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!!!
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