Weekly Review December 19 '25

This week was very eventful--some of it expected, some of it not expected.

Last Friday evening Frank and I watched a couple of episodes of Once Upon a Time. We hadn't had the chance to watch any episodes for weeks, so it was a little hard to remember what was happening. It was a nice break for me to just relax and be entertained. That doesn't happen often.

Saturday the 13th was a really busy day although it was all good stuff. I got a haircut first thing in the morning before going to stake choir practice. After that, I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. We hadn't been able to go out for a while so it was nice to get caught up. We tried a new place--a Parisian bakery--and it was pretty good. 

The rest of the day, Frank and I went on a date. He was kind enough to agree to go with me to the Washington DC Temple Choir concert that evening at the DC Temple Visitor's Center. (Choir concerts don't interest him much, but he knows that I love them.) The concert was at 5:00 but we left home around 3:00. This year they are doing a new thing with the Festival of Lights at the temple grounds--you have to get a timed parking pass in order to park. (The pass is free.) I think this is because the festival has become so popular that the parking lots (for the visitor's center, the temple, and the nearby stake center) fill up and then people park out on the street, even though they aren't supposed to do that. I imagine the people who live on that street really hate it, and have complained. (Can't blame them.) Anyway, this year they have set out cones all along the street so that people can't park there and they have been advertising that you must have a timed parking pass in order to attend. Our parking pass was for 4:00, which is the time they start requiring parking passes. (The lights go on at 4:30.) It was not crowded at all when we got there, since the lights weren't on yet. We wandered around the visitor's center looking at all the decorated Christmas trees until they opened up the creche exhibit at 4:30. By then, there were a lot more people and there was instantly a crowd viewing the creche exhibit, but we were able to go through it before the concert began. There are always so many beautiful and unique nativity sets from all over the world! I feel like there were even more this year than usual; a whole bunch of them were very small. We enjoyed the concert although there were a lot of somewhat noisy and restless kids sitting in front of and next to us, which detracted from the experience a bit. After the concert, we enjoyed the lights for a bit before heading home. We stopped on the way home to get some dinner.

We got a little bit of snow overnight Saturday night. 

Because of that, we didn't have choir practice before church, but we did have church as usual. Frank still had to get there early to set up the broadcast for the ward that meets before us. I came later in my car. I had a lot to carry in--gift card donations for people in the ward in need, blankets for another family in need, and 4 large boxes of snack / breakfast foods to donate for a service project we're doing as part of our ward Christmas party. Unfortunately, the bag holding the boxes of food ripped and all the boxes fell out--right as I was walking into the chapel, so I made quite an entrance! (Fortunately, I was early so there weren't a lot of people there yet and it wasn't too disruptive!) We had a very emotional RS class that day--a lot of heartfelt sharing about things that people are dealing with that are hard. I was looking around the room and thinking about all the things I know that weren't being shared--everyone has hard things! I feel like in comparison, I have it pretty easy right now, and I am grateful. 

Our ministering brother / sister gave us a box of chocolates to bring home--yummy!!

After church and lunch, I practiced songs for that night's performance. I had to be at the stake center at 5:30 for our final rehearsal. One of our songs was accompanied by a professional harpist, and that was our only rehearsal where we got to practice with her. Overall, I feel like the performance went well and I was happy that I remembered my parts and didn't make a bunch of mistakes. It was also nice to hear all the readings and the other musical numbers. It was a beautiful evening, overall.

I hurried home from the performance to get to bed since I was teaching Seminary the next morning. It was not until after I got home that I saw a text message that Tammy had sent me earlier: "Did you hear that school is delayed tomorrow morning?" Nope! I hadn't heard. I did sign up to get text alerts from the school system for delays and cancellations, so I'm not sure why I didn't get a text. I still need to look into that. Frustrating!! Anyway, I wasn't too disappointed about not having to get up early the next morning (especially when I had a really hard time falling asleep) but it did mean that we had to make some adjustments to the teaching / lesson schedule for the week. (The reason for the delay was because the temperatures with windchill were going to be below 0 degrees the next morning, and they were also worried about the snowy roads re-freezing and getting icy overnight.)

Unfortunately, I woke up around 3:40 am even though I didn't have to get up and I never fell back asleep. At least I had some quiet time to read scriptures by the Christmas tree. 😇 It was very, very cold and I was glad that I didn't have to go out until later (to get some groceries). I kept busy getting caught up on chores, including washing a lot of bedding. I also got to talk to Scott for a while and Tammy and I spent some time on the phone figuring out how to adjust our lesson schedule for the week. After Frank got home from work we went to a local store called McCutcheon's to get some yummy jams (we do that every Christmas). Frank also went to do some work for his former client for about an hour. They couldn't get in touch with the new guy and needed a problem solved so they begged Frank to come take care of it for them. (Yes, he will bill them for it!)

Seth told me that day that he could feel a new abscess forming in the same place where he had the last one (back in June), so I called to get him a doctor appointment, but couldn't get him in until Tuesday.

For FHE activity that evening, we played a game called Quixx. I won the game in the end, although Frank was a very close second. Our game was interrupted twice--a ministering interview phone call for me and a call from a client for Frank. 

On Tuesday morning I taught the lesson that I was supposed to teach on Monday morning, which was about being perfected in Christ (as opposed to perfectionism). It was a good topic for me to teach since I have definitely struggled with perfectionism in the past. (And still do sometimes, but I'm a lot better.) My other lesson for the week was about the Family Proclamation. There were three lessons on this topic, and it had already been necessary to reduce that to two lessons (we were each going to teach one of them). After the school delay, we decided to combine all three lessons into one and teach that together on Wednesday. I was glad that I hadn't created all the Power Point slides or made final preparations before they made the decision to delay school. Of course, we had to do a highly condensed version of those three lessons. I mostly covered the context / background and then Tammy planned an activity that involved reading the proclamation together and then studying some of the truths in more detail. It went well.

I kind of skipped ahead to Wednesday morning. Now I need to go back to Tuesday because things got crazy. I went with Seth to the doctor that afternoon and the same thing happened as last time. The doctor looked at the abscess, said it needed to be drained right away, and sent us to the ER. It wasn't as big as last time, but still needed immediate attention. Seth hadn't even had lunch yet, so we stopped on our way to the ER to get him a sandwich. The triage nurse sent him to the pediatric section because she said he would be seen sooner that way (and he can go to that section until he is 21). It still took quite a while before he was taken back to a room. A doctor checked him and ordered a CT scan; she also said she would consult with a surgeon. By this time Frank was home from work and I needed to get some preparation done for Wednesday morning's lesson, so he came to the hospital to stay with Seth while I went home to finish up lesson preparations and get something to eat. Frank and I kept in touch and before I went back, they got the news that the surgeon wanted to admit Seth for observation overnight, put warm compresses on the abscess to help it shrink a bit, and then do the surgery to drain it the next day. When I went back, I took Seth a sandwich (he wasn't in a regular room yet, so they didn't feed him anything) and also a change of clothes. We weren't sure at this point if they were going to put him under for the procedure or just use a local anesthetic like they did the first time. Because there was a possibility that he would be put to sleep, they told him he couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight. After I got back to the hospital, I asked Seth if he would like a blessing, and he said he would so Frank contacted a ward member who came over to help with that. At 8:00, they still hadn't moved Seth up to the ward yet so Frank told me he would stay with him so that I could go home and go to sleep. Frank was working from home Wednesday morning, so he didn't have to get up really early. They finally got Seth up to a room around 11:00 pm and Frank came home then. I woke up shortly before he came home and had some trouble falling back asleep, so it was a restless night without enough sleep but it was better than nothing. 

After Seminary on Wednesday morning, I had an appointment to get a mammogram, so I did that. Frank decided to take a half day off; he had already worked about 4 hours so he headed back to the hospital around the same time that I left for my appointment. After I finished my appointment, I went over to the hospital too. By that time the surgeon had been in to see the abscess and decided the prodedure could be done with a local anesthetic right there in his room, similar to what was done last time. It was supposed to be happening soon but as usual there were delays and it took a long time before they finally got the procedure done. It went well, though, and Seth tolerated it very well. The surgeon thinks it is likely that Seth has a fistula--having an abscess come back in the same place like that is a strong indication that there could be one. They want Seth to be screened for Crohn's disease, which means a colonoscopy. They talked to a GI doctor who was willing to do that the following day, but that would mean that Seth would have to stay in the hospital another night and he was adamant that he did NOT want to do that. In some ways, it would have been more convenient, but ultimatley I'm glad we didn't go that route because I would have felt like I needed to stay with him that night while he did the prep for the colonoscopy and I was already exhausted. We have an appointment with his primary care doctor on Monday, and will get a referral for a GI doctor then. He will also need to follow up with the surgeon, but they want to rule out Crohn's disease before they decide what to do about the fistula, because the treatment will be different depending on whether or not he has that. My gut instinct is that he doesn't have Crohn's because he doesn't have most of the symptoms (and Jared did have most of the symptoms and he still doesn't have it), but who knows. I guess we will find out. Even though it's not going to be fun to do all this follow up stuff, I am glad that they are taking this seriously because we don't want Seth to go through what Jared went through a few years ago. If he really does have a fistula, it is much better to get it treated as soon as possible. 

We thought Seth would get released shortly after the abscess was drained, but they wanted to give him more antibiotic in his IV (which took an hour) and then after that they decided that they wanted him to eat something and make sure he kept that down (he hadn't had anything to eat all day) before releasing him. So in the end, I ended up staying at the hospital most of the day...we didn't get home until about 4:00 pm. Frank went home earlier because he had a test on Thursday (work related) that he wanted to prepare for. 

"Fun-filled" day at the hospital:

On Thursday I played "catch up", getting all the chores done that I didn't have a chance to do on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with all the normal things I need to do on Thursdays. Tammy and I talked on the phone again to finalize plans for Friday morning. We already had a basic plan, but hadn't had a chance to work out the details until then. (She had a busy week too--her daughter returned home from her mission on Wednesday and her son returned from his 1st semester at BYU that day as well.) I managed to get some present wrapping done as well. Frank worked from home that morning because the test he was taking was administered at the local community college. He took the test that afternoon and passed it. That evening he went to see Avatar: Fire and Ash. I went to a choir / orchestra / band concert at one of the local high schools because one girl in my Seminary class is in the choir and another girl in my Seminary class is in the orchestra. They did a nice job and fortunately it wasn't a long concert because I was exhausted! 

We had those super frigid temperatures earlier this week, but by Thursday it had warmed up a lot, with highs in the low 50s. Today has been warm as well. We got a lot of rain this morning and around noon the wind started blowing and it is really howling away right now. 

Yesterday was Frank's last day of work for the year, so he has a nice long break before he has to go back. Today was my last day of Seminary for this year and we don't start again until January 7th, so I have a nice long break too. For our last day of Seminary, we had food and played a DM review game which involved sculpting with play dough. We also showed a couple of short Christmas videos and I did a spiritual thought. We also gave everyone a small gift. It was fun and more relaxed which was nice. Hopefully those kids know that we love them!!

Because I had a long week and another somewhat restless night, I wasn't feeling too great about doing an endowment session today. I thought I would just struggle to stay awake through the whole thing. I checked online and discovered that I could get an appointment to do initiatories at 11:00, so I did that instead. The drive to the temple was kind of crazy because it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out and shining right in my eyes. There was a lot of water on the roads getting thown up by all the cars, so it was really misty but also sunny and that made visibility quite poor. The traffic slowed down in several places and there was one wreck, but I still managed to get to the temple in a little over an hour. I'm glad I was able to go!

I've spent the rest of the day updating the budget and writing this post. 

After Seth's abscess was drained on Wednesday, they packed it with gauze and told him he would need to remove the gauze in 48 hours, so he had to do that this afternoon. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to remove and only hurt a little bit. He soaked the wound for about 30 minutes, and he will need to do that 3 times a day while it heals. 

That is the saga of our busy week. While sitting at the hospital I did some reading, but I have been having a hard time feeling motivated to read the book for book chat lately. (My Friends by Fredrik Backman) It's good and has a lot of humor, but it is also kind of emotionally heavy so I feel like I can only read a little bit at a time. I did some puzzles while at the hospital too when I needed to take a break from the book. I intended to work on my tax certification test this week--I thought that after Tuesday morning I would be almost completely done with Seminary and would have lots of free time--but I didn't expect my lessons to get bumped to later in the week and that I would need to re-plan one of my lessons (because of the school delay). I also didn't plan to spend a good part of 2 days sitting at the hospital with Seth. I'm just glad we made it through this week, though, and that we weren't at the hospital for something really serious. I will have time to work on the tax certification test after the holidays, before Seminary starts again. 

We have Scott & Tanner arriving on Sunday evening and Jared & Jessie on Tuesday morning and we are very excited to have everyone here for Christmas! Oh, and if any of you are wondering why we haven't sent you a Christmas card yet, we are going to send out cards in January. We're getting a family photo taken while everyone is here so we want to wait to send cards with that photo.

Merry Christmas to you all!! We love you and hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Weekly Review December 12 '25

Greetings from Maryland! It's hard to believe Christmas is only 2 weeks away. We are keeping pretty busy with a lot of different activities. 

Saturday the 6th was really busy. I had stake choir practice in the morning, and it went long (nearly an hour and a half instead of an hour). I was worried when I woke up because I had a very slight sore throat and I also had a bit of a headache a lot of the day, but thankfully it went away after a day and I've been fine since. I especially don't want to get sick right now because of the upcoming musical performances. (Not to mention all the Christmas preparations, the ever present Seminary load, and upcoming visits from our kids! Really want / need to be well for all of that.)

After I got home from choir practice and ate lunch, it was time for the BYU football game. I multi-tasked while listening to the game. I finished the Christmas present I was making for Seth and Frank & I also decorated the Christmas tree. Frank made some almond bars for that evening's dessert also. The game was, of course, disappointing and frustrating but I'm glad I was able to get those other things done while I listened. The Elders came over for dinner that evening (that's why we had dessert). Seth had been working a lot of the day but he got home just in time for dinner. After dinner I cleaned the kitchen floor and then spent the rest of the evening making Power Point slides and doing everything else I needed to do to finish Monday's Seminary lesson. 

Sunday the 7th was also full of activities. I had choir practice before church, as usual. After church Frank & I had tithing declaration. I also talked to Jared, read scriptures, listened to a podcast, and worked on Power Point slides for Tuesday's Seminary lesson. That evening we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.

My stomach was upset Monday morning which wasn't so fun since I was teaching, but everything worked out okay. It felt better after Seminary and I was able to do all the errands, housework, and other things that I needed to do that day. Besides the normal grocery shopping, laundry, and vacuuming, I also picked up another book from the library and when Frank got home we went to Costco. We were specifically looking for Chicken Cordon Bleu for Christmas Eve dinner (which we found) but we had a rewards certificate to spend so we got some other groceries there too. On Monday I also got to talk to Scott for a while, finished reading the book Heidi, and Frank and I went for a short walk. We just walked around our court (which is large) because it was really cold. We did enjoy seeing all the Christmas lights / decorations. For FHE activity we played Bank and Frank won (by a lot!)

My Seminary lesson Monday morning was about scripture study tools. After teaching about the different tools available, we did an activity where the youth chose a topic and used scripture study tools to learn more about that topic. Then they were supposed to demonstrate what they learned by writing an acrostic poem about their topic. There wasn't as much time to do this activity as I would have liked, so most of them didn't get much done, but a couple of them did a complete poem and one other wrote a silly regular (instead of an acrostic) poem:

On Tuesday morning I taught about Official Declaration 1. Before class, I was on my laptop reviewing my Power Point slides and other material. When I shut my laptop to put it in my bad to take to Seminary, I heard a popping noise and discovered that a part of one of the hinges had broken and it was causing the screen to separate a little bit from the case. Yikes! Frank looked at it for me and said I could use it for class that day but I would need to get the whole piece with the screen replaced. He ordered that for me but it hasn't arrived yet. In the meantime, I am not shutting my laptop because the screen could get damaged if I do. I didn't need to take my laptop to Seminary after Tuesday, which has been helpful. The rest of Tuesday was busy with regular chores plus I practiced all my choir songs, talked to Tanner for a little while, read through one of next week's Seminary lessons, and did a lot of Seminary planning with Tammy--both for next week and for January. 

Frank worked from home every day except Monday because he was taking an online class all week. The class was for a certification his boss wants him to have so he can be one of the contact people for one of the products they use. The class was from 10:00 to 5:00 on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and from 10:00 to 2:00 today. Frank found it to be slow (and therefore rather boring), but he took the test this afternoon after finishing the class and he passed, so now he has the certification. 

Seth was supposed to be our guest teacher for Seminary on Wednesday morning. (He actually volunteered to do it and was excited about it!) Unfortunately, he woke up Wednesday morning with a fever and vomiting. He still insisted on coming to the church...he thought he would be able to manage teaching...but he ended up either in the restroom or lying on a couch in the foyer the entire time. Fortunately, the lesson was a simple one that involved a lot of student participation and Seth had gone over with me the day before what he was planning to do, so I was able to "teach" the lesson without it being really stressful. The lesson topic was the Articles of Faith, and most of the lesson consisted of the kids choosing an Article of Faith and making a visual representation of it. Then they each shared what they created with the rest of the class and told why that Article of Faith was meaningful to them. It worked out fine. Seth had even purchased donuts for everyone with his own money--the kids appreciated that!

After we got home from Seminary, Seth went back to bed for a while. He so rarely gets sick, but he has been one sick kid the last three days! He couldn't keep anything down for a lot of Wednesday but was finally able to keep down some liquids like soda and chicken broth by evening. Yesterday and today he has had some toast and some crackers, but that's really all he has eaten for the last 3 days. He has also had a fever, congestion, runny nose, and headache. I had him take a Covid test yesterday--it came out negative--so I'm guessing he has the flu. Whatever it is, it has not been fun and he still hasn't improved all that much. He was supposed to work today but let them know last night that he's sick. He usually works on Saturdays too but for some reason they scheduled him for only one shift this week instead of two. Turns out that has been a good thing. He has been sick enough that he has spent most of the last 3 days either sleeping or lying down. He hasn't even played video games or got onto his laptop to watch videos. 

This was Seth's last week of classes for this semester and he had a test on Wednesday and a project due yesterday, so that wasn't very convenient. He was able to contact his teachers, though, and his history teacher sent him the test and let him take it from home and his film study teacher allowed him to turn in his project digitally (which fortunately was mostly finished before he got sick) so he didn't have to go to his classes and he was able to get everything handed in, He had already taken his last test for his math class. I have no idea how he has done with his classes this semester because I haven't checked his grades (even though I know how) because I want him to learn to manage things himself. He says that he has done well on all his tests and projects, so hopefully his grades are good. He definitely doesn't stress out about school classes and I haven't seen him do much work at home at all, but he says he has done a lot of work in class. 

On Wednesday after we got home from Seminary, I managed to plan 1 1/2 of my lessons for next week (I was interrupted a lot doing things to help Seth). That evening I went to a concert for one of the boys in my Seminary class who is in his high school's show choir. They are pretty good and I enjoyed it!

Yesterday I woke up at 1:00 am and never went back to sleep, so that was fun. (Not!) I did take a one hour nap later that afternoon, Frank helped me with the grocery shopping that morning (before his class started at 10:00) which I appreciated a lot. I kept busy the rest of the day with all the usual chores, plus I worked on Seminary lessons. I finished planning my second lesson and got the Power Point slides done for the first one. 

Today I went to the temple to do initiatories. 

After I got back to Frederick (but before going home), I dropped off a gift from the RS presidency to one of the sisters I minister to and then went to the store to get more soda, juice, and crackers for Seth because for some reason Frank & I both didn't think to get those things when we were at the store on Thursday morning. Scott called this afternoon with the happy news that he got a job! We knew he had applied for this job and were hoping he would get it. He will be using his insurance sales knowledge for this job but unlike his last job, he gets paid for all the hours he works and any commission he earns is extra. He is really happy about it and we are too! 

I spent the afternoon updating the budget and writing this post. Now it is past time for me to make dinner so I'd better go do that. I haven't had much down time this week but I started reading a book called My Friends by Fredrik Backman. It is the next book we are going to read for book chat. We wanted to read it this month, but there is a long waiting list to get the book from the library, so we decided to read Heidi first and in the meantime, we all got on the list to get My Friends from the library. I'm enjoying it so far. The author wrote another book called A Man Called Ove which I have read and I loved it. 

Weekly Review December 5 '25

 I don't have as many days to cover this week since I wrote the last post on Sunday. 

On Monday morning my Seminary lesson was about divine worth and identity. After Seminary I had a busy day with grocery shopping, laundry, vacuuming, talking to Scott (he called a couple of times this week), and a trip to the storage unit to get all the Christmas decorations. Seth came with me to the storage unit which was a big help. I got most of the Christmas decorations put up that day except for the tree. Because it was December 1st, I also got out new S & P shakers and put the December pillow covers on the couch throw pillows. I also got my American Girl doll ready for Christmas by putting on one of her holiday dresses: 

For family night activity that night we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original cartoon version).

There was snow / sleet / freezing rain predicted for Tuesday morning. Tammy and I kept checking the weather forecast and since it looked like the roads were definitely going to be icy when everyone would need to be driving to Seminary, we decided to cancel Seminary Tuesday morning. I was kind of sad about it because I had the lesson completely prepared and I really liked this lesson and felt good about it. I was very happy to get some extra sleep, though, and since the roads were actually icy and school got cancelled, we made the right call. We only got a dusting of snow, but we got a lot of freezing rain. Frank chose to work from home too so that he wouldn't have to drive on the icy roads. The roads did clear up by late morning. FCC campus didn't open until 11:00 am, so Seth's 9:30 class was cancelled but he did go to his 11:00 class. Frank also went out later because he ended up needing to go do some work for his far away client. Besides finishing all the usual household chores, I also practiced all my choir songs (stake and ward). 

On Wednesday the missionaries serving in our ward were guest teachers for Seminary. They did a great job! Check out the artwork on the board:

When I got home, I prepared outlines for both of my Seminary lessons for next week. I haven't had a chance to look at them since then so I will need to make Power Point slides and finish up any other preparations for those lessons tomorrow. That day I also started working on a Christmas present I'm making for Seth and when Frank got home from work we went on a short walk. (It was pretty cold, so we didn't go far.) Seth went out with the missionaries to knock on doors for an hour in the late afternoon.

That evening was the town of Walkersville Christmas Tree Lighting. Our ward is always asked to share a musical number. I had to get there early for a short practice. Seth decided to come with me to the Christmas Tree Lighting rather than go to Institute. (He didn't sing, though!) Only about 7 people showed up for the practice, but a good 15 - 20 more members of the ward came to the Tee Lighting and helped sing. After the musical program, they lit the tree and then Santa Claus arrived, riding on a fire engine with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Fun! A few people took some photos, so I have a few of us singing and one of Seth with some of his friends:

The Tree Lighting was conveniently located really close to the library and I had a couple of books to pick up (I put them on hold a few weeks ago) so I was able to pick those up while we were there. 

On Thursday I was busy all day between regular household chores and working on Seth's Christmas present. I am almost done with it, but didn't have time to work on it today. Frank put up the Christmas tree last night but we haven't put the ornaments on it yet. Last night I opened the door to the deck to put something in the recycle bin and saw this cool lunar halo:

As always, it looked better in real life than it does in the photo. 

This morning when I left for Seminary, I was surprised to discover that it was snowing lightly. There had been a weather advisory saying there was a SLIGHT chance of snow flurries, but I wasn't really expecting it to turn into anything. I figured it would stop soon, so when Seminary ended and we looked outside and discovered that there was a thin layer of snow all over everything (including the roads), we were surprised again. Apparently, it kept snowing the entire time we were in Seminary. I didn't have any trouble getting home but apparently the roads were very slick in some places and we heard that there were a lot of accidents and general chaos as everyone in the county tried to get to school this morning. I think everyone was taken by surprise--we really weren't supposed to get much of anything. It actually snowed a little more this evening as well, which was also a surprise. 

When I got home from Seminary, one of our neighbors was trying to leave for work, but her car wouldn't start. Frank went out to see if he could help her, and her car started after a jump.

I spent most of the morning updating the budget and then talked to Tanner for a little while at lunch time. After Frank finished working (he works from home on Fridays), he and I went to the temple together. It's been a long time since we've gone together (even though we each go separately on a regular basis) so it was nice to go together for once! We stopped at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants on the way home to get dinner. The traffic was pretty heavy since it was rush hour, but we made it home okay. 

The Christmas lights are up at the temple now and with the snow that fell today, it looked pretty magical:

During any free time I had this week (not much), I read Heidi, which is the book we are reading for book chat this month. I have made a lot of progress and will probably finish it soon. I'm supposed to be bringing the books to choose from next month, so after I finish Heidi, I will be reading some other books to try to decide what books to suggest. 

That brings you up to date on us!

Weekly Review November 30 '25

 I am a few days late getting this week's post done because we were out of town and didn't get home until last night. 

Last Saturday (November 22nd) was a busy day. I did sleep for 7 hours straight the night before, so that was pretty great! I had stake choir practice in the morning and gave a ride to a mother in daughter in our ward who are also singing in the choir. When I got home, Frank and I went on a long walk (a couple of miles). The weather was fairly nice, so we wanted to get in a good walk while we had the chance. Also that day I did some online Christmas shopping, practiced all my choir songs (for both stake choir and ward choir), reviewed Monday's Seminary lesson and contacted a few of the youth in my class to ask them to help with it, planned one of my lessons for the week after Thanksgiving, practiced the ukulele, cleaned the kitchen floor, and listened to the first half of the BYU football game. (We went to bed after the first half because we were too tired to stay up later.) I also contacted a photographer about getting a family photo taken in December, but she has not responded to me yet (over a week later) so I need to try to contact her again tomorrow. 

On Sundary the 23rd, I had choir practice before church and the choir sang in sacrament meeting that day. We sang "Our Prayer to Thee", which is one of the new hymns. President Nelson wrote the words. During the meeting, everyone who spoke took a few minutes to share some sweet memories of Brother Whipple, our friend who unexpectedly passed away earlier that week. After church we got to talk to Jared. I also did some Seminary lesson prep. We invited a sister in our ward over for dinner and enjoyed dinner and visiting with her most of the evening. She is about my age and was my ministering sister for many years. We talked about planning for retirement, among other things. She is one of my favorite people!

My Seminary lesson topic for Monday morning was "Love, Share, Invite". I asked two of the youth in the class to share their conversion stories. One of them joined the church a year ago and the other was baptized in August. The girl who was baptized a year ago actually made a little slide show with pictures to tell her story and it was really sweet! The boy who was baptized in August moved recently and hasn't been able to come to Seminary since then but I asked him if he would be willing to text me his story and he did. It was really beautiful!! I was so grateful for these two youth who were willing to share their experiences and feelings. It really brought the spirit into the class. 

After Seminary on Monday I stayed for a few minutes to use the piano to go over a part of one of the stake choir songs that I was struggling to learn. It helped a little; I need to do that again tomorrow! I went to the store on the way home to get a few things that we needed for our trip. I also got a couple of ingredients to make muffins for Seminary the next day and I got some rolls for the funeral luncheon for Brother Whipple's family. I came home and got laundry done and made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins while listening to podcasts. After Frank got home, we went on a walk and took the rolls to the sister in our ward who was coordinating everything for the luncheon. (The funeral and luncheon were on Wednesday and we couldn't go since we were leaving for NC on Tuesday afternoon, but we wanted to do something to help.) On the way home, the sky looked really cool so I took a few photos:

I have a cloud book, so I looked it up and I think those bright rainbow-y lights on either side of the sun are called sun dogs.

Frank took Tuesday through Friday off work. I had Seminary Tuesday morning but since we only had two days that week, Tammy taught the second day. We talked about the trek west, and for part of the lesson we went outside and read some scriptures while standing in the cold, to get a very brief idea of how the pioneers might have felt. My picture of the kids is very blurry (it was darker than it looks in the photo so I think the camera lens stayed open for a while) but the sunrise was pretty awesome!:

After Seminary I came home and got the bathrooms cleaned and then finished packing for our trip. Seth had a class that ended at 12:40, so we planned to leave after he got home. We got on the road by about 1:15 and drove to Christiansburg, Virginia. We arrived around 5:00 pm, checked into our hotel, and then went to the nearby Cracker Barrel for dinner. I was really tired and fell asleep around 8:30. Unfortunately, I woke up around 4:00 am on Wednesday, but that's not too surprising since that is close to my usual schedule. At least we were able to get on the road fairly early. 

We drove the rest of the way to Brevard Wednesday morning. On the way, we were able to connect via Zoom to watch Brother Whipple's funeral--it was really nice. We also talked to Tanner and wished him a happy birthday. When we got to Brevard, we went to Frank's parents' house first to visit for a while. Then we went to the grocery store to get a few items and then went to Dawn's house (Frank's sister) to visit and to start preparations for Thanksgiving dinner. We made a chocolate pudding pie and also made banana pudding to be used later. We went back to Brevard so we could take Frank's parents to dinner. Their car was in the shop so Frank dropped Seth and I off at the restaurant and then he picked up his parents and brought them back to the restaurant. We went to a Mexican place that was really good and enjoyed spending some more time with his parents. After dinner, we went back to Dawn's house where we used the pudding we made earlier to make a layered banana / vanilla wafer / whipped cream dessert. We also helped Dawn make devilled eggs and turkey rolls (sliced turkey wrapped around cheese and stuffing and covered in gravy), and we put a ham in the oven to cook slowly overnight. 

I woke up pretty early on Thursday morning too, although not quite as early as Wednesday. After breakfast (free at the hotel), we went back to Dawn's house to help make mashed potatoes and some macaroni & cheese. Then we loaded everything up in the cars and went to the church, which is where we had our Thanksgiving meal. Besides us, Frank's parents, and Dawn & Mike, his brother James and his sister Becky and her husband John and son Kenny were there. (Her daughter Nicole came later...she had to work most of the day.) Frank's mom also invited a couple from across the street to come and we enjoyed getting to know them. There was plenty of food and it was all yummy! After eating lunch, we played some games. We played Bank for a little while and then we started a game of Mexican Train (a domino game) that lasted until about 8:30 pm! (It's a very long game.) We had a lot of fun, though. We were so full from lunch that we kind of forgot to eat dinner (we nibbled on leftovers a little bit) so by the time we packed up all the food and cleaned up and got back to the hotel, we were pretty hungry but we had enough snacks that we were able to get enough to eat. (We had some nuts and trail mix which are at least a little bit healthy, thankfully.) As usual, I forgot to take any photos but I do have this one of Frank with his parents and siblings:

We actually slept in on Friday morning (7:00 for Frank, 7:30 for me) which was really nice for a change. After breakfast, I worked on Seminary lessons for a bit and got my second lesson for this week planned. Then we went to Frank's parents house for another visit and his aunt Nikki and her husband were there so we got to visit with them, too. Then we got some lunch and went for a drive up into Pisgah National Forest and up onto the Blue Ridge Parkway for a little ways. It was very cold so we didn't stay up there for long. 

Looking Glass Falls in Pisgah National Forest

Blue Ridge views:

Many of the rocks were covered in icicles:

We stopped at the ranger station on the way back down. There was a gift shop and Seth and I each got a Blue Ridge Parkway calendar. I also got a sticker for my water bottle and some postcards.

We went to Dawn's house after that for a last visit with her. Then we went back to Frank's parents house to say good bye to them. We got some sandwiches for dinner and then crashed at the hotel. I got Power Point slides prepared for both of my lessons for this week. We wanted to get an early start on Saturday so we didn't stay up late. 

We got on the road about 8:30 am on Saturday and spent most of the day driving home. We ran into a few slow spots in the afternoon, but mostly we moved along pretty well and we were able to get home by 5:00 pm. We listened to the BYU football game on the radio while driving home and were glad that BYU won that game too, especially after such a bad beginning. Next week's championship game is going to be pretty interesting! 

After we got home, we quickly unpacked and ordered Chinese food for dinner. We also got the laundry going and after dinner Frank & I went to the store to get a few groceries. Then I planned the meals for this week and we stayed up pretty late (about 11:00 pm) waiting for all the laundry to get done so we could fold it and put it away. It was an exhausting evening, but we got everything done. 

Today has been a lot more restful although it's still been busy. I didn't have choir practice this morning but Frank had to be at the church early to set up his computer for the first ward's sacrament meeting broadcast. He came back home after that so that we could go to church together a little later. I listened to most of this week's Follow Him podcast last night and this morning while I got ready for church. Since we got home from church, I have been busy with final preparations for Seminary tomorrow, reading scriptures, practicing choir songs, and talking to Jared (besides writing this post). 

It will be interesting to see how this week goes--there is a pretty high chance that we will get some snow overnight on Monday, so I'm not sure if there will be Seminary on Tuesday or not. We actually got a little bit of snow / sleet this morning, but it wasn't enough to stick or cause any problems with the roads. It looks like winter is here to stay, though. 

Bring on the Christmas joy!!