Weekly Review December 30 '16

This was a good week! Last Friday after I finished the blog post, I got the rest of the things done that I needed to do, including making a bunch of cookies. The sister missionaries came over to help decorate but even with their help, it took 4 hours to cut out, bake, and decorate all the cookies. I was tired and a bit grumpy by the time we finished. The cookies taste great, though!! They look pretty good too:

On Saturday I wrapped a few final presents and delivered treats to the sisters I visit teach. Scott’s flight was right on time, thankfully, and we all went to pick him up. Since we were picking him up during the time we would have been making dinner, we didn’t have a nice fancy Christmas Eve dinner like we usually do. Instead, we ordered Chinese food. The Elders came to eat with us too. It was yummy and I enjoyed not cooking all day—this might become a new Christmas Eve tradition! Ha!! After the Elders left for their next appointment, we each opened a present and then watched the Joy to the World CD. I was feeling really sleepy by then and so was everyone else, so we quickly got the stockings ready and put out the Santa gifts and went to bed. Scott and Jared helped with the stockings and Seth was invited to help (he’s figured out Santa Claus now) but he chose to go to bed instead. 

Christmas Eve photos:

So many presents!

Seth got a Bionicle

Jared got a set of 3 ties, and he was actually excited about that!

Scott got a 72 hour kit

Frank helping Seth put together his new Bionicle. (Frank got a book and I got a movie, but no one took our picture when we were opening our presents.)

This year, for the first time ever, Santa wrapped gifts. It just seemed simpler to do it that way, since Santa only gives one or two gifts to each person now. Everything else had to be wrapped anyway. We decided on Christmas Eve that we would only open the gifts from Santa before church and save the rest for afterwards. (We have church at 9:00 am.) Frank and I woke up much earlier than anyone else, so we showered before waking up everybody else. Scott really didn’t want to get up (still on Utah time) and I don’t think he even bothered to open his Santa gifts until after church! I actually really like having Christmas on Sunday and our Christmas service was lovely, with lots of musical numbers.

After the meeting ended, we did a little bit of mingling and wishing Merry Christmas to others, but we had to hurry because Jared was getting ordained an Elder. A member of our ward was there as the high council representative and we knew his missionary daughter was calling them at 11:00 (church ended around 10:15) so we knew he needed to get home soon. Frank ordained Jared and Scott got to assist, so that was really nice. After we got home, we opened the rest of the presents and quickly ate some lunch before Tanner Skyped us. It was GREAT to see his face and hear his voice, even though the connection wasn’t the best. It went by fast, and I don’t feel like we got to adequately express our love for him but I hope he could feel it anyway! He looks and sounds so good. 

Stunning statistic for this Christmas: I gave more ties and pairs of socks as gifts this year than video games!! (I only gave one video game—to Seth. No one else even asked for one.) I guess my boys are growing up!!  We spent the rest of Christmas relaxing and enjoying being together. The sister missionaries came over in the late afternoon to Skype with their families and we fed them too. We didn’t really sit down for a meal, just ate leftover Chinese food and other snacks. Pictures from our day:

Santa left a few things for each of us:

Plus, a few more gifts appeared under the tree:

Snickers is interested in what Jared is unwrapping!

 
Snickers got some treats (he has one under his paw).

Seth with a new movie and the one and only video game!

I got a box!! (It had doll clothes for my American Girl doll inside.)

Seth really wanted this Mega Blocks set

A book and a weather center for Frank

Please give me something to eat! (Isn't he cute?)

Scott with socks from Jared

The book on Scott's lap was a favorite with all the boys (they each got a copy). It has copies of all our family portraits (and a few snapshots of the family, since we didn't have a portrait taken every year) from 1992 through this year. I put these books together on Mixbook earlier this month. They were appreciated even more than I had anticipated, which was nice!

Jared's Christmas socks

Putting together his Mega Blocks set

Finally, all the presents are open! (And Snickers looks tired!)

All my loot (Except for one thing, because it's hard to get a picture of digital books! I got the digital set of Harry Potter books for my tablet.)

Seth spent several hours putting together this large Lego set, all by himself. I was impressed!!

One more picture from this morning--Seth snuggling in the quilt Grandma made for him. Isn't it beautiful?:

 Frank had Monday off work. He also took days off every day this week except Tuesday. On Monday morning, Seth and I went to the baptism for one of his friends in the ward. It was really nice. Jared had his interview with our stake president for his temple recommend. The rest of the day I got caught up on chores like laundry and grocery shopping, plus putting away Christmas gifts and all the wrapping paper and such.

Jared on his way to his interview, wearing a new tie from Grandma & Grandpa

Tuesday didn’t go quite how I’d planned. Seth and Jared had orthodontist appointments that morning. It took a lot longer than I wanted because Jared forgot his retainer so he had to drive back home to get it! One of his retainers started breaking while he was out at college so they decided he needed a new one and made it for him. By the time we finished at the orthodontist we were already much later than I’d planned but I had also planned to visit my friend Wanda on the way home because the nursing home where she lives now is near the dentist’s office. I thought about not going after all, but since it’s a long drive I decided we really should stop while we were in the area. Then it turned out that she was in some therapy but was almost done, so we had to wait to see her. They told us a few minutes, but we waited a good 15 – 20 minutes and were close to giving up but we did finally get to see her. It had to be a short visit, but I’m glad we got to see her. She looks good and seems to be very happy. The new place is not as nice as the last place she stayed, but she says she loves it there. They are trying new therapy on her legs and she says she can move them more than before, so that is great! She is getting new braces for her legs soon and she is very excited about that.

By the time we got home, it was mid afternoon and I had planned to make a nice turkey dinner, so I had to hurry to get the turkey in the oven. Then I had a lot of chores to get done as well as cooking the rest of the dinner to go with the turkey. Thankfully, the turkey got done in a reasonable amount of time and we ate dinner only a little bit later than usual. Everything turned out well although I’ve decided that I really don’t like turkey that much!

On Wednesday we took Jared to the temple to be endowed, which took most of the day. He had to be there at 10:00 for the 12:00 session, so he would have time to visit the distribution center before getting his ordinances done. While Frank and Scott went with Jared, I did the work for a couple of sisters in initiatories (and met a sister from Chico who knows Rachelle's family), then met up with everyone else to go to the session. It was very nice to all be there together and Jared seemed to enjoy it. I'm so grateful all of our boys so far have had a desire to go to the temple and make covenants there. It is a huge blessing!! There were two other missionaries going through for the first time in our session, a girl and a boy. They are both going to missions in Washington state. Oh, and my record holds—I had two temple workers tell me that I don’t look old enough to have a child going on a mission!! I suspect when Seth goes to the temple for the first time, I will NOT have anyone say that. We’ll see! J

One of the teenage boys in our ward came and stayed with Seth while we were gone to the temple for most of the day. We stopped on the way home to get some food because by then it was close to 4:00 and none of us had eaten lunch, so we were starving! After we got home, Frank took the babysitter home and then he needed to do some work for a client. I got some grocery shopping done. We relaxed for the rest of the evening. Yesterday was a busy day. I needed to finish the grocery shopping, and I also did laundry and Scott helped me vacuum the whole house. I spent quite a bit of time helping Seth clean up his room to make way for the new things he got for Christmas—this mostly involved taking apart several Lego sets to make room for the new ones. His room looks much nicer now—it’s been pretty messy for a while!! I also did some planning for Cub Scouts (starting on plans for the new year) and took all the boys to get haircuts (even Scott, although he paid for his own). Last night we all went together to see Rogue One (the new Star Wars movie). Scott and Frank had already seen it, but the rest of us hadn’t. I wasn’t particularly excited to see it, but I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I loved how it tied in with Episode 4. By the time we got home, it was 10:00 so we all went to bed.

Today is Scott’s last day here, since his flight leaves really early tomorrow morning. I’m sad. It’s been really nice to have him here this week. I’m glad Jared will be here for a while; it’s been nice to have him home too. We don’t have much planned for today besides going to a wedding reception tonight. It actually snowed for a few minutes this morning…Frank looked happier than a kid on Christmas morning!! It stuck a little bit but has already melted. We seem to be going back and forth between cold days and fairly mild days. I don’t mind that at all, but Frank is disappointed, of course! I’m sure we’ll get some snow before the winter is over, though.

That's all I can think of to tell you about this week. Happy New Year!!

Weekly Review December 23 '16

This week has gone by fast and it’s hard to believe Christmas is in two days. Last Friday we took Seth to see the movie Moana, and it was really good. One thing that was funny, though…the name of the island Moana lives on is “Motunui”. I kept thinking “isn’t that where the Bionicles live?” I had to look it up when I got home…oh, the Bionicles live on “Mata Nui”! Well, it sounds exactly the same. J Sam came up for the weekend that night…he arrived at our house shortly after we got home from the movie.

Saturday morning I kept busy with a lot of little things like sewing buttons back on clothes (Frank’s and Seth’s), shopping for den meeting, and making a couple of beaded bracelets to give as gifts. I also went to lunch with a friend. That evening we had our ward Christmas party. The theme this year was focused on Christmas morning, so instead of dinner we had breakfast food—cereal, lots of pastries, and fruit. We could wear our pajamas to the party so of course Seth and I did. Frank and Sam didn’t. For the program there was music and we talked about “gifts” of Christmas. I thought the whole thing was well done. Saturday morning we had freezing rain, but the roads were all cleared up by midday. It was kind of strange because the freezing rain accumulated a bit, like snow, but it was really tiny ice chips. They even plowed it and it stuck together a lot like snow, so later in the week we had “snow” patches on the edges of the road. It looked like it had snowed here, but it really didn’t.

Sam headed home Sunday morning because he decided he should probably attend his own ward more often than he has been. (He's been with us a lot lately.) We went to church as usual, and I was in charge of the missionary meal calendar because the lady who is usually in charge of it was out of town and she asked me to take care of it for her. At the end of church, all the women went to the back of the gym so we could get a picture taken—we have a new RS activities facebook page and they wanted a picture for the cover photo. Frank offered to take the picture with his drone, from above, so that’s what we did. Everybody was pretty impressed with the drone! That evening we sat down with Seth and had him watch the movie “Miracle on 34^th Street” because he’s never seen it and he loved it.

Monday morning I got up and ran around like crazy getting things done because I had to leave to pick up Jared from the airport in the early afternoon and I had a lot of things I needed to get done before then. Mostly the usual stuff, but I also had a lot of things to do (including some more shopping) to get ready for the next day’s den meeting. Jared’s flight left about 30 minutes late but they actually landed only about 15 minutes later than originally planned. I arrived at the cell phone lot about the same time that he landed, but then I had to wait there for about 45 minutes because it took a really long time for the luggage to make it from the plane to the luggage claim. Then it also took me a really long time to pick Jared up because the traffic at the pick up zone was RIDICULOUS!! I finally made it up to where he was and found a place to pull into the pick up zone, which was PACKED with cars, and we made it home just fine. It is really nice to have him home again. We had dinner and Frank and I went out to mail one more package (lines at the post office were incredible of course) and then we had family night.

On Tuesday morning I went visiting teaching and got all the other chores done. Jared didn’t get up until nearly 2:00 pm!! I think he wore himself out this semester (although he did get straight As), plus he was still on Mountain time. That evening he met with the bishop for his temple recommend interview. He got the priesthood interviews done out in Idaho, so he will be ordained on Christmas Day and he’s scheduled to go to the temple on Wednesday. He will meet with the stake president on Monday or Tuesday to finish up his recommend interviews.

While Jared was interviewing with the bishop, Seth and I were at den meeting. We had kind of a little Christmas party. We had two crafts for the boys to make—we made reindeer and Santa Claus ornaments using their handprints, and we made snowmen out of marshmallows, with peanut butter cups for hats, M&Ms for buttons, and fruit roll ups for scarves. We also gave each of them a “present”—a pinewood derby car kit so they can start working on their cars. The boys had fun, but it was hectic and busy the whole evening and I was so busy helping them that I didn’t have time to take any pictures. 

Wednesday was super busy too; I had the sister missionaries over to help make buckeye candy, fed the Elders dinner, and went to a bridal shower. The sister missionaries had a baptism that night too but it was at the same time as the bridal shower so I couldn’t go to that. I did a lot of shopping that day, too—the weekly WalMart trip as well as shopping for the bridal shower gift. The traffic was crazy and the lines at all the stores were super long, so that took a lot longer than it would have normally. I’ll be glad when all the Christmas shopping craziness is over!!

Yesterday was calmer although I still kept pretty busy with the regular chores, making 2 batches of fudge, and in the evening Jared and I went to choir practice. We are singing on Sunday and that was our last practice. The choir director asked me to share a few thoughts about the songs we are singing, so here is basically what I thought about them. We are singing “O Come All Ye Faithful” as well as “Stars Were Gleaming”, and I was struck by the fact that both songs talk about the birth of Christ as if we were living at that time. The first song invites us to “Come to Bethlehem” and to “Come adore Him”. The second song also invites us to participate in the event as if were there. It says things like “Ah, that singing, hear it ringing…Hearken, we can hear it still” and “See the clearness and the nearness of the blessed Christmas star”. Well, obviously we weren’t there, but I like how both of these songs invite us to make this event our own…that even though it occurred thousands of years ago, it still affects all of us and we should stop to think what the Savior’s life really means to us individually.

Today I have a lot to do, but I haven’t accomplished much yet. Seth’s last day of school was yesterday so he is home today and Frank only had to work a half day, so he is home too. (Plus he worked from home today anyway.) I don’t work as efficiently when there are lots of distractions around! It is nice to have everyone here, though. Scott is supposed to arrive tomorrow afternoon and we are just praying that the weather will cooperate on both ends (mostly there, I think the weather here is going to be fine) so that he can get here without delay. I’m having nightmares that he’ll get stuck in Denver and be there all alone for Christmas! When I looked up the weather for Denver, it looked fine but I have heard conflicting weather reports since then. We are, of course, really looking forward to talking to Tanner on Christmas too!! 

Now I need to go make some cookies, so I'd better get started on that. Merry Christmas to you all!!

The sunrise a few days ago. Having a dog who drags me outside really early in the morning is not always a bad thing!