Well, there was quite a bit going on this week, it seems. I'll probably forget something, but here goes...
Frank and I went to see a Michelangelo Sistine Chapel Exhibit on Saturday. We bought the tickets a few months ago. It was down in Virginia, so a little bit of a drive but we enjoyed spending the time together. The exhibit consisted of several close up high resolution digital photographs of different parts of the Sistine Chapel ceiling which were projected onto large screens so they looked like you were looking at the paintings close up. Certainly, it is amazing to think that he painted all of those intricate paintings on a ceiling! We enjoyed the exhibit, but we were a little disappointed in it...afterwards we agreed that if we had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 5, we'd give it a 3. There weren't as many paintings as we anticipated and the photos in the advertisements made it look a lot more impressive. For example, in the photos, it showed lots of paintings projected onto a ceiling, so it looked like you would be walking into a sort of replica of what you would see if you went to the actual Sistine Chapel. The exhibit space we went to didn't have any of that. They were just projected onto walls with space in between each image. Just didn't have the same impact, but of course we did enjoy looking at the paintings and definitely appreciated the skill that went into painting the originals. We will just have to go visit the real Sistine Chapel someday! 😄
The exhibit was located in a space in a huge mall, so afterwards we got some lunch at the food court. When we first got to the mall, I realized it's the same mall that I visited a number of years ago so that I could go to the American Girl store, so after we ate, Frank humored me by going to that store with me for a few minutes. It was really nice of him since the store was on the opposite end of this huge mall! Quite a bit of walking. I didn't buy anything at the store, just wanted to see it. After that we came home. It was a fun, half day date.
That evening we got an email from one of the counselors in our stake presidency asking if it would be possible for us to meet with him the next morning before church. We were somewhat intrigued by that and spent some time debating what it could be about. We assumed it was a calling or assignment for Frank, since the email was addressed to him (although it was sent to both his email address and mine). But really, I thought it was likely some sort of stake committee calling or maybe an assignment related to the temple open house. I wasn't expecting a major calling, so I didn't think about it too much.
We woke up on Sunday morning to discover about an inch or two of snow on the ground. It was the perfect kind of snow, though. It covered up the grass, trees, etc and made everything look really pretty, but it didn't stick to the roads at all. As most of you know by now, when we met with the counselor in the stake presidency, he issued a calling to Frank to be the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric of our ward. We were definitely surprised!!! I thought it was pretty cool, though, that the first thing Frank said was "Wow" (registering his surprise) but then he immediately said "Yes". I could tell he was shocked and pretty overwhelmed by the idea but he was still immediately willing to do it. We met with the counselor at 8:30 and church started at 9:00 and they sustained him in sacrament meeting so we didn't have much time to wrap our minds around the idea. I kind of felt like we'd been hit over the head! 😅 I think we're still adjusting to the idea, actually. I do think Frank has a lot to offer and that he will do a great job. And I also know this calling will be a great blessing to both him and to our family, so I'm grateful.
Sunday after church was crazy because of course Frank had to meet with the bishopric for a bit and we hadn't been expecting that so we only drove one car to church. We will be driving two cars every week from now on! Then we came home and grabbed something to eat before I had a class presidency meeting and Frank had ward council (both on Zoom, and at the same time). Then immediately after that Frank and I both had another meeting because the YW presidency and the Bishopric were meeting together to discuss the youth and to do some planning for youth activities. I had the meeting on my calendar fo the last few months, but Frank of course found out about it last minute. We also had family night and dinner in there somewhere...all in all, Sunday went by fast!
Frank has not been ordained a high priest or set apart for his new calling yet. That will happen this Sunday morning. We were hoping Frank's dad could come up here to ordain him, but his dad is having some health problems right now so a trip up here would be too much for him. We did briefly discuss the possibility of us driving down there instead (in that case, he would have been ordained today so we could be back here by Sunday morning) but we realized that would be too difficult for us with all the other things we need to do and Seth having to miss school and Frank having to miss work. So a good friend of Frank's is going to ordain him instead. We know his parents (and other family members) will be with us in spirit! The other counselor in the bishopric is going to be out of town this Sunday so Frank will be conducting and he also is in charge of conducting, choosing topics, and choosing speakers for the month of March. Baptism by fire! I'm sure our bishop is really relieved to have someone to help him, though. The former 2nd counselor had a stroke at the end of October and he has been recovering since then and hasn't been able to come to church or do anything like that since then, so they've basically been a 2 man bishopric for nearly 4 months. (The former counselor sent Frank a really nice text message on Sunday, by the way.)
Okay! Now for the rest of the week, which hopefully won't take as long to talk about. Monday was Valentine's Day; we didn't really do anything to celebrate besides exchange cards because we considered our excursion on Saturday as our Valentine's date. We got Seth a card and some candy too but I told Frank a few weeks ago that if he truly loved me, he WOULD NOT give me candy for Valentine's Day. He didn't get me any candy, so he must truly love me! For family night we played a game called Forbidden Island, which is fun because it's one of those games where you all have to cooperate to win the game...so either we all win or we all lose together. It involves capturing 4 treasures and getting off an island before the island sinks. It was close, but we did manage to win the game! I like games where we're working together rather than competing against each other.
On Tuesday the other counselor in YW and I went to the YW secretary's house to help her get the nursery set up for her new baby girl (due in about 3 weeks). She asked us if we would come help her because she was feeling overwhelmed with what needed to be done. We spent a few hours with her and got a lot of stuff done, including getting most of the clothes put away in drawers or hanging in the closet. It looked a lot better by the time we were done, and we enjoyed visiting while we were working.
Wednesday was my VITA volunteer day, as usual. There were not as many tax preparers there this week but the site coordinator scaled back the appointments a lot and a few people no showed, so things were pretty calm and I enjoyed that. I completed a couple of tax returns and reviewed several others. Nothing crazy came up, either...just straightfoward returns, which was nice for a change!
That evening we all had youth activities, which will be the norm from now on. I actually really like that we all get to go to the activities together as a family. This week was class activities, so I didn't really see Frank or Seth much after we got to the church. The YM went to the gym to play gaga ball. The younger YW class was working on their film script. The older two classes met together (we do that once a month) and we talked about the importance of each unique person in our class and then we made bead animals (there was an analogy between each bead in the animal being important to the whole). Making the animals turned out to be fairly challenging so it took a lot longer than we expected. I did manage to finish mine, which was a ladybug. It turns out I chose one of the simpler patterns; so glad I did! It was a lot of fun, though. We were talking and laughing while we worked.
Everybody working:
Yesterday my friend Rebekah came over and we had lunch together. We have had very little chance to talk to each other since December, so it was nice to get caught up! Last night I had a practice for the song we're singing in Stake Conference. We did end up with 2 people singing each part and I ended up singing alto, so I'm happy about that. It turns out that 4 of the 6 singers are in our ward...so is the pianist. So I'm singing with a lot of friends (the other alto is the YW president) and that makes it really fun. The guy who asked us to sing sent us a recording of the song earlier this week so I was able to listen to it and by following along with the sheet music, I was able to learn a lot of my part before the practice. It is a medley of Lord, I Would Follow Thee and Love One Another. It was sung at the Women's Meeting (General Conference) in 2014, if you want to go listen to it! It's quite pretty and I have enjoyed learning it. I came home last night just feeling fantastic, and I realized that is the first time I've been able to sing with a choir / small group in person since all the Covid-19 mess began. Singing with other people really does bring me a lot of joy!!
Today has really zipped by and I'm not sure how that has happened. There was no Seminary this morning so we got up an hour later than usual. It was nice to have an extra hour of sleep, especially since I have had a lot of nights this week that I didn't sleep well. Today is midterm for Seth and all the schools got out 2 hours early which means he was done at 12:15. Frank and I picked him up from school and we went to Roy Rogers for lunch. There is a mushroom / monterry jack burger that they are test marketing right now and I wanted to try it. It is actually really good! I spent some more time practicing the song this morning but other than that and exercising, showering, and scripture reading that is all I got done this morning. And now it is almost 3:30! I haven't even started on the budget yet, but I will do that next. I guess I've had a few text message conversations going on today and Scott called as well so that has taken some time too.
In between everything else, we've been busy with all the usual school work, work, and household chores. I'm still plowing my way through Ben-Hur...going much slower than I would like, though. I'm on page 374 of 610. We continue to make preparations for our trip to Hawaii, which mostly consists of buying things. It seems like a new package arrives every day...shorts, a snorkel mask, locks for our luggage, clear waterproof containers for our phones (so we can take photos underwater), water shoes, reef safe sunscreen.... The list goes on! I hope we are almost done buying things! We got the financing figured out for the new windows and I have our tax return for this year almost done but in the process realized that I made a mistake last year so I'm going to have to file an ammended return for last year. I got to talk to Amy a few times this week which is the first time we've talked (not counting text messages) since I was in Utah last summer, so that was nice. Oh, and Southwest airlines caused us a great deal of consternation by changing all of our flights! The flight to Honolulu is okay...we are actually getting in an hour sooner than before...but our flight from Oahu to Maui was changed to a few hours later which meant Frank and I would not be there in time for an excursion we booked. Besides that, Seth's flight home from Utah was changed from a non stop flight leaving at 2:00 pm to a flight with 2 stops, a plane change, and leaving at 7:00 am. After spending over an hour on the phone, Frank was able to get our Maui flight switched to an earlier flight so we won't miss our excursion but there weren't any options for changing Seth's flight home. We aren't thrilled about that because we purposely put him on a nonstop flight since it will be his first time flying alone. Now he will have to make a plane change in Chicago. There is a stop in Cincinnati too but at least he can just stay on the plane for that one. Since we can't change his flight, we are going to make our trip from home to Honolulu his "trial run". We have to change planes in Los Angeles, so we'll be able to walk him through the process of what to do. He's flown a lot, so he's familiar with the process, we just want to make sure he will be able to figure it out on his own when we aren't there to help him. I'm sure he'll be fine, but it would have been a lot nicer if he could be on a nonstop flight!!
Frank had an interview this week with the head hunter about that job in La Plata Maryland which I mentioned last week. It went well and he found out more details about the job. It sounds a lot like what he's doing now except he would be the manager with 4 people to help him. Nice! It also pays significantly better. He did tell her that he is just not interested in moving right now. She said if he is willing to spend some time going down there at first (maybe 3 days per week), until he is trained and things are going smoothly, that after that they could probably work something out so that he works remotely most of the time. I don't know...we'll see if that's really an option. I definitely don't want him driving down there every day (or even 3 days per week on a consistent basis)...it's about an hour and a half away. But he'll have another interview with the owner of the company and we'll go from there.
Finally, to finish up (very long post this week!!) I can't believe I forgot to mention last week that Jessie got a job offer in Cary, North Carolina so she and Jared will be moving there. They are actually leaving Utah on Monday and arriving in Cary on Thursday. We are very excited for them, and we're really happy that they are going to be so much closer to us...only about a 5 hour drive away!! This has all happened quite quickly...she just got the job offer last week. They have managed to sell the lease for their place in Utah and have signed a lease for an apartment in Cary. When I talked to Jared a few days ago, he said they had a lot of packing done. They have been going through their things and selling or donating a lot of stuff. They are only planning to take what they can fit in their car, so they have sold most of their furniture. He said they had done a trial of trying to pack all of their things in their car and it looks like it's going to work. A note about Jared's health: he did see a specialist and that doctor is almost certain he has a fistula, but since the surgery he needs for that would take quite a bit of recovery time, they decided it would be better to wait until after the move for him to have surgery. So he will have to find a doctor after they get to NC. Please continue to pray for him (and for both of them, that the move will go well.)
This was quite the marathon post so if you're still reading, I commend you for successfully making it to the end!
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