When I wrote last week, it was raining. It continued to rain most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We've had some more rain this week, and lots of cloudy days but the last day or two the sun has finally come out again--at least for part of the day. I start to feel a little depressed if I don't see the sun for days on end, so I am glad we've had a little bit of sunshine lately.
Last Saturday Seth's soccer game did get cancelled; not a big surprise! Can't say I minded much, either. The guy whose baseball pants I've been sewing came over in the morning to try them on...they were fine, so I could finish up that project. I planned time to work on them on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but as it turned out the project went much faster than I had anticipated, so I finished everything up on Monday which was nice. I am glad to be totally done with that project! I'm glad I ended up doing it after all because it helped me to become so familiar with my new sewing machine. Now I actually feel like starting another project! Not sure what, though.
I spent a good deal of time on Saturday helping Tanner get a flyer made for his Eagle project and helping Seth work on a project for school. Seth has to do a report on an animal, and he chose the gorilla. I've actually learned a lot of interesting things about gorillas! Today we have to put a poster together and then he'll be done with that. Anyway, we got the flyer done for Tanner and he announced his project and passed out the flyers on Sunday. We are planning to do the project tomorrow and next Saturday. We may have to schedule one more day to finish up; it depends on how many people come and how much we are able to get done the first two days. The boys have a camp out tonight and the scoutmaster is going to bring all the boys at the camp out directly to Tanner's project instead of taking them home, so that is a big help! Some of them will have to leave early, I'm sure, but I think we will get a decent sized group.
The other thing we did on Saturday was watch the BYU football game. Some friends in our stake invited us over to watch at their house. They've invited us to come to pretty much every game this season and last season, but we've never been able to go for one reason or another. This time the game was finally early enough in the evening to make it feasible for us to stay up to watch it. Of course, most of you probably watched it too, so you know it was a great game and we really enjoyed it. They had yummy food for us to eat, too! These friends live about 25 minutes away so we were up fairly late, but at least Tanner got a lot more driving time in.
Sunday was super busy--I had Ward Council, I went on some visits in the afternoon, Jared and I had choir practice, and Tanner & Jared had a fireside. In between church and the visits, a couple came to see us from Utah...they know Scott pretty well. She had to come out to DC for her work and when Scott found out they were going to be out here, he begged them to visit us, so they did! She is the RS president in one of the wards he's been serving in...actually the ward of the girl who was recently baptized. Anyway, they see Scott a lot and they said he is a great kid--a hard worker and always happy. We told them it is always good to hear about what Scott is doing since he doesn't tell us much himself. We took a few pictures while they were here:
They too this one of us--I closed my eyes unfortunately! Then Frank took this one of them with us, so we can send it to Scott:
The first thing she said to me when she saw me was "You're not tall enough to be Elder Cleveland's mom!" Then she saw Frank! Tanner & Jared were gone when they first arrived (taking the sacrament to a home bound ward member) and when they saw Tanner, they said "Now YOU look like Elder Cleveland's brother!" It's funny because Scott and Tanner don't really look that much alike...their coloring is totally different...but they do have a lot of the same mannerisms and way of talking. We had a nice visit with this couple and think it was nice of them to come by...they were on their way to the airport and came out of their way to see us.
The rest of this week has been a lot like the previous two...busy, but not overwhelmingly so. I planned to do some de-cluttering this week but didn't get much done...mostly because I was lazy. By evening I usually had some time to work on it, but by that time I was tired and just wanted to read & relax a little. I did do a little bit of de-cluttering in the living room yesterday, though.
Monday I was mostly sewing...finishing up that project. Tuesday I had book chat, Seth had soccer practice, and Frank went to help teach a new member discussion. Seth's soccer practices are being moved to 5:30 instead of 6:00 for the rest of the season because by the end of practice at 7:00 we are in the dark--and there are no lights on the practice field. Wednesday I worked on RS stuff and did some shopping for some things I'll need to make Seth's Halloween costume. I actually found a pattern for a stegosaurus costume, but then they were out of that particular pattern. So it's back to plan A, which is to use a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants, similar to how I made his T-rex costume. I think I've figured out how I'm going to do it. I also did some shopping for some kitchen and bathroom items--replacing a few old things that were getting worn out. The boys had to be at YM early because they were watching a movie and didn't want to be up too late. Tanner had volunteered to make cookies, so I had to give him a little help getting those made. The movie they saw was "Wait Until Dark"...remember that one? Very scary...but a good movie!
Yesterday I had a visit in the afternoon--one of the sisters in my ward asked to talk with me. I've been worried about her for a long time and I spent most of the visit just listening to her. It is good for me to understand how she is feeling even though she isn't in the best place right now. I am grateful she chose to confide in me, and hopefully I'll be able to help her in some way. I did pray before hand that I would know what I could say to her, and I did feel several times that the things I was saying were what needed to be said, so hopefully those words will stick with her and help her in some way as time goes by. Last night Frank & I took Tanner to the store to buy snacks for his Eagle project since we are providing snacks for the workers.
Throughout the week I've been helping Tanner with some of the planning for his project--hopefully we have thought of everything! I've been trying to let him do most of it himself, and limiting my help to guidance on what kinds of things he needs to think about, plan, and do. He also decided that he does want to apply for the work crew for the Hill Cumorah Pageant, so I've been helping him work on that application as well. As soon as we get that done, he will start working on his college applications. There is always something else that needs to be done!
All of that has kept me pretty busy. I've been doing some reading also and read two Newberry winner books...Maniac Magee and Roller Skates. I liked the first one better, but they were both pretty good.
Frank has also been very busy. He has been doing maintenance for several clients this week. He has also started exercising again and has gotten up early nearly every day to do that. I've been trying to squeeze in walks (and a little jogging) with the dog whenever I can. It's not much, but it's better than no exercise at all.
Seth had a field trip this week on Wednesday. They were supposed to go to the Natural History Museum, but thanks to the government shut down it was still closed, so they ended up going to the Baltimore Zoo instead. I bet the Baltimore Zoo has had a lot more school children visiting this last month than usual! The government shutdown has a big impact on field trips in our area since so many field trips are planned for locations in DC. Government shutdowns actually affect a lot of things in our area, since so many people around here work for the government as well. I am really thankful that Frank doesn't work for the government! I guess everything is open again now (but at what cost?). Another complication it caused us is that the boys were going to go on a 20 mile hike this weekend at their campout, but they had to choose another location to camp because they were originally going to camp and hike at a national park. They are still going on a hike, but not a 20 mile one. It's a little frightening to think how much the government impacts our lives, in ways that we don't usually think about. Just my personal opinion, but I don't think they should be in charge of a lot of those things--the government should be left out of so many things.
There is no school today. Seth is up and playing games, but now it's about time for me to go wake up the older boys. They have to be at the church by 12:30 so they need to get up and get packed.
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