Is it spring? Some days it feels like it, but other days it doesn't. Today temps are in the mid 50s but it is cloudy so it doesn't feel very warm. We've had a few really nice days but mostly this week has been kind of wet and chilly. However, a few trees have started to bloom this week and we are hearing and seeing a lot of birds, so the signs of spring are there even if it doesn't feel very warm a lot of the time.
We had another pretty busy week although my calendar doesn't have a lot on it. Frank was definitely a lot busier than I was, though. He's had a lot going on with work and has put in a lot of late nights. After we got back from Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon (around 3:00), he unpacked and then went downstairs to his office to do work and worked solid until midnight. Then of course he had to be up early for bishopric meeting and ward council. That's how a lot of this week has gone for him. Is it any wonder that he is sick now? At first he thought he might just have allergies but he's been really congested and not feeling great since Wednesday, so I think he's got a bad cold or the flu or something. He did take an at home Covid test, and that was negative. Even though he isn't feeling great, he has still been working a lot...just working from home. There's some issues with the new database that he's been working on all day today.
I guess I should go back to last Saturday and finish telling about our trip to Philadelphia. As planned, Seth and Frank went with me to the temple on Saturday morning to see if Seth could do some baptisms and they did let him join a larger group that was already there so while I was in my endowment session, he got to be proxy for 4 baptisms...3 of them were family names I brought with us...and Frank did the confirmations. They finished before I did so they walked back to the hotel and changed and packed everything up except for my suitcase and then walked back to the temple to meet me when I finished.
It was wonderful to be back in the temple again! We are all so glad that we got to go!
We walked back to the hotel so I could change clothes and then we checked out and headed home. I took a few photos of the hotel...one in the lobby and the other in our room...because I thought the signs on the walls were kind of clever:
I took some photos from our hotel window on Friday night too, after I wrote last week's post:
The trip home went smoothly and was uneventful...we stopped in Delaware to get some lunch, but other than that we didn't need to stop. As I mentioned, Frank worked the rest of the day; I kept busy finishing the usual Saturday chores. I don't remember much about what we did on Sunday after church except that we had family night. Frank took a nap after he got home from doing tithing and I wanted to take a nap but I wrote an email to our kids instead. On Sunday morning I looked out my bedroom window and saw these two geese walking across the common area:
The rest of the week was mostly business as usual. I did get the personal property tax return filed for the business on Monday. My VITA shift on Wednesday was kind of crazy because the first two appointments I ended up not being able to complete the returns. The first lady had an incorrect W-2 (she moved during the year so her company sent her one for each state that she lived in but the total income for the two states added up to a lot more than her total federal income for the year). The second lady had an item on her return that was out of scope for our program. Then the third hour I was there all of the appointments no-showed, so overall I spent the first 3 hours I was there with not much to do. We (the volunteers) were all just sitting there talking to each other and hoping someone would show up soon. Then at noon all 5 of our appointments showed up and a few of them were people who didn't speak English so then I was really busy the last two hours completing a tax return for a couple who spoke Spanish, who also needed to get ITINs (Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers) for their two children so that they could claim them as dependents on their return. I filled out the application to get ITINs for their children as well as completing their tax return. I had an interpreter there for the beginning as we were sorting through all their stuff but she had to leave shortly after that so it was tricky communicating with them after that when questions came up! Then to finish their return I had to help them prepare to mail it--they couldn't efile because of the ITIN applications--so I had to call a number to get an interpreter for that part. It wasn't ideal to not have the interpreter there in person since I was pointing to lines to have them sign and stuff like that and of course the interpreter on the phone couldn't see what I was doing. But we got it all done in the end and they seemed to be grateful!
Frank didn't go to YM on Wednesday evening since he wasn't feeling very well but Seth and I both went to the church for activities. All the YW classes and the YM were working on their movies because the "film festival" is next week so we all need to finish up. My class went to Goodwill to purchase some clothes for costumes and then we came back to the church and got one scene filmed. We are meeting again tonight at 4:00 to continue filming. Hopefully we will get most of it done!
I had a YW presidency meeting yesterday morning so between that and the regular chores I kept pretty busy.
This is the last week of the 3rd term for Seth so he's been pretty busy getting all his assignments in. I hope someday he will learn not to procrastinate! He is done with everything now though and he has Monday off from school. I'm pretty happy that we only have one term left of this school year. I am ready for summer!!
Frank and Seth are ministering companions now and they visited two of their families this week...one on Tuesday and one last night (Frank wore a mask last night). Frank told Seth that he would give the lesson the first few times and then Seth will have a turn. I am happy that Seth is starting to see what it means to be a ministering brother. Unfortunately, we haven't had hometeachers or ministering brothers visit us for over a decade (all of Seth's lifetime that he can remember) so he doesn't even really know what a hometeacher or ministering brother is.
This morning some guys from the company that installed our new windows came over and fixed our shutters on our house so they look better now.
I talked to both Tanner and Jared this week. I only had a few minutes to talk to Tanner so we didn't chat extensively but he seems to be doing well. I talked to Jared for longer; he was calling to report the results of a visit to a specialist. He was hoping to get his surgery scheduled soon but the new specialist doesn't agree with the one in Utah. Based on Jared's symptoms, he thinks it's highly possible that Jared has Crohn's Disease, and if so just doing surgery to remove the fistula will not solve the problem. So instead, they are going to do some testing (bloodwork, MRI, colonoscopy) to try to get a firm diagnosis. If he has Crohn's Disease, he still may need surgery but there are some other treatments they can try also. I've been doing a bit of online research on Crohn's Disease and it doesn't sound very fun. Jared defninitely has a number of the symptoms. It's a chronic disease and not really completely curable, but there are medications that can really help and can possibly put it in remission for long periods of time. Everybody please keep him in your prayers! He has a lot of discomfort from the abscess / fistula and hasn't been able to work a lot so that makes life challenging for them. Fortunately, Jessie's new job seems to be going really well and she enjoys it.
That's all the news from around here (or at least all the news I am remembering right now). To finish up, here's a photo of the new bishopric that the bishop's wife took a few weeks ago. Frank is definitely the tallest one (but the bishop has the most hair)😂!
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