Weekly Review August 10 '12

We are back to having everyone healthy around here, which is nice.  Frank did not feel well at all on Saturday or Sunday so he tried to take it easy and he stayed home from church.  That seemed to help, though--by Monday he was well enough to go to work although he still wasn't 100%.  It was a fairly quiet weekend; I don't remember what we did.  I know I kept busy but it must have been just keeping up with the regular chores and taking care of Frank.  I was still trying to take it easy myself although thankfully I was feeling a lot better by then. 

Monday morning I was up and going early because I had a lot to do.  I bought groceries and got the boys started on laundry and vacuuming before taking Seth to his annual check up at 10:30.  That went well; he charmed the doctor and her nurse with his friendly, talkative manners.  He is 47" tall now and 48 pounds.  After I got Seth back home I left the boys in charge for the rest of the day while I went off to play--I had a "girls day" with my friend Jeanine.  We were actually celebrating her birthday a day early; it was her wish to go to visit Annapolis together and I was more than happy to comply.  Annapolis, if you are not aware, is the capital of Maryland.  It is also the home of the US Naval Academy.  It's a very picturesque little city located on the Chesapeake Bay.  I took a ton of pictures and the whole day I kept thinking about what amazing pictures Anna would have taken of this place!  (I've gotta get you out here sometime, Anna.)  Anyway, we had a really fun day.  The first thing we did was walk down this long street full of cute little shops and restaurants, on our way to the water front:  

Once we got there, we went on a boat tour of Annapolis.  It felt really great to be out on the water with the wind in our faces; it was actually a rather warm and humid day.

 How would you like to live in one of those houses?  I would love it!

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, from a distance.

Annapolis from the Bay (it looks a lot more impressive in real life)

Coming back in--you can see the Capital Building's dome in the middle of the skyline.

Annapolis water front

After we got off the boat, we walked over to the Naval Academy.  We've both been through the museum already but Jeanine was hoping to see the inside of the chapel.  She's tried to see it several times but it's always been closed.  So we walked across the campus.  On the way we passed the officers' quarters:

 Nice houses!  We always thought "quarters" meant a samll space.  Not in this case, apparently.  It was a beautiful tree-lined street with gracious (but identical) old houses.  I loved the flags and bunting!  We also passed the head dude's house (can't remember his title--Admiral maybe?):

Not too shabby!  We saw a whole ton of cadets marching by, singing a song about bubbles in unison:

Then we finally made it to the chapel.  The sign outside said it closed at 16:00 and it was 4:00 right when we got there, but we decided to try the door and it was not locked.  So we went in and Jeanine finally got to see the inside of the chapel.  I'd never seen it either, so I was happy too.  We got to walk around for a few minutes and take pictures before we heard a clock striking 4:00 and a guy came upstairs and apologetically told us we'd have to leave.  We were just glad we got to see it at all; isn't it beautiful?:

 We went back outside and walked across the campus a little more.  Here's Jeanine by the water:

This is the chapel from the outside.

After that, we walked back into the city, passing many beautiful historic houses like this:

And this:

Until we got to "Federal Circle", a beautiful brick street the circles around the Capital Building, Governor's Mansion, and other government buildings:

Maryland State Capital Building.  Jeanine's comment was "Here's where our state lawmakers ruin our lives."  (Sadly true; they are mostly Democrats.)

Here's the Governor's Mansion.  There was a big wrought iron fence all around it, but we put our cameras through the bars to get some pictures.  After that, we walked back down the street full of shops, only this time we stopped at several stores, looking for a shirt for Jeanine's son Joey.
 

(You can sort of see the water at the end of the street.  Much easier to see in real life than in the picture.)  I acquired some postcards and a Christmas tree ornament.  The shops all had fun window displays like this:

We went down one side of the street, and then we stopped at a restaurant for dinner.  Then we went back up the other side and finally found a t-shirt for Joey.  After that, we walked back down to the water front to sit by the water and enjoy the peace for a while before heading back to the car.  The sun was setting as we walked back:

It was just a great, relaxing day and we had a lot of fun.  Jeanine will be moving out west soon so we won't have many more chances to spend time together.

The rest of the week was mostly the usual stuff so I won't write about it in detail.  I started exercising again and I started going through files, trying to get them organized better.  I still have a long way to go before I get that project done.  Wednesday evening we had a water activity for YW and I got very wet.  We had some games planned that used water guns but of course by the end of the evening it had turned into just a big water fight!  It was fun, though.  Jared had Freshman Orientation at the high school Thursday morning.  I just dropped him off for that; I've been to it two times already and didn't feel like I needed to go again.  Thursday evening all of us (except Scott; he went to Institute instead) went to the Eagle Court of Honor for Jeanine's son, Kalvin.  Today Scott took Allie to an Orioles baseball game--they won't be home until late.  It is "Mormon Family Night" so the tickets were quite inexpensive. 

I did a lot of reading this week also.  I finished the book for book club--The Robe.  I read it in high school but didn't remember much about it except that I liked it.  It's not a quick read but it is worth it because it's a really great story.  I also read a book called Mansfield Park Revisited, which is a sequel to the Jane Austen book, but written by Joan Aiken.  Apparently, Joan Aiken wrote a number of Jane Austen sequels and now I'm reading another one called Eliza's Daughter, which is a sequel to Sense & Sensiblilty, although I haven't figured out how it's related yet.  I enjoyed the Mansfield book; it was an entertaining read although I'm not sure I liked the ending.  In addition, I've also started reading a book that Amy recommended called Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking.  As she told me, it is quite fascinating.  It's giving me a lot of things to think about, and reminding me of a lot of childhood memories, such as my 1st grade teacher getting mad at me for not "speaking up".  In spite of the sometimes unpleasant memories it's conjuring up, I am enjoying the book a lot.

Another project we started this week is an overhaul of the boys' rooms.  To my great surprise, Tanner has decided he would like to have Jared move into his room with him when Scott leaves for college (Tanner has complained more than once over the years that he's never had his own room) and Jared would like to move in with him (also a surprise) so that means we have a lot of rearranging to do.  Seth is growing out of his toddler bed, so we are going to move Jared's bunk bed into Seth's room.  Seth can sleep on the bottom bunk and when Scott is home, he can sleep on the top bunk.  That leaves Jared's room empty, except for Scott's boxed up things.  So now we are in the process of going through everyone's stuff, getting rid of everything they don't need or want anymore and when that is done we will start moving furniture around and move Scott's stuff upstairs and Jared's stuff downstairs.  It's going to be quite a job, but I hope in the end we will have streamlined their possessions quite a bit and will have cleaner, more organized rooms.  On a happy note, we already found Tanner's missing scout shirt!  And we have at least 3 large bags of give away stuff already, so we're making progress. 

I am feeling a little freaked out that school starts in less than 3 weeks.  Frank took the boys to buy backpacks at Costco today.  While there, they ended up buying Scott's laptop for college.  Frank's been researching possibilities for the last few weeks and he had it narrowed down to a few choices.  Then while they were at Costco he saw one that was even better and it was on sale for a lower price than the others, so he went ahead and bought it.  Scott is pretty jazzed about it, of course.  That's one less thing I have to do, but we still have school supply shopping and clothes shopping to do, as well as getting all the things that Scott is going to need for his apartment.  It's going to be busy!