Weekly Review July 26 '13

Why is Frank wearing this incredibly ugly tie?  It's because Scott sent it to him.  If you can't tell from the picture, it has computers and computer discs on it.  Scott said in the note on the package that he didn't expect Frank to wear it, he just thought he'd get a kick out of it.  I didn't think he'd wear it either, but he surprised me and wore it to church on Sunday.  I took a picture so I could send it to Scott.

The other thing Scott sent in the same package was a Book of Mormon for Seth.  Scott was supposed to read the whole Book of Mormon in his first few months and mark particular things, so he did that. When he finished it, he wrote a letter in the front for Seth, telling him what it means to him.  I think it is sweet that he did that and I'm sure the older Seth gets the more that copy of the Book of Mormon will mean to him.

We've kept pretty busy this week.  Frank has been super busy--we hardly see him.  Saturday he was working at a client's office for a good part of the day--it was a long drive there and back, too.  I think we are all ready for a vacation!  While Frank was gone, the boys helped me with some house work.  In the afternoon I got my hair cut.  That evening I went to a baptism--it was for an 18 year old girl so I was there to do the official Relief Society welcome.  That's the second time I've been able to do that for a convert baptism in the last 6 months--pretty cool!  After the baptism I went straight over to meet some friends at a frozen yogurt place.  It was a "reunion" for the Primary presidency I served in as president--the girl who served as my secretary just got a job in Utah so she's moving soon.  It was our last chance for the four of us to get together before she's gone.  We had a nice visit although not as long a visit as we would have liked.

Meanwhile, Jared went to a party for kids from his former school.  It was about half and hour away and poor Frank made the drive there and back to take him and then pick him up. 

On Sunday Jared and I sang 2 songs with the choir.  Now we are on "summer break"--we don't have practice again until after Labor Day.  It was nice to come home from church and know that we didn't need to go out again that evening, although I do enjoy the practices.  Frank had an emergency with a client so he was on the phone for a lot of the afternoon and evening.  We had a large thunderstorm that night.

We are at the point in the summer when I am getting impatient with kids because they want to sit around and do nothing all the time.  Getting them to do anything is like pulling teeth!  I spent Monday and Tuesday wrestling with Tanner and Jared, trying to get them to do all the things they needed to do to prepare for their camp out, as well as get them to finish up some of their scout stuff and some of their summer homework.  I wasn't entirely successful, but hopefully we got a few worthwhile things done.  We also got basic housework done and I did a food order and prepared for a RS presidency meeting.  I wasn't feeling really great on Tuesday--I had a headache and a slight sore throat--so I spent a good part of the afternoon lying down and reading.  After Frank got home, he went with me to Wal-Mart to get some shopping done, including a few things the boys needed for their camp out and school supplies for Seth.  Yes, I actually bought school supplies in July!  It was killing me but I didn't want to put it off until after we get back from vacation--there will only be a few days until school starts when we get back.

I stayed up late on Tuesday reading because I was trying to get the book for book chat done in time.  It was a 647 page book and I just started it late last week so I had a lot of reading to do this week.  The book was really good (The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins).  I was feeling motivated to get it done before book chat because it was sort of a mystery and it would be impossible to discuss with people who had finished the book without them giving away important information.  Book chat was on Thursday, and I did finish the book in time--but I stayed up until nearly 2:00 am Thursday morning finishing it!  As I said, it is a really good book, though.  I enjoyed it a lot.

Anyway, back to Wednesday--the boys had to meet at 2:00 at the church for Camp Helaman.  As usual, the leaders weren't very organized and we all had to wait around nearly and hour before their were leaders there.  (I tried not to be annoyed.)  They were still packing things into vehicles when I left, so who knows when they finally got on the road!  I did talk to Tanner by text last night so I know they got up there eventually!  According to the schedule (there was a very impressive, detailed schedule prepared by the stake leaders) Tanner and Jared did caving and rock climbing yesterday and water skiing and hiking today.  Tomorrow they are doing a service project at the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania.  (The whole camp out has been in Pennsylvania, actually.)  They have had devotionals every morning and firesides every night.  I hope it has been uplifting for them as well as fun.  And I'm glad to know that for at least three days this summer, they didn't sit around all day! :)  They'll be back around dinner time tomorrow.  They hit the jackpot on the weather this week.  Last week was horribly hot and humid and all the kids and leaders at scout camp and girls' camp last week really suffered.  This week has been sunny and dry, with highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's along with an occasional pleasant breeze--really perfect!   

I had a presidency meeting Wednesday evening. Seth came with me because Frank ended up going down to help a client--another emergency!  He came by and picked Seth up about halfway through our meeting (around 8:00).  Seth played very nicely with some of the toys we borrowed from the nursery, so he was not a problem at all.  Thursday I enjoyed book chat.  I had more house work to do than usual since the boys weren't here to help. 

Today I did my usual Friday update of the budget.  My visiting teachers came to visit me, which was nice--I haven't been visited in my home by both visiting teachers in a long time.  Seth had a playdate at his friend Liam's house this afternoon.  After we picked him up from Liam's house, we went out to dinner.  Now we are getting ready to take him to Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone.  I'm not sure where the day went.

Wish us luck getting everything done that we need to do before getting on the plane on Thursday!  We are definitely looking forward to seeing many of you.

Weekly Review July 19 '13



Let's start out this week with the snake pictures I promised last week:

 

 



 

Jared is holding two different snakes in his pictures.  I'm holding the same snake in both of mine...it's name is Elliot.  That's because some of it's markings look like the face of ET.  I was surprised that all the kids at the park had heard of ET...it's such an old movie now!

 

So on to this week.  Saturday Frank was doing some work for a client most of the day.  I went to a baptism in the morning--there were 4 kids from our ward getting baptized and I felt the need to show support for their families, especially since at least one of the families is kind of in crisis right now.  The baptism was very nice, although it didn't go without glitches...one child didn't go under all the way the first time, two of the dads had to repeat the prayer at least once and one of the kids decided he was scared of the water and didn't want to go under.  Goodness!  (The frightened child did fine once we decided that he didn't need all of us watching him.  We all left the room and he was baptized in private.)  After the baptism, I came home and the boys and I got some housework done. 

 

Sunday morning I had Ward Council before church.  We all went to sacrament meeting in our ward (where Jared gave a talk, and did a good job--the mission president and his wife were also visiting our ward and speaking and they both complimented him) and then we left to go to Allie's ward because she was giving a talk before leaving for her mission.  She did a great job on her talk too.  We came home, Frank took the boys to give the sacrament to a ward member, we ate, took naps, and Jared and I went to choir practice.  After all that, we went out to Allie's house because she was having an open house:

 She left on Monday and went into the MTC on Wednesday.  We hope she has a great mission!

Monday was busy with the usual things like grocery shopping and laundry; I also made several phone calls / sent emails to set up appointments.  Most of the day was spent with the boys, though.  My friend Jeanine's son--Kalvin--was here visiting from California and the boys wanted to get together with him, so we drove over to Westminster in the morning to pick him up and take him to lunch.  We invited the boys' friend, Taylor (who is in our ward), to join us because he and Kalvin are also friends--they met at EFY a few years ago.  Frank had gone in to work really early and was back home finishing up some work from here so he took a break and came with us to lunch at Red Robin.  The boys had a fun time.  Then we took Kalvin over to visit with another friend for about a half hour.  Rather than drive back home, I let Tanner get some practice driving around the neighborhood while Kalvin visited with his friend.  Then we came back home and all the boys played games together for a while until around dinner time when I took Kalvin to the mall to meet another friend who was giving him a ride back to Westminster.  Here's all the boys together:

(Kalvin is on the far left of the photo with Taylor next to him)

It was nice to see Kalvin again and we hope we can visit the rest of the family someday!  I think my two favorite parts of the day were listening to all the boys singing together in the back seat and noticing that they had discovered Seth's quiet book and were playing the game "Going to Heaven" which is in there--silly boys!  They actually sing really well, and they put their whole heart and soul into it! :)

I had several errands to do on Tuesday--took Jared to the orthodontist, picked up a gift for Scott from a ward member (a pillowcase made out of cool missionary fabric), took Tanner to the bank to cash a check from a job he did, picked up a prescription, and did some shopping at Costco.  Besides that, the boys and I cleaned bathrooms and I worked on RS stuff.  It was a busy day.  Tanner was leaving around 6:00 for a trip to New York City (more on that later) and Jared's friend Joseph was coming over about the same time to spend the night and the next day--his Mom was at Girls' Camp.  We got Tanner out the door on time and Joseph arrived too.

Tanner was invited by his friend Taylor (same Taylor as in the photo above) to go with his family to NYC to see a matinee of The Phantom of the Opera.  I know--so jealous, right?!  He had earned enough from a job he did that he could pay for his own ticket for the play.  Taylor's family was driving up and coming back in one day, so the only other expense was for his meals and a few subway rides.  We agreed to pay that part for him.  They were leaving very early Wednesday morning, so they had Tanner spend the night on Tuesday.  Not only that, but Taylor had also managed to win two free tickets to a Josh Groban concert so they went to that on Tuesday evening.  Then on Wednesday they got up super early and drove to NYC, arriving there around 11:00.  They had lunch at an amazing place, went to the matinee of Phantom, did a little sight seeing and shopping, had dinner, and then drove back home--arriving around 1:30 am, they said.  Crazy!  They got in so late that Tanner stayed there to sleep and didn't get home until Thursday evening, actually.  Tanner went to NYC once but he was not 2 years old yet so he doesn't remember it.  He really enjoyed the whole experience and was very impressed with NYC.  Of course, getting to see the Phantom of the Opera was a dream come true for him, too.  He texted me and told me that he cried during the overture.  We are really glad he got this great opportunity.  Hopefully next week I'll have a few photos to share--Taylor's mom said she is going to e-mail some to me.  Tanner was allowed to go on the condition that he not breath a word about it to Scott!  I told him he can tell Scott all about it AFTER he gets home from his mission.  Scott really wanted to go to New York to see a play himself (and especially Phantom) so we just don't want to give Scott any reason to wish he were home instead of where he is. :)

Meanwhile, at home, Jared enjoyed having Joseph over all day Wednesday.  They played a lot of games.  I went to Wal-Mart--Seth came with me--and got a lot of RS stuff done.  Jared had YM that evening--they planned for Camp Helaman next week.  I went over to a friend's house to get some help figuring out a new budget program that I'm trying out.  These friends have been using this program for several years, so they were able to give me a few pointers.

We were surprised on Tuesday when one of the sets of Elders in our ward came by to say they were both getting transferred and that we were getting sisters instead--3 of them.  After wanting sisters for so long, I was actually disappointed that these Elders are leaving because they've been doing such a good job.  We've been a lot more involved with the missionaries the last few months and I'm finding that I get a little attached to them.  Must be my mothering side kicking in, since they are just like my oldest boy!  Anyway, we were sorry to say good bye to them.  I was supposed to meet the new Sisters on Wednesday evening but then...they didn't come!  Last minute changes again and this time we didn't get anyone to replace the set of Elders who left.  We're down to one set of missionaries in our ward again and we are feeling a little bereft!  Oh well...hopefully we will get another set next transfers.  Will we ever get Sisters?  I'll believe it when I see it! ;) 

Yesterday Jared and I got all the chores done in the morning.  I took Seth to Wal-Mart--he wanted to buy another Star Wars Lego set, and he had just enough money saved to buy it.  I helped him put it together and then after lunch his friend Liam from school came over to play for the afternoon.  They had fun playing with all the Lego sets as well as all the light sabers etc.  They made a mess and they were loud, but it was fun to see them having so much fun.  Last night my 2nd counselor and I tried to do a few "drop in" visits.  I hadn't been able to get in touch with any of the people that I wanted to visit, so we decided to just go see if we could find them home.  The first place no one was home and the second place we couldn't find!  I took my counselor back home and then we were discussing some things when I got a text message and what do you know...it was the woman whose house we couldn't find.  (And she acknowledged that her house is very difficult to find.)  It was too late to visit by that time but I was at least able to invite her to church and set a tentative appointment to see her on Sunday.  Hopefully I'll get to meet her soon.

Today I've been working on the budget.  In between everything else I've begun to read the book for book chat which is called The Woman in White.  It's pretty interesting so far, but long, so I hope I get through it by next week. 

Frank has continued to be very busy with his business as well as his job.  He has been able to meet with his new boss a couple of times and he really likes him.  He is still spending most of his time doing his old job, but they did finally hire a replacement for him so after he gets the replacement trained he can start to focus on his new job a lot more. 

We are starting to make plans for our trip to Utah and getting excited about that.  It's hard to believe we'll be there in just a couple of weeks!  It will be great to see many of you then. :) 

Weekly Review July 12 '13

This week was a little bit crazy.  It was just one of those weeks where a lot was going on with my RS responsibilities and I had other extra things too.  On Friday evening I talked Frank into taking me to see more fireworks--a nearby town has a carnival every year and they were having fireworks that night.  We had to wait quite a while for the fireworks to start, but we were much closer this time so they were a lot more impressive than the ones we saw on the 4th.  We had a nice unobstructed view, too.  It was a nice way to finish off my birthday.

 

On Saturday we got all the DVDs etc moved from the old entertainment center to the new one.  When the Elders brought Tanner back from an appointment (he went with them to one), they helped Frank and the boys move the old entertainment center (really an armoire) down to the basement.  We are using it for storage and now that area of the basement looks pretty nice.  After dinner, Frank and I went to the temple.  It was the last day before it closed for maintenance, so we really wanted to go one more time before then.  We were pretty tired, though, so we did sealings because we thought we'd fall asleep otherwise.  It was really nice to be there, as always.

 

The less active sister that I mentioned in my post last week actually did come to church and stayed all three hours, plus she came to our RS evening meeting on Wednesday.  Another less active sister that I've visited a couple of times also came to Sacrament Meeting.  Things like that make my day!  We took Wanda to church this week too which always makes it a little hectic but I love her so I don't mind.  We had a severe thunderstorm watch that afternoon and at one point the wind started to blow super hard and the clouds looked like this:

 

It doesn't really show in the picture, but the clouds actually looked a little greenish and one part was starting to twist around.  But thankfully, it all blew over quickly and didn't turn into anything bad.  We did get some rain but nothing more.  Erin and Dan came over for dinner that evening so we got to see the new ring first! :)  It's beautiful!  We didn't have my cheesecake on my birthday after all, so we saved it for Sunday dessert.  Here I am, showing off the cheesecake (which Frank actually made) and wearing my new fancy apron that I made:

We enjoyed visiting with Erin & Dan.  Plus, they brought this really yummy salad to go with our dinner.  I'm glad we had that day of rest before the busy week began.  I did food orders on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (and had visits with all three families as well).  I had a visit on Monday, Presidency meeting and a meeting with the bishop on Tuesday, and our monthly RS evening meeting on Wednesday.  Oh, and I also had to meet the visiting teaching coordinator at the church to log her into the computer so she could put her report in.  For some reason her name had been removed from the computer so she couldn't log in herself.  I think that's all the RS stuff, but isn't that enough?  Oh yeah, and I also have been praying about a new counselor since I am, indeed, going to lose my current 1st counselor. But thankfully, I get to keep my other counselor and secretary--at least for now.  I have the new counselor figured out now too--well, if they give me who I asked for, that is.

Besides all the RS stuff, Jared and I did community service this week on Monday through Thursday from 11:00-1:00.  Our ward had signed up this week to help a local charitable organization that serves lunch and provides a craft for kids in low income areas every week day during the summer.  Jared still needed the community service hours for his Citizenship in the Community merit badge so I thought this would be a good way for him to fulfill those.  I went with him to help.  Seth came with us the first day and he enjoyed playing with the other kids (since our ward was helping, there were even a number of other kids there that he knew from the ward).  Seth didn't want to come the other days, though, so he stayed home with Tanner.  We helped serve lunch to the kids and Jared played basketball with some of the boys.  It was pretty fun, but it made for an extra busy week.  One day all the cub scouts from our ward came over and they made air rockets with the kids.  They liked that, but then yesterday another guy brought a bunch of snakes to show the kids and they LOVED that!  He had six snakes--they are all his pets so they were pretty tame and the kids loved holding them.  Jared and I got to hold them too.  I took some pictures on my phone that I'd like to include but our mini SD card reader is missing so I can't get the pictures off of the phone and onto the computer.  Hopefully by next week we'll get that done.

Doing those things--along with all the normal things I need to do each week--pretty much filled up my days from morning until night.  A few days I was barely home.  The boys helped out by doing a few chores every day.  Jared also had reading to do for his class every day.  Yesterday I took Tanner over to my 1st Counselor's house so she could help him with his Calculus packet.  He has work he has to do over the summer but they didn't give him a book or any other resources to help him figure out what he had to do--doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Anyway, he had done most of the things in the packet before but he didn't remember how to do a lot of them so he needed some help and I knew my first counselor is good at math so I asked her if she could help him.  She was able to help him remember how to do most of the problems and she also directed him to a website that will help him figure out the rest so that was very helpful!  The boys have also been working on scouts a little and they are both almost done with the Communications merit badge, so I guess we are making a little progress.

Seth had a minor accident this week. On Wednesday he slipped while he was in the kitchen.  He fell forward, and he fell so quickly that he didn't get his hands out in front of him so he hit his chest pretty hard on the kitchen floor.  He was complaining that his chest hurt later that day so we decided to take him into the doctor to make sure he was ok.  The doctor determined that nothing was broken or cracked, just bruised.  He's still a little tender but seems to be healing fine.

Last night we had the Elders over for dinner and tonight Tanner and I went with them to a dinner appointment.  They had an appointment with one of the less active single sisters in our ward, so they had to take another male with them and they also knew I wanted to meet her so they asked her if we could both come and she said yes.  We had a very yummy dinner of Hawaiian haystacks and we enjoyed getting to know her a little.  She's a very nice lady.  She asked me if I did card making or scrapbooking and I said I have done a little scrapbooking but I haven't done it in a long time.  So she took me back to show me her scrapbooking room--it was really nice!  She said she is going to try to come to church this Sunday, so hopefully she will.

I had Tanner drive home from that appointment.  She lives really close to us so he didn't have to go far and not on any really busy roads.  I've been having him drive short distances like that when the opportunity arises so he is getting a little experience with driving the car.  He is very cautious--sometimes too cautious--but I'm glad he is taking it seriously.

Frank took Tanner and Jared to work with him today--he had volunteered them to help one of his co-workers move a bunch of things from one office to another.  She took them to lunch as a thank you, and she told Frank that they were great workers.  Tonight they went to a meeting to plan their meals for Camp Helaman and now they are at our former bishop's house.  He was really big on encouraging the youth to read the Book of Mormon, so as a thank you for him they created a video for him with all the youth talking about what the Book of Mormon means to them.  They are going to show it to him and have treats too I think. 

Frank has a ton of work to do for his clients.  He's been working every spare second, so his week has been as busy as mine. 

I almost got hit twice yesterday--in the same intersection!  First a car almost ran the red light--thankfully I looked to my left and saw him coming and realized in the nick of time that he was not going to stop so I stopped.  He woke up and came to a screeching halt in the middle of the intersection but if I hadn't stopped first, he would have hit me.  Then after he went on by (he was blocking the intersection, so he had to keep going) I started to go forward again when the car on the opposite side of the intersection from me decided to turn left right in front of me!  I looked at the light again--yes, it really was green for me!  Crazy.  Just glad I didn't get hit.

I think that brings you up to date on all our news for this week. 

Weekly Review July 5 '13



On Saturday the boys arrived home from youth conference saying it was amazing.  I have not been able to get much out of them about why it was amazing, but I'm glad it was.  Apparently it was a very spiritual experience for them.  Frank was gone in the morning--he helped cook breakfast for youth conference.  I got visiting teaching changes figured out, finished personal progress (all done!), and cleaned the kitchen floor.  Later, I checked on Wanda and printed up the new visiting teaching slips.  We spent some time getting Google hangout set up so we'd be ready for Dad's party.  We really enjoyed seeing everyone at Dad's party!  Isn't technology great?  When we got off the computer, we looked outside and saw this:  

 

It looked uglier in real life.  So yes, we got a pretty good thunderstorm that night!

Sunday morning as we were getting ready for church, Frank told me his guesses for who our new bishopric would be.  I said "Frank, that's not funny...that would take out my whole presidency!"  Although I did agree that they would be good.  Well, Frank turned out to be exactly right.  The new bishop is my 1st Counselor's husband.  The new 1st Counselor is my Secretary's husband.  The new 2nd Counselor is my 2nd Counselor's husband.  Seriously!  Everyone is joking with me that they should call Frank to be the new Executive Secretary.  I don't know yet how this change is going to affect me.  I'm almost positive that I will lose my 1st Counselor, but I'm not sure about the other two.  My 2nd Counselor says she thinks she'll be ok.  My secretary is new (remember I recently lost my secretary because they made her the Primary president?) so she is still figuring out what her calling entails.  She works full time, though, and I know she was already worried about whether or not she would be able to do the job.  So we'll see how it goes.  I just lost my compassionate service leader a week ago so I am kind of feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under me, but hopefully it will all turn out ok.  I'm going to have to let this new bishop know that he is totally starting out on the wrong foot with me! :)

Frank was "on call" with work from 3:00-11:00 on both Saturday and Sunday, but he didn't get any calls.  He woke up early Monday morning with a terrible migraine that was so bad that he threw up too.  He slept most of the morning and by early afternoon the migraine was gone.  He was tired but able to go into work for a meeting he had that afternoon.

Jared and Tanner were at their friend Taylor's house on Monday until early afternoon.  Seth and I went grocery shopping and went to check on a new family who just moved into our ward.  This is a pretty great story, actually.  This family was living in Utah; he's in construction but business was bad and they have family in Baltimore, so they decided to move to Maryland.  They signed their kids up for a new charter school that's opening up and had to be living here by July 1st, so they sold most of what they had, packed up everything else in a little trailer, and headed across the country having no idea where they were going to live when they got here.  They made it to Frederick and were driving around looking for possible places to live and looking pretty lost when a member of our ward noticed their Utah license plates and forlorn appearance and asked them if they needed anything.  He soon discovered that they were LDS and looking for a place to live.  Well, it just so happened that another family in our ward was right then in the process of loading their moving van (they moved to Florida) and they really needed their house to sell, or at least rent.  So this member of our ward took them over to the moving family's house and within hours of when they were leaving Maryland, they were able to get a lease signed to rent their house to the new family and the new family now has a place to live!  Pretty amazing.

Anyway, we met the new family.  They have four kids and they are very nice.  After talking to them I decided that they could use some meals brought in for a few days--they only had a tiny refrigerator that another member family loaned them and hadn't had time to buy groceries yet.  So I got some meals set up for the next few days (remember, I don't have a compassionate service leader right now) and we took dinner to them that night.  The missionaries came over to have family home evening with us later.  They provided the lesson, and we did everything else.  We enjoyed that!

I've been working with the boys this week to get them going on some of their scout requirements and schoolwork (they both have work to do over the summer for some AP classes they are taking).  We did some of that on Tuesday, along with some house cleaning.  Tuesday afternoon both sets of Elders serving in our ward came over so that I could go through the ward list with them to give them ideas of people that would be good for them to visit.  Then Tanner went with one set to an appointment.  Within an hour of when they left, one sister in the ward that I've never met actually called me!  I was really surprised.  Hopefully she will start coming to church again now.  I keep having the feeling that a lot of great things are about to happen with our ward's growth.  I hope my feeling is right. 

Wednesday I got all the shopping done since I wasn't sure if any stores would be open on the fourth.  Frank got off work early so he came with me.  We also picked up a book that I had ordered for Jared for his AP World History class.  That evening I had a presidency meeting and the boys had YM.

Independence Day started out very early because Frank got up to go help cook at the annual Independence Day Breakfast.  The rest of us got up a little later (but still pretty early) to attend the breakfast, which started at 8:00 and was about a 20 minute drive away.  When we got there, Tanner and Jared helped a little with the rest of the cooking.  Frank helps with the breakfast every year but this year I remembered to get a picture of him:
    

 Actually, he was doing a lot of supervising this year, although he did do some of the cooking too.  I haven't gone to the breakfast in a number of years because I don't enjoy chasing Seth around by myself while Frank cooks.  But this year Seth wanted to go and he did pretty well overall.  I lost him a couple of times but never for long and he always stayed nearby.  He really liked this hammock:

 (With Joseph--one of Jared's friends.  He's the new bishop's son.)

Tanner helping with some of the eggs.

I missed most of the program, but I did pay attention to this men's chorus song.  Jared sang in it--he's right behind the guy in the red shirt, standing next to one of the missionaries in our ward, but you can't see him at all.

They had lots of nice flags flying, but I only got a picture of this big Maryland flag.

After the breakfast, we all came home and rested.  We got laundry and vacuuming done, and Frank and I watched a movie.  Then we made dinner.  One set of Elders joined us for dinner.  We had bratwurst, hamburgers, hot dogs (for Seth), corn on the cob, potato salad, watermelon, chips, and our traditional flag cake.  It was all really good and we had tons of food...there's still a lot left over.

That evening we went to watch fireworks.  The place we've gone the last several years--a parking garage--is under construction right now so we couldn't go there and we had a bad experience there last year anyway so we were already thinking of trying a new spot.  It occurred to us that since the main street that goes past our house was completed since last summer that the open field next to it might be a good place to go.  There is a big hill at the end of the field that gives us a wide view of the city.  Here we are while waiting for the fireworks to start:

We enjoyed watching all the fireflies come out while we were waiting.  We could see the fireworks pretty well although we were a lot farther away than we are used to being so they seemed kind of small. 

Frank took the day off today but he had some work to do for a client this morning so he left early and got home around 1:00.  Meanwhile, the new furniture was delivered again and this time it is undamaged so we were able to keep it!  So after a little over three weeks of sitting on the floor, we have couches to sit on again!  Happy Birthday to me!  Here are some pictures of the new furniture:
 

The entertainment center is still mostly empty--haven't moved everything over from the old one yet.  There is actually one problem with it--there's supposed to be another shelf above the television but there were not any holes drilled to hold the brackets for the shelf.  Someone is going to have to come out to drill the holes for us within the next few weeks.  In the meantime, our television looks way too small for that opening because the shelf isn't there.  (It's still going to be smaller than the available space and Frank and the boys keep saying that we "have" to buy a bigger television now!  Maybe someday, but not for a while.)

Here's the loveseat:

And the couch:

(Jared moved when I snapped the picture)

I got the budget done this afternoon and then we ordered Chinese food for dinner (one of my favorites) and I opened presents:

I am laughing at the Wal-Mart bag "wrapping".  Frank did it on purpose because I have complained to him about how rarely I get wrapped gifts.

Opening cards...thank you for the Amazon gift card, Mom & Dad!

The card from the boys included a "Wonder Woman" refrigerator magnet.

The bag was full of chocolate and a bunch of large cooking spoons.  The spoons are another joke because the boys used to always pick out spoons or spatulas to give me for Christmas and birthday gifts.  So now Frank likes to give them to me for a laugh.  Those bamboo ones are actually pretty nice, though.  I did get one wrapped gift from Frank which was...a tablet:

 

I am not really sure what it does yet except that it is a lot like an iPod, only bigger and has a keyboard.  I think it is going to come in pretty handy!  Frank actually got a really good deal on it...I was really surprised (but glad) when he told me how much he paid for it.  (It was such a good deal that he got one for himself too--to use for his business.)

 

So yeah--it's been a pretty great birthday!  Now we are sitting on the new couches watching Star Wars (the original one).  Seth is really into Star Wars lately.  Now the boys are asking if we are going to eat my birthday cheesecake, so I guess we'd better go do that.  If you were here, I'd give you a piece. :)