Weekly Review May 17 '13

 

Last Friday evening Frank & I went to a Silent Auction fundraiser for Seth's school.  The admission price included dinner and the dinner turned out to be really yummy so we were happy about that.  We acquired a couple of things at the auction that we are happy about.  First, we got two cute summer dresses for June:

 



 

They are handmade and I got them for a great price.  For some reason, no one else bid on them so I got them for the starting bid price.  They were kind of tucked in a corner so I'm not sure everyone saw them.  Now I just need to get my act together and get them in the mail!

 

Before we went over to the auction, we looked over the auction catalog to identify items we thought we'd want to bid on.  With Seth's birthday party problem in mind, I noticed that there were a couple of gift certificates available for a few places that do birthday parties, so I went online to investigate those places further.  One of them I really liked and it was more reasonably priced than the others, so we decided to see if we could get the gift certificate for that place.  We were successful at that too--and we got the gift certificate for less than its value so we saved a little money too.  The name of this place is Pump It Up, and it's basically a place that has a ton of huge inflatable things like bouncy castles and so forth.  The thing I liked the most about it is that they have private arenas for birthday parties, so we won't be sharing the space with a ton of other strangers.  I've never liked the idea of doing a party at a place like Chuck E. Cheese's for that reason--it's so impersonal, and even though they have lots of safety measures in place, I would still go crazy trying to keep an eye on a bunch of kids to make sure they are ok in a mob of other people.  So anyway, we got Seth's party booked.  It was even less expensive to have it on a week day than on a week end, so we decided to do it after school on his actual birthday (which is a Tuesday this year).  That avoided the problem of double-booking with his friend, too.  (Although another school friend sent out an invitation for that day and the original friend moved his party to Sunday.  That means Seth is going to the Saturday party but not the Sunday one.  Oh well!  Apparently, May is a big month for birthdays in Seth's kindergarten class.)  I feel a little lame having a party like this--which isn't that creative, really--instead of the normal parties we do which are totally unique and take a lot of thought and planning on our part.  But I know Seth will have just as much fun and I am thrilled, actually, that all I have to do is make a cake!

 

Saturday was a normal busy day with the normal things to do (clean the kitchen floor, go for a walk, work on Personal Progress...) plus a few extras.  Frank helped a family in our ward with a computer problem.  I had Tanner and Jared work on some things for Scouts.  I went through all my clothes and decided to donate a bunch.  Jared & Tanner went over to the church for several hours to have a nerf gun war with a bunch of the other young men. 

 

Sunday was Mother's Day, and I got thoroughly spoiled.  I received real flowers:

  

 And edible flowers:

 

The YW in our ward made the fruit bouquets and sold them as a fundraiser for camp.  I think they did a marvelous job!  Notice they used grapes for the flower stems and honeydew for the leaves.  As you can see, they looked great and they tasted really yummy, too.  (Good idea for a fundraiser--they are doing cakes and cheese & cracker trays for Father's Day too.)

 

The boys made breakfast for me with supervising help from Frank:

 



Along with the fruit, it was actually more than I could eat--someone else had to eat the toast!

 I also received these cards and a couple of WRAPPED gifts in PRETTY PAPER!:

(Wrapped gifts in pretty paper are a big deal because I usually receive my gifts in Wal-Mart bags.)

Then at church all the women received blue roses made out of chocolate kisses and cards with forget-me-not seeds in them.  Plus Seth made me a little paper flower where he wrote down something he loves about me on each petal, and Tanner wrote me a nice note, complete with a hand-drawn TRex on the front. (Seen on the table.)  The wrapped gifts contained the movie Les Miserables and 3 candy bars (2 of them dark chocolate).  Here I am with all the loot:

 I'm wearing the outfit I mentioned in last week's post--the sweater I just purchased with the skirt I got a year ago but had never worn.  Ok, so you can't see the skirt.  But anyway, it was really fun to have something new and spring-like to wear.  I've been wearing a black skirt almost every week for the last year!

The best thing about Mother's Day is that we got to talk to Scott for a couple of hours.  I already wrote about that to most of you, but since this blog is our family history I want to record a little about that.  He was able to Skype us, so we actually got to see him as well as talk.  It was really one of the sweetest experiences of my life to talk to my missionary son and to see how much he has grown spiritually already!  He is working hard and he is happy.  At the end of the conversation he asked to talk to just Frank and I for a few minutes.  First he thanked us in a very heartfelt way for his wonderful childhood.  Then he told us about a sweet spiritual experience he had in the MTC (actually, I had a very, very similar one when I was in the MTC) and told us how much that has changed him.  Then he thanked us profusely and tearfully for giving him the opportunity to serve a mission.  He said even the little bit he has experienced so far is so precious to him that he will be forever grateful.  I was listening to him thank us and I thought how ironic it was that he was thanking us...we actually have the means to support him on a mission because Heavenly Father has blesses US so much!  I pointed that out to him, and he agreed but still said he was thankful to us too.  It was very sweet and tender...as a parent, it doesn't get any better than that!  I've never had a better Mother's Day gift.  We fully realize how fortunate and blessed we are that are children are making such good choices.  Not everyone is so lucky.

Another fun thing that happened for Mother's Day...go check out Scott's mission's blog.  (Just google "Utah Salt Lake City South Mission"--you'll find it.)  There is a mother's day post where they took pictures of all the missionaries--either as companionships or in small groups--holding up signs that say "I love you Mom" and things like that.  Scott is in a group that is lying on a gym floor, spelling out the word "Mom" with their bodies.  He's the middle section of the second "M".  I thought that was such a wonderful idea, whoever thought of it!  There was something just so heartwarming about scrolling through all those pictures and seeing the love those missionaries have for their moms.  Totally made my day!  I'm so grateful that Scott can associate with so many other fine young men and women in this valiant army of God!  (While you are on the mission blog, check out the Riverton zone conference pictures and the 1st & 2nd transfers training pictures.  Scott is in a few of those.) 

Ok, so Mother's Day was totally awesome...moving forward, now!  I had a visit with a new sister Monday morning followed by presidency meeting.  RS was not as time consuming this week as last but it's been a little emotionally draining.  The bishop called me Tuesday evening to let me know about a major crisis with one family and my heart has been very heavy about that.  What's happening to them is life changing and extremely heart breaking so I feel very sad for them.  It's also confidential, so I can't talk to anyone about it...not even Frank or my counselors.  It will be public knowledge eventually but for now, it's very quiet.  I haven't been able to get in touch with them, but I did leave a voicemail and went by their house.  Another sister has been in closer contact with them, though, so she is keeping me posted on them.  Other RS things this week--a new family is moving in soon--supposed to be this week end but that got postponed because their moving van is not on schedule, another visit to a sister who is moving soon, and helping a third sister pack--she's trying to get her house ready to put on the market.  Her husband has already had to move on to the new job location and she's been left with a LOT of stuff to do.  One of my counselors has been over there all week helping her paint.  We are also having a "house warming painting party" for a couple in our ward who were recently married.  They are older (younger than me, but older than a lot of newlyweds--probably in their 30's) and both of them own a house.  They are currently living at her house and trying to get his house painted and fixed up so they can move into it.  Then they will sell her house.  Anyway, the painting party is tomorrow.  I'm going to miss it because I'm going to be at a conference all day but my counselors and secretary have it all under control.  They actually planned the whole thing.  The only contribution that I am making is that I'm going to buy some snacks, water, and fruit for them to have for the helpers.  I need to go out and do that pretty soon.  I guess it was a pretty busy RS week after all, after writing all of that!

Other than all of that, I did all the normal cleaning / shopping etc.  On Wednesday I went to the temple and did initiatories.  The traffic didn't cooperate and I just barely missed the 10:00 session.  It was very nice to be in the temple again.  I also finished up the tax return for the business and got that mailed in.  Big sigh of relief!  I made a list of the all the projects we need to do around the house.  It's a formidable list but we are going to pick one thing at a time to do and hopefully we'll get through the whole list in a year or two!  (By then I'm sure there will be new things to do.)

Wednesday evening the boys had a combined YM / YW activity where they were taught dancing--ballroom dancing swing dancing, cha-cha, and tango.  They had a special award for the top three couples who participated the most, showed the most interest, and were the most enthusiastic.  Jared and his partner won first prize.   That actually didn't surprise me much since Jared is a good sport and game to try new things...plus the partner he had is a good dancer and also a very enthusiastic person!  I suspect there is a bit of a mutual crush between him and his partner, by the way.  If so, I can't say I blame him...she is a cute, talented and vivacious girl.  I like her a lot.

Last night I had Jared & Tanner watch a City of Frederick Mayor & Board of Aldermen Meeting.  They needed to do that to pass off a requirement for the Communications Merit Badge.  Unfortunately, they didn't really discuss any issues at this particular meeting.  The boys were supposed to take notes on an issue where different view points were discussed and then give a report to their counselor on each view point that was expressed.  There really wasn't any good material for that in this meeting, so I guess they will have to go to another one sometime.  At least they were able to watch it on a cable channel instead of attending the actual meeting.  Originally, I was going to take them to the meeting until I found out it was available on cable.  I was able to read to Seth and get some other things done while the boys watched.  

We did book some plane tickets for Utah this week also.  So now we are coming, no matter what! :)  The boys and I are flying out on August 1st.  Frank will fly out the 8th and then we will all fly home together on August 14th.  We're very excited to see all of you! :) :) :)

Our other vacation plans are now all messed up, though.  We were hoping to attend the Bracken family reunion (Frank's mom's family) in Florida on July 6th but when he asked for the days off he was told that since the transition from his current company to the outsourcing company occurs on June 28th, no vacation time will be granted for the 2 weeks following that date.  (Or the two weeks before, either--which is actually half of our summer.)  I am really, really annoyed with the lack of foresight--if they didn't want anyone to take vacation for two weeks after the transition, why did they plan the transition for the week before a major national holiday?!  I'm sure we are not the only ones who aren't happy about that.  As a matter of fact, Frank was told that all vacation time would be cancelled--which means people who already asked for time off and made plans are now going to be told they can't have those days off after all.  At least we didn't do that--that would be even worse!  I actually think they are going to have a bit of an uprising on their hands.  What about people who purchased plane tickets already?  For us, we are just really disappointed.  We haven't been able to attend this reunion for 6 years because it always conflicted with scout camp.  This is the first year we haven't had that conflict and we were really looking forward to seeing everybody again.  The boys are particularly disappointed because we were probably going to take them to Disney World for a few days while we were down there.  But what can we do?  It could be worse--getting laid off would be worse!  At least Frank will still have a job--we think, anyway.

I sound uncertain because there have been a lot of issues going on with the transition this week.  Frank received a verbal offer from the outsourcing company last Thursday and was told he needed to accept by Monday.  Then on Friday he received a written offer and was told he had 7 days to respond to it.  He held off, hoping to hear about some of the internal jobs he'd applied for in the meantime.  After reading the written offer, he had a lot of concerns.  Some of the things in the letter, coupled with the questions he was asked in the interview, led him to believe that the outsourcing company might have plans to hire him just long enough for him to train a replacement and then they'd lay him off.  He talked with some of the other members of his team who had also received offers, and they all felt the same way.  He spoke to his boss about it as well.  The bottom line is, so many people had concerns that a meeting took place yesterday between a bunch of the higher ups in both his current company and the outsourcing company which apparently...rumor has it...turned into a shouting match and his current company's executives told the outsourcing company executives that they'd better fix things fast or the whole deal was off.  That's all hearsay at this point.  Frank and his co-workers were told, however, that new written offers will be coming to them soon and that they should not accept the first written offer.  So that's where things stand right now.  Who knows how it's all going to pan out?  And who needs all this drama?  The whole thing is starting to look like a huge mistake to me.  But if my husband comes out of it with a decent job, I will not complain. 

I'm sure that's all information that should not be shared with the world at large, by the way, which is why I didn't name any companies by name.  (Sorry it made my sentences so awkward, though.)  Nobody outside of family reads this blog, but if someone googled the two companies in question seeking more information, they might accidentally stumble across my blog.  So I'm just being safe.

That's about it for this week.