Weekly Review February 20 '15

It's all about the nasty winter weather around here lately.  Today we actually had a 2 hour delay because it was so cold.  With wind chill temperatures, it was around -20 degrees.  So they decided to have a 2 hour delay to give the temperatures a chance to rise up to a whopping 11 degrees...or something like that.  We beat the all time record low by several degrees today...that record low occurred in 1886!

Besides the miserably cold temperatures, we also had 2 "squalls" this week.  What is a squall?  It's a very quick, intense snow storm.  Last about an hour or less, but during that time the snow comes down so hard that visibility is almost zero.  And in that short amount of time, a few inches of snow gets dumped.  The first squall was on Saturday evening, lasted about an hour, and dumped about 2 inches of snow.  The second squall was Wednesday evening, lasted about a half hour, and dumped about an inch of snow.  Besides that, we got about 4 inches in the night Monday night, so we had a snow day on Tuesday.  Friday was a scheduled day off and Monday was also a day off (President's Day), so we ended up having a five day week end followed by 2 regular days of school and then another short day because of a delay.  You'd think with all that, this week would have flown by, but it actually feels very, very long to me!!

Did I mention that we are supposed to get 5 - 8  inches of snow tomorrow?  And that our highest temperature predictions are in the 30s?  If I want to get seriously depressed, all I have to do is watch the weather!

So let's talk about something else, shall we?  Relief Society:  I did two food orders this week, had a presidency meeting, and ended up meeting with the bishop for an impromptu meeting Wednesday evening since there are a number of crisis situations that have come up this week.  Plus a number of phone calls and such...the usual!

Valentine's Day:  Frank and I went out for breakfast that morning.  We got the boys cards and chocolate, and Frank got me red roses:

  

I got Frank a card, but we agreed not to get any chocolate for each other because we are both trying not to eat fattening stuff.  Plus, truth be told...I still have chocolate left over from Christmas!  In the afternoon, Frank and I took Seth shopping for clothes.  He's been growing out of all his shirts and his jeans and his shoes have holes in them.  So he acquired 4 new shirts, 4 pairs of pants, 5 undershirts, a hoodie, and some shoes.  Hopefully he's set for a while!  That evening we went to a Valentine's party that a family in our ward was giving...they told us "pizza and games" but it turned out to be a full-fledged party, with not just pizza, but tons of snacks, cookie decorating, Valentine making, a photo booth, a cupcake eating contest, chocolate sampling, etc!  It was really fun and a lot of people came.

We had Elders over for dinner on Wednesday (we watched the squall while we ate!):

 I couldn't get a picture with everyone looking their best at once, so in the first picture everyone is smiling but Jared has his eyes closed, and in the second picture everyone looks good except Seth has his eyes closed.  (Those boys must be related to their mother!)  The Elder on the right is going home next week.  So we told him we'd make whatever he wanted for dinner and he chose sour cream enchiladas.  He really liked them, and said they tasted almost exactly like the ones his mom makes.

Jared is dressed up in the picture because he was going to YM right after that, and they were having an etiquette dinner where the YM served the YW.  He had to make a meatloaf to take to that, too.

I felt pretty harried this week between RS stuff, all the regular chores, and writing a talk about baptism for a fireside on Sunday (it's for all the kids who are turning 8 this year).  Plus getting everyone where they needed to be, helping Jared with Eagle project planning, printing up music for Jared and I to start learning (we've both been invited to sing in a stake choir for a special Easter fireside we're doing in conjunction with some other churches in the community), contacting BYU-I for Scott, reminding Seth to practice the piano (he's doing great, though), and doing some planning for our spring break trip.  (Did I mention we are going to North Carolina?)  It was a very busy week.  Frank had to do maintenance for 3 clients, plus all the usual stuff so he was very busy too.  Both of us have bad headaches today that don't see to be responding very well to Tylenol.  Hopefully we'll both feel better tomorrow.

We did take the time on Monday to go to the temple.  The temple is usually open for half a day on Monday federal holidays.  (It's usually closed on Mondays.)  It was really nice to go, and it was pretty crowded so it's nice to know a lot of people took advantage of the chance to go on their day off.  They have a new model of the temple at the visitor's center...it's pretty cool!  One side is cut away so you can see inside, and it is quite accurate...right down to the chairs, the plants, and the pictures on the walls.

Frank got a summons for jury duty and it's for the week that Scott comes home!  How frustrating is that?  It's also a very important week at his work.  He can get a postponement, of course, but then they might reschedule him for one of the weeks we are planning to be on vacation, and he wouldn't be able to get out of it.  It's quite the dilemma, and he hasn't decided what to do about it yet.  It would be nice to know if he'll actually have to report or not.  I've been summoned twice and of all the days in both of those weeks, I only had to report once and then got to go home after an hour or two because the case was settled without a trial.  It wouldn't be a big deal for him to do it that week if something like that happens.  But it would really be a bummer if he were sitting in a courtroom when Scott gets off that plane!

Today I went with Tanner up to Hagerstown so he could take his driver's test, and he passed so...we now have another licensed driver in the family.  He tried out his new freedom this evening by giving Jared a ride over to a service project (and he brought the car back without a scratch, thankfully).  We are still reeling from the shock of how much our insurance just went up.  I knew it would go up, but since he is not a full time student right now, it is even worse than usual.  We didn't expect that.  At least it will only be for a few months, probably.  He has both his interviews this Sunday for the Melchizedek priesthood and his mission papers should go in soon too.

Tonight Jared helped a family in our ward who is moving and then all the priests got together at the bishop's house for pizza and fun.  Tanner went to his friend Taylor's house for cake (he had a birthday this week) and then they both went to another friend's house for a movie night.

That is all I can think of for this week!