Weekly Review November 30 '12



When I left off last week, we were still in North Carolina.  We had a delicious meal with Frank's brother James and his family on Friday evening.  We enjoyed getting to know his wife and step children a little better (they got married a year ago).  We stayed later than we should have but we were enjoying ourselves. 

 

The plan was to get on the road for home around 8:30 the next morning.  That plan got messed up when Seth woke up at 6:30, throwing up.  Lovely!  At least I happened to be in the room at the time--I had just woken up and went in to check on him--or there would have been a much bigger mess to clean up than there was.  I got him to the bathroom as fast as I could.  We debated a bit about what to do but finally decided that it would be best to try to get home as soon as possible.  Because of the delay caused by getting Seth cleaned up and trying to figure out what to do, we didn't get on the road until about 10:30.  I sat in the back next to Seth, holding a bucket.  We stopped to buy tissues, bottled water, and hand sanitizer.  Jared was a champ and sat next to me--he climbed out of the car and helped me rinse out the basin every time Seth threw up.  Lots of fun!  In spite of being sick, Seth was fairly cheerful most of the way home.  We watched the movie The Avengers (I had not seen it previously) and he fell asleep a couple of times briefly.  We were a little over half way home when Frank announced that he wasn't feeling well, pulled over, and got sick by the side of the road.  Great!  In spite of that, Frank continued to drive for a while but after another hour or so he felt worse so I took over driving and Jared (bless him) took over taking care of Seth.  Tanner's job was to keep me awake, because by then it was dark and I was feeling sleepy.  (A few minutes of driving woke me right up, though--I hate driving at night and I hate driving in unfamiliar places, and both together is just plain torture.)  I had to pull over one more time for Frank and he slept for a short period also but he insisted on driving again when we got about an hour from home because he knew how much I wasn't enjoying driving.  It took us about 9 hours to get home because of the frequent stops--I lost count around #12, but I think we stopped about 15 times. 

 

Needless to say, we were all exhausted by the time we got home.  Frank crashed in bed and Seth lay on the couch watching television while Jared & Tanner unpacked the car.  I drove out to pick up Snickers (he stayed with some ladies in our ward) and then spent the rest of the evening unpacking and getting Seth settled in bed.  I didn't get to bed until after 11:00.

 

The next morning Seth and Frank were still sick.  It was obvious that Frank was too sick to take care of Seth, so I got a ride to church for Jared & Tanner, and I stayed home with the sick ones.  Actually, I wasn't entirely sure that I wasn't going to be sick myself.  I had been feeling kind of sick off and on most of Saturday, and just kept praying that if I was going to get sick it would hold off until we got home and unpacked.  Well, it did hold off...and thankfully I never did get sick.  I was so grateful!  Frank felt pretty miserable all day Sunday and he slept a lot but Seth turned a corner around 11:00 and by evening he was keeping down food and bouncing off the walls.  I kept busy taking care of them and got our Christmas letter written too.

 

Monday was Tanner's 16th birthday.  He opened his presents very early in the morning, before Seminary (everyone except Seth was awake):  

 

He received earphones (Perry the Platypus ones) and an iTunes gift card.  His main present he received about a month ago--a "new" (to him) iPod.  Frank got a used one from eBay for him--he ordered it about the same time as he ordered Jared's and for some reason I can't comprehend, Frank gave it to him when it arrived instead of saving it for his birthday.  So I was worried his birthday would be a little boring, but he seemed to be perfectly happy.  We didn't do his cake either--we're doing that tomorrow so he can have a couple of friends over to share it, along with a pizza dinner.  We originally planned to do that on his birthday but had to move it when Seth and Frank got sick.  He got to choose something he liked for dinner and we had some cookies he likes too.

Meanwhile, Monday and Tuesday were extremely busy for me.  Besides all the usual household chores that need to be done, I was also getting caught up from our trip and I had a dinner for 60 people on Wednesday evening that I was preparing for (YW in Excellence).  I barely sat down either of those days, but I did get everything done.  Frank still didn't feel very well on Monday so he took a day off.  I kept Seth home for his "just in case" day and he was fine all day.  It was a good thing Frank was home too because I had a lot of shopping to do for the dinner and I was able to leave Seth at home with Frank while I got that done.  Seth went back to school and Frank went back to work on Tuesday.  I had a presidency meeting that morning then spent the rest of the day doing YW preparations and household chores.

Wednesday morning I got up early so I could get a triple batch of stew going in crock pots for the dinner that evening.  There was a lot of peeling and chopping of vegetables and meat to do, so it took a long time.  I had to take Seth to school before I finished.  I came home and finished up the stew, then exercised and showered.  I had to make another trip to the store because Wal-Mart was out of spoons the day before.  Jared had to be at basketball practice at 5:30.  I took over some of the food at that time, then came back to get the stew.  The dinner went well, though.  Everybody loved the stew!  Several of the girls shared what they did for value projects and I was so impressed with all of them.  One learned to make knit hats and gave them away, another made blankets, another learned to sew and made a skirt, one took a lifeguarding class (and related it to being spiritually prepared), another helped paint several rooms in her house, one made a beautiful bulletin board with quotes about what faith means to her, and one learned to play the ukelele--she played and sang a song for us.  It was really awesome!  So it was a great evening, and worth all the work.

The last couple of days have been less hectic but I still kept busy.  Tanner had a doctor appointment yesterday (just a medication check) and I took he and Seth to get haircuts.  I got all the Christmas cards ready to go and mailed them this morning.  Today I spent most of the day getting caught up on 2 weeks' worth of budget information.  We are hoping to start getting out Christmas decorations this evening. 

Right now Tanner is out on a date.  Didn't waste any time, did he?  He is going out with a girl named Alivia that he knows from our stake--she's the daughter of his "ma and pa" from Trek.  I guess they've been friends since then and when he mentioned he was turning 16 and that he wanted to celebrate by going on a date, she responded "I'd like to go out with you sometime".  How easy was that?  Anyway, I hope he has fun.

That gets you caught up on us!       

Weekly Review November 23 '12

This week has been fairly eventful.  Saturday was busy, as I predicted it would be.  Tanner was gone most of the day because there were two performances of the play he's been helping with.  Jared wanted to see the afternoon performance because a friend his age from church was performing in that one.  She was one of the understudies, and they did one understudy performance. 

 

While Tanner and Jared were busy with the play, Frank, Seth and I drove down to Washington DC to meet up with Erin, Anna, Buck and June.  It was really a beautiful day to be down there.  It was a little chilly but not too cold and the sun was shining brightly.  The sun sparkling on the water of the Potomac River and Tidal Basin really looked beautiful.  When we got there, Anna & Buck were still on a tour of the Capitol Building so we took Seth to the Museum of Natural History while we were waiting for them to finish.  He loved seeing all the dinosaur bones!

 

 

We also saw the mammal exhibit.  After that, we met up with everyone else and visited while they ate their lunch.  (We had eaten ours on the way down).  I took a few photos at lunch time: 

 



 

 

 

 

Seth talked Erin's ear off!

 

 

You probably can't tell, but that is Buck, Anna, June, and Frank having a picnic on the mall in front of the Smithsonian "castle".

 

After lunch, we all went to the Museum of American History for a little while.  We didn't have a lot of time but it was fun to see a few things and to talk a little bit with Erin, Anna, and Buck.  (June took a nap in her stroller).  Seth really liked seeing the Star Spangled Banner.  He asked to look at it again when we were on our way out.  The girls enjoyed the exhibit of First Ladies' ball gowns and White House china but that didn't interest the boys much.  We also saw one of the sunstones from the original Nauvoo temple.  After that, we had to head home.  Jared wanted to go to a dance so we had to get home in time to get him to the church for his ride.  We did just manage to get home in time to make dinner for him and then take him to the church. 

 

On Sunday after church and choir practice, we made a few things for dinner and then headed to Erin's house in Alexandria, Virginia.  We had a nice dinner with them.  Erin made yummy roast beef, potatoes, and carrots, and we brought a fruit salad, rolls, and dessert.  I intended to get more pictures of everyone but I forgot to bring my camera.  June had had a very bad night, which means everyone else did too.  So they were tired but we enjoyed visiting anyway.  We met most of Erin's roommates and her friend Dan too.  For dessert I had tried a new brownie recipe and it was a hit with everyone.  We put candles in it and sang Happy Birthday to Anna, since her birthday was the following day.  It was fun to see them (and to get to know June a little better--what a cutie!) and we hope we get to see them all again someday soon.

 

Monday and Tuesday were busy, busy getting ready for our trip to North Carolina.  We also had all the usual things that needed to be done too--things like laundry, shopping and cleaning bathrooms.  I was also doing some advanced preparation for our YW in Excellence dinner, since that is happening a few days after we get back, and we had Tanner's birthday to think about too since that's on Monday.  Frank was able to take both days off without using vacation days because of extra time he's worked on weekends.  (He did go in Monday morning for a few hours to get a few things done that needed to be done.)  With Frank home, we were able to get everything done that needed to be done and we were able to leave immediately after Seth arrived home from school on Tuesday, as planned.  We had a hotel room reserved for that night near Roanoke, Virginia--which is about half way between our house and Brevard.  It was nice to break the trip up into two manageable drives.  (Driving all night would not have been very fun.)  We enjoyed a pretty brilliant sunset that evening; the pictures I took are not very good but here they are:

 

Blurry--the car was moving.

 

Not so blurry--but with lots of obstructions; we were stopped at an intersection.

 

It was much more impressive in real life--it looked like flames in the sky.  The boys enjoyed watching movies on the way down, and I did too--I watched the second half of "Pride and Prejudice" on my computer Tuesday evening and "Thor" on Wednesday.  Tanner didn't sleep very well Tuesday night so he slept in while the rest of us showered and enjoyed the complimentary continental breakfast.  Then Tanner showered and ate while Frank and Jared packed the car back up.  We were able to get on the road by 9:30 and arrived in Brevard by 1:30.  We stopped at Sonic to get drinks--we don't have a Sonic in Frederick so the boys always want to go there when we are visiting Brevard.  We spent the afternoon and evening visiting with Frank's parents.  We made a quick trip to the grocery store and had a pizza dinner with them.  Seth liked their birds but he was afraid to hold this one himself:



 

Granny holds "Sunshine"

 



 

My turn

 



 

Now Grandpa has him

 



 

This is as close as Seth would get!

 

We are staying with Frank's sister, Dawn, so we went over to her house that evening.  We all watched the movie Brave before turning in (none of us had seen it yet).  The next day everyone was busy cooking.  There was not enough room in the kitchen for a lot of cooks, so the only thing I did to help with Thanksgiving dinner this year is to peel four carrots for the salad.  We all met at the church to eat.  There was lots of food:

 





And it was all yummy.  After dinner, we played games for most of the afternoon.  Frank enjoyed teaching everyone how to play speed Uno:

Granny taught the rest of us a homemade game called "Wahoo", similar to "Sorry!":

I played one round of that, and as luck would have it, I actually won.  After playing games, we all ate leftovers for dinner and then cleaned everything up and headed back to our homes.  Everyone else watched The Blind Side while I watched Captain America on my computer.  (Now I am finally ready to see The Avengers.  I hadn't seen any of those movies yet.)  I texted with Scott for a while--we were going to Skype him but his computer died and he forgot to take his power cord with him to Utah.   

Today we've been relaxing and doing laundry.  Tanner worked on Duty to God a little and Jared worked on his Personal Management Merit Badge too.  Dawn watches a little 3 year old girl named Emma; she and Seth have been playing a lot together and having a lot of fun.  Here they are making cookies with Dawn:

And here they are outside, sharing a snack and playing:

It's been really fun to watch them and listen to them play.  Tanner and Jared are on a bike ride now.  We are planning to visit with Frank's parents after the laundry gets done and then tonight we are having dinner at his brother's house.  We are driving back home tomorrow.  It's been a nice visit and a good Thanksgiving!  We have a lot to be thankful for.

Weekly Review November 16 '12



Saturday was a beautiful mild day, with temperatures in the 60's.  The two older boys spent the morning helping to sort food at the food bank for the annual Scouting for Food service project.  Then Tanner went to the high school to help do some work to prepare for the play they are doing this weekend.  The rest of us had a fairly relaxing day, for us--nice for a change.  Frank and I went on a walk--we walked almost 2 miles--and I also took Seth to the park for a while.  We were trying to enjoy the nice weather while we had the chance, and I'm glad we did.  We had a beautiful "soft pink" sunset that evening:

  

I finished reading my book for book club that evening also.  It was a good book.  Now I am focusing on finishing The 5000 Year Leap, which is also really good.  I wish everybody in America had read it before the election!  The results would probably have been different if they had.

Sunday I was "in charge" in YW again because the YW president was suffering from food poisoning.  She and her husband got back from a trip to Mexico late Friday night and Saturday they started feeling sick.  Her kids have been sick too, though (they didn't go on the trip), so they have some sort of stomach bug going on too.  Not fun!  The boys had a fireside that evening--explaining the stake's new missionary preparation program that's being implemented in response to the lowered age requirements for missionary service.

Sunday was also a birthday for the furry member of our family.  He got a couple of new toys and some treats.  He is four years old now: 

 

Not a great picture of Snickers, but a good one of Seth!

 

At least he's looking up this time!  New toys in front of him.

 



Monday was one of those days where nothing went the way I planned and I had to keep revising my plans from plan A to plan B to plan C!  I did manage to get everything done in the end, and I will spare you all the details of the complications in plans, other than to say that one of the things I did that wasn't planned was that I picked up the YW president's son from his school and took him home because he got sick during the day and she was still too sick to leave the house.  Our YW presidency meeting scheduled for that morning also got re-scheduled to Wednesday (and we still had it over the phone because the poor YW president was still quite sick) and I helped hang artwork at the school, which I originally hadn't planned to do and then it took longer than I thought it would too.  That gives you an idea of how the day went.  I also exercised, made lots of phone calls, did laundry, bought groceries, and vacuumed.  We had family night too.

Frank and I looked at our health benefits for next year (it was time to sign up for those) and decided to pick the plan that will go up by only about $9 week instead of our current plan, which is going to go up $30+ a week.  The new coverage is still pretty good, thankfully, we just have a higher deductible, hospital costs are covered at a lower percentage, and if we go out of network we have to pay a lot more.  So we are just hoping that no one ends up in the hospital next year (unlike this year) and that we can find an in network doctor for everything we need done.  I was dreading how much our insurance was going to go up next year, so at this point I'm just thankful that it wasn't so much.  Well, if we have insurance at all, that is.  You may remember that there is a chance Frank may get laid off next year and after a meeting he had yesterday he feels it's much more likely that he'll get laid off.  But we'll hope for the best.

Frank has been doing great at exercising lately but earlier this week he pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle or something and it has really been bothering him all week (although it's getting better the last few days).  He worked from home on both Tuesday and Wednesday because driving was painful.  I was distracted by the beautiful views out my back windows Tuesday morning, so even though I was very busy, I stopped and took some pictures:

The way the sunlight slants across the field in back is always very pretty in the mornings.  I went to the temple on Tuesday; I took my friend Susie with me.  Since Frank was at home I was able to take his car which saved a lot on gas costs.  It was a little crazy at first--I was picking up Susie at a car body shop because she hit a deer on Saturday and she had to drop her car off that morning to be fixed.  She got a call from the high school right before I picked her up because her daughter had started to throw up.  (She got someone to pick her up and take her home.) Then there was some sort of fire nearby and we had to wait for a lot of fire trucks to go by, but we finally got up the road.  Susie said it was part of the "black cloud" she is living under right now--besides all that, her husband was laid off in early September and he had blown out a tire the night before while driving down the freeway in Utah (he's out there making contacts and interviewing for jobs).  Sometimes life is hard, huh?  I'm glad that at least we could go to the temple together and feel a little bit of peace for a while!  We stopped on the way home for some lunch (I made her let me pay for it) and so we didn't get home until close to 2:30.  After getting home, I was busy the rest of the day doing all the things I normally do in the mornings, like cleaning bathrooms and making a grocery list. 

Tanner is helping with the play at the high school so he has been gone most of the week.  He's had to stay after school nearly every day to help with rehearsals and most days didn't get home until after dinner time.  Last night was the first performance; there's another one tonight and two tomorrow so we aren't going to see much of him until Sunday. 

Wednesday I had the presidency meeting I mentioned earlier; I also worked on my lesson for Sunday (it's my week to teach), got shopping done at Wal-Mart, exercised, dusted, got a few things ready for the YW activity that night, and started hemming some skirts for a friend.  (Her two daughters need them for a community children's choir that they sing in).  Jared had basketball practice at 6:00 so I took him over and got things set up for YW.  Then I read a little bit until it was time to start.  The girls had basketball practice after YW, starting at 8:00, so we were done a little earlier than usual.  Tanner was at the school late again so he missed most of YM but he got to the church in time for his 16 year old interview with the bishop.  He got a recommend so he can get his patriarchal blessing also, so hopefully he'll be doing that soon.

Yesterday was packed full, too, although not with anything very exciting.  Snickers went to the groomer, I bought food for him (I get it from the vet), I did laundry, vaccumed, bought groceries, took Jared to get a haircut (after school), and finished hemming the two skirts.  The hemming took a long time and my back was killing me by the time I got done but I did get to watch Pride and Prejudice while I worked.  (It's a version I've never seen before but that a lot of people have told me I need to see--a more recent version where Mr. Darcy is played by Colin Firth.)  I got it from Netflix and it's on two discs so I finished the first half but now I have to send back the first disc and wait for the second one to come before I can see the end. 

Today I exercised and updated the budget, as I do every Friday.  The day went by fast.  The boys are already home from school and it's time to think about dinner.  Jared and I are going to a YM / YW activity this evening--it's a "reward party" for a scripture / General Confernce challenge that we all did from early September through conference week end.  The Deacon & Beehive team won the challenge, so they get pizza; Jared is on that team since he was still a Deacon when we were doing the challenge.  Everyone else comes later for ice cream and candy bars.  (I chose to be on the Teacher & Mia Maid team, and we lost but that's ok because I know I benefited a lot spiritually from doing that challenge.) 

One morning this week (I think it was Wednesday) Seth woke up at 1:00 am.  He was disoriented and thought it was morning, so he went downstairs looking for us and then called for us when he couldn't find us.  That woke Frank up, when he called.  Seth came upstairs to our room and Frank asked me to go downstairs to turn out the light that Seth had turned on (since walking has been painful for Frank this week).  I went down and was about to turn off the light when I happened to look behind me and noticed that the front door was also wide open--he must have opened the door, too.  I went over and discovered that he had even unlocked the screen!  I'm glad I noticed that the door was open; I could easily have missed it.  Not that I think anyone would have bothered us--probably no one was even awake to notice.  I'm glad Seth called for us instead of going outside, too.  Sometimes when he wakes up in the morning he is the only one in the house because everyone else is already gone to work / school and I am out walking Snickers.  So I guess that's why he decided to look outside.  Kind of scary; I'm glad that whole incident turned out so well!  The only bad thing that happened is that I didn't go back to sleep until after 2:30 so I was tired when it was time to get up.

This morning when I went to pick up our car pool boys, one of them (Eddie) was carrying his coat.  He climbed in the car and said "this is Seth's coat".  I looked at it, and sure enough--he was right.  Seth was wearing  Eddie's coat!  They must have mixed them up in the car on the way home from school the day before.  I didn't even notice because both coats are black. 

Tomorrow we have a lot going on and people coming and going most of the day but we are hoping to take a few hours to meet up with Erin, Anna, Buck & June down in Washington DC.  Hopefully that will work out.  If not, then we are going to see them on Sunday for sure.  Now I need to go finish up my lesson for Sunday--haven't had much chance to work on it this week. 

Everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! 

Weekly Review November 9 '12

We had guests last Friday night--my friend Jeanine and two of her boys.  (Her oldest son, Joey, is Scott's age and he's attending college in Oregon.)  They had just come from cleaning their entire house after the movers finished loading the truck so they were pretty wiped out.  We visited for a while (longer than we should have) and then we all went to bed!  The pictures below were taken Saturday morning.  Jeanine & boys had to be on the road early Saturday morning so we got up pretty early for a Saturday.  

 

Jeanine, Brendan, and Kalvin

 



Jeanine & I (I'm still in my pajamas)

 

We will miss them tremendously!  I have kept in touch with Jeanine through text messages all week, though.  Frank went back to bed for a while after they left but I was wide awake by then so I cleaned out my desk, which needed it very badly.  I know we kept busy the rest of the day, but I don't remember everything we did.  Frank took the Prius to the car wash and then he & I took the Expediton to the car wash and went to the library, too.  Both cars were looking pretty bad after the storm, with leaves plastered on them and so forth.  We cleaned the kitchen floor and I started reading the next book club book.  It's called Day After Night  by Anita Diamant; it's about Jewish Holocaust survivors in Israel after the war ended.  It's an easy read and I'm enjoying it, although it's somewhat sad.  I should finish it in the next couple of days.  Frank worked for several hours--he had a bunch of things given to him Friday at work that had to be finished by Monday.  It was nice to turn the clocks back that evening and get an "extra" hour of sleep.

 

We had church as usual Sunday.  Frank had to leave right after Sacrament Meeting because he still had work to finish.   He came back to get the boys after church so I could stay for choir practice.  We had home teachers come immediately after I got home.  By the time we got through all of that, it was time for dinner and family night.  We had a lot of things to fast for this month.

 

The kids did not have school on Monday or Tuesday (this time they were scheduled days off, not weather-related).  Monday was a teacher work day and Tuesday the schools were closed for election day (many schools are used as polling places).  In church on Sunday our bishop announced that we were gathering winter clothing for storm victims in New York.  We were also asked to contribute, if we could, to the purchase of gift cards that can be used to purchase food by those who are helping with the clean up efforts, so that they don't have to buy their own food (mostly missionaries).  So Monday morning we went through closets and drawers and filled two large bags with clothing--mostly jackets and coats--to donate.  We tend to be jacket hoarders around here and have many jackets that haven't been worn in years that were being saved "just in case" we needed them.  I was pleased that everyone immediately realized that the storm victims need them much more than we do.  Our coat closet looks much neater now!

 

On Monday Tanner went to the school for a few hours to help build sets for the upcoming play.  I kept busy with laundry, vacuuming, and shopping (groceries and for a YW activity).  I also had Jared work on his Personal Management Merit Badge and looked over Duty to God with Tanner to make sure he is on target to get it completed by his birthday.  I exercised too--all of that pretty much filled up the day.  We had family night activity and treat after dinner.

 

Tuesday was busy too--I didn't feel like I got any days off, that's for sure!  We cleaned bathrooms, I made a grocery list, I went shopping for the YW activity again, and I voted.  The YW activity was a cake decorating demonstration.  We planned to have two women in the ward who are good at cake decorating do some demonstrations and then divide into teams for a cake decorating competition.  I wanted to show them some examples of cake decorating that don't require any particular skill as well, so I planned to decorate a few cakes myself that would also double as the refreshments.  So Frank helped me make two cakes that evening that I decorated the next day. 

 

Jared and Tanner have been paying a lot of attention to this presidential election (they even watched all of the debates) so we stayed up a little late to watch some of the election results.  We were all in bed before 11:00, though, and by then it was already looking pretty apparent that we weren't going to like the results.  I slept badly and then woke up at 4:00 am and never went back to sleep.  So I got up and exercised, and I'm pretty sure I didn't sit down the entire day.  My feet were killing me by the time I made it to bed!  It wasn't the best day--I was pretty depressed about the election results.  I've never felt quite that way over an election before.  Just very troubling to me that over half of my fellow Americans seem to feel that our country is going in the right direction right now, when it looks so wrong to me.  But I'm hoping for the best!  Besides the presidential election, there were many important items on the ballot for Maryland, including legalizing gay marriages, allowing more gambling, and approving new congressional district boundaries.  None of those items went the way I wanted them to, either.  With the first two, it's probably obvious why I didn't want them to pass, but the boundary changes requires a little explaining.  The problem with the new boundaries is that they were drawn so that there is a democratic majority in EVERY district.  So basically, if you are a Republican living in Maryland (like me), you now not only have no voice in who is elected president, you also have no voice in who represents you in Congress.  I hate feeling helpless!  So my new plan is that all of us Republicans living in Maryland need to move to northern Virginia, where we might tip the balance a little bit.

 

Anyway, enough moaning...at least I have the (very small) satisfaction of knowing that if our country goes disastrously downhill in the next four years that I did my part to try to stop that from happening.  Thankfully, I was pretty busy on Wednesday so didn't have too much time to stew about the state of America.  I had Wal Mart shopping to do in the morning, and then I spent all afternoon decorating cakes.  Here's the first one I made:

 

It was very easy--just a one layer round cake cut in half and frosted.  The middle of the butterfly is a twinkie, frosted.  Then add the candy and you're done!  I think it turned out really nice.

I used the other round layer cake to make this:

Also easy--this cake was also cut in half, then the two pieces put back to back and turned on their sides so the flat part of the circles were down and the round parts made the bunny's back.  Frost; add paper ears, a cotton ball in back for the tail, gumdrop eyes & nose, and licorice whip whiskers.  Isn't he cute?

The last cake I decorated took more time because the cake was quite soft so it got pretty messy when I tried to frost it.  I did a base coat first and then put it outside (covered) to get really cold before I frosted the top layer.  I thought it was a clever design, though--it started out as a rectangular cake and all I had to do was cut off a pice of each corner to make the corners rounded.  Two of the pieces I cut off were turned and put together to make the tail, and the other two corners were turned a different way to make the top fin.  Then I frosted the cake in two colors and added the peppermint patty eye, the swedish fish mouth, and the Necco wafer gills:

I was pleased with how all of them turned out.  None of these cakes were difficult, but making all three in one afternoon was a bit much!  I got two of them done before the boys came home from school but I was still working on the fish when Seth got home.  He was very excited about it and wanted to "help" me.  Which meant he wanted to eat all the frosting:

See the frosting on his chin?  He wanted to pose with the cake when it was done too:

I barely got the cakes done and dinner made, and then it was time to get over to the church to set up for the activity.  All the work was worth it, though.  We had more girls come than usual and they were very attentive while the demonstrations were going on.  One sister showed them how to do fondant and gum paste (I want to try that out sometime) and the other one showed them how to decorate with frosting (pastry bag & tips).  Then when it was time to decorate the cakes, they jumped right in and did a beautiful job, laughing and visiting while they worked.  We meant to have 3 teams but ended up having to use one of the team cakes for a demonstration so we only had two teams instead.  Here are some of the girls on one team with their finished cake:

Here's a close up of their cake:

Isn't it awesome?  I didn't get a picture of any of the girls who worked on the second cake, but here is their finished product:

Totally elegant!  They made the gum paste roses and leaves and everything; I was so impressed!  After they were done decorating, everyone enjoyed the cakes I brought.  (And not just the girls--a lot of the boys kept poking their heads in, hoping for a piece.  After I made sure all the girls had a piece, I offered cake to the boys and I think nearly every person in the building {including adults} had a piece before all was said and done.  I even had one piece left over to bring home to Frank.)  After cleaning up, I was exhausted by the time I got home and ready for bed!

I was really happy with the way this activity turned out because not only was it fun and the girls learned something new, but also a few girls who rarely come came this time and the next day I was able to take the two cakes that the girls decorated to some of the girls who haven't been coming lately and both cakes were appreciated and well received.

Thursday was full also.  I had laundry, grocery shopping, and vacuuming to do.  I also worked on Personal Progress, called a few friends to see how they're doing (one is moving and the other is unemployed), went to a parent education night at Seth's school, did the personal history post just before this one with more pictures of Mom & Dad, and (as mentioned before) delivered the cakes.  Frank worked from home yesterday and so we took a break and had a lunch date.  I tried the shrimp burrito at Baja Fresh and it was so yummy!  (It was also 700+ calories, so I only ate half of it and saved the other half for lunch today.)  At the parent education night, I learned more about the sensorial and math materials that Seth is using.  All of the adults there mentioned how much we would have liked to have the Montessori math materials to use when we were in school so that we could have understood math a lot better.  They are amazing!

Today's been a busy day too.  I purchased dye and dyed more clothespins:
 

I updated the budget, exercised, and helped with a move.  That last one is another example of "be careful what you pray for".  I've had a goal lately to do more service and to pray for opportunites to serve each day, but I don't feel I've been doing very well on it and often forget to pray for opportunities to serve.  This morning I remembered, so I prayed for an opportunity to serve and a willingness to serve even if it was inconvenient.  Well, I had just returned from dropping off Seth at school and purchasing the dye for the clothespins, and I was getting ready to dye them and start working on the budget when I checked my cell phone and noticed I had a message.  It was the RS president, trying to find a few people who could help two sisters who live in our ward who were moving to a new apartment.  The men are going to help them move all the furniture and such tomorrow, but they were anxious to move some of the things that didn't go into boxes well--such as lamps--today.  Well, I knew the clothespins and budget were going to take most of the day and was anxious to get started on that so I was really tempted to just ignore the message and then all of the sudden I remembered my morning prayer.  So then I knew I had to do it!  The RS president was thrilled to have another helper (only she and one of her counselors had been able to help) and then when I got to the sisters' apartment, they gave us all hugs and expressed thanks profusely, and kept saying how wonderful it was to have a "family" to help them.  They are fairly recent converts (joined the church about 2 years ago) and only have each other.  They reminded me how blessed I am also to have an "extended church family" wherever I go.  It only took us about an hour to move three car loads of small items over to their new place and it meant so much to them.  The funny thing is, I'm sure the men could have done it all easily tomorrow but these sisters were anxious about it and for that reason I think it was really important for us to help them today.  They needed to know that the Lord loves them, is aware of their needs & anxieties, and will send them help when they ask for it.  I felt like I learned a lot from that experience and was overly blessed for my one hour of service.

Frank has been exercising again this week and both of us are trying to eat more healthy.  I've been working on trying to educate myself more on the kinds of foods we should be eating.  I have a long way to go but I'm making a little progress.

That sums up our week.  I keep forgetting to mention that Scott has been officially hired as a member of the "tech crew" at BYU-I.  He's been working for the last two weeks.  They have a play coming up soon so apparently he is very busy with that.  We're grateful he is getting paid for some of that work!  Tanner has also been very busy with play prepartions.  Besides going in for a few hours on Monday, he also stayed after school on Wednesday and again today to work on that.

That's really it!      

My Parents, part 2--Photos

Remember the earlier personal history post that I did about my parents, and how I wished I had more pictures of them?  Well, I remedied that situation a little bit when I was out in Utah in September by scanning some photos of them.  There are many more that I would like to scan, but here is a start.  I put Dad's pictures first and then Mom's.  I tried to put them in roughly chronological order, but I had to guess and doubtless I made a lot of mistakes.  Enjoy!

 

Probably around 2 years old

 



 

 Love the shy smile (and the overalls)!

 

 

 A birthday--probably 3rd or 4th (the picture said so on the back, but I forgot to write it down)

 

 

 Little cowboy!

 

 

All dressed up

(this picture and the one before it look like they were taken in the exact same spot)

 

 

With brother Karl on a horse.  I wish I knew who the people in the background are.  I'm pretty sure the building in the background is their house.  It looks to me like a lot of the pictures I have were taken in this area behind the house.  Maybe the lighting was good there?

 

 

Young soldier

Dad was 8 years old when America entered WWII, so his late childhood years were war years.

 

 

 Much older, on a horse again.  This is definitely behind Grandma & Grandpa Pew's house.

 

Getting ready to shoot.  I scanned this photo and the previous photo because I thought my boys would think they were really cool--and I was right!

 



 

In the United States Air Force.  I believe Dad joined the air force the summer after he graduated from high school, which would have been 1951.

 

Real soldier this time!

 

 

 Still a cowboy at heart!

 

 

 With a plane...he was in the air force, after all!

 

 

Dad was a navigator.

 

I totally love this picture of Dad, taken on a visit to Copenhagen--doesn't he look sharp?!  Dad spent most of his years in the air force serving in England.  He was able to visit other parts of Europe.

  

Yes, I know it's a proof--but I thought it was a good picture!

 

Now for Mom:

 





 

 As a young baby, with her dad.  Love how he's looking at her, not the camera!

 

 

 Looking a little older, with her mom.  Mom also only has eyes for her baby girl!

 

 

 Another baby picture. 

 

As a young girl with her great-grandma, Amanda Burns Williams.

 

 

Age 3

 

As a young girl with her mom

 

Beautiful curls!

 



In a coat--maybe about 6 years old?

 



In a pretty dress--here she looks about 7 or 8 years old

 



 I love this portrait!  Mom is 10 years old in this one.

 

I believe in this one she is graduating from 8th grade.  (About 1949)

 



Mom with some girlfriends

 



I loved this one because of the giant cactus behind her!  It was taken on the Mesa Temple grounds.

 



 

With her little sister, Karen.  Mom made the dress that Karen is wearing, as well as her own.

 

 

 Here is Mom with a trophy she won for her writing.  The trophy was kept at the high school (I think it was awarded every year to a different person) and so, sadly, it was lost when the high school burned down years later.

 

Mom the editor--she was editor for her school's literary magazine.

 



With her sister in law, Marjie.  (Or maybe she was still Mom's future sister-in law at this point.  I don't know when the photo was taken.)  I love the old car behind them in this one!

 



 

Mom's senior portrait.  Beautiful!