Weekly Review December 29 '23

This will be my last post for 2023. We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Ours was fairly quiet, but nice. 

After I wrote last week, we spent the evening making and decorating cookies. 

Thankfully, Seth and Frank both helped decorate because that takes a lot of time. We gave some away but are still eating the rest. 

I had choir practice Sunday morning before church, since we were singing three songs in Sacrament Meeting that day. We sang an arrangement of Angels We Have Heard on High which included some brass instruments, a descant, and the congregation singing the melody with us. We also sang a song called Born is the Light of the World and an arrangement of Silent Night. Silent Night included the congregation singing the last verse. The women in the choir had an alternate melody, and it sounded really nice with everything put together. I really enjoy choir songs where the congregation joins in. I think it helps everyone feel united and feel the spirit together. I had a number of people afterwards tell me how good the choir sounded, and our choir director said she got lots of compliments from people too. For me, being able to sing praises is one of the ways I feel the spirit the strongest so I am always thankful for a chance to sing in a choir. 

The music took up most of the meeting on Sunday. One of the young men gave a short talk about our opening hymn (I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day) and our bishop talked for a while too. The meeting actually ended about 5 minutes early and everyone hung out for a while, visiting and sharing Christmas greetings. It was nice! On the way home, we stopped to deliver treats to families we minister to.

I spent the rest of the day getting ready for Christmas Eve dinner, which included cooking the food. pulling out the nice dishes and other tableware, and making place cards. None of the food was complicated, but it still took time to get everything ready.  

I remembered to take a photo of the table before everyone arrived and before I made the place cards, but I forgot to take any photos after I added the place cards or during dinner or the rest of the evening. Oh well! You will have to take my word for it that Jared & Jessie and the missionaries from our ward came over for Christmas Eve dinner since I have no photographic proof. 

After dinner, we read the story of Jesus's birth in Luke, Matthew, and 3 Nephi and then everyone opened a present (except for Frank and me). We got Maryland flag mugs for the missionaries and they loved them! After everyone went home, Frank wrapped my presents while I cleaned up dinner and got all the stocking stuff ready. Then we put out Santa Claus stuff and went to bed.

Frank and I both woke up around 7:00 on Christmas morning but we were still awake before Seth, who slept until closer to 8:00. We got up and saw what Santa brought, but didn't open the rest of the presents until Jared & Jessie arrived around 9:00. We ate breakfast before they arrived also (cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs). 

After Jared & Jessie arrived, we opened the rest of the presents from under the tree. Then we played a game that we had given to Jared & Jessie. It was a version of Clue that was a collaborative escape room type game. It was pretty fun, and in the end we successfully solved the mystery, so we were proud of ourselves! Once again, I forgot to take any pictures while Jared & Jessie were here. They headed back to open presents and have Christmas dinner with Jessie's family around noon. The rest of the day was pretty quiet for us, but that was okay. We enjoyed gifts and took naps. We got to talk to Tanner and Scott for a while with a video chat and I also talked to both Amy and Mom on the phone, so it was nice to connect with some family. 

We got quite a few things for the kitchen this year. We replaced our toaster oven with a toaster because the toaster oven doesn't work very well and Frank wanted to get a toaster instead. We also got a new crock pot because the cord on our old one was fraying. I got a vegetable chopper thing which I already love because it makes chopping vegetables so much quicker and easier, and I normally have to chop vegetables every day. It's been getting a lot of use this week. Jared & Jessie got us a cook book holder and that has been getting a lot of use too. Besides the kitchen stuff, I also got the 2023 Newbery winner book, some music, and some earrings that are similar to the ones that got stolen from my luggage this summer. We had a goal to keep Christmas simpler and to buy fewer gifts this year and I think we mostly succeeded and everyone was still happy. 😊

The rest of the week has also been pretty quiet and uneventful since Frank has been off work all week and Seth didn't have school and he and I didn't have Seminary. It's still been pretty busy for me because I still have all the regular chores to do like cleaning, grocery shopping, and laundry. Frank and Seth have helped a bit with some of those chores, which has been nice. I have also started preparing Seminary lessons for next week and have been working on the tax certification test. I haven't made as much progress on either of those things as I would like, but I am slowly getting them done. I've completed the questions for six of the tax scenarios (out of 9) and I have basic outlines for both of next week's lessons done. I'll be working on both lessons and the tax test today and tomorrow and hopefully I will be finished or mostly finished with them by the end of the day tomorrow. I have been getting a lot more sleep at night, which has been great but in spite of that I have still ended up taking a nap nearly every day! I don't know why I am so tired when I'm sleeping well at night, but I guess my body is trying to catch up on all the sleep I lost the last 4 months. (Or trying to stock up before Seminary starts again?) 

Last night we went down to the temple to see the Christmas lights. We were kind of surprised when we arrived to discover that there were TONS of people there. It was so crowded that we had to park at the adjacent stake center and walk over to the temple grounds. It's nice that so many people are interested in seeing the lights, though, and it was very beautiful, as always. Our cameras don't take great photos...it looks a lot better in real life...but here are a bunch of photos anyway. 

You can see that there were a ton of people there:

This photo is blurry and Seth's eyes are closed, but it is the least blurry of the three that we took at this location:

And here's a couple more at another location. I included two since Seth is smiling in one and Frank is smiling in the other:

In the visitor's center they always have a large display of nativity sets from around the world. We had to wait in line quite a while to see those but it is always a beautiful display. I took a whole bunch of photos, but I won't inflict all of those on you. 😉 Here is one to give you an idea of how many sets there were:

That's just one wall...there were two more walls lined with nativity sets, as well as an area in the center of the room with a few more sets. This year, they had them grouped together by continent, starting with Asia and working around to Africa, Europe, South America, and North America. I don't remember Australia, but it was probably in there somewhere too. 😅

Visiting the temple grounds to see the lights and the creche display is always worth the effort (and dealing with the crowds) and we're grateful we were able to go. 

That's all I've got to report this week. I think I have more photos than words, but that is okay!

Weekly Review December 22 '23

 I didn't get the weekly post written yesterday because it was a busy day and I was too tired to stay up to write it, even though I actually got a little extra sleep this week. (More about that later.) Now it's practically Christmas and luckily everything is ready except for making a batch of cookies, which I will do when I'm done writing this weekly post. Oh, and cooking Christmas Eve dinner of course, but I can't do that until tomorrow.

When I wrote last week, we were planning to go to the temple on Friday evening. I took another couple in our ward with me and we met Frank at the temple. I am the ministering sister for the wife of this couple and I have been helping her get the temple work done for her sister, who passed away a few years ago. This time we had an appointment to do sealings so that she could have her sister sealed to her parents. Frank also had a couple of sealings that needed to be done for some of his family. To make my explanation less complicated, I will mention that the sister who was getting her sister's temple work done is named Evalee. Evalee asked me to be the proxy for her sister and Evalee and her husband were proxies for her parents when they had her sister (Louise) sealed to her parents. It was very sweet for me to get to do that...I felt really emotional and hope that means I was feeling what Louise was feeling. We really enjoyed our time in the temple. Our appointment was at 4:00 so when we came out of the temple it was dark and the Christmas lights were on. It was beautiful, but I didn't have a chance to take any pictures. Evalee rode home with me and her husband rode with Frank so that we could both use the HOV lanes since it was rush hour traffic at that point. That worked out well...we were able to sail through traffic with very few slowdowns and made it home in a reasonable amount of time. After we got home, we took Seth with us to have dinner since he hadn't eaten yet (and neither had we).

Saturday Frank was gone most of the day because he helped with the cooking for our Ward Christmas party. Seth had to be there a little early to help prepare a room / craft that the YM were in charge of. The theme for the party was "Christmas Around the World". They asked each auxiliary to be in charge of a room that depicted Christmas traditions from a different part of the world. The RS had Europe, Primary did South America, YM did Africa, Sunday School did Australia, and YW did Asia. North America was represented by the food, which was Mexican food. The party started at 5:30 with one hour to visit all the rooms to learn about the Christmas traditions from all over the world. Then there was dinner and a short program. There was also Christmas karioke available throughout the evening which was very popular with the kids and YW (not the YM!) and even a few adults gave it a go. It was a fun evening and I enjoyed it even though I barely saw Frank since he was cooking the whole time. (The food was delicious.) I stayed to help clean up so that Frank could go home because his back was hurting a lot by then. 

A few photos from some of the displays:

Europe

Asia

More Asia

Australia (I even tried some Vegemite, and it wasn't too bad...just really salty.)

I spent the rest of the day (before the party) working on Seminary lessons. I was in charge of giving the assessment on Monday so I got that prepared but didn't make much headway on my other lesson for Tuesday. 

Sunday was busy with church and choir practice, plus Jared & Jessie came for dinner. We played a game as usual...we pulled out a card game called Diddly that we've had for years but never gotten around to playing. It turned out to be quite fun, so we'll have to play it again.

This week went mostly as usual with Seminary and all the usual work to be done, plus a lot of Christmas stuff thrown in. The assessment went well on Monday and most of our class showed up so only a few of the students needed to do the makeup assessment and most of them have completed that now. A few haven't, but that's mostly circumstances beyond our control, which I will explain in a bit. I spent most of Monday working on Tuesday's lesson which was about Revelation 15-19. I wasn't done with Seminary preparations after that though because we didn't have a guest teacher this week. Instead, we planned to have a Christmas celebration on Friday so I spent some time looking for ideas for Christmas games that teens would enjoy. I had also signed up to provide breakfast for Friday so I purchased stuff for a hot chocolate bar and to make cinnamon rolls. My team teacher and I talked quite a bit...one day after Seminary and another day on the phone...planning out what we were going to do for Friday. We have also been busy this week looking ahead to January and getting some planning done for next semester, as well as updating records and following up with students who need to finish up reading or do make up work. It's been busy!!

On Tuesday I did some extra shopping...I needed to go to Costco to stock up on things like chicken, shrimp, and salmon. I also went to a number of stores in search of decorating frosting and gels for decorating Christmas cookies. I usually buy these things at Walmart, but when I checked for them on Monday I discovered that they don't carry a lot of the colors I want anymore and a few others were out of stock. I ended up ordering some frosting from Amazon but I couldn't find the decorating gels I wanted so I went to a couple of other stores and found most of what I wanted. 

On Wednesday I wrapped all the presents and also cleaned out my desk, which has become a bit of a catch-all and was very messy. It looks a lot better now.

Present wrapping mess:

The tree with presents, plus one of the Christmas village houses I got from Mom:

Frank made some fudge that day and while Seth was at YM Wednesday evening (they went carolling to people in our ward) Frank and I made buckeye candy with help from the sister missionaries in our ward.

Thursday morning Seth and I were running later than usual leaving for Seminary. When we arrived at the church, we discovered that the fire alarm was going off in the building and my team teacher, who arrived first, had called the fire department. There didn't seem to be any evidence of an actual fire but of course we had to get things cleared up. The fire men came and determined that there was a problem with the sprinkler system which had set off the alarm. There was no way to get the alarm to turn off until the problem was fixed, though, so we had to cancel Seminary that morning. Kind of a bummer, since we were all there already, but we didn't have a choice. At least I got a cool photo of some fire trucks! :)

The rest of the day was super busy with a long shopping trip, vacuuming, laundry, etc. Frank and I made another batch of fudge (a different kind). By 4:00 the problem with the sprinklers and alarm at the church still hadn't been solved so we made the decision to cancel Seminary for Friday morning. It was sad since it was our last day of the semester and we had planned some fun games and yummy treats, but at least Frank and I didn't have to make a triple batch of cinnamon rolls that evening. We heard the next morning that they got the repairs done late that evening (like around 10:00 pm?) so I guess we could have met but 10:00 pm would have been pretty late to make that call (I'm usually asleep long before that time on school nights myself). I think everyone appreciated the chance to get some extra sleep...I know I did!! I'm glad they got the problem fixed though because it would have been really sad if we couldn't have church tomorrow. 

Yesterday we took Seth directly to the CTC and then Frank and I headed down to the temple. We had appointments to do initiatories. Frank's foot started hurting again earlier in the week but thankfully after a couple of days of taking the anti-inflammatory medication and trying to keep off his feet as much as possible, his foot was feeling quite a bit better. (He was able to work shorter days at the office and work from home in the afternoons which helped him avoid long hours in traffic and allowed him to rest his foot more.) For our trip to the temple, we decided that I would drive so that Frank could wear his boot and rest his foot as much as possible. All went well and we enjoyed our "date". It was really nice to be in the temple again one more time before Christmas.

On the way home, we stopped at a Chick-fil-a so that Frank could get some food and I could get a peppermint shake (I hadn't had one yet this year.) I spent the rest of the day doing Seminary planning and updating the budget.  

I've had a little time in between everything else to do some reading and I am almost finished with the book for book chat (Lady Tan's Circle of Women). It's quite good.

That brings you up to date on us, so now I will go make some cookies. But to finish...a few photos of the river on Monday, after all the rain we had over the weekend and a few Saturday morning winter sunrise photos: