Weekly Review December 14 '12

I'm starting this week's post a lot later than I usually do, so I'll try to keep it brief.

 

First of all, I can't believe I forgot to mention last week that Tanner was ordained a priest on Sunday (the 2nd).  My memory is going I guess...by the end of the week, I can't remember what happened at the beginning of the week.

 

Last Saturday we had a lot going on.  Besides the usual early morning walk and cleaning the kitchen floor, Seth had a birthday party to attend, Jared was invited to dinner & a movie with some friends from his old school, Tanner was gone all day with 3 performances of Little Mermaid, and I took Seth to Museums by Candlelight (an annual Frederick County event).  We didn't have a lot of time, so we only visited two places.  First we went to a place in Thurmont, Maryland (home of Camp David) called Catoctin Furnace.  There was a big iron foundry there a long time ago.  We visited a little cabin that is still standing--some of the workers' families used to live there.  Unfortunately, I totally forgot to pull out the camera and take pictures.  Seth was actually pretty interested in this little house and he asked lots of questions.  We were the only visitors while we were there, so we got undivided attention from the workers.  There wasn't a lot to do, though, so we didn't stay very long.  The second place we went was Rose Hill Manor, which is right next to the boys' high school.  It's a large historic mansion.  Besides the house itself, they also have a carriage museum full of old carriages, surreys, carts...you name it!  It's really very interesting.  When we walked toward the carriage museum we were greeted by Father Christmas.  Seth's eyes got really big when he saw him!  But then he thought about it and informed me that he couldn't be the real Santa Claus because no one can see the real Santa.  Father Christmas was nice, though, and he let us sit in his sleigh and agreed to be in our picture: 

 

(There were several old sleighs in the museum, too.)  After looking at the carriages, we went to the main house:

It's a beautiful old house with period furnishings, very interesting.  Seth was a lot more interested in this house than I would have expected him to be also.  He liked the toy room the best, though, and enjoyed playing with a marble toy for a while:

This has been a fun family tradition to visit a few museums every year.  Eventually, I will have been to them all! (I've already been to Rose Hill Manor a couple of times, but it is geared more toward children than a lot of the museums so we end up going there more often.)

I can't think of anything remarkable about Sunday (I'm probably forgetting something important again!)  I had a class presidency meeting as well as choir practice after church, and we had family night that evening.

The rest of the week has been extremely busy between all the usual things that need to be done and the extra preparations for Christmas.  I will not bore you with a blow-by-blow account, though!  I did a lot of shopping--went nearly every day for an hour or two at least--and I am almost done with all the Christmas stuff now.  We have another family coming over for Christmas Eve dinner this year and I've been wanting to get a few things like napkin rings and candlesticks so I was looking for those too.  It was suprisingly difficult to find what I wanted, so that added a lot to my shopping time but I have almost everything I was looking for now. 

Besides all the shopping, we had tithing settlement (Tuesday), I worked on pledge drive stuff for a morning and the boys had a two hour early dismissal (Wednesday), the boys and I had dentist appointments (Thursday), and Frank and I went on a date (this evening).  For our date, we went to see Breaking Dawn part 2 (enjoyed it) and had some dinner at a Mediterranean place; it was good. 

For YM / YW this week we met with another ward at the stake center to work on decorations for the New Year's Eve dance, because it is our turn to be in charge of decorations.  We made a ton of paper snowflakes--I actually really enjoyed it; I'd forgotten how fun it can be to make those!  I met Tanner's friend Alivia (the one he went out with last week) because she's in that ward.  She is a really cute girl.  We I introduced myself, she said "you have a great kid!"

Last night we did our annual 12 Days of Christmas service project.  The family we wanted to do this year lives pretty far away so instead of driving out there every night for 12 nights straight, we wrapped everything up and put them all in a large box and dropped the whole box off.  I spent quite a bit of time doing the wrapping on Monday.  Tanner and Jared did the actual delivery (Frank drove them over) and thankfully they didn't get caught.

Frank was doing maintenance for all his clients this week so he's been really busy with that.  I am teaching this Sunday so I've been trying to get my lesson prepared.  I tried some new recipes this week and was very pleased with the results--everyone liked them!  They are from a book I got at the library and I wouldn't say they are completely "low fat" but they are definitely "lower fat" than I am used to cooking so I'm excited that they actually taste good.  They were fast and easy too.  Definitely going to try some more recipes from that book this week. 

I have started reading the Magic Tree House books with Seth.  We try to read a chapter or two every night.  (Except the last several nights he has wanted to play a game of "Fish" instead.  So we've been doing that.  He has gotten really good at the game and has beaten me several times.)  We are in the fourth Magic Tree House book now.  It's been fun to read those together!  Seth is reading really well, by the way.  He brings readers home from school and he is zipping right through them.

Today I've been sad about the elementary school shooting in Connecticut.  It breaks my heart to think of all those families who have lost children!  (And the adults' families too of course.)  It's especially tragic that it happened right before Christmas.  I just can't imagine how horrible that would be.  I'm grateful that all of my kids had a normal day at school and came home safely.  You just never know, I guess.

It's been much colder this week than last week but still not too bad.  The last couple of days we've definitely had a temperature drop.  I'll finish up with some photos of a beautiful sunset we had a few days ago:
 

 

We are looking forward to having Scott home in just a few more days!