We haven't seen a lot of Tanner and Jared this week. Last Friday, they both stayed after school to work on hanging lights for the play. There was also a bonfire and fireworks at their school for homecoming weekend. Jared went to those; Tanner continued to work on lights. They both got home late that night. They worked on the lights for 5 or 6 more hours on Saturday. Then on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday they stayed after school to work on sound and to help with rehearsals (except Jared was able to come home Tuesday afternoon) and each of those nights got home between 9:30 and 11:00. Yesterday they were able to come home from school at the usual time but had to be back at the school at 5:00 for a performance and didn't get home until late. Today will be the same as yesterday. Then tomorrow they have 3 performances, so we don't expect to see them at all tomorrow. After that the play is done, though. I will be glad, and I think they will be too.
Saturday was a typical crazy day. Frank was helping with the cooking for a wedding. Jared helped with sorting for the annual "Scouting for Food" drive. While he was there, I took Tanner to buy a tie--he doesn't have very many and he wanted a new one for the Homecoming dance that night. Then they were both at the school working until dinner time. Meanwhile, I walked, cleaned the kitchen floor, took Seth to his last soccer game (his team lost, 3-0), and got dinner ready--we had the missionaries over for dinner too.
Jared was going to Homecoming with a group of friends. In my day, Homecoming and Prom and other dances like that were attended only by couples, but now everyone goes--a lot of the kids go "stag". So after dinner I drove Jared over to meet his friends and then took Tanner to pick up his date. They met up with another couple and we went over to a little gazebo to take some pictures. It was hard to get good pictures, since it was dark, but here are a few:
Frank did the late night runs to pick up the boys after the dance, and to take Tanner's date back home (she lives about 20 minutes away). So did Tanner have fun? Well, sort of. He and his date (Alivia) have been friends for a long time and went on another date once a long time ago. They were going to the dance just as friends. He wasn't expecting her to hang all over him or anything, but she mostly ignored him for a lot of the evening, focusing on the other couple that they were with. A few days after the dance, he tried to talk to her about it and the result of those conversations was that she decided that they can't be friends anymore. She really hurt his feelings, and he is bummed about it but seems to be getting over it. Just one of those things that happens when you are in your teens! It's too bad.
Sunday wasn't quite as hectic, thankfully--I didn't have any extra meetings before or after church, so I actually had a short nap. Jared and I did go to choir later, and we had family night, and I got to talk to Amy for the first time in months.
The rest of the week has not been too bad, either. Things have continued to be calmer...no crises in our ward lately. I don't expect that to last much longer, although it would be nice (for everyone, not just me) if it did. Monday I made two loaves of banana bread and set up a lot of appointments. Tuesday I thought I had book chat but when I got there no one was there. So I texted my friend (it's at her house) and she said "it's next week." I found out the next day that nearly everyone else showed up after I left (they were late)...so she was actually the one who was mixed up, not me. Anyway, now we are having it this Tuesday since we didn't have it last Tuesday.
One of the sets of Elders came over Tuesday afternoon to help Frank with my car. It's been making noise and one of the Elders is really good with cars, so he asked him to help him figure out what it is. They determined that the muffler is cracked, so we need to get it in to get a new muffler before our trip to North Carolina next week. It was super cold on Tuesday, by the way...cold, and really windy too. It was a miserable day to be outside at all. Wednesday was pretty nasty too but yesterday it started to warm up a little and this weekend is supposed to be in the 50's and 60's, which will be nice.
Wednesday I went to the temple. The traffic wasn't cooperative, so I missed the 10:00 session and did initiatories instead. It was nice. That evening we had our monthly RS meeting...we talked about eating healthy on a budget. We had four different sisters present different ideas and I feel like I learned a lot and I'm feeling really motivated to do a better job at eating healthier. One of the sisters is going to send out some recipes which I am excited to try.
Yesterday I got my hair done. Frank and Seth both had eye appointments. Seth had his vision screened at school and he failed the test, so they sent a note home. This wasn't a big surprise since none of our kids have made it past 3rd grade without needing glasses. His right eye is only slightly off, but his left eye is pretty bad. In spite of the fact that we have really good vision insurance (thankfully!) we still end up spending hundreds of dollars every time we go to the eye doctor so I was pleasantly surprised this time to discover that our insurance covered the eye exam and all of the glasses for Seth...all we had to pay for was the optional insurance coverage that we got on his glasses, which considering how young he is we thought it would be wise to get that. Frank only had to pay the co pay for his exam...there will be more later when he orders his contacts, but our insurance covers a generous portion of that too. (We feel really blessed, since everyone in our family needs glasses now, and five of us wear contact lenses.) Seth picked out some glasses...Frank and I both liked another frame more than the one he picked out, but in the end, he is the one who needs to be happy with them. He doesn't want to have glasses at all, but hopefully I'll be able to convince him to wear them!
On the way home from the eye exams, we stopped at a little temporary place to get some gyros--this little stand gets set up for a weekend about twice a year and they are really yummy! We dropped some gyros off at the school for Tanner and Jared also.
This morning I volunteered in Seth's class...I listened to about 20 kids read. (And helped them when they needed it.) It was kind of fun. Now I'm trying to get as much done as possible before all the kids come home. We have another busy weekend ahead, including cleaning the church, painting outdoor furniture for Tanner's Eagle scout project, and watching the BYU football game, among other things.
I finished the book chat book last week and I'm still not sure it was worth reading. I did enjoy it in some ways, but overall it was pretty depressing. I picked up another book at the library and read that this week...it's a collection of columns a guy wrote for a British newspaper about life in America. He is American himself but lived in England for about 20 years and then came back to America shortly before writing the columns. I enjoyed the book...although I can tell I don't agree with many of his political views, a lot of what he said was good and it was laugh out loud funny a lot of the time.
Remember how last week I said I should take a camera with me on one of my walks? Well, I did that on Monday so here are a few pictures I took:
If I go south up the walking trail, I get this view of the Monocacy River.
If I go all the way to the end of the walking trail, I get to this farm land.
Going back the other way up the trail, I can see our house.
Snickers enjoys these walks!
Going north up the trail, these are the views of the Monocacy River.
Beautiful, right? I am very lucky to have this kind of view just 2 or 3 minutes from my house!
We hope everyone is well and that Mom had a very happy birthday yesterday!
1 comment:
Tanner had such a cute date ;)
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