Weekly Reviews July 3, 10, & 17 '15

I have a lot to cover, obviously, so I will try not to get too detailed here! The last few weeks have been great, and also a bit of an emotional roller coaster, so I feel proud of us all for surviving!

Back to Saturday, June 27th--it was a crazy busy day because we were trying to get packed for our trip and Tanner was getting packed up for his mission. I also had some RS stuff I needed to get wrapped up before leaving (mostly writing a message for the July newsletter), Seth was giving a talk the next day in Primary, and of course Tanner was speaking the next day in Sacrament Meeting too. Besides all that, Tanner had a friend he wanted to spend some time with and Tanner and Jared both were invited to go see a movie with their former YM president, which they went to.  So I ended up throwing most of Tanner's stuff into his suitcases because he really wasn't around that much. We were all up pretty late (me most of all) but we got everything done somehow.

Sunday I had my regular meetings, plus an extra because the bishop wanted to meet with me before I left (we usually meet the first Tuesday of each month, but I was going to be gone by then.) Tanner gave his talk in Sacrament Meeting and it was excellent...I wish I had thought to record it.  There was a really sweet spirit. Also, it was really cool to see the large amount of people from the YSA ward who showed up to hear Tanner speak and show their support for him.  He's was home for a relatively short amount of time, but I think he had a big impact on some people during that time.  I saw a couple of the girls in the restroom later that day, and they told me how great Tanner is...so funny, so kind, so dependable! Well, I knew that already!  But it was nice to hear anyway. One of the girls who is polynesian made him a "lei" out of ribbon. It's really quite clever.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of him wearing it.

Immediately after church, one of the counselors in the stake presidency set Tanner apart as a missionary.  He really did a beautiful job, and I was struck by how much that blessing fit Tanner's personality...who he really is!  Hard to explain in words, but I know it was inspired.

Monday morning we were just busy with last minute things getting ready for our trip.  Frank took us all to the airport, where we dropped Tanner off first for his flight, which was on Delta airlines:

This was a bit emotional, of course, especially for Frank since he wouldn't see Tanner again for 2 years. I even saw him get a bit tearful, which he doesn't do very often.

Then Frank dropped the rest of us off for our flight which was on Southwest airlines. Our flight left five minutes after Tanner's, but we got to Utah about 2 hours before Tanner because he had a stop in Atlanta and a plane change.  We were on a nonstop flight.  The trip was pretty uneventful, just kind of long as always.  Jared took some pictures:

After we got to Utah, we had to wait for Tanner but that didn't matter much because it took forever to get our rental car too.  I have the worst luck with picking up rental cars at the Salt Lake City airport!  There is always a problem, no matter which company I rent from.  Not sure if any rental companies understand what the word "reservation" means anymore.  The car I reserved was not ready and they tried to talk me into getting a larger car, which was ready ("only" $30 extra per day) but I was not about to agree to that.  So we waited & waited, and I finally had to send Jared to meet Tanner's flight.  He got back with Tanner right when the car was finally ready...and then it was still the larger car, although they "upgraded" me to that car for free.  Why on earth I had to wait 2 hours for the car that was supposedly already ready, I will never know! (Or why they didn't have the car I reserved ready in the first place.)

We finally made it to Mom & Dad's house (after stopping to see Scott for a bit), where we got to see Taran and meet his fiance, Lisa.  Mom had leftover yummy dinner for us, and some of Amy's family came to see us that night too. Actually, Jared stayed with Scott that night for some "brother time".

The next morning (Tuesday June 30th) we drove back up to Scott's house to pick him and Jared up. The family he is living with have two large dogs who were really sweet and fun to play with (they LOVE to fetch balls and frisbees) and they also have a trampoline which the boys enjoyed jumping on:

 Then we did some shopping to get a couple of things Tanner still needed and after that I took them all to lunch at Kneaders. We headed back to Mom & Dad's house for a while after that. Tanner watched a couple of church videos that he was supposed to watch, and Scott & Jared watched something else on Jared's phone:

That evening we all went to dinner at Chuck a Rama to celebrate Dad's birthday. It was nice because most of the extended family came. Afterwards, most of us went to Tim's house for more visiting, and we all stayed up way too late:

The next morning we took Tanner to BYU so he could walk around and visit his old haunts one more time.  Seth enjoyed seeing where Tanner had lived and where he ate! We got some Jamba Juice and we were going to get ice cream at the BYU Creamery on 9th, but it was way too crowded with a super long line, so we didn't have time.  We also visited the BYU bookstore, where Scott was dismayed to discover that they were all out of Utah Salt Lake City South Mission pins:

 We did get some cookies and cream milk at the creamery, and then it was time to drop Tanner off at the MTC:

I thought they were going to hurry us out of there, but the volunteers helping were really nice and offered to take those pictures for us. We said our goodbyes and I didn't cry too much!

Then we drove to a flag store in Provo to get an Arizona flag for Mom & Dad's mission flag display, but they were all out of Arizona flags! They had all of the other 49 state flags, but no Arizona.  It seemed to be our day for stores to be out of things we wanted.

I spent that afternoon trying to resolve a problem with the rental car. When we were coming back from the Salt Lake area the day before, I had some problems with the car that made me think there was something wrong with the transmission. That made me anxious and I didn't want to have more problems with it, so I tried to get it exchanged for another car. Should be simple, right? Of course not!  I will not go into all the details but to make a long story short, I didn't get another car. It turns out that Hertz did not have any cars available in all of Utah valley!  Plus the fact that we prepaid for most of the rental cost complicated things.  Overall, it took way too much time (and lots of phone calls) before I gave up in disgust. You would think they would bend over backwards for someone they rented a defective car to, but no. I was very unimpressed and will never rent from them again. In the meantime, it had been necessary for me to drive the car several places and thankfully I had not had any more trouble with it, so I decided to take a chance on it rather than go to any more hassle to try to get it exchanged. I never did have any more trouble with it, thank goodness!  Left me wondering what I would have done if the car had broken down somewhere, though. I would have really been up a creek since they didn't seem willing to get me another car.

That evening we spent some time at Amy's house. Wednesday was a "catch up" day.  We got laundry done and I got a prescription filled for Tanner.  I got a package put together and sent it to him too...a few goodies and some glow sticks for July 4th, along with the medicine. So nice that in Utah valley they have places who have same day delivery service to the MTC! After mailing the package, we took a drive up Provo Canyon. We stopped a couple of places to enjoy the views and for Seth to play on the playground. Actually, all three of the boys played a game on one of the playgrounds! It was a bit hot, but nice in the shade:

The next day (Friday, July 3rd) I took Scott back up to his house so he could get some laundry done and get a few things he needed.  I left he and Jared there for a lot of the day. Meanwhile, Amy and I took Seth, Jeremy, and Ammon to see the candy bomber.  When we got to the park, I realized that I had forgotten to bring sun screen...whoops! We waited in the sun for about an hour and a half. There were a ton of people there (later I read they estimated there were 50,000 people!) and it was super hot and kind of mess. But it was really exciting to see the vintage WWII bomber and escort planes fly over:

I don't know exactly what happened, but they missed the drop zone somehow and all the parachutes with candy fell on the other side of a chain link fence.  I guess some kids climbed the fence and got candy, but I only saw 2 or 3 kids (out of the thousands there) with candy.  It didn't matter, though...Seth didn't really care about the candy and he said seeing the planes fly over was totally worth it. I think I got heat stroke or something because walking back to the car I got very short of breath, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the car without collapsing.  But fortunately I made it and then I had to sit there with the A/C blowing on me for quite a while to recover before I could drive. Maybe my heart was acting up a bit too...I noticed it fluttering a bit, especially the first 4 or 5 days I was in Utah.  I don't think my heart likes the change in altitude.

Anyway, we stopped at Macey's on the way home and got ice cream cones and some candy too so all the boys were happy.  I also spied a big display of salt water taffy, so I had to get some of that.  I got some to send to Tanner too.  I was sunburned but thankfully not too bad. We went back up to get Scott and Jared that evening, but I don't remember what else we did.

For some reason, I don't have any pictures of the 4th of July! I thought about going to the parade, but after the candy bomber experience I decided one hot, crowded event was enough for me. We did have a nice cook out at Amy's house at lunch time with most of the extended family.  Then that evening we went to a party given by a family that Scott knew on his mission. It was a lot of their extended family and some other friends, so there were a lot of people there and I didn't know any of them, but they were extremely nice and many of them came over to introduce themselves to me and they talked with me a lot too and made sure I felt welcome.  There were kids for Seth to play with and Scott and Jared enjoyed playing volleyball as well as water balloon volleyball, which is apparently a family tradition. It was fun to watch them. We had a yummy dinner (two cook outs in one day!) and when it got dark that got a HUGE box of fireworks to set off.  I'm not kidding...that box was bigger than me! A lot of nearby neighbors were setting off fireworks too so we saw lots of fireworks.  They had several large aerial fireworks that went off right over our heads. We brought a package of glow sticks that we shared with everyone, and they all liked that, especially the kids.

I don't have any pictures of July 5th either!  We went to church with Mom & Dad, and I kept forgetting that it was actually my birthday!  I skyped with Frank that afternoon and after dinner the whole family came over to celebrate all the June and July birthdays.  And everyone gave me money and gift cards, which I appreciated! We had several kinds of yummy cake and two kinds of home made ice cream too.Very nice!

Monday the 6th was another catch up day.  We got some laundry done and I took Jared to buy some shorts he needed and some snacks for his return trip home, because he was leaving the next day. That evening we went up Provo Canyon with Amy's and Tim's families. Oh, and Anna and her girls too!:

We made s'mores and played some games; it was fun!

The next day (Tuesday the 7th) I got Jared to the airport in the morning.  I left Scott at his house to do some laundry while I did that.  Then I picked Scott back up and we spent the day visiting people from his mission and we also went to the Draper Temple and did a session:

I got to meet his mission president & his wife (again; we talked longer this time) as well as some of the other people he knew and got close to. When I was talking to his mission president's wife, we discovered that her younger sister had served in the North Carolina Charlotte mission at the same time that I did and that we knew each other (although we were never companions).  I enjoyed seeing the Draper Temple inside for the first time...it is really beautiful! We also went to a Mexican restaurant that Scott liked while on his mission. Besides the people we visited, we ran into a few more that Scott knew.  Everyone I met (both this day and also on the 4th of July) told me what a great missionary Scott was! That was really nice to hear.

Meanwhile, Seth spent the day at Amy's house with Ammon doing mostly this I think:

 
I'm sure he enjoyed that much more than visiting people Scott knew on his mission! But when we were at the last place, Amy texted me to say that Seth had thrown up! So we decided we'd better hurry home. It turned out to be a freak thing because he didn't get sick again, thankfully.  He was even able to eat some soup and crackers for dinner.

We thought about going to Seven Peaks with Shellie's family on Wednesday the 8th but since Seth had thrown up and there were supposed to be thunderstorms, we gave up on that idea. Also, Scott hadn't been feeling very well the whole time I was in Utah so I took him to see a doctor and he was diagnosed with a sinus infection.  He got some medicine for that, which helped a lot. We got back from the doctor in time to see Timo, who had just returned from his mission that morning. We enjoyed visiting with him and his family for a while before they had to leave and we also left to go up to Salt Lake to have dinner with some friends from Maryland who live in Utah now. We had a yummy dinner with them and enjoyed visiting. On the way home, we watched a thunderstorm come in...the lightning was beautiful!

It actually rained quite a bit while we were in Utah, which was unusual.  When we got there, it was extremely hot! Then on the 4th of July it cooled down and it was really quite pleasant the rest of the time we were there, with short thunderstorms a lot of days. The humidity when I got back to Maryland was really yucky for the first few days and hard to get used to!  But it has cooled down here too and the humidity has dropped a lot so it feels quite nice.  Hope that lasts a while!

Thursday the 9th was also a catch up day.  I took Scott up to his house and we got to meet the family he is living with (they had been on vacation the whole time we were in Utah up until then). They are super nice and we enjoyed visiting with them. We also moved over to Amy's house that day so that other people coming in for the wedding could stay with Mom & Dad and so that Seth could have more time to play with his cousins. We got packed up and I cleaned the bathroom at Mom & Dad's since Seth has a tendency to get bathrooms pretty dirty! At Amy's house we also did laundry. I mailed Tanner a package with the salt water taffy and some pictures drawn by Hazel, June and Seth too.

Friday the 10th was Taran and Lisa's wedding day, and that took up most of the day. Scott and I were able to go to the wedding ceremony in the Mt. Timp Temple and it was really sweet. Afterwards we hung around to take some pictures. We were worried it was going to rain on the picture taking, but it only sprinkled a little bit and it was nice that it wasn't hot and no one was squinting in the pictures because the sun wasn't very bright!:

After picture taking, we went to the luncheon which was at the same location as the reception. We had yummy soups, salads, and sandwiches. There was great entertainment too...Emily and Taran both sang some songs and then Tim and his four boys (besides Taran) did this hilarious dance to the song "My Girl".  It was a hoot and a real treat!!

In between the luncheon and the reception, Amy and I went to visit our high school friend Paula, who lives in Orem. It was nice to see her and get a little caught up. Then we met our families back at the reception.  It was really nice and they played some fun games and everyone had a ball dancing!  I preferred to watch the dancing, but it was really fun to watch. Tim and his boys did an encore performance of their dance. The cake cutting was funny too. Apparently, it is a tradition in Lisa's family to use a sword to cut the cake. Taran really seemed to enjoy that...hollering "hi-yah!!" every time they cut into the cake:

They also smeared cake all over each other's faces, although I've never seen anyone do that better than Tim and Rachelle:

On Saturday I had planned to take the boys back to BYU to look around some more and hopefully get a mission pin for Scott. They both decided they didn't really want to go, though, so I just went by myself. It was actually kind of nice, because I got to wander around all I wanted, reminiscing and taking pictures, without anyone complaining about how much time I was taking! I actually plan to do a separate post about BYU when I get some time so I'm not going to say a lot about it or include all the pictures, but here are a few:

I have a lot of great memories of my time at BYU and it was kind of sweet and kind of sad walking around!

On he way home from Provo, I drove up University Avenue, noticing things that were the same and things that were different, and then into Orem and down my former street and then up the hill past the Orem City Cemetary and down 1600 North to get to the freeway. I stopped at my former elementary school (Northridge) to take a picture too:

(I attended this school in 6th grade only...it was a brand new school that year.) It looks almost exactly the same except I think they added on a small wing onto the north end.

After I got back from that excursion, I took Ammon and Seth and met Erick's family at Erin & Dan's hotel to go swimming.  Anna and Buck were at the temple, but Ericka and Liz had June and Hazel with them. It was fun to swim for a bit and enjoy seeing them all:

After swimming, we all went back to Amy's house and ordered pizza for dinner.

On Sunday the 12th we went to church with Mom & Dad again. We had to leave early because Erick's clan needed to head back to Idaho and they needed to eat lunch first. But we did stay for Sacrament Meeting and also for Sunday School...we wanted to go to Sunday School because they were reading and discussing the letter from the 1st presidency about the supreme court decision on same sex marriage. There was a pretty good discussion about that.

We had a really yummy lunch and enjoyed visiting with Erick, Liz, Erin, Dan, Ginny, Anna, and June as well as Lee & Diane. It was really nice to see all of them! Laurel and her daughter Mindy came by for a visit too which was really nice since I hadn't had a chance to see Laurel in many years.After everyone left, we went back to Amy's house. She fed us dinner and afterwards Tim's family came over to visit one last time and to say good bye. (I was sorry I didn't get to see Shellie's family again before I left!) After that I took Scott back to his house and said good bye. It was a sad night with so many good byes!

Monday morning we got up pretty early to finish packing up and get to the airport on time. We stopped by Mom & Dad's to say good bye. Right before I left there, I got a text message that the flight was delayed but since I had to get the rental car back, we headed up to the airport anyway.  That was probably a good thing since my GPS routed me a strange way...I ended up on I-15 even though I hadn't planned to go that way! There were a few areas of slow traffic. Then when we got there, the line to check our luggage was incredibly long and there was a decent line to go through security too. So I was glad that I wasn't worrying about getting to the gate on time! Our flight got delayed again so it actually ended up leaving about 2 hours later than scheduled. We got to the gate shortly before it would have been time to begin boarding if the flight had been on time. So it was nice to have some time to get some lunch and relax a little, and there was a television with Cartoon Network on so Seth enjoyed that.

I was feeling bad for all the people who were supposed to be on a flight to Las Vegas...it was supposed to leave at 8:00 am and it got delayed until 3:00 (they announced) and then around 1:00 they cancelled it.  No more open flights until 9:00 that night! So a 2 hour delay didn't seem so bad.  Apparently there was bad weather in Chicago, which is where our plane was coming from, so that was the reason for the delay.

The trip home was also pretty uneventful, and went faster than the trip out. (Although Seth has decided he is scared of flying and is quite unhappy about take offs and landings. The guy across the aisle from us on the flight home was quite amused by Seth's wail of "Next time we should drive!" as we were preparing to take off.) We had a girl from Denmark sitting next to us on the flight home...she was nice.

Frank and Jared met us at the airport and it was really nice to see them again! It was pretty late by then and past dinner time so we stopped at a Taco Bell on the way home to get some dinner. By the time we finished unpacking, it was close to 11:00 so we collapsed into bed.  I didn't have any trouble falling asleep even though it was only 9:00 in Utah.

Jared left early Tuesday morning for "Camp Helaman"...a high adventure trip for all the teachers and priests in the stake. This year they are going on a 50 mile canoe trip on the James River in Virginia. Since he left so early, I have barely seen him and haven't had a chance to find out how Youth Conference went.  (He was gone on that from Thursday July 9th to Saturday July 11th. They went to Kirtland, so I'm sure it was pretty cool. I'll have to tell more about that next week.)  

Since getting home, I have mostly been "hibernating" so I can get caught up on things around the house.  Sooner or later people are going to discover I am back and then the phone will probably start ringing, but I am enjoying the solitude while it lasts!

I got to talk to Tanner briefly on Tuesday morning because he was allowed to call from the airport. It was nice to hear his voice!  He sounded well. We only got the one letter from him in the MTC since his P-day was Wednesday, and he left on a Tuesday. (Although it was a great letter!) We also got an email from his mission president that night with pictures, so we know he got to Arizona okay. I am guessing we won't hear from him until Monday.

The last few days I have been very busy restoring order to the Cleveland universe! On Tuesday I sorted all the mail, washed, dried, folded and put away laundry, swept and vacuumed the living room, emptied the dishwasher and loaded it again. cleaned up the kitchen, cleaned out the refrigerator, went through both freezers, made a grocery list, and went to both Walmart and the grocery store to replenish the food supply.

Yesterday I cleaned bathrooms and swept and mopped the kitchen floor. Today I did laundry again (to get back on schedule) and vacuumed the rest of the house. I think I am mostly caught up with all the housework now! I also made some phone calls and started working on visiting teaching stuff...getting back into the groove a bit with RS responsibilities. Tomorrow my big job will be to get all the finances caught up!

We had the Elders over for dinner last night and made home made pizza, which they loved! One of the Elders said "every time we see your name on the calendar, we're so happy because we know it's going to be good food and a great atmosphere!" I thought that was a really nice compliment, especially since we don't usually make anything special.

Today the weather is particularly nice so I took Seth to the park this evening. Another family from our ward happened to be there, who have a son near Seth's age so that was particularly fun for him. I enjoyed visiting with the mom & dad too.

So what did Frank do all this time? Mostly he worked his tail off.  He got caught up with work and did a lot of projects for clients. I think he got some rest too, which he definitely needed! He has improved quite a bit and seems to be mostly healed. His back is not hurting much at all anymore. It is a bummer that he couldn't go on vacation but I think he really needed the time to get caught up and to rest.

Since getting home I have enjoyed spending my birthday money & gift cards. I have ordered some books from Amazon and I got a new hair dryer too.  While I was in Utah I also picked up a few little things, like these salt & pepper shakers:

I knew Frank would like these, because it says "salt" and "pepper" right on the helmets! And when I took them out of the box today, I discovered that on the back of the jerseys there is a big "S" on one and a "P" on the other. So no confusion from the front or the back!

I had to get some salt water taffy, as I already mentioned:

And whenever I'm in Utah I also have to get some of these:

 I also decided to try some of these:

They aren't as good as I thought they would be, but they are all right. At the flag store I also got this book:

Because I am a total history geek!

Back in June, I also got another salt & pepper set that I need to document. I have so many sets now that I try not to buy any more unless I REALLY like them.  But I couldn't resist these. Who could resist these, I'd like to know?!:

But don't tell Frank...these are the ambiguous kind that he hates.  Which one is salt and which one is pepper? :)

One last thing! While I was in Utah I managed to read most of the book we are reading for book club, which is called And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. I'm not sure how I did that since it was close to 400 pages and I didn't have much free time.  But it was really good and an easy book to read. I was reading it on the plane on the way home and didn't even notice we were so close to landing until I felt us touch the ground! I finished up the last 20 pages or so on Tuesday. Then I finished up the Scientist in the Crib book and today I started reading a book called The Language of Flowers. I have no idea if it will be good but hopefully it will.

Whew!  That was a marathon! I doubt any of you made it through the whole thing (especially since a lot of you know what we've been doing the last few weeks, since we were with you!) but I needed to record it all for the family history books!