We've had a busy weekend so I am late getting this week's post written.
Last Friday (the 13th) Seth and Frank went to see the new Dr. Strange movie. Our stake was having a fathers / sons campout that night but it was supposed to rain (and it did) so they decided to go see a movie instead of going camping. I stayed home and read West With Giraffes, and almost finished it. I read the last few chapters the next day. I actually really liked this book, so if you are looking for a good book to read, I recommend it.
On Saturday (the 14th) I got my hair done first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, Frank had some work to do for a client. When I got home Frank was still gone and he didn't get home until the middle of the afternoon. I spent most of the rest of the day going through our closet and bedroom, cleaning things out and getting things better organized. When Frank came home, he helped. We ended up throwing away a big bag of stuff and we had another large bag of stuff to donate. We were pretty tired by the end of the day, but felt like we got a lot accomplished. Darlee also contacted us that day because she was in the area for a study abroad. We were trying to figure out a time that we could meet up with her while she was out here but unfortunately we were never able to connect. We will see her when we visit Utah in July, though!
I can't remember much about Sunday or Monday except that on Monday evening Scott arrived. His flight was supposed to get in at 9:00 pm but his flight out of Denver was delayed quite a bit so he didn't get in until a little after 10:00 pm instead. Frank and I went to pick him up; Seth stayed home and went to bed since he had Seminary the next morning. The moon that evening was full, very large, and orange/red in color. It looked really cool! I wish I could have got a good picture of it but my camera on my phone isn't that good (plus it's hard to take a decent picture from a moving car). We enjoyed looking at it, at least, even though we couldn't get a picture. When Scott got in, it took quite a while for him to get his luggage too so we didn't get home until nearly midnight and we went right to bed.
It's been great having Scott here this week! Some of my household chores have suffered since I'd rather talk with Scott than do chores, but that's okay...the house will still be here and need cleaning next week. ;) We didn't really do anything out of the ordinary until the weekend, but have just enjoyed having Scott around. He's been a big help with Seth as well. He talked through a couple of school assignments with Seth and helped him to get them done. He also helped Seth write a talk for Sacrament meeting, which Seth gave today. He picked Seth up from school a couple of times and just in general has given him a lot of good brotherly advice. I think Seth has really enjoyed having Scott here as well.
Seth had school every day as usual except on Friday he got out two hours early. He's had a bit of school work to do since we are trying to help him get his grades up in a couple of his classes. This week was his last week of Seminary for the year. Originally, they were supposed to go next week too but his teachers told them that if all the kids in the class got their assessment done last week that they would get out a week early. All the kids completed their assessment, so Friday was the last day of Seminary. I am happy that we will be able to get up an hour later now! Wednesday morning was the last day of Seminary for the Seniors, so they had a little celebration and we provided breakfast for everyone. (They have breakfast once a week and we have not provided breakfast all year so we volunteered to do it.) The kids wanted pizza and donuts (yes, a really healthy breakfast!) so that's what we did. We also provided milk and orange juice.
We weren't very happy on Wednesday afternoon when we found out that one of the boys in our ward, who sits next to Seth in Seminary, tested positive for Covid-19. It's been going around his family, but he tested negative that morning and felt fine so he went to Seminary and school as usual. He didn't start feeling sick until after he got home from school. He was not wearing a mask at Seminary and neither was Seth, so that means Seth has been exposed and we have been exposed to Seth. Because of that, Seth wore a mask to Seminary and to school for the rest of the week and we have been wearing masks when we go out in public. So far, thankfully, none of us have felt sick. Hopefully that will continue!
This boy who came down with Covid-19 was also supposed to give a talk in Sacrament meeting today, so that is how Seth ended up being asked to speak instead.
On Wednesday evening we had youth activities. My class combined with the yonger class and we did service for a family in our ward--we did yardwork. Mostly we were pulling weeds and digging up grass. After we worked for an hour, they built a fire in their fire pit and we made s'mores. Between sickness and lots of end of the school year events, we didn't have a lot of girls there that evening, even with two classes participating. My class only had one girl come and the younger class only had two. I think we will be combining a lot for activities over the summer, since we don't have a lot of girls to begin with and people will be going out of town. The YM celebrated Seth's birthday (a little early). Seth got to pick the activity they did and the treat they had. He chose to play pickle ball (again) and he chose chocolate cupcakes for their treat. Scott went with Frank and Seth to the YM activity and I think he had fun, but he ended up getting asked to teach the YM lesson at church today! (He was happy to do that, though.)
Frank had a meeting at the University of Maryland on Wednesday morning...it was the meeting where he fills out a lot of paperwork like his W-4 and so forth. He was about 10 minutes away from the university when he realized that he had forgotten to bring his passport and all the papers he had filled out already! He called me and I looked all over the house and finally found the papers on a bookshelf in our bedroom, which is not a place that he usually puts things that he needs to take with him. I scanned the papers and emailed them to him so that he could easily fill out new ones.
On Thursday Frank and I had a meeting with our financial advisor to discuss retirement plan options. We have two retirement plan options to choose from with his new job and we have to make a decision about which plan we want before the first day that he works there. Whatever decision we make, it is permanent--we can't change our minds later. So we want to make sure we make the best choice. After talking to him, we have a bit more information but we still need to talk to someone at the University of Maryland before we can make a final decision. We talked about retirement in general also, and decided to make a few changes in what we've been doing with our other retirement account. (All the retirement accounts that he's had with former employers have been rolled into one IRA, so we talked about that one too.)
As I mentioned earlier, Seth got out of school 2 hours early on Friday. We had tickets to go to the Washington DC Temple Open House and needed to be there between 3:00 and 3:30. Because the University of Maryland is only a few miles away from the temple and Frank needed to bring in his passport to show them (they couldn't accept a copy of that) we decided it would make sense to leave early enough that we could go to the University of Maryland first and do that in one trip, instead of Frank driving down there again sometime next week. So that's what we did, and it was nice for us to see where he is going to be working. The campus is quite pretty. He got the rest of the paperwork done that he needed to do and then we drove over to the temple open house.
The open house was really great!! The temple has not changed all that much, but we recognized all the changes, or course, having been there so many times before. Overall it is just fresher and prettier. There is a lot of beautiful new artwork, there are new furnishings and finishes on a lot of things, and there are a lot of new light fixtures including a large chandelier in the middle of the celestial room. (There have always been 12 small chandeliers around the edges of the celestial room but there was not a large one in the center of the ceiling before.) Overall, I like the changes even though I will miss the large mural that used to be on the wall at the end of the bridge. There is a beautiful painting there now, but I really liked the mural. The thing I liked the most about the openhouse was seeing how many people were there. There were tons of people there and it seemed that the majority of them were not members of the church. I really loved seeing all those people in the temple who wouldn't normally be able to be there! I felt like I was getting the chance to share this place that is so special to me with so many people. It was a really beautiful feeling. After we did the tour of the inside, we walked around the outside of the temple too. It was a very hot day (in the 90s) but the temple grounds are so beautiful too!
Because Scott wanted to visit a couple of museums in Washington DC, we had arranged to stay at a hotel in northern Virginia on Friday night so we could go to the museums on Saturday. So after we finished at the temple open house, we drove to our hotel to check in. We changed clothes and then went to dinner at a Longhorn Steakhouse nearby. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing at the hotel. Frank took Seth swimming at the hotel swimming pool.
On Saturday we went to the National Air & Space Museum. There are actually two of them--one is on the National Mall and the other one is near Dulles International Airport. We went to the one by the airport because Scott wanted to see the Space Shuttle Discovery and some of the other things that were there. (And actually, the museum on the National Mall is closed right now for renovations.) Dad and I have been there before but Scott and Seth had not been there. We spent the morning wandering around that museum. It is huge, with so many airplanes, helicopters, etc.
When we finished looking at all the planes, rockets, etc., we went up to the observation deck on the 7th floor where there were panoramic views of the entire area. It was really cool but impossible to get good photos through the reflective glass. By then it was after lunch time so we went in search of a place to eat. Scott had also expressed an interest in going to the Holocaust Museum but he decided he was too tired and the rest of us were tired too so we were all happy to go home. We stopped at a place called Moby Dick's which has yummy Mediterranean food for lunch and then we drove home. We unpacked and relaxed...I even took a nap...and then had leftovers from lunch for dinner. I swept & mopped the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and helped Seth write his talk. (Scott helped too, as I mentioned before). Seth was happy to have some screen time since he didn't get any on Friday.
Today Seth did a good job on his talk. I taught my YW class (only 2 girls were there today) and Scott said his lesson with the YM went well. After church I had a YW class presidency meeting and Frank had Ward Council, both on Zoom. This afternoon we have had a couple of visitors from our ward to see Scott. First we enjoyed visiting with Brother Croy, who is the dad of the family that we bought our house from. He has a son a year older than Scott and another son who is Tanner's age. Then Scott's friend Michelle (who is a year older than him) came to have dinner with us. She is actually still here...they are downstairs laughing and talking.
I will finish up with a couple of photos I took when we went on a walk earlier this week.
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