Weekly Review August 28 '20

 This week has been our last week of summer vacation...school starts on Monday. Sort of. It's all virtual. For now, anyway. More on that later! 

Last Saturday (the 22nd) started early because a car alarm in our neighborhood started going off at about 5:30 am, and it kept going off every 5 - 15 minutes for the next couple of hours. I never went back to sleep. Finally Frank got up and went outside and got the license plate number and called the police, who said they'd figure out who the owner was and knock on their door and tell them to take care of the problem. (We don't have any idea who the car belongs to, but this was the 3rd or 4th time this has happened over the last few months, although all the other times it only went off once or twice.) It hasn't happened since then, thankfully. Meanwhile, Seth had a hike with his Deacon's Quorum that morning so after we dropped him off at the church, we came home and took a nap! Seth seemed to have fun on his hike...they went to a place called Sugarloaf Mountain, which is a place that we have hiked before and it's really nice. I can't remember what else we did on Saturday, so it was probably just the usual things like cleaning the kitchen floor. Oh, except that evening I was feeling cooped up and decided to go on a walk and Frank came with me. We saw a little bunny:

And a nice sunset:

On Sunday the 23rd Frank had an EQ meeting and Seth had a Deacon's Quorum Meeting but I didn't have anything besides our short family sacrament service. I did a lot of personal history stuff. That afternoon we had a brief strong thunderstorm and then a rainbow appeared, which was nice:

Actually, it's a double rainbow, if you look closely. The rest of the week was mostly the usual stuff with a few extra things added in, especially to prepare for school starting next week. On Tuesday evening there was an online RS activity where we discussed things we do to keep educating ourselves, even though most of us are not involved in any formal education. It was fun and some good ideas were discussed. 

I visited online with one of my ministering sisters on Wednesday afternoon (always enjoy talking to her!) and I  had book club on Wednesday evening. It was cool enough that we could meet outside. I enjoyed book club a lot, as usual, and we ended up talking until nearly 10 pm. (Not just about the book; we always diverge onto other things at the end. This time we were mostly talking about school and all our concerns about how it is going to work.) This month we are going to read The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I actually have never read although I saw a movie version a long time ago. I can't remember anything about it except that I really liked the movie! So I think I will enjoy the book a lot. I hope so, anyway.

On Monday I bought school supplies for Seth (we finally got a list from the teachers at his school). I couldn't find everything I was looking for so I looked at one other store and then decided to go online to order the elusive items. It was still challenging to find watercolors (!) and pastels, even on Amazon. Apparently everyone in the world is buying those things right now. I actually didn't have to get a lot of the things on the list because we already have them at home but I still ended up spending over $100 on school supplies because I had to get more art supplies than usual and some things for PE and for music that the school normally provides. Plus I decided that I didn't want Seth's school stuff taking over the whole house so I bought some containers to put stuff in. (Containers were also very hard to find...it was pretty slim pickings at the store and what was left cost more than I usually would spend.) All the supplies I ordered got here within a few days, so we are ready to go now, I think. This is Seth's bin for "specials" (art, music, PE):

This smaller bin is for all the little things like pencils, erasers, ruler & glue, plus some of the art supplies:

This last container is for all the bigger things like binders, notebooks, composition books, etc. The first photo shows the full container, the second one shows some of the stuff that is under the binders:

I attended two online parent orientations for Seth's school this week. One was on Wednesday afternoon and the other one was on Thursday morning. The first one was with the Middle School teachers and the second one was with the specials teachers. They both had some good information, although I still think things are going to be a mess at first. (I don't blame the teachers...they are doing their best in a crazy situation!) Overall, I don't love how they are doing things because I think we're going to have all of the disadvantages of having kids at home without any of the flexibility that we had last spring. They are expected to put in 5 solid hours of work per day. They are actually going to have a set schedule (although they don't know exactly what the schedule is yet, because I asked!) with a "homeroom" meeting and some instruction online starting at 9:00 am every morning, some time to work independently (not online), a break at noon for lunch and "recess", and then he'll have to log in sometime in the afternoon for specials. So basically it's like he's at school all day except he's at home and I have to make sure he's logging in at the correct times. Ugh!! I'm glad they will have some actual instruction from the teachers (they didn't have that in the spring) and I don't have to supervise him much but I am going to be stuck at home mostly all day because I'm not comfortable leaving my 13 year old son home alone with full access to the internet (go figure). (As a matter of fact, he has a laptop but it is password protected and he does not know the password...I have to log him in. And I'm not planning to change that procedure anytime soon.) I asked them what would be the best time to schedule outside appointments (like the orthodontist)...is he going to be "in school" from 9:00 am to 3:45 pm every day, as he would be if they were actually going to school? The response I got was "we don't know yet". Well, hopefully they will figure all that out soon. Seth was scheduled to have braces put on next Wednesday afternoon, but after those meetings I called and rescheduled him for late October. I think next week is going to be crazy enough without throwing that in...we need to get through these first couple of weeks. With my luck, there would be something really important that he needs to log in for at the exact same time as his appointment! (And yes, I know he can miss school sometimes, but Seth freaks out about missing school at all so it's better for his mental health and saves me a load of trouble if I can avoid scheduling anything during school hours.) I need to schedule an appointment with his therapist too as soon as I know what the new schedule is. He was supposed to have an appointment this week, but the therapist had to reschedule. Oh, and he's due for a medicine check up with his doctor too. All that is going to have to wait until I have a better idea what is going on with school. So fun! I was also a bit annoyed when the art, music, and PE teachers mentioned during orientation that we don't necessarily have to get everything they put on their supply lists. "It's a lot of stuff, so just do the best you can. I don't expect you to get everything." That would have been nice to know before I bought everything on the list!! But as I said, I'm sympathetic to how difficult this must be for the teachers. They've been thrown into a pretty difficult situation.

Speaking of that, this morning when I looked at the local news headlines, I was flabbergasted to discover that the governor of Maryland announced yesterday that the Covid-19 metrics for the state are looking really good and it should be safe to reopen schools. And he encouraged school districts to open the schools as soon as possible! What?? Four days before school starts, he's suggesting that they switch gears and go to in-person instruction when they have all been working their tails off for the last few weeks trying to get ready for a totally virtual environment? (They didn't find out until late July that they were going to have to go all virtual.) Don't get me wrong...I'm glad things are looking better and I am eager for Seth to return to school in person...it's the fact that the information keeps changing constantly and the school systems are being told to adapt at the last minute that I disagree with. Most of the school districts responded with an answer that was basically "Forget you. We can't change at this point.", and I can't say I blame them. What a mess! But maybe this means Seth will be going back to school in early February...or even sooner. We'll see what happens. 

Last night we took Seth to Cracker Barrel for dinner as an "end of summer" treat. My food was on such a pretty plate that I had to take a photo:

Other than that, though, it wasn't Cracker Barrel's best night. We had to wait nearly 45 minutes for our food and some of it wasn't very warm. We also ordered a "dirt cup" for Seth for dessert and asked to take it to go. While we were waiting for that to come, Frank went to pay our check. Our waiter showed up with the dessert, hurriedly dropping it off as he went by and not waiting to see if we needed anything else. The cup was only about 1/3 full, had no lid, and he didn't give us a plastic spoon either. But he was already gone...helping someone else. I actually felt kind of bad for him...I think he was new and he looked super stressed and busy all night (although there weren't a ton of customers there, so I'm not sure why). Anyway, we went out to the store in front to find Frank and showed him the cup, and he took it to the lady who had just helped him with our check and asked "Is this what the dirt cup is supposed to look like?" She said "Absolutely not" and she got Seth a new cup that was properly filled and had a lid and a spoon. I'm glad Frank is not afraid to be assertive about things like that because I am a wimp and avoid confrontation of any kind! 

In between all of that stuff, I've been working on a personal history post about Christmas (which is going to take forever...don't expect to see it anytime soon...I'm still gathering information) and also trying to get the things I need to begin a few more projects. I want to try crocheting some hats, but a trip to JoAnn's did not yield the kind of yarn I wanted so I ended up ordering some online and it just arrived last night. I have also decided to try building that dollhouse that I got several years ago. I figured now is probably the best chance I'll ever have to do that...we have an empty guest room and I don't anticipate that anyone is going to come visit anytime soon with all the Covid stuff going on and I definitely have more free time right now too. (Not sure how that's going to change next week, but hopefully I can work on it while Seth is doing schoolwork, as long as we're in the same room.) I went to the storage unit on Monday and pulled out the dollhouse kit and the dollhouse wiring kit. It's going to take quite a bit of preparation before I can actually get started on building...I have to choose a color scheme and buy the paint because most of the parts need to be painted before I start assembling. I also need to buy a few tools, and I am looking for a really good tutorial about how to wire a dollhouse because the instructions that came with the wiring kit are super brief and clearly intended for someone who already has a basic knowledge of how to do that, and of course I don't! But it will be an adventure, right? I'm hoping I learn some things and have some fun and don't end up giving up in frustration at some point! At any rate, I don't expect to get this project done quickly, and that's okay. I'd rather have a finished product that looks great and that I'm happy with than to rush through it and have it look sloppy. I fully intend to take my time and do it right. Hopefully I'll finish it before I die, haha!!

Frank has been pretty busy this week, as usual. He had an overnight install on Monday night, so we did family night on Tuesday evening. Even though it is nearly 5:00 pm on Friday right now, he is still working and won't be home for a few more hours because he had to take care of an emergency at one of the restaurants that is over an hour away. He wasn't thrilled about that and I don't really blame him.

Seth was supposed to have a Deacon's Quorum activity on Thursday evening...they were going to do a service project...but then it turned out that Seth was the only boy who was going to be able to come so they decided to postpone it. Seems like that keeps happening! I think things will be a little more settled when school starts. 

It's been really hot most days this week but we are thankful we aren't dealing with a hurricane or anything like that! We probably will get some of what's left of Hurricane Laura tomorrow, but nothing major. Poor Louisiana!! While I was writing this post we had a thunderstorm come through...the wind was really blowing and it rained really hard for a while but the storm is gone now and the sun has come back out. After tomorrow, temperatures are cooling down and we'll have highs in the 80s (or even 70s) most days next week, which sounds really nice. We've had some pretty clouds in the sky this week so I'll finish up with a few photos I took:

I know...there's an ugly power line and so forth in this photo, but I was stopped at a light so this is the best I could do. I liked how the sun was coming through that little break in the clouds. I took this photo last night on our way home from Cracker Barrel.

The other two photos I took on Monday afternoon from the parking lot at JoAnn's. The clouds don't look nearly as cool in the photos as they did in real life! We did get a thunderstorm later that night...no big surprise.

Weekly Review August 14 & 21 '20

Well I have two weeks to cover and we did quite a bit for a change (and I also took lots of pictures) so this post is going to be longer (and hopefully more interesting) than most of the ones I've been posting lately. Here goes...

I can't remember much about what we did before we left for Utah on Tuesday the 11th. I do remember that on Saturday Seth & I went with Frank to his office to help him do some cleaning / rearranging in his office. He's been wanting to do that for a while but hasn't had time since he's been swamped with other things, so we were happy to do something to help him. We worked for about an hour and got a lot accomplished...his office looked MUCH better when we were done! On Sunday I had an online RS meeting and Seth had an online Deacon's Quorum meeting. On Monday I was really busy getting ready for our trip...buying things we needed, packing, etc. Seth mowed the lawn so our house wouldn't look abandoned with an overgrown lawn. We managed to get everything done.

Tuesday the 11th was mostly spent traveling. Our flight had a short stop in Denver, but we didn't have to change planes. I got really cold on this flight, in spite of the fact that I was wearing layers on top (a layering shirt, a t-shirt, and a light jacket) plus long pants, socks and shoes. The jacket I had was quite thin so I decided then that I was going to buy a warm hoodie while in Utah for the plane trip home! We arrived in Utah around 4:00 pm, and Scott picked us up at the airport and took us back to Mom's house where we had a yummy stroganoff dinner that she had prepared for us. Erin, Dan & Harvey came by that evening to see us...we enjoyed visiting with them outside in the backyard.

A few photos taken right after leaving Denver:

We also enjoyed getting to know Scott's dog, Everest:

Since both Scott and Amanda are living with Mom right now, we got to see and visit with both of them a lot and we really enjoyed that! Wednesday the 12th was mostly a pretty quiet day; we just enjoyed visiting. (Tanner, Darlee, and Jared came to see us too. Jessie was still in Maryland for a family reunion.) We were leaving for Moab the next day, so we had to go to the store to get a few things for that trip and put gas in Mom's car. (And Frank & I took advantage of the opportunity to get ice cream cones at Macy's!)  

On Thursday the 13th we headed south to Arches National Park, along with Mom in her car. Amy, Maddie, Jeremy, Ammon, Darlee & Tanner caravaned with us in Amy's van. The morning was not without some drama...Seth said he didn't feel well when he woke up and he actually threw up. Great! Since he does this fairly often and usually only throws up once and doesn't appear to be contagious, we weren't extremely worried but we weren't thrilled either. We took a bowl with us in case he got sick again and when we made a stop in Spanish Fork at a gas station, I went in and bought him some ginger ale and some saltine crackers. Thankfully, he didn't throw up again and after the first few hours he perked up and seemed to be fine after that. We made it to Arches National Park by 11:00 and spent several hours there driving around to see the sights. It's amazingly beautiful, although I don't feel like the photos I took captured the beauty very well. We took a short hike to Double Arch although I didn't make it all the way there. It was super hot (about 105 degrees) with no shade and I found that my body wasn't dealing very well with the higher altitude (in addition to the heat). So when Mom decided she needed to go back to the car, I was more than happy to go with her. We could still see double arch, by the way...we just didn't go far enough to stand under it. 

On our way back out of the park, we stopped at the Visitor's Center--which was actually closed thanks to COVID-19--to purchase some souvenirs. (The gift shop was open...go figure!!) Seth got a stuffed animal--a bat that he dubbed Bruce, we got a Christmas tree ornament and some postcards, and I got a nice warm hoodie! 

We had booked a 3 bedroom condo to stay in so we went there after leaving the park (around 3:30) and we were happy to collapse in a nice cool place! All of the kids (including the grown up ones--I guess I should have said "the younger generation") went swimming in the complex's pool while the adults figured out where we were going to eat dinner. We decided to order take out from a local restaurant and it was quite a feat to get everyone's order figured out but we finally succeeded! Frank & I went to pick up the food and wished we had brought a few more people along when we saw how many bags / drink trays we needed to carry. We managed to get it all back to the condo, though. While we were waiting for them to finish up our order, I noticed a couple of signs that I thought were funny:

After dinner, we drove back to the park to do some stargazing. I took a few photos on our way in:

That little white speck in the sky is the moon...it didn't show up very well in the photo but it was pretty cool in real life.

I made Frank pull over so I could get out of the car to take this picture!

We didn't have a nice enough camera with us to get any photos of the stars, so you'll have to take my word for it when I say that the view of the Milky Way and the billions of stars was totally stunning! We all lay down on a sidewalk (which still felt warm from the day's heat) and just looked up at the sky for a long time. We weren't exactly contemplative--we actually talked and laughed the whole time--but it was a lot of fun and I could have stayed out there for hours longer (except my back started to hurt). We saw lots of satellites and several shooting stars, including one large one that streaked nearly all the way across the sky. Definitely one of the best parts of the trip and one of my favorite memories!

Friday morning, the 14th, was busy because we had to eat breakfast and get checked out by 10:00 am. Seth and Tanner still managed to catch some brother time together for a few minutes:

After checking out, we went back to Arches so we could see a few things we missed, including Delicate Arch:

This photo was taken from a viewpoint that was pretty far away from the arch. We didn't do the hike to the arch because it was a rather difficult 3 mile hike. We didn't have the time and it was far too hot!! Someday I would like to go back to Arches when it is a lot cooler.

I took a few more photos of other places on our way out of the park:

Then we drove to Canyonlands National Park, which is only about a half hour away. We spent several hours driving around to see the sights there. (The sky was kind of hazy because of forest fires in California.) This viewpoint was directly across the street from the Visitor's Center, where we stopped to get some water and a few souvenirs...postcards and magnets. I had to stamp my National Parks passport too. (I did that at Arches as well.)

Then we drove on to another awesome scenic overlook:

And then we did a short hike to Mesa Arch. It was only 1 mile round trip, but it was a bit challenging because of the heat. The views were well worth it, though!

A baby chipmunk:

After that, we were thoroughly worn out and it was late afternoon, so we headed home. We didn't get back to Mom's house until about 7:30 (we stopped for "lunch" around 4:30) and spent the rest of the evening recuperating. We're so glad we got to go on this trip, though!

The next day (Saturday the 15th) was Scott's birthday. We gave him presents in the morning:

We spent the day doing laundry and relaxing. I also made a cake. Ben's daughter Jessie came by to pick some things up that she left at Mom's house (she was in the process of moving) so we got to visit with her for a while. That night, Tanner & Darlee and Jared & Jessie came over and we all had dinner together. Scott made pork tacos in the crock pot and I made some Mexican rice to go with it. We also had cake, of course! 

Sunday the 16th it was Mom's week to go to church so we were all able to go to church together. They are allowed to sing in her ward too, so we enjoyed that! Before church we tuned into the online Sunday school class from our home ward and after church Seth tuned into a Bishop's youth night from our home ward also. That evening we had a gathering at Tim & Rachelle's house in their backyard to celebrate July & August birthdays and just to see everyone. It was fun to see Micah, who is finishing up his MTC training and to see Taran's new baby Quinn. We also enjoyed seeing many other extended family members from Tim's, Shellie's, Erick's, and Amy's families. The evening was too short to visit adequately with everyone!

We also had Anna take some family photos for us at a park nearby...I don't have those yet, so I will have to share them later!

Monday the 17th was our last full day in Utah and we mostly rested. I had a project I've been working on that I wanted Mom to help me with so I took it with me to Utah and she helped me finish it on Monday. I enjoyed visiting with Mom and with Amy (who came by to visit) while I worked on the project. (It's for Christmas, so I'm not going to share the completed project yet.) Meanwhile, Seth and Frank enjoyed playing video games with Scott. Seth actually had quite a bit of video game playing time with his brothers while we were in Utah, which I know he enjoyed a lot! Frank and I took a trip to Deseret Book to get some garments (Rachelle helped us) and I got a few books too. Our kids came over to visit with us one last time that evening also (except Jessie, because she wasn't feeling well.) 

Scott's dog, Everest, is so cute and she cracks me up. She looks so much like a human in this photo!:

Here she is waiting faithfully outside the bathroom door for Scott while he showers! 

On Tuesday the 18th, it was time to head back home. Scott took us to the airport, which we really appreciated. (It was nice to have a little more time with him too.) The trip home was fairly uneventful also. Once again, we had a short stop without a plane change...this time in Phoenix. One nice thing about COVID-19 (is there anything nice about it?) is that both our flight out and back were not very crowded. On the way back, we had 2 rows between the three of us so I got to move around a bit and I sat next to the window on the flight to Phoenix as well as the end of the flight to Baltimore.

Goodbye, Utah:

I took a few photos of what I think is the Grand Canyon on the flight to Phoenix:

In Phoenix I also got off the plane for a few minutes to use a "real" bathroom and stretch my legs a bit:

Frank & Seth got off for a few minutes too and while I was waiting for them to come back, I got a text message from a Maryland friend from our ward: "Are you in Phoenix? Kev and I just saw Frank and Seth at the airport here! We are returning from CA. Or we think we saw them across the terminal." That was pretty funny! They were on the same flight as us for the trip home to Baltimore. They had gone to California for their daughter's wedding. (We also saw some friends from our ward at the SLC airport that morning...they were just flying in to bring their daughter out to BYU. I already knew they were going to be there, though, and actually walked over to their terminal so I could see them briefly.) Because of the time change, it was 8:30 pm before we landed in Baltimore (made it seem like a really long day). It was really pretty coming in at sunset though:

After we got off the plane, we had a very long wait for our luggage and we needed to stop to get some "dinner" on the way home so we didn't get to our house until around 10:30 pm. We unpacked and went to bed!

Since getting home, we've been trying to catch up on things and adjust back to the Eastern time zone. I've been sleeping in until 8:00 or 9:00 every morning! (But in Utah, that's only 6:00 or 7:00.) Frank jumped right back into work...he worked all day on Tuesday and had an overnight install Tuesday night. He's been pretty busy, but it hasn't been as bad as I expected after being gone for a week. The main thing I needed to do on Wednesday was to plan meals and get some groceries because the refrigerator looked like this:

I did manage to get that done; I also cleaned the bathrooms and emptied the dishwasher and got everything else from the trip put away. The day went by fast! We watched a few home movies that evening, after Frank went back to work (Cleveland family home movies). It was also really strange to look out the window that morning and see everything looking a bit wet:

It was actually raining lightly. We didn't see any rain while we were in Utah!

On Thursday the 20th I got caught up on all the laundry and other chores. On one of my trips to the laundry room I accidentally knocked over a long florescent light bulb that was leaning against the wall. It hit the cement floor and shattered into a million pieces! Actually, exploded would probably be a better word. I'm thankful I didn't get glass in my eyes. I was barefoot and kind of trapped, but thankfully Frank was home by then so I hollered for help and he came and did a bunch of sweeping and vacuuming so I could get out. It was amazing how far all those pieces had gone. The bulb was near the door to the laundry room  and pieces of glass were not only all over the laundry room but also all over my office / craft room on the other side of the door. Frank said "When you make a mess, you really make a mess!" We finally managed to get the floor cleaned up at least but I still found tiny bits of glass on my desk when I was working on the budget this morning. Last night I watched Pew family home movies, which is always fun and nostalgic. Seth had a short Deacon's Quorum presidency meeting to plan some activities.

Today Frank is working from home; it's been nice to have him around. I spent the morning working on the budget and got it all caught up, and now my blog is caught up too! It's a good thing, because it's time to make dinner. 

We had a great time in Utah and made some wonderful memories, and I am so glad that we got to go. I am also glad that coming home is nice too. I like where I live, and I'm grateful for that! I'm hoping we'll get to visit Utah again soon, though!