to sleep.  We made it to the church on time and everyone was pretty prompt so we were able to get on the road pretty quickly.  I had a carful of boys.  Here is a picture of most of the group, ready to go:  

It's not a great picture because it was still pretty dark, but you get the idea!  The kids actually looked really great.  Tanner is in the front row (kneeling) on the far left of the picture.  Scott isn't in the picture because he was in the car sulking.  He woke up in a bad mood and wasn't really enthusiastic about going on the Trek.  He cheered up a bit in the car on the way over, but he still didn't go into it with the best attitude.  I hope he snapped out of his bad mood at some point, because Trek is the kind of experience that you really need to have a good attitude to get something good out of it.  We drove the kids to their drop off point, which was at a camp (our stake and a number of other stakes recently purchased a camp ground) up in Pennsylvania, a little west of Gettysburg.  It's about an hour from Frederick.  When we got there, Scott reluctantly allowed me to take a picture of he and Tanner:

(That's their friend Taylor next to Tanner.)  It's not the best picture because Scott was yawning and Tanner made a silly face, but you can see how they looked in their "pioneer" clothes.  I found those shirts online and I should have gotten a size bigger.  The measurements made them sound larger than they really are, and then they shunk a bit when I washed them.  I was very careful--washed them in cold water and dried them on extra low--but they still shrunk.  I had to wash them, though, because they were quite scratchy before washing.  So anyway, their shirts are a bit on the small side.  The buckets they are holding is what they gave each youth to hold their stuff.  The bags in their hands has their bedding.  That's all they were allowed to bring.  The car seemed really quiet with just me on the way home.  I got home by 8:00.  I got household chores done, exercised, did some family search indexing, worked on personal progress and a personal history post, took Jared to meet up with some friends at a local carnival, and never got a nap!  It was a long day.  We had a very fierce thunderstorm blow in during the evening, and a lot of us parents with kids on the Trek were pretty nervous about them being out in that. It was not the kind of storm where you should be outside!  I was not all that worried about them getting hurt--I'm sure they were protected--but I was more worried that they were having a totally miserable experience.  I hope they got some sleep and that they found some way to stay at least slightly dry!  We've had more rain today, too, although no thunderstorms.  At least today the temperatures are a lot cooler than yesterday--we had a pretty high heat index yesterday.  I'll be going to pick them up tomorrow afternoon.  We are all anxious to hear about how it all went.

I don't feel like I've been very productive today.  I spent a lot of time on the budget and made lots of phone calls.  Frank is working on getting my budget spreadsheet changed so I can account for both bank accounts.  Seriously, that's all I got done--not quite sure where the day went.  I should do some more work on the laundry room tonight but I am wiped out (maybe more emotionally than physically) so I am going to watch a movie instead.  We just got a good "chick flick" from Netflix.  The laundry room isn't going anywhere, so it will still be there waiting for me when I get back to it!

Wish us luck car shopping--I hate car shopping with a fiery passion.  I'm glad Hans and Griffin are going to be here to cheer us up! :)