When I left off last week, I was hoping that I would feel well enough to spend some time with Erick's family over the week end. Thankfully, I did. I woke up feeling a lot better on Saturday. I have still had days over the last week that I haven't felt great, but those days I felt pretty good and I never have come down with something that put me totally down. I'm grateful for that!
On Saturday we met Erick, Liz, Erin & Dan at the temple. Our original plan was to go to the 3:00 session together, but traffic interfered for them and they didn't make it to the temple in time for that. So we all did sealings together instead, which was really nice. When we came out of the temple, the Christmas lights were on. Frank and I stopped to get some food on our way home and after we got home we went to a wedding reception for a boy in our ward. They couldn't have asked for a nicer December day to get married...it was in the high 40's and sunny, without wind. We saw several newly married couples outside getting pictures when we were at the temple.
Sunday morning I had PEC before church. Our bishop said one thing that I really liked. He was talking about how he knew the month of December was extremely busy for a lot of us (it was for him too of course) but he said that as a result of all of our efforts, a lot of people were served and a lot of people felt the love of the Savior, and what better gift could we actually give the Savior than that? So he said that he wanted us to know that all the work we had done was our gift to the Savior. That helped me feel a little bit better about December!
I got a new counselor and a new secretary on Sunday. My former secretary became my new counselor--that's why I got a new secretary also. It will be nice to have a fully functioning presidency again. I don't feel like I've really had that for the last 3 months or so. Hopefully there won't be any more changes until I'm the one released. I have a completely different set of women than I started out with, and if you've been counting, I'm on my fourth secretary! Interesting fact--my new secretary had never even attended our church at this time a year ago. (As a matter of fact, the first time she attended church was the Sunday I was sustained as RS president...which will be a year this Sunday.) She was baptized in February. But you would never know that she is so new to the church. She is really amazing! It's kind of cool to think how much things have changed in just one year.
On Sunday afternoon we drove down to Erin & Dan's house to spend the evening where we enjoyed yummy dinner, playing games, and visiting with everyone there. Dan's sister and her husband came also and we enjoyed meeting them.
Frank was off work and the boys were out of school until Thursday. We didn't lie around relaxing, though. I had lots of RS stuff to do and I was also helping Seth do a school project on African deserts. We kept up with the household shopping and chores. Frank and Jared had basketball practices (did I mention Frank is the assistant coach for the Deacon's team?) I cleaned the kitchen at the church because we are supposed to take turns doing that every three months with the other two wards in our building. It was our ward's turn in December but I had forgotten to get it set up so I just went and did it myself. It didn't take too long. On New Years Day I took down all the Christmas decorations.
For New Year's Eve, Tanner spent the night with a friend and Jared had a party with friends from school. Frank had some work to do for some clients so it was just Seth and I at home. He watched a movie and then I got him to bed. By the time Frank got home, it was too late to start on the jigsaw puzzle that we had planned to put together--we'll have to find some time to do that later. Neither of us were feeling really great and we were both really tired, so we just went to bed--didn't even stay up until midnight! Jared had a ride home from his party, so we didn't have to wait up for him. We did ask him to wake us up when he got home so I know he came in around 1:15.
On Thursday (yesterday) it was back to a normal schedule. It felt good, actually, even though I had to get up earlier. I had a presidency meeting which went well and I think our new presidency is going to work really well together. The normal schedule didn't last long, though, because around 2:00 it started to snow. The snow gradually got heavier and for a few hours in the evening it came down really hard. We got around 5 inches of snow. Then it got really cold (down in the teens) so everything froze and the roads were very slick. So of course school was cancelled today. I didn't mind too much because it was also still very cold (high of 22 today, I think) and really windy--as in 40-50 mph gusts at times.
Last night in the middle of the storm, Frank and I went out shopping. Why? Because back in December we decided to buy a new mattress set. Marriott was selling the same mattresses they use in their hotels (brand new ones) for a great price, and since we've been thinking we need a new mattress anyway, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we ordered a king size set (our current mattress is a queen). It was supposed to take 5-6 weeks to be delivered, but to our surprise they called yesterday morning to say that it would be delivered today. (We didn't order it until December 24th.) Yikes! We hadn't gone shopping for a new bed yet. At that point we decided we'd better just get a metal frame and buy a headboard sometime in the future. But we did need a frame, and king size sheets and a comforter too. So we went out to buy those. It actually wasn't bad...the roads weren't super slick yet and since everyone in Maryland is afraid to go out in a snowstorm, the stores were deserted. We got great parking spaces, attentive store employees anxious to assist us (they had nothing else to do), and no waiting in lines! We found what we needed and also got a vacuum cleaner (our old one was on its last legs) and 3 inch thick foam mattress toppers for Jared & Tanner's beds because they've been complaining about how uncomfortable their mattresses are. (They both said they slept MUCH better last night.) We also looked at beds for Seth because he has totally outgrown the toddler bed...probably should have got him a new bed months ago. We didn't buy a bed, but will probably go get one tomorrow.
After all of that, the delivery company called this morning to say that they weren't doing any deliveries today because of the weather (not a big surprise, honestly). The bed is supposed to be delivered on Monday now. At least we are better prepared for it now, whenever it actually shows up. And we didn't take our old bed apart yet, thankfully.
Frank worked from home today so we've all been cooped up together all day. The boys vacuumed the whole house and the new vacuum works great. (Mom and Dad, we did end up getting a Shark like you have). I spent a lot of time updating the budget. Tonight we went to the wedding reception for Scott's friend Colette. She certainly didn't get a great weather day for her wedding, but they didn't seem to mind too much. Her mom said Colette froze when they were taking the pictures outside the temple (19 degrees and windy, remember) but it was sunny and with the freshly fallen snow it was actually very beautiful. The reception was unique and clever. It was kind of a rustic country fair type theme (but not with loud colors...everything was different shades of brown and white, mostly). They served hot dogs, corn dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, applesauce, several kinds of cookies, lemonade, and hot chocolate. They also had popcorn and cotton candy. It still looked like a wedding reception, too...they had the lights muted and lots of white lights strung all over, and white flowers in glass mason jars and things like that. It's hard to describe, but it really looked nice.
After we got back from the reception, Tanner went to spend the night with a friend and Jared went ice skating with friends from school. I still have lots of RS and other stuff to do so I'd better finish up here and try to get something else done before I go to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment