This week we dived back into a regular routine, although we had a holiday weekend first of course.
On Saturday the 31st we spent quite a bit of time taking down all the Christmas decorations. Part of me is always kind of sad to take them down because I love Christmas lights and other decorations, but part of me is glad because the house seems bigger and less cluttered without the decorations there. We couldn't take all of the boxes back to the storage unit because one of them doesn't fit in Frank's car and my car was still in the shop. We did take everything else to the storage unit on Saturday and we took the last box over last night. After doing all that and cleaning the kitchen floor I was pretty tired!
We did the usual things for New Year's Eve...made a bunch of appetizers for dinner and started working on a jigsaw puzzle. Jared came by for several hours that evening to visit (Jessie had been shopping and doing other errands with her mom all day so she was too tired to come) and he helped us with the puzzle too. None of us stayed up until midnight, though. We were all tired and we had church in the morning. I didn't take a photo of the puzzle before we went to bed, but I did take one early the next morning before we worked on it:
Our church meeting time moved from 9:00 to 10:30, so we didn't have to get up quite as early as we had been on Sundays. After church, Jared & Jessie stopped by on their way home from church so that Jared could assist while Dad ordained Seth as a priest. (It's hard to believe he is almost 16! How did that happen???) The rest of the day was quiet with naps for some, reading scriptures and working on the puzzle. The puzzle seemed to go together quicker than usual. I took a few photos to show our progress; these photos were taken at approximately 2:00 pm, 4:00 pm, and 6:00 pm:
(We weren't working on it constantly, we took breaks...like between 4:00 and 6:00 we ate dinner and did the dishes.) We were surprised to finish the puzzle in less than 24 hours...it usually takes us a few days. Jared and Jessie gave me this cool gadget for Christmas that allows us to move a puzzle from one place to another, so once it was done we moved it into the living room onto the coffee table and we were able to take down the table in the kitchen where we were working on it (so we could move around the kitchen easily again!)
On Monday I was back to doing my regular chores even though Frank was still off work and Seth was off school. I was also able to finish up the tax law certification test and I got 100% on it so I'm good to go for another tax year. I have spent a little bit of time reviewing some of the tax course this week, although not a lot of time. Each chapter has some self-check questions at the beginning and I've been going through those. So far, I've answered most of them correctly without having to look things up so that means I'm remembering a lot of the material.
Frank went back to work and Seth went back to school on Tuesday. I started exercising again on Tuesday too...hadn't done that since we had Covid, so it's definitely good to get back to it. We got to ease back into Seminary this week...it didn't resume until Thursday. Since I didn't have my car back yet on Tuesday and Frank leaves for work before Seth leaves for school, Seth walked to school on Tuesday morning. It was a little strange sending him out the door because it was still quite dark outside! He made it to school just fine, though.
My car finally got looked at that day and it turns out that the warning light was just a result of the battery being replaced...there wasn't actually anything wrong with the emissions system. Of course they looked the car over thoroughly and found a bunch of other things that needed to be fixed! Some of those things we can do ourselves but we did have them fix several things...the car is 13 years old so it needed a few things done. One thing I had them do that I normally wouldn't is replace the windshield wiper blades. That's because the last time we replaced them, Frank could not find the exact blades we were supposed to have for my particular car. The ones that were the closest do work, but they don't fit quite right so every time I use them, they drag across the windshield and make a loud screaching noise. Since we had the car at a Hyundai dealer, I figured they would be able to obtain the correct wiper blades. I was right! We picked my car up on Wednesday evening and last night when I was driving home from book club it started raining. I flipped on the wipers and was thrilled when they made no noise!! Definitely worth it!
On Tuesday evening we had our first youth activities for the year. We had class activities, so I was with my new class for the first time. The girls I had last year moved up into the oldest class and I have the younger class now. (We only have 2 classes now instead of 3 also.) There are a total of 8 girls in my class...4 of them just moved into YW at the beginning of the year. Six of those girls come pretty regularly to church and activities. For our first activity, we played board games...the kind that you play at parties to get to know each other better...and we had some snacks. I planned to bring some chips and soda, but one of the new girls really wanted to bake something and bring it to share so we had freshly baked cookies as well (and they were really good). We had a fun evening, and I am going to really enjoy this class, I think.
Five of the girls came and one of them brought a friend so there were six girls there.
Jared and Jessie came over Wednesday evening to have dinner with us. It was good timing because my car was ready to be picked up so Jared was able to drive me over there to meet Frank and pick up my car. (Frank worked from home that day but he also went to do some work for a client later in the day and he was returning from there.) We played a few games after dinner which was fun.
Yesterday we really had to get back into our regular routine, since Seth had Seminary. Seth had an orthodontist appointment in the late morning so I took him to that. He got new wires on both the top and the bottom...they were attaching the new wires to the brackets that they put on his back molars last time. Not surprisingly, his teeth are really sore today. I remember what that feels like...not very fun!! This is the last stage of braces for him, though. Once his back molars are pulled into alignment he'll be able to get his braces off. I'm not sure how long that will be though...probably several months still. After we were done at the orthodontist, I took him to the CTC because that's where he needed to be by that time. On the way there I stopped and got him a milkshake because he hadn't had a chance to eat his lunch yet and I knew his teeth would be really sore by the time he got home from school.
I already mentioned that I went to book chat last night. We discussed The German Girl. Most people didn't like it very much...it was kind of a depressing book overall. It wasn't my favorite either but I think it was worth reading. Now we are going to read a book called Grandma Gatewood's Walk. It's my turn to bring the books to choose from next time...that's always a bit challenging for me but hopefully I'll figure it out.
Today I had a follow up appointment with the eye doctor and he decided to tweak my prescription just a bit so I will be getting another trial set when they come in. I'll be able to get the new lenses for my glasses put in tomorrow.
This evening the sister missionaries came over for a visit...one of them is new to our ward so they just wanted to give her a chance to get to know us. They were here about an hour when we discovered that they hadn't had dinner yet...by then it was around 8:00 pm! So we fed them some soup. I started writing this post before they got here and now it is bedtime. I spent the rest of the day working on financial stuff and have all of that up to date.
We've had unusually warm weather this week, with temperatures getting up into the 50s or even 60s most days. No complaints from me about that!! It's been cloudy a lot so I've been happy for the few sunny moments we've had. Today the temperatures started dropping again and we'll be having high temps in the 40s this coming week which is a lot colder than it's been, but still not too bad for January.
To finish up, here are a few photos I took at sunset last night.
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