This week Relief Society seemed to dominate my life. We had our monthly RS meeting on Wednesday, I had presidency meeting Monday, a visit on Thursday, visited a sister in the hospital on Wednesday, did food orders on Tuesday and Thursday, and in between everything else I did a lot of apartment hunting (mostly online). It was a crazy, busy week but it feels good to be spending a lot of time doing the Lord's work, and I feel like I got a lot of worthwhile (or necessary) things accomplished, both for RS and for my family.
Back to Saturday...there was a stake service project up at Catoctin Mountain Park. Frank helped do the cooking for that and the older boys went up to help with the actual service project, which was pretty hard work--clearing brush and things like that. I didn't figure I would be much help if I had to keep an eye on Seth at the same time so I opted to stay home with him instead. I didn't lie around being lazy though--I kept busy all morning finishing up my lesson and going for a walk to get some exercise. I know I did other things too but I can't remember what now. When Frank & the boys got home they were very tired but Frank took Seth with him and went to Costco to get some things we needed while I headed down to the temple. It was really great to be in the temple again...I love the peace that washes over me as soon as I walk through the doors! While I was gone, the older boys left to go see Iron Man 3--a friend had invited them to go with him to see it. They were supposed to go to the 7:30 or 8:00 showing but couldn't get into those so they ended up going to the 9:40 showing. Too bad they forgot to call and tell us that...I started texting them around 10:30 to find out why they weren't home yet and found out that the movie wasn't over. We all ended up being up very late, which Frank and I weren't too thrilled about.
Sunday we got to church about 20 minutes early because I needed to put a few visiting teaching changes into the computer before church started. When we were pulling into the parking lot, Frank turned to me and asked "There is church today, right?" I was wondering the same thing...there were maybe 2 cars in the parking lot! Well, there was church...our bishop was out of town so there weren't any meetings before sacrament meeting. Most people didn't show up until about 10 minutes to 9:00. I wasn't very happy with the way my lesson turned out...I had planned to show a clip from the Worldwide Leadership Training Broadcast and then discuss it, but there were some unexpected technical difficulties which made it hard to hear it and everyone was really quiet so it was hard to get a discussion going. Oh well! I certainly got a lot out of the preparation of the lesson, and my counselor and secretary seemed to feel that it went better than I thought it had. (My other counselor was teaching combined YW that day.) I had choir after church and then Frank, Seth, and I went to an open house for a girl in our ward who went into the MTC this week. She is going to the same mission as Scott, so I'm sure they'll see each other occasionally. The open house was actually outdoors and it was sunny but a bit on the cold side...especially for me in my skirt and sandals! But it was still nice.
I found out from the Elders on Sunday evening that the people at the mission office did not want the sisters to be in the same complex with the Elders, which meant we needed to find another place for them. As a matter of fact, they wanted the sisters to be somewhere in the northern 1/3 portion of our ward boundaries if possible. I immediately knew that wouldn't be an easy task since the northern 2/3 of our ward boundaries is mostly rural. Also, once I started thinking about it I realized that there are very few apartment complexes in our ward boundaries at all. I did a lot of online searches that turned up "no results fit your search criteria". I got creative and googled property management companies and I found a few possibilities there. It took quite a bit of detective work figuring out what places were actually in our ward boundaries and whether or not they'd be suitable. I got a good laugh when I was looking up one place...it was an apartment located in the rear of a building and the address wasn't exact enough so I was actually looking at a Google maps street view to figure out where it was. I found the right place, and it was in our ward boundaries, but then I happened to notice the writing on the window in the front of the building..."Adult Video and Gift Store". Nope...that one's out! I had my secretary working on some leads as well. I finally called back the Elder in the mission office and told him I had about 7 possibilities but all of them had problems...either with the price or location. He decided to follow up on two of them that were in the best locations even though they were a little more expensive. He said he'd get back to me...so for now, I don't have to do anything else about that.
I was supposed to have visits Tuesday evening but then they all ended up being moved to later in the week or to next week so I suddenly had an evening free. I decided to take advantage of that opportunity and did some shopping for some summer clothes. I mostly just needed shirts...all the short sleeve shirts I bought last year got holes in them (I am not impressed with the quality!) and maybe some sandals. I spent longer at the store than I'd planned but I was successful in finding quite a few things that I liked and everything was on sale too. I took so long because I thought I had made up my mind on all the shirts and then on my way over to the shoe section I got distracted by a display of camisoles / layering pieces and I really need a few things like that so I ended up trying on some of those. Then I finally made it to the shoe section and found a couple of pairs of sandals. I drove home in a torrential downpour--we've had a lot of rain this week although most of it has come in the form of quick, somewhat severe storms instead of the steady downpour variety. ( It did rain for several hours in the night one night, though.) Anyway, after I got home imagine how happy I was when I discovered that one of the short sleeve light cardigans I purchased matches a floral skirt I own. I've had the skirt for about a year and never worn it because I hadn't found anything to go on top that matched. (If I'd known it was going to be that hard to find something that matched, I wouldn't have purchased the skirt in the first place.) I didn't even have the skirt in mind when I picked out the sweater...I just liked the sweater and knew I could wear it with jeans or a white skirt. Even so, at one point I almost put it back. I'm so glad I didn't! All over, a very successful trip.
Tanner and Jared are getting some new clothes too--they don't have many (if any) shorts so we ordered some shorts for them online this week. It is ridiculous to find their size in shorts or pants so I just order them online now. I had a promo code that got us a good discount, too, so that was helpful.
Tanner got to do a small job on Tuesday evening...he ran lights and sound for a band show at the high school and got paid a little bit for that. We got him signed up to take a driver's education course the first two weeks of June (the last two weeks of school). I wanted to have him take the course over the summer but between different vacation plans, youth conference, Camp Helaman, and the short summer, there were never two consecutive weeks that were free. He will have to go to the class right after school for three hours every afternoon for two weeks, which is not ideal, but they really don't do much the last two weeks of school anyway so it shouldn't be too bad.
Wednesday morning they had an event at Seth's school for parents that have kids moving up to the next grade level (ie: from Primary to Lower El, from Lower El to Upper El or from Upper El to Middle School...they don't change teachers every year, just every third year) so that the parents could visit all the classrooms of the next level up to get an idea of what teaching style / classroom environment would be best for their child. We don't get to pick our child's teacher...just make note of specific characteristics that we think are a good fit for our child. I liked all the teachers and classrooms for different reasons although I did like some better than others. I'm sure Seth will be fine no matter where he ends up, though.
For our RS Meeting Wednesday evening we had two sisters from two other wards come in to talk to us about photo organization, preservation, and display. They actually went a different direction in their presentations than I thought they would...but I thought the way they went was great. The first speaker focused mainly on how we should record the stories of miracles that often go along with our photos. The second one focused on display, but again...talked about the importance of displaying pictures of ancestors and making sure our children know who they are and know their stories. She had some good ideas of ways to display photos, too. I expected something a lot more practical and instead it was a lot more uplifting, but I liked it that way. The second sister who talked mentioned near the end of her presentation "Can't you just feel the spirit of Elijah in the room?" And she was right...I could feel it! At the beginning of the meeting we only had about 5 sisters there but there was a pretty steady stream of arrivals and by the end we had 25-30 sisters there so I was happy about that, too. My counselor who is in charge of the meetings is fantastic...I never have a minute's worry over these meetings because I know they are going to be great. All I have to do is show up. I'm very thankful for that!
Last evening Allie (Scott's girlfriend) came over for a couple of hours to visit. We made some snacks and just gabbed a lot...told her funny (sometimes embarrassing!) stories about Scott. She has her mission papers in now so we are waiting to see where--and when--she will go. I checked Scott's mission's blog last night and there were a bunch of new photos up of various meetings and trainings and I spotted Scott in a couple of the photos. There was also a picture at the top of his mission president with Elder Holland, but no explanation for the picture so I'm wondering if Elder Holland just visited his mission. Wouldn't that be cool?!
Today is going a lot faster than I would like...seems like Fridays always do. I got the budget caught up and ran a few errands. Frank is already home from work and all the boys just got home from school. Tonight there is a Silent Auction fundraiser for Seth's school--Frank and I are going to that.
Seth lost his first tooth this week. He came home all excited from school on Tuesday because he lost it at school. The school nurse sent home a note with him and gave him a tiny little box to put the tooth in. He was pretty excited to put it under his pillow, and then the tooth fairy forgot (of course!) Frank explained that it can take up to 3 days for the tooth fairy to get here. :) Thankfully, the tooth fairy remembered the next night...although not until the very early hours of the morning. I wish I could have got a picture of Seth coming out of his room with a quarter in each hand and a big smile on his face...it was priceless!
Yesterday Frank received a job offer from Xerox, the outsourcing company. He is glad about that but a little undecided about whether or not to accept it...he has applied for several more Marriott jobs and they have already contacted him for more information, which means he will probably get interviews for a lot of them. He would rather stay working for Marriott, but unfortunately he will almost certainly have to give an answer to Xerox before he knows if any of the Marriott jobs are going to work out. So we are praying about that decision. We just need to know what is going to be the best place for him. But we are very relieved and grateful that he has a job if he chooses to accept it!
We haven't made any further decisions about summer vacations yet but we are going to try to figure that out this week. I'm also trying to figure out what to do about Seth's birthday. I've decided to have a party for him this year but he has several good friends both at church and at school that he wants to invite...but that's too many to fit in our little house. I can make him limit his list, of course (that's what I always did with the older boys) but I've also been looking into ideas for an alternate location...like maybe a park or something...so that he can have a few more than he could have otherwise. Then yesterday I found out that one of the boys from school that he really, really wants to invite has a birthday on May 30th and they are planning to have his party the same day that I was planning so that's not going to work out too well. It's crossed my mind that we could combine resources with this other family and have one party together since they would want to invite a lot of the same kids...but I don't know. Seth really wants to include kids from church too. So we are going to have to figure that all out...and soon! It's only a few weeks until his birthday.
As you can tell there's a lot going on and I've had a lot on my mind lately. I had a couple of nights this week that I didn't sleep very well...not worrying, exactly, just with my mind going in a lot of different directions with all the things I need to do or figure out. I do feel like it was a quite productive week, though, and that is a good feeling.
Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful mothering souls!
Pew Year in Review 2025
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