Weekly Review August 2, 9, & 16 '13

Hold on to your hats, folks because I have three weeks to cover here.  The good news is that I will probably be a lot more brief than I would have been if I had been writing about one week at a time.  I will try to let the pictures tell the story as much as possible, and there are certainly a lot of them. 

 

So you've probably guessed that our vacation did not involve a lot of sitting around and relaxing.  It didn't--which explains why I didn't even have time to update my blog each week that we were gone. 

 

But first, I need to back up and say a few things about the week before we left.  Saturday was pretty crazy busy.  I went for a walk and worked on RS stuff most of the day so that I'd have everything caught up before leaving.  I got everything done except for getting visiting teaching changes made, but that turned out to be a good thing.  We had the Elders over for dinner and immediately after dinner Tanner & Jared returned from Camp Helaman.  They were sunburned, dirty and tired but seemed to have enjoyed themselves.  They quickly showered and put on Sunday clothes so they could attend a baptism.  I went with them to the baptism, which was for a young man from Africa who has been living with some members of our ward.  He went to youth conference, where the boys became friends with him, and while he was at youth conference he decided that he wanted to be baptized.  So the missionaries taught him all the lessons.  It was a great baptism.  While I was there, I got a phone call from my 1st counselor--there was a sister in the ward who had called her because she needed some food.  My counselor was on vacation so couldn't do anything to help, so she needed to let me know.  After the baptism I called the sister, found out what she needed, and took it to her.  She lives alone and I was feeling like maybe she needed some company more than food, so I stayed a while to visit with her and we read some of the Ensign together.  Shortly before I left, she said that she was really needing someone to talk to, which is what I suspected, so I'm glad I took the time to visit with her for a while.  Sometimes I would like to have more peace and quiet, but that night I drove home feeling humble and grateful that I am never truly lonely.

 

Sunday morning I had Ward Council, and as part of that the bishop asked us to assign ward council members to be visiting teachers and home teachers for several families / individuals, so I was glad I hadn't made all the visiting teaching changes yet!  I worked on that after church instead and got most of it done. 

 

The next three days were busy with preparations for our trip and all the regular household chores.  Besides that, I got my blood drawn (for some medicine I'm supposed to go on), baked and took cookies to the sisters I visit teach, finalized the visiting teaching changes and met with the coordinator to get them put into the computer, bought school supplies for the older boys, met with the new Compassionate Service Leader to train her, and went on two visits for RS.  One of the visits was to the young girl who was baptized a few weeks before.  She told us a lot about her life and it was such a sad story!  Again, I was so humbled that I was blessed to have such great parents and a stable and happy home life growing up.  At least now she is on the right track to give a lot more to her children than her parents were able to give to her.  The other sister we visited has been less active for a long time but recently started coming back to church.  She has a 17 year old son who attended Camp Helaman with the boys.  My 2nd Counselor went with me on that visit and her son, who is also 17, wanted to go to a movie that night so this sister's son as well as Tanner and Jared ended up going to a movie with him that evening.  They were gone late.  I waited up for them--I didn't mind too much because I had just received two books about building and decorating dollhouses that day in the mail, and I was reading them.  (That's what I used my Amazon gift card from Mom & Dad to buy.)

 

Thursday morning Frank and I were awakened early by a phone call.  A sister in the ward was calling because her husband had just been taken to the ER and she needed someone to come stay with her two young children so that she could go to the hospital.  Rather than take the time to make a bunch of phone calls, I went over there myself.  After getting there, I called the compassionate service leader, who was awake, thankfully, and she made some calls and found someone to replace me.  She also made sure this family had a meal for that evening.  I was so grateful for her help!  As it was, I got home with barely enough time to shower and get to the airport on time.  (The sister's husband is ok, by the way.  He had an infected bone spur that was causing him a lot of pain.)

 

So off we flew to Utah, the boys and I.  The older boys were a big help with Seth.  Seth talked my ear off most of the way to Utah.  The flight was pretty uneventful.  We did have a little bit of turbulence, and once when we bumped through an air pocket Seth looked at me with big eyes and said "I think we just hit the top of a mountain!"  Thank goodness he was not right about that.  Our flight did leave rather late and we got into Salt Lake City an hour later than planned but we were able to pick up our rental car (a shiny white Dodge Durango) and get to Mom & Dad's house without any trouble.  Mom had a delicious dinner waiting for us, which we appreciated!  Tim's family came to visit that evening--we were glad we got to see them before they left for Disneyland for 10 days.

 

On Friday we decided to go to Hogle Zoo with Amy and children.  We met her in the parking lot in front of the UPS store, where we had this "only in Utah" moment:

   

 

We enjoyed the zoo although it was quite hot that day so we got pretty tired.  Here's a few pictures from the zoo:

This polar bear is made of Legos.  They had several Lego animals throughout the zoo.

A super long giraffe!  Just kidding, it's actually two of them--the head of one and the rear of another.  Looked pretty funny, though.  Seth had a very loose tooth and it fell out while we were visiting the giraffe house.

We got some ice cream on the way home and were very glad to get back to Mom & Dad's where we had another great dinner waiting for us.  Tanner and Jared left that evening to spend the night with their friends Ryan & Bryson Schlenz--we were good friends in Maryland but the Schlenz family moved to Utah in March.

On Saturday Amy had Seth over to play with Ammon while I went to lunch with Susie Schlenz and another friend from Maryland who lives in Utah now too:

After lunch, Susie and I went to the temple.  We wanted to do a session (and see the new movie we had just heard about!) but the temple was so crowded that we would have had to wait two hours just to get into a session so we did initiatories instead.  Afterwards, Susie's family met us at the outlet malls in Traverse Mountain so that I could retrieve Tanner & Jared.

Sunday was restful (although Seth was a little pill and refused to go to Primary until I offered to stay with him).  I can't remember what we did that evening--I think someone came by to visit but my memory is failing me.

Monday morning, we headed out to Dinosaur National Monument.  Amy and children came too, which made it even more fun.  The drive was about 3 1/2 hours.  I thought it would be boring, but it was a lot more scenic than I expected.  When we got to the monument, the wind was blowing very hard, driving sand into the backs of our legs which was pretty uncomfortable.  But the scenery was gorgeous!  We stopped a few minutes at the visitor center and then took the shuttle bus up to the quarry site.  Pictures:
 

This photo is taken from the balcony on the outside of the quarry building.  I just couldn't get enough of all the sweeping panoramic views!  Maryland is so different because there are so many trees.

The quarry building is built right up against this wall of dinosaur bones.

Touching a dinosaur bone!

Tanner is so psyched that he gets to touch a dinosaur bone--life long dream fulfilled!

Heading back to the visitor's center now:

At the visitor's center we all acquired a few souvenirs and I got some cool dinosaur books to give Seth for Christmas (he didn't notice).  We also watched a movie about the monument.

By the time we finished at the monument, it was dinner time so we drove back to Vernal, checked into our hotel (a nice Towne Place Suites that we got for a fabulous Marriott employee rate), and walked across the parking lot to Café Rio for dinner.  After eating, we all went swimming at the hotel.  I also did a load of laundry for Tanner, who forgot to put his clothes in the laundry on Saturday and thus had run out of clean things to wear. 

The next morning we drove to the other part of the monument, which is located in Colorado:

 
(Seth, Ammon & Jeremy are watching "Wreck It Ralph")

None of these kids had ever been to Colorado before now!

The Colorado side of the monument doesn't have any dinosaur bones--it has canyons and places to hike instead.  We had picked out a hike previously by looking at our options online--we knew it couldn't be long since we didn't have a lot of time and we had a couple of small children with us.  Plus, I wasn't thinking about it when I packed so I didn't have appropriate shoes for a hike.  We had a short but beautiful drive up to the trail head:

When we got to the trail, there were signs everywhere informing us that "this is bear country" and telling us what to do if we met a bear.  Thankfully, we didn't meet any though.  We discovered that the hike we had chosen was even shorter than we anticipated.  It was only 1/4 mile, which sounded decent but is actually very short.  However, there were some great views on our short hike:

After the hike, we headed back to Vernal.  Here's something you never see in Maryland:

In Vernal we visited the temple grounds and then filled our cars with gas and had lunch before heading back to Lehi.  (Boo on the Vernal McDonald's, where our kids were not allowed to stay in the lobby because they had leftover Café Rio food with them!  Even though they were eating some McDonald's food too.  Ridiculous!)

The Vernal Temple and grounds were beautiful:

Jared was my personal photographer on the drive back home.  I kept saying "Jared, get a picture of that!"  So here are all the results, from flat lands to canyons (and a brief rainstorm):

Totally loved that trip!  There were so many interesting rock formations and other beautiful views.  I was tired of driving, though, so I was glad to get back to Mom & Dad's house.  Erika came over to visit us for a while that evening.

I didn't sleep very well most of the nights on our trip, but Tuesday night was my worst night.  I had been somewhat itchy all over for a day or two but that night my head was particularly itchy and I was horrified that maybe I had picked up head lice from somewhere!  I visit and hug a lot of people. :)  Thank goodness in the morning when Mom, Tanner and Jared all checked they were able to reassure me that I did NOT have head lice.  Thank goodness!  After that it occurred to me that maybe I was having some sort of allergic reaction to something so I got some Benadryl and that did the trick--much less itching.  Strange, but I'm glad it ended so well.  Since I was pretty tired Wednesday I laid pretty low.  We got laundry done.  I did do a little shopping later--I took Tanner and Jared with me to Deseret Book and to Wal-Mart to get some things for Scott's birthday.  We were putting together a package for him to drop off the next day.  I got some souvenirs for the boys at Deseret Book too.  It was nice to have one day that we didn't run all over the place!

Thursday morning I took the boys to Trafalga for a while.  Amy and most of her kids met us there.  We played mini golf, tried out the go karts, and the kids played a game of laser tag.  A few pictures: 

 Jared & Jeremy

 Madalyn & Ammon

 Me

 Tanner and Seth

After we got back from Trafalga, I went to Wal-Mart to get one more thing for Scott's package and also took advantage of the opportunity to look over the cute Bella Bird clothes they have there (which are only available at a few Wal-Marts in Utah and Idaho, and cannot even be purchased online.)  I acquired a few skirts.  After I got back home, Jared came with me to drop off Scott's package and to pick up Frank at the airport.  We were surprised when the GPS took us to an LDS chapel instead of to an office building.  We drove around a while feeling confused and making sure we got the address correct before I discovered a sign in the back of the building that said "Utah Salt Lake City South Mission".  So the mission office was actually in a corner of the church.  As we were carrying our packages into the office, we met Scott's mission president and his wife coming out.  They stopped to ask who we were and were very gracious and friendly.  It was super strange to meet them though!  They said Elder Cleveland had just been there for a meeting that morning!  Thank goodness we didn't go by in the morning.  The mission president asked how many boys were in the Cleveland family.  He asked Jared how old he was, and told him if he lives worthy he will get to go to the SLC South mission someday!  He asked where all the Cleveland boys get their height from.  It was a nice (although short) visit.  We were running late to get to the airport, but Frank's flight was a little late getting in so it all worked out.  It was really nice to have Frank back with us after being apart for a week! 

On the way home, I tried to get photographs of the three temples in Scott's mission boundaries.  I wasn't very successful since we were moving fast and there were lots of obstacles in the way.  Here's the best I could get:

Jordan River Temple (on the far left of the photo, above the building)

 Oquirrh Mountain Temple (really hard to see--again, on the far left of the picture just above the building.  Almost a shadow.  It doesn't stand out very well because it is tan color, not white.)

 

Draper Temple--in the middle of the picture.

 

Shellie's family came to visit with us on Thursday evening.  We enjoyed hearing about their trip to Las Vegas.

 

Friday morning we took the kids back to Trafalga for a while (Frank needed to get his pass--the rest of us already got ours on Thursday.)  They tried the climbing wall:

 



Jared

Seth--he never got very far, but he tried

Jared again

Tanner

They tried out this leap frog ride which was hilarious because Seth thought he was going to like it at first:

But then he didn't!:

Jared and Seth tried out the bumper boats and got pretty wet:

We all played a game of laser tag too, and I am no good at that!

We came back to Mom & Dad's where we were joined by Lee & Dianne for a yummy lunch.  Erick & Liz came to visit in the afternoon too.  We really enjoyed seeing all of them and getting a bit caught up on their lives.  Afterwards, we drove to Provo to visit the BYU campus.  Frank and I always have to take a nostalgic stroll around our old stomping grounds!  It feels so strange to me now, though.  Some places are still so familiar and others have changed so much that I barely recognize them.  The thing that is really weird for me though is to see the students, and to realize that BYU now belongs to a generation that is the same age as my older kids!  I just don't feel that old--it seems like we were students ourselves just the other day.  We didn't walk over the whole campus this time.  We did go through the MOA and the HFAC (love how the HFAC hasn't changed!) and spent a lot of time (and money) and the bookstore.  We acquired more souvenirs, including a shirt or sweatshirt for everyone except Seth, who insisted he didn't want a shirt.  All he wanted was a foam cougar paw and #1 hand, so that's what he got.  Frank and the older boys helped a guy with car trouble get his car moving again.  Then we drove by my old dorm in Heritage Halls (who knows how long before it gets torn down?):

Carroll Hall--I lived on the third floor, left side of the picture in the back apartment.  Amy lived on the second floor, right side of the picture in the front apartment, I think.  After that, we went to the BYU Creamery on 9th East for some food and ice cream (of course): 

I remember when this building was called Carson's Market!   We drove past one of my old apartments and a couple of places that Frank and I lived when we were first married, plus the church where Scott was blessed, the Provo Temple, the MTC, and the new Provo City Center Temple, under construction:

In the neighborhood where we used to live as newlyweds, I had to take a picture of this cool house, which I always loved:

Besides, check out this book I have at home:

Does that house look familiar?

While we are on the subject of cool houses, there are tons of them in Utah and I wish I could have got pictures of more of them.  Here's another one that we passed on Lehi Main Street a lot:

Not a very good picture because we were moving fast.  It's actually a Thai restaurant.  We should go eat there sometime!

On the way home from BYU, we stopped at the Wal-Mart in Orem for a few items we needed.  Bonus: they had a dress in my size that I tried on at the other Wal-Mart and loved but hadn't purchased because they didn't have the correct size.

On Saturday we met up with my friend Marci and her kids--another friend from Maryland who lives in Layton now.  (No, not everyone in Maryland moves to Utah!)  The boys got to enjoy a trampoline park (never heard of them before now but I guess they are a thing in Utah) with Marci's kids while I went to lunch with Marci.  Big kudos to Frank for staying with all the kids while we went to lunch!

(Boys watching safety video at the tramp park)

After lunch, Marci's kids (Evan and Marissa) came with us to Lagoon.  We met up with Erick, Liz, Buck, Anna & June there too.  The kids went off on their own while Frank and I took Seth on a bunch of kiddie rides. 

(The train.)  Seth started out being nervous about heights, but after trying out this:

And this:

This:

And this:

Along with several other rides, he was ready to show June how it's done:

And then he said "I want to go on that!":

He turned out to be a little daredevil and wanted to try everything!  He was even really disappointed when he couldn't go on one roller coaster because he wasn't quite tall enough.  (Just one inch too short.)

More photos from our day at Lagoon:

(Erick and Buck were crazy enough to go on this ride!)

On the ferris wheel:

Where we had amazing views like this (not very good pictures, but you can use your imagination, right?):

I loved going on the Tilt a Whirl with Erick and Liz!  It was amazing!  The last thing I did was to take Seth on another favorite of mine, the Scrambler:

It was dark and we were moving fast, of course, so it was hard for Frank to get a good picture but there's Seth and I in one car and Tanner and Jared in the other!

We intended to leave Lagoon around 7:00 but we were having so much fun that we stayed a lot longer--until about 9:00.  We got home a lot later than we planned, but that was pretty much the story of this whole trip--staying up later than planned!  On the way home we saw four different fireworks displays--crazy!  Not sure what was going on that night.  As we drove through the Salt Lake Valley, I knew Scott was out there somewhere, asleep, and I missed him.

Sunday was another much needed day of rest.  We enjoyed going to church with Mom & Dad and seeing Erick & Liz as well.  We had dinner with my friend Paula and her family and enjoyed a nice visit with them.  When we got back to Mom & Dad's house, most of the family was there visiting including Tim's family who had just returned from their trip so we enjoyed lots of visiting and stayed up really late again.

Monday morning Frank went golfing with Erick and Liz while I did some laundry.  Then we all met up at Seven Peaks Water Park.  Amy and Tim's families came too so we enjoyed spending more time with them.  We forgot to tell Shellie our plans or she probably would have been there too--oops!  I spent most of the time following Seth around.  After checking out the wave pool, the lazy river, the kiddie pools, and the kiddie slides, Seth decided he wanted to try out the big slides.  Erick took him on one (he went down all by himself) and Frank took him on another one.  We had a lot of fun but I didn't take any pictures.

We returned to Mom & Dad's where all the family gathered for a pizza dinner, visiting, and celebrating August birthdays.  We stayed up late again!

On Tuesday we went to Amy's house so the cousins could hang out a little more.  Rachelle and kids came over too.  We did some shopping for our return trip home and then that evening all of us (except Mom & Dad, who were too tired) met at a picnic ground up American Fork Canyon for dinner.  We picked up some chicken, some roasted hot dogs, and we all had watermelon and s'mores,  It was great to visit everyone one last time, the weather was perfect, and the canyon was beautiful:

(Our watermelon keeps cold in the river)

Wednesday morning we got packed up and visited with Mom & Dad a little bit more.

We had early bird check in for our flight and I was number five to board.  I thought we'd get our pick of seats but I didn't realize that our flight had originated in Seattle and a lot of people were continuing on to Baltimore so it was actually pretty difficult to find three seats together.  We finally found one free row near the back of the plane, so that Seth, Frank and I could sit together.  Tanner and Jared sat behind us.  Our flight was a little late leaving because two people who were supposed to get off in SLC were confused and stayed on the plane.  There were more people than seats, so they had to figure out who wasn't supposed to be there and that took some time.  They finally cleared it up and we were on our way.  We even managed to get to Baltimore a little early in spite of our late departure.  Here is Seth on the plane:

He looks tired.  I think we wore him out!  A few pictures leaving Salt Lake City:

And a few pictures landing in Baltimore (very different!):

We didn't get back to our house until nearly 10:00 but we were all on Utah time still, so we stayed up a couple more hours getting unpacked.

We spent yesterday doing laundry, picking up Snickers (he was glad to see us), planning meals and grocery shopping, house cleaning, going through the pile of mail, and getting caught up on emails.  It was a busy day.  Today I got the budget caught up.  Seth woke up this morning and promptly began throwing up!  So glad he didn't do that while we were traveling though.  He was pretty sick all morning but by afternoon he started to do better and was able to keep soda down.  By this evening he was eating crackers and bouncing off the walls so hopefully we are done with that stomach bug.  Seth was supposed to have a check up at the doctor--I had to change that.  It was also the open house for his school.  I went to that so I could drop off his 6 bags of school supplies instead of taking them in on Monday when I will have three kids in tow.  I also met his teacher.  I wrote to Scott this afternoon and spent this evening writing this post.  Now it is bedtime!

Just a note about being home--the weather has been fabulous.  A little more humid than we were accustomed to in Utah, but for Maryland in August it has been hardly humid at all.  Plus temperatures have been in the 60s for the lows and the 80s for the highs.  Perfect!  Just beautiful!  We are thankful since August is usually really miserable in August.  That makes it easier to be home.  We miss all of you though!  It was so great to see you.  Big thanks to Mom & Dad for all the delicious meals, for putting up with us, and for letting us use their laundry facilities so often! 

We are looking forward to seeing you all at the reunion next year!

Weekly Review July 26 '13

Why is Frank wearing this incredibly ugly tie?  It's because Scott sent it to him.  If you can't tell from the picture, it has computers and computer discs on it.  Scott said in the note on the package that he didn't expect Frank to wear it, he just thought he'd get a kick out of it.  I didn't think he'd wear it either, but he surprised me and wore it to church on Sunday.  I took a picture so I could send it to Scott.

The other thing Scott sent in the same package was a Book of Mormon for Seth.  Scott was supposed to read the whole Book of Mormon in his first few months and mark particular things, so he did that. When he finished it, he wrote a letter in the front for Seth, telling him what it means to him.  I think it is sweet that he did that and I'm sure the older Seth gets the more that copy of the Book of Mormon will mean to him.

We've kept pretty busy this week.  Frank has been super busy--we hardly see him.  Saturday he was working at a client's office for a good part of the day--it was a long drive there and back, too.  I think we are all ready for a vacation!  While Frank was gone, the boys helped me with some house work.  In the afternoon I got my hair cut.  That evening I went to a baptism--it was for an 18 year old girl so I was there to do the official Relief Society welcome.  That's the second time I've been able to do that for a convert baptism in the last 6 months--pretty cool!  After the baptism I went straight over to meet some friends at a frozen yogurt place.  It was a "reunion" for the Primary presidency I served in as president--the girl who served as my secretary just got a job in Utah so she's moving soon.  It was our last chance for the four of us to get together before she's gone.  We had a nice visit although not as long a visit as we would have liked.

Meanwhile, Jared went to a party for kids from his former school.  It was about half and hour away and poor Frank made the drive there and back to take him and then pick him up. 

On Sunday Jared and I sang 2 songs with the choir.  Now we are on "summer break"--we don't have practice again until after Labor Day.  It was nice to come home from church and know that we didn't need to go out again that evening, although I do enjoy the practices.  Frank had an emergency with a client so he was on the phone for a lot of the afternoon and evening.  We had a large thunderstorm that night.

We are at the point in the summer when I am getting impatient with kids because they want to sit around and do nothing all the time.  Getting them to do anything is like pulling teeth!  I spent Monday and Tuesday wrestling with Tanner and Jared, trying to get them to do all the things they needed to do to prepare for their camp out, as well as get them to finish up some of their scout stuff and some of their summer homework.  I wasn't entirely successful, but hopefully we got a few worthwhile things done.  We also got basic housework done and I did a food order and prepared for a RS presidency meeting.  I wasn't feeling really great on Tuesday--I had a headache and a slight sore throat--so I spent a good part of the afternoon lying down and reading.  After Frank got home, he went with me to Wal-Mart to get some shopping done, including a few things the boys needed for their camp out and school supplies for Seth.  Yes, I actually bought school supplies in July!  It was killing me but I didn't want to put it off until after we get back from vacation--there will only be a few days until school starts when we get back.

I stayed up late on Tuesday reading because I was trying to get the book for book chat done in time.  It was a 647 page book and I just started it late last week so I had a lot of reading to do this week.  The book was really good (The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins).  I was feeling motivated to get it done before book chat because it was sort of a mystery and it would be impossible to discuss with people who had finished the book without them giving away important information.  Book chat was on Thursday, and I did finish the book in time--but I stayed up until nearly 2:00 am Thursday morning finishing it!  As I said, it is a really good book, though.  I enjoyed it a lot.

Anyway, back to Wednesday--the boys had to meet at 2:00 at the church for Camp Helaman.  As usual, the leaders weren't very organized and we all had to wait around nearly and hour before their were leaders there.  (I tried not to be annoyed.)  They were still packing things into vehicles when I left, so who knows when they finally got on the road!  I did talk to Tanner by text last night so I know they got up there eventually!  According to the schedule (there was a very impressive, detailed schedule prepared by the stake leaders) Tanner and Jared did caving and rock climbing yesterday and water skiing and hiking today.  Tomorrow they are doing a service project at the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania.  (The whole camp out has been in Pennsylvania, actually.)  They have had devotionals every morning and firesides every night.  I hope it has been uplifting for them as well as fun.  And I'm glad to know that for at least three days this summer, they didn't sit around all day! :)  They'll be back around dinner time tomorrow.  They hit the jackpot on the weather this week.  Last week was horribly hot and humid and all the kids and leaders at scout camp and girls' camp last week really suffered.  This week has been sunny and dry, with highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's along with an occasional pleasant breeze--really perfect!   

I had a presidency meeting Wednesday evening. Seth came with me because Frank ended up going down to help a client--another emergency!  He came by and picked Seth up about halfway through our meeting (around 8:00).  Seth played very nicely with some of the toys we borrowed from the nursery, so he was not a problem at all.  Thursday I enjoyed book chat.  I had more house work to do than usual since the boys weren't here to help. 

Today I did my usual Friday update of the budget.  My visiting teachers came to visit me, which was nice--I haven't been visited in my home by both visiting teachers in a long time.  Seth had a playdate at his friend Liam's house this afternoon.  After we picked him up from Liam's house, we went out to dinner.  Now we are getting ready to take him to Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone.  I'm not sure where the day went.

Wish us luck getting everything done that we need to do before getting on the plane on Thursday!  We are definitely looking forward to seeing many of you.

Weekly Review July 19 '13



Let's start out this week with the snake pictures I promised last week:

 

 



 

Jared is holding two different snakes in his pictures.  I'm holding the same snake in both of mine...it's name is Elliot.  That's because some of it's markings look like the face of ET.  I was surprised that all the kids at the park had heard of ET...it's such an old movie now!

 

So on to this week.  Saturday Frank was doing some work for a client most of the day.  I went to a baptism in the morning--there were 4 kids from our ward getting baptized and I felt the need to show support for their families, especially since at least one of the families is kind of in crisis right now.  The baptism was very nice, although it didn't go without glitches...one child didn't go under all the way the first time, two of the dads had to repeat the prayer at least once and one of the kids decided he was scared of the water and didn't want to go under.  Goodness!  (The frightened child did fine once we decided that he didn't need all of us watching him.  We all left the room and he was baptized in private.)  After the baptism, I came home and the boys and I got some housework done. 

 

Sunday morning I had Ward Council before church.  We all went to sacrament meeting in our ward (where Jared gave a talk, and did a good job--the mission president and his wife were also visiting our ward and speaking and they both complimented him) and then we left to go to Allie's ward because she was giving a talk before leaving for her mission.  She did a great job on her talk too.  We came home, Frank took the boys to give the sacrament to a ward member, we ate, took naps, and Jared and I went to choir practice.  After all that, we went out to Allie's house because she was having an open house:

 She left on Monday and went into the MTC on Wednesday.  We hope she has a great mission!

Monday was busy with the usual things like grocery shopping and laundry; I also made several phone calls / sent emails to set up appointments.  Most of the day was spent with the boys, though.  My friend Jeanine's son--Kalvin--was here visiting from California and the boys wanted to get together with him, so we drove over to Westminster in the morning to pick him up and take him to lunch.  We invited the boys' friend, Taylor (who is in our ward), to join us because he and Kalvin are also friends--they met at EFY a few years ago.  Frank had gone in to work really early and was back home finishing up some work from here so he took a break and came with us to lunch at Red Robin.  The boys had a fun time.  Then we took Kalvin over to visit with another friend for about a half hour.  Rather than drive back home, I let Tanner get some practice driving around the neighborhood while Kalvin visited with his friend.  Then we came back home and all the boys played games together for a while until around dinner time when I took Kalvin to the mall to meet another friend who was giving him a ride back to Westminster.  Here's all the boys together:

(Kalvin is on the far left of the photo with Taylor next to him)

It was nice to see Kalvin again and we hope we can visit the rest of the family someday!  I think my two favorite parts of the day were listening to all the boys singing together in the back seat and noticing that they had discovered Seth's quiet book and were playing the game "Going to Heaven" which is in there--silly boys!  They actually sing really well, and they put their whole heart and soul into it! :)

I had several errands to do on Tuesday--took Jared to the orthodontist, picked up a gift for Scott from a ward member (a pillowcase made out of cool missionary fabric), took Tanner to the bank to cash a check from a job he did, picked up a prescription, and did some shopping at Costco.  Besides that, the boys and I cleaned bathrooms and I worked on RS stuff.  It was a busy day.  Tanner was leaving around 6:00 for a trip to New York City (more on that later) and Jared's friend Joseph was coming over about the same time to spend the night and the next day--his Mom was at Girls' Camp.  We got Tanner out the door on time and Joseph arrived too.

Tanner was invited by his friend Taylor (same Taylor as in the photo above) to go with his family to NYC to see a matinee of The Phantom of the Opera.  I know--so jealous, right?!  He had earned enough from a job he did that he could pay for his own ticket for the play.  Taylor's family was driving up and coming back in one day, so the only other expense was for his meals and a few subway rides.  We agreed to pay that part for him.  They were leaving very early Wednesday morning, so they had Tanner spend the night on Tuesday.  Not only that, but Taylor had also managed to win two free tickets to a Josh Groban concert so they went to that on Tuesday evening.  Then on Wednesday they got up super early and drove to NYC, arriving there around 11:00.  They had lunch at an amazing place, went to the matinee of Phantom, did a little sight seeing and shopping, had dinner, and then drove back home--arriving around 1:30 am, they said.  Crazy!  They got in so late that Tanner stayed there to sleep and didn't get home until Thursday evening, actually.  Tanner went to NYC once but he was not 2 years old yet so he doesn't remember it.  He really enjoyed the whole experience and was very impressed with NYC.  Of course, getting to see the Phantom of the Opera was a dream come true for him, too.  He texted me and told me that he cried during the overture.  We are really glad he got this great opportunity.  Hopefully next week I'll have a few photos to share--Taylor's mom said she is going to e-mail some to me.  Tanner was allowed to go on the condition that he not breath a word about it to Scott!  I told him he can tell Scott all about it AFTER he gets home from his mission.  Scott really wanted to go to New York to see a play himself (and especially Phantom) so we just don't want to give Scott any reason to wish he were home instead of where he is. :)

Meanwhile, at home, Jared enjoyed having Joseph over all day Wednesday.  They played a lot of games.  I went to Wal-Mart--Seth came with me--and got a lot of RS stuff done.  Jared had YM that evening--they planned for Camp Helaman next week.  I went over to a friend's house to get some help figuring out a new budget program that I'm trying out.  These friends have been using this program for several years, so they were able to give me a few pointers.

We were surprised on Tuesday when one of the sets of Elders in our ward came by to say they were both getting transferred and that we were getting sisters instead--3 of them.  After wanting sisters for so long, I was actually disappointed that these Elders are leaving because they've been doing such a good job.  We've been a lot more involved with the missionaries the last few months and I'm finding that I get a little attached to them.  Must be my mothering side kicking in, since they are just like my oldest boy!  Anyway, we were sorry to say good bye to them.  I was supposed to meet the new Sisters on Wednesday evening but then...they didn't come!  Last minute changes again and this time we didn't get anyone to replace the set of Elders who left.  We're down to one set of missionaries in our ward again and we are feeling a little bereft!  Oh well...hopefully we will get another set next transfers.  Will we ever get Sisters?  I'll believe it when I see it! ;) 

Yesterday Jared and I got all the chores done in the morning.  I took Seth to Wal-Mart--he wanted to buy another Star Wars Lego set, and he had just enough money saved to buy it.  I helped him put it together and then after lunch his friend Liam from school came over to play for the afternoon.  They had fun playing with all the Lego sets as well as all the light sabers etc.  They made a mess and they were loud, but it was fun to see them having so much fun.  Last night my 2nd counselor and I tried to do a few "drop in" visits.  I hadn't been able to get in touch with any of the people that I wanted to visit, so we decided to just go see if we could find them home.  The first place no one was home and the second place we couldn't find!  I took my counselor back home and then we were discussing some things when I got a text message and what do you know...it was the woman whose house we couldn't find.  (And she acknowledged that her house is very difficult to find.)  It was too late to visit by that time but I was at least able to invite her to church and set a tentative appointment to see her on Sunday.  Hopefully I'll get to meet her soon.

Today I've been working on the budget.  In between everything else I've begun to read the book for book chat which is called The Woman in White.  It's pretty interesting so far, but long, so I hope I get through it by next week. 

Frank has continued to be very busy with his business as well as his job.  He has been able to meet with his new boss a couple of times and he really likes him.  He is still spending most of his time doing his old job, but they did finally hire a replacement for him so after he gets the replacement trained he can start to focus on his new job a lot more. 

We are starting to make plans for our trip to Utah and getting excited about that.  It's hard to believe we'll be there in just a couple of weeks!  It will be great to see many of you then. :) 

Weekly Review July 12 '13

This week was a little bit crazy.  It was just one of those weeks where a lot was going on with my RS responsibilities and I had other extra things too.  On Friday evening I talked Frank into taking me to see more fireworks--a nearby town has a carnival every year and they were having fireworks that night.  We had to wait quite a while for the fireworks to start, but we were much closer this time so they were a lot more impressive than the ones we saw on the 4th.  We had a nice unobstructed view, too.  It was a nice way to finish off my birthday.

 

On Saturday we got all the DVDs etc moved from the old entertainment center to the new one.  When the Elders brought Tanner back from an appointment (he went with them to one), they helped Frank and the boys move the old entertainment center (really an armoire) down to the basement.  We are using it for storage and now that area of the basement looks pretty nice.  After dinner, Frank and I went to the temple.  It was the last day before it closed for maintenance, so we really wanted to go one more time before then.  We were pretty tired, though, so we did sealings because we thought we'd fall asleep otherwise.  It was really nice to be there, as always.

 

The less active sister that I mentioned in my post last week actually did come to church and stayed all three hours, plus she came to our RS evening meeting on Wednesday.  Another less active sister that I've visited a couple of times also came to Sacrament Meeting.  Things like that make my day!  We took Wanda to church this week too which always makes it a little hectic but I love her so I don't mind.  We had a severe thunderstorm watch that afternoon and at one point the wind started to blow super hard and the clouds looked like this:

 

It doesn't really show in the picture, but the clouds actually looked a little greenish and one part was starting to twist around.  But thankfully, it all blew over quickly and didn't turn into anything bad.  We did get some rain but nothing more.  Erin and Dan came over for dinner that evening so we got to see the new ring first! :)  It's beautiful!  We didn't have my cheesecake on my birthday after all, so we saved it for Sunday dessert.  Here I am, showing off the cheesecake (which Frank actually made) and wearing my new fancy apron that I made:

We enjoyed visiting with Erin & Dan.  Plus, they brought this really yummy salad to go with our dinner.  I'm glad we had that day of rest before the busy week began.  I did food orders on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (and had visits with all three families as well).  I had a visit on Monday, Presidency meeting and a meeting with the bishop on Tuesday, and our monthly RS evening meeting on Wednesday.  Oh, and I also had to meet the visiting teaching coordinator at the church to log her into the computer so she could put her report in.  For some reason her name had been removed from the computer so she couldn't log in herself.  I think that's all the RS stuff, but isn't that enough?  Oh yeah, and I also have been praying about a new counselor since I am, indeed, going to lose my current 1st counselor. But thankfully, I get to keep my other counselor and secretary--at least for now.  I have the new counselor figured out now too--well, if they give me who I asked for, that is.

Besides all the RS stuff, Jared and I did community service this week on Monday through Thursday from 11:00-1:00.  Our ward had signed up this week to help a local charitable organization that serves lunch and provides a craft for kids in low income areas every week day during the summer.  Jared still needed the community service hours for his Citizenship in the Community merit badge so I thought this would be a good way for him to fulfill those.  I went with him to help.  Seth came with us the first day and he enjoyed playing with the other kids (since our ward was helping, there were even a number of other kids there that he knew from the ward).  Seth didn't want to come the other days, though, so he stayed home with Tanner.  We helped serve lunch to the kids and Jared played basketball with some of the boys.  It was pretty fun, but it made for an extra busy week.  One day all the cub scouts from our ward came over and they made air rockets with the kids.  They liked that, but then yesterday another guy brought a bunch of snakes to show the kids and they LOVED that!  He had six snakes--they are all his pets so they were pretty tame and the kids loved holding them.  Jared and I got to hold them too.  I took some pictures on my phone that I'd like to include but our mini SD card reader is missing so I can't get the pictures off of the phone and onto the computer.  Hopefully by next week we'll get that done.

Doing those things--along with all the normal things I need to do each week--pretty much filled up my days from morning until night.  A few days I was barely home.  The boys helped out by doing a few chores every day.  Jared also had reading to do for his class every day.  Yesterday I took Tanner over to my 1st Counselor's house so she could help him with his Calculus packet.  He has work he has to do over the summer but they didn't give him a book or any other resources to help him figure out what he had to do--doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Anyway, he had done most of the things in the packet before but he didn't remember how to do a lot of them so he needed some help and I knew my first counselor is good at math so I asked her if she could help him.  She was able to help him remember how to do most of the problems and she also directed him to a website that will help him figure out the rest so that was very helpful!  The boys have also been working on scouts a little and they are both almost done with the Communications merit badge, so I guess we are making a little progress.

Seth had a minor accident this week. On Wednesday he slipped while he was in the kitchen.  He fell forward, and he fell so quickly that he didn't get his hands out in front of him so he hit his chest pretty hard on the kitchen floor.  He was complaining that his chest hurt later that day so we decided to take him into the doctor to make sure he was ok.  The doctor determined that nothing was broken or cracked, just bruised.  He's still a little tender but seems to be healing fine.

Last night we had the Elders over for dinner and tonight Tanner and I went with them to a dinner appointment.  They had an appointment with one of the less active single sisters in our ward, so they had to take another male with them and they also knew I wanted to meet her so they asked her if we could both come and she said yes.  We had a very yummy dinner of Hawaiian haystacks and we enjoyed getting to know her a little.  She's a very nice lady.  She asked me if I did card making or scrapbooking and I said I have done a little scrapbooking but I haven't done it in a long time.  So she took me back to show me her scrapbooking room--it was really nice!  She said she is going to try to come to church this Sunday, so hopefully she will.

I had Tanner drive home from that appointment.  She lives really close to us so he didn't have to go far and not on any really busy roads.  I've been having him drive short distances like that when the opportunity arises so he is getting a little experience with driving the car.  He is very cautious--sometimes too cautious--but I'm glad he is taking it seriously.

Frank took Tanner and Jared to work with him today--he had volunteered them to help one of his co-workers move a bunch of things from one office to another.  She took them to lunch as a thank you, and she told Frank that they were great workers.  Tonight they went to a meeting to plan their meals for Camp Helaman and now they are at our former bishop's house.  He was really big on encouraging the youth to read the Book of Mormon, so as a thank you for him they created a video for him with all the youth talking about what the Book of Mormon means to them.  They are going to show it to him and have treats too I think. 

Frank has a ton of work to do for his clients.  He's been working every spare second, so his week has been as busy as mine. 

I almost got hit twice yesterday--in the same intersection!  First a car almost ran the red light--thankfully I looked to my left and saw him coming and realized in the nick of time that he was not going to stop so I stopped.  He woke up and came to a screeching halt in the middle of the intersection but if I hadn't stopped first, he would have hit me.  Then after he went on by (he was blocking the intersection, so he had to keep going) I started to go forward again when the car on the opposite side of the intersection from me decided to turn left right in front of me!  I looked at the light again--yes, it really was green for me!  Crazy.  Just glad I didn't get hit.

I think that brings you up to date on all our news for this week. 

Weekly Review July 5 '13



On Saturday the boys arrived home from youth conference saying it was amazing.  I have not been able to get much out of them about why it was amazing, but I'm glad it was.  Apparently it was a very spiritual experience for them.  Frank was gone in the morning--he helped cook breakfast for youth conference.  I got visiting teaching changes figured out, finished personal progress (all done!), and cleaned the kitchen floor.  Later, I checked on Wanda and printed up the new visiting teaching slips.  We spent some time getting Google hangout set up so we'd be ready for Dad's party.  We really enjoyed seeing everyone at Dad's party!  Isn't technology great?  When we got off the computer, we looked outside and saw this:  

 

It looked uglier in real life.  So yes, we got a pretty good thunderstorm that night!

Sunday morning as we were getting ready for church, Frank told me his guesses for who our new bishopric would be.  I said "Frank, that's not funny...that would take out my whole presidency!"  Although I did agree that they would be good.  Well, Frank turned out to be exactly right.  The new bishop is my 1st Counselor's husband.  The new 1st Counselor is my Secretary's husband.  The new 2nd Counselor is my 2nd Counselor's husband.  Seriously!  Everyone is joking with me that they should call Frank to be the new Executive Secretary.  I don't know yet how this change is going to affect me.  I'm almost positive that I will lose my 1st Counselor, but I'm not sure about the other two.  My 2nd Counselor says she thinks she'll be ok.  My secretary is new (remember I recently lost my secretary because they made her the Primary president?) so she is still figuring out what her calling entails.  She works full time, though, and I know she was already worried about whether or not she would be able to do the job.  So we'll see how it goes.  I just lost my compassionate service leader a week ago so I am kind of feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under me, but hopefully it will all turn out ok.  I'm going to have to let this new bishop know that he is totally starting out on the wrong foot with me! :)

Frank was "on call" with work from 3:00-11:00 on both Saturday and Sunday, but he didn't get any calls.  He woke up early Monday morning with a terrible migraine that was so bad that he threw up too.  He slept most of the morning and by early afternoon the migraine was gone.  He was tired but able to go into work for a meeting he had that afternoon.

Jared and Tanner were at their friend Taylor's house on Monday until early afternoon.  Seth and I went grocery shopping and went to check on a new family who just moved into our ward.  This is a pretty great story, actually.  This family was living in Utah; he's in construction but business was bad and they have family in Baltimore, so they decided to move to Maryland.  They signed their kids up for a new charter school that's opening up and had to be living here by July 1st, so they sold most of what they had, packed up everything else in a little trailer, and headed across the country having no idea where they were going to live when they got here.  They made it to Frederick and were driving around looking for possible places to live and looking pretty lost when a member of our ward noticed their Utah license plates and forlorn appearance and asked them if they needed anything.  He soon discovered that they were LDS and looking for a place to live.  Well, it just so happened that another family in our ward was right then in the process of loading their moving van (they moved to Florida) and they really needed their house to sell, or at least rent.  So this member of our ward took them over to the moving family's house and within hours of when they were leaving Maryland, they were able to get a lease signed to rent their house to the new family and the new family now has a place to live!  Pretty amazing.

Anyway, we met the new family.  They have four kids and they are very nice.  After talking to them I decided that they could use some meals brought in for a few days--they only had a tiny refrigerator that another member family loaned them and hadn't had time to buy groceries yet.  So I got some meals set up for the next few days (remember, I don't have a compassionate service leader right now) and we took dinner to them that night.  The missionaries came over to have family home evening with us later.  They provided the lesson, and we did everything else.  We enjoyed that!

I've been working with the boys this week to get them going on some of their scout requirements and schoolwork (they both have work to do over the summer for some AP classes they are taking).  We did some of that on Tuesday, along with some house cleaning.  Tuesday afternoon both sets of Elders serving in our ward came over so that I could go through the ward list with them to give them ideas of people that would be good for them to visit.  Then Tanner went with one set to an appointment.  Within an hour of when they left, one sister in the ward that I've never met actually called me!  I was really surprised.  Hopefully she will start coming to church again now.  I keep having the feeling that a lot of great things are about to happen with our ward's growth.  I hope my feeling is right. 

Wednesday I got all the shopping done since I wasn't sure if any stores would be open on the fourth.  Frank got off work early so he came with me.  We also picked up a book that I had ordered for Jared for his AP World History class.  That evening I had a presidency meeting and the boys had YM.

Independence Day started out very early because Frank got up to go help cook at the annual Independence Day Breakfast.  The rest of us got up a little later (but still pretty early) to attend the breakfast, which started at 8:00 and was about a 20 minute drive away.  When we got there, Tanner and Jared helped a little with the rest of the cooking.  Frank helps with the breakfast every year but this year I remembered to get a picture of him:
    

 Actually, he was doing a lot of supervising this year, although he did do some of the cooking too.  I haven't gone to the breakfast in a number of years because I don't enjoy chasing Seth around by myself while Frank cooks.  But this year Seth wanted to go and he did pretty well overall.  I lost him a couple of times but never for long and he always stayed nearby.  He really liked this hammock:

 (With Joseph--one of Jared's friends.  He's the new bishop's son.)

Tanner helping with some of the eggs.

I missed most of the program, but I did pay attention to this men's chorus song.  Jared sang in it--he's right behind the guy in the red shirt, standing next to one of the missionaries in our ward, but you can't see him at all.

They had lots of nice flags flying, but I only got a picture of this big Maryland flag.

After the breakfast, we all came home and rested.  We got laundry and vacuuming done, and Frank and I watched a movie.  Then we made dinner.  One set of Elders joined us for dinner.  We had bratwurst, hamburgers, hot dogs (for Seth), corn on the cob, potato salad, watermelon, chips, and our traditional flag cake.  It was all really good and we had tons of food...there's still a lot left over.

That evening we went to watch fireworks.  The place we've gone the last several years--a parking garage--is under construction right now so we couldn't go there and we had a bad experience there last year anyway so we were already thinking of trying a new spot.  It occurred to us that since the main street that goes past our house was completed since last summer that the open field next to it might be a good place to go.  There is a big hill at the end of the field that gives us a wide view of the city.  Here we are while waiting for the fireworks to start:

We enjoyed watching all the fireflies come out while we were waiting.  We could see the fireworks pretty well although we were a lot farther away than we are used to being so they seemed kind of small. 

Frank took the day off today but he had some work to do for a client this morning so he left early and got home around 1:00.  Meanwhile, the new furniture was delivered again and this time it is undamaged so we were able to keep it!  So after a little over three weeks of sitting on the floor, we have couches to sit on again!  Happy Birthday to me!  Here are some pictures of the new furniture:
 

The entertainment center is still mostly empty--haven't moved everything over from the old one yet.  There is actually one problem with it--there's supposed to be another shelf above the television but there were not any holes drilled to hold the brackets for the shelf.  Someone is going to have to come out to drill the holes for us within the next few weeks.  In the meantime, our television looks way too small for that opening because the shelf isn't there.  (It's still going to be smaller than the available space and Frank and the boys keep saying that we "have" to buy a bigger television now!  Maybe someday, but not for a while.)

Here's the loveseat:

And the couch:

(Jared moved when I snapped the picture)

I got the budget done this afternoon and then we ordered Chinese food for dinner (one of my favorites) and I opened presents:

I am laughing at the Wal-Mart bag "wrapping".  Frank did it on purpose because I have complained to him about how rarely I get wrapped gifts.

Opening cards...thank you for the Amazon gift card, Mom & Dad!

The card from the boys included a "Wonder Woman" refrigerator magnet.

The bag was full of chocolate and a bunch of large cooking spoons.  The spoons are another joke because the boys used to always pick out spoons or spatulas to give me for Christmas and birthday gifts.  So now Frank likes to give them to me for a laugh.  Those bamboo ones are actually pretty nice, though.  I did get one wrapped gift from Frank which was...a tablet:

 

I am not really sure what it does yet except that it is a lot like an iPod, only bigger and has a keyboard.  I think it is going to come in pretty handy!  Frank actually got a really good deal on it...I was really surprised (but glad) when he told me how much he paid for it.  (It was such a good deal that he got one for himself too--to use for his business.)

 

So yeah--it's been a pretty great birthday!  Now we are sitting on the new couches watching Star Wars (the original one).  Seth is really into Star Wars lately.  Now the boys are asking if we are going to eat my birthday cheesecake, so I guess we'd better go do that.  If you were here, I'd give you a piece. :)



Weekly Review June 28 '13

Last Friday evening Frank and I went out a date.  I forgot to take a camera, though, so no pictures.  We went to this place called Adventure Park where we played a game of mini golf and drove some go karts.  Then we went to downtown Frederick and got some ice cream from Ben & Jerry's.  It was a fun evening and I think we both needed it.  It was really nice to get away from all the demands of normal life for a while and just have some fun. 

 

Saturday we worked hard.  Frank and the boys worked on doing some cleaning in Frank's office.  They threw out a bunch of stuff and gave away a few things.  There is still a lot of work to do there, but it is a lot better than it was.  We did some more cleaning in the basement during the week and the boys worked on their room some more also.  We still aren't done, but there is enough of an improvement that I feel a difference when I go down there.  It's easier to move around because the main traffic area (including the stairs) is uncluttered now.  So nice!  We won't be able to finish up until we move the armoire downstairs, which we still haven't done because our couches and entertainment center still aren't here.  They were supposed to come "sometime this week" but the "sometime" turned into tomorrow.  And since they don't do deliveries on Saturday, we will have to wait until next week.  Pretty annoying!

 

Anyway, back to Saturday--I went on a walk and finished up Personal Progress.  Tanner had a lesson to get ready for Sunday.  (It seems like he and Jared both teach in their priesthood quorums pretty regularly now.  Did I mention they both spoke in Sacrament Meeting a few weeks ago as well?)  We had the Elders over for dinner Saturday evening.  We made homemade pizza--they loved it!

 

Sunday was busy--I had ward council before church, choir after church, and that evening Frank & I went to the Worldwide Missionary Training broadcast.  It was very good--but I also feel like I have a lot of work to do!  I wholeheartedly agree with what they are saying about missionary work, though--that it needs to be done in different ways to adapt to the changes in the world.  I think missionaries now are fortunate that we are starting to find other ways to share the gospel.  I asked Frank if he feels a little jealous that we can't be on missions now and he agreed with me. :)

 

Monday through Wednesday we were busy getting the house cleaned up some more.  Tanner & Jared had check ups on Monday.  All the boys had haircuts on Tuesday.  I did two food orders and wrote the presidency message for the RS newsletter.  Frank helped teach a new member discussion on Tuesday evening.  On Wednesday I went to the temple--I really didn't have time but I decided I needed to make time, and I'm really glad I went.  The traffic was terrible so it took me twice as long to get there as it usually does.  I loved being in the temple, though, and feeling calm.  I also had a presidency meeting Wednesday evening.  Between all of that stuff, the extra cleaning, and all the normal things that need to be done, we all kept really busy. 

 

This week end is youth conference, so now it feels quiet with only Seth, Frank and I at home.  Or maybe I should say just Seth and I, because Frank has been helping with all the cooking for youth conference and between that, his job, and work for clients he has barely been home.  I dropped the boys off at the stake center for youth conference early Thursday morning.  This year, the whole conference is missionary themed.  The cool thing is, our stake leaders felt prompted to do a missionary training youth conference right after our youth conference last summer, so they started planning it right away--BEFORE the changes in missionary age requirements were announced.  Now many of the youth who are participating will be leaving on missions within a year or less--some even have mission calls already.  Anyway, they assigned each youth to a district and each one has a companion.  They actually sent them "mission calls" in the mail to let them know what district they would be in, and it was fun to see how exciting that was for the boys.  Jared is in the Ireland district and Tanner is in the ASL district.  There are several other districts--Japan, Germany, Africa, etc. 

 

Here are some pictures I took when I dropped the boys off yesterday morning:



 

Two good looking missionaries!

Tanner with his companion, Taylor.  I didn't get a picture of Jared with his companion, though.

I hope they are having a great experience.  They are staying with the other members of their district at members' homes.  We were actually asked to host some of the youth--we were going to have five boys stay here last night and tonight--but then yesterday afternoon they let us know that not as many youth came as they expected so they didn't need to use our house after all.  That made me laugh, since a lot of the motivation for all the cleaning we've been doing was to make more room for the youth conference guests.  Oh well!  I don't mind at all because we needed some motivation to get us going.  I was also able to wash all the boys' bedding yesterday since they were gone, which I've been needing to do for a while. 

Frank worked from home yesterday--it was nice to have him around in the morning before he went to help with the cooking for youth conference.  Tanner and Jared both forgot to take their sneakers (they needed them for service projects they were doing in the afternoon) so Frank took them their shoes and then stayed to help cook.  I did grocery shopping and more cleaning in the morning.  Seth and I ran some errands in the afternoon--we mailed a package to Scott and then picked up my glasses & contact lenses that just came in.  We had to go to the mall to do that, and after we picked them up we walked around the mall a little bit and bought some Orange Julius drinks.  I haven't had one of those in years!  After our errands we had a quiet evening at home.  I finished the laundry and worked on some changes for visiting teaching. 

Today has been quiet too.  Frank went to work and then came home briefly before going over to help with cooking again.  I got the budget done this morning.  This afternoon I finished the apron I started at the RS activity.  I'll have to get a picture taken wearing it soon to include next week, but no one is here right now to take a picture of me besides Seth, and I don't want him to touch the camera!  We also took Snickers to the groomer and spent some time walking all around Pet Smart so that Seth could see the fish, birds, hamsters, etc.  Frank will be home late again tonight, so Seth and I are going to go out for dinner together.  Probably Burger King, since that's what Seth will want!  The boys will be home tomorrow late morning.

Our weather has completely changed this week and now it feels like August instead of June.  It has been very hot and humid, and nearly every afternoon we get a thunderstorm.  Some of them have been severe--we've had a severe thunderstorm watch and / or a tornado watch nearly every day this week! 

Snickers has been making lots of noise at night lately--we have no idea why.  He keeps barking and scratching and whining.  It's pretty annoying because he wakes us up.  Between his noise and the high humidity, it's been pretty hard to sleep well at night.  We've still been getting up pretty early, though.  I'm tired but I wake up anyway because it gets light so early.  I don't mind too much, though, because I like getting an early start to the day.  Last night when he was making a lot of noise I was really glad that the youth conference kids didn't end up coming over after all--I would have felt bad if he had kept them up.

This week end should be interesting--we are getting a new bishopric.  Everyone is speculating about who the new bishop will be!

On Wednesday afternoon when I was preparing for my presidency meeting, I got a call from Scott's mission office.  His other wisdom tooth is coming in and it's bothering him so he has to have it taken out.  He had already been to a dentist but he didn't know our dental insurance information.  So the lady from the mission office gave me the dentist's number and had me call their office to give them the information they need.  I don't know exactly when Scott will have the tooth out, but please keep him in your prayers that it will go fine and he won't have any complications.     

Weekly Review June 21 '13

 Here we are at the end of our first week of summer vacation, and I think it was fairly successful.  By that I mean that we enjoyed a more relaxing schedule but we also got some worthwhile things accomplished. 

Last Saturday was somewhat crazy.  Tanner and Jared spent the night with their friend Taylor on Friday night so they were gone until I went to pick them up Saturday afternoon.  Frank left around noon to go help with cooking / catering for a wedding and he didn't get back until 10:00 that night.  That left me to do all the running around for most of the day, and there was a lot of that.  I checked on Wanda (one of the women I visit teach), picked up a Father's Day cake (made by the YW) for Frank, picked up Tanner & Jared at Taylor's house, took Seth to a birthday party (at Pump It Up again) and picked him up when it was over, took Tanner to the Elders' apartment so he could go with them to some appointments, did some shopping, and took some milk to a couple in the ward who needed a gallon.  So yes...basically I was a chauffeur most of the day.  Somehow in between everything else, I managed to go for a walk, clean the kitchen floor, wrap Father's Day presents, and work on Personal Progress.  (I'm still working on my last value project...that's all I have left.  I'm getting close to finishing finally!)

I was very ready for a day of rest after all that, and fortunately because it was Father's Day, there were no extra meetings--just our regular meeting block.  Very restful! :)  I forgot to set an alarm so I didn't get up as early as I should have but we still managed to make French toast for Frank's breakfast:
   

And had time for him to open his cards and gifts:

 (Cake made by the YW.  Pretty cool!)

 

His other gift is a Soda Stream thing, which he's been asking for.  It's pretty cool, actually--you can make your own soda with it.  Easy, and it tastes great.

I did all the cooking that day, and Frank got to take a short nap.  It was a nice day.

I've been enjoying the lack of a rigid schedule this week.  I'm still getting up at around the same time most days, but just knowing I don't have to get up is nice.  Seth has woken up very early a few mornings--yesterday he got up at 5:45!  It works out pretty well for him to get up earlier, though, because that gives him his video game time undisturbed before the other two boys get up. (They get an hour each.)  We've had some gloomy rainy days and overall it hasn't been very hot but most days we've had temperatures in the 80s and it cools down at night--which is perfect, as far as I'm concerned!  Last night I noticed the fireflies for the first time.  I love when the fireflies come out--the trees look like they have tiny white blinking Christmas lights on them!

We did have a number of appointments this week.  I made the boys get up fairly early on Monday morning because I had a doctor appointment at 8:00.  Just a check up--I haven't had one of those in about 13 years so I figured it was about time.  I'm pretty healthy overall but had a few things I wanted looked at--like one of my toenails, which has some sort of fungus, my eyes that are watering again, and a spot on my hand that keeps scabbing and then coming back.  I have to have a dermatologist look at that.  I got some allergy drops for my eyes to see if that helps them--I think it might be helping a little. 

Tanner had his senior portraits taken on Monday morning also.  I admit when I got the notice in the mail for those that I teared up a bit.  I don't feel ready to have another son leaving home so soon!  Time needs to stop!  Hopefully the pictures turned out ok. 

Tuesday afternoon I had a presidency meeting.  Afterwards we cleaned out the RS closet so I didn't get home until nearly dinner time.  Frank went to help with a new member discussion that evening and Tanner went to a movie with friends. 

Wednesday I had my follow up appointment with the eye doctor.  That evening I made dinner for a family in the ward.  Tanner & Jared went to their friend Ian's house for the afternoon and from there to YM.  I had a meeting with the bishop that evening also. 

Thursday I had visiting teaching appointments all morning and that afternoon the boys and I had dentist appointments.  No one has cavities, which is always good news.  Jared went to the church to play basketball with friends that evening. Today we didn't have any appointments, which was nice for a change.  I spent most of the day updating the budget.

Seth has kept busy with some of his birthday presents.  One of his friends gave him this fun book called The Boys' Doodle Book which is full of half-finished pictures and a prompt to help you finish the picture.  For example, a guy swimming with a frightened expression on his face and the prompt "What is nibbling on his toes?"  He has loved drawing in that!  (In the picture, he is drawing what's under the bed.):   

 

Seth also used his birthday money from Grandma & Grandpa plus some money he's saved up to buy this Star Wars Lego set:



 

Tanner spent a couple of hours helping him build it yesterday.  Right before I took the picture, Seth broke it, but I helped him put it back together after I took the picture.  It was ridiculous how we ended up buying it--we found it on WalMart's website for the best price and it said they were in stock at our local store, so we took him over to buy it on Monday evening.  They had several there but the price was nearly $15 more than the price listed online.  The employees told us they sometimes have special prices for items online and unfortunately they aren't allowed to match them.  They said we could go online and order it though, if we wanted the lower price and then they'd let us "pick it up".  Frank did that on his iPhone but then the system messed up and said that there weren't any in stock at our store, so they had to send one to the store for us and wouldn't allow us to pick one up until the new set arrived.  So we ended up having to wait until Thursday until the set they sent to the store got there to pick it up!  Pretty dumb!  We probably would have given up and bought one of the ones at the store but it bugged us to pay that extra $15. 

 

We still don't have furniture, by the way.  The new couches are supposed to come sometime next week.  I'm praying the new ones aren't damaged too.  In the meantime, the boys dragged this big pillow downstairs so they can lie on it and watch television.  I thought this was cute that Seth & Snickers were sharing the pillow!:  

 

In between all the appointments this week, we had work to do--all the normal shopping, cleaning, laundry etc.  The boys had chores to do every day to help me, plus they have been working on cleaning their room thoroughly, doing a little bit every day.  They aren't done yet, and it certainly isn't up to my standards, but it is definitely looking a lot better.  I've also worked on the basement a little, and it is looking better although I'm not done yet either.  Here's a few pictures so you can see the progress:

(Before)

 (After)

I know, it still doesn't look great, but it's an improvement.  All the stuff on the left is empty containers that I will either use somewhere else or throw out.  Some of the other stuff will be going into the armoire when we move it down.  Everything else will be moved or thrown out!  See that chest of drawers on the right?  There used to be so much stuff in front of it that I couldn't get to the drawers. 

Another "before" shot:

 

And after: 

We still need to remove the large file cabinet.  The other stuff will be put in the armoire or moved, except I think the luggage will have to be stacked neatly next to the armoire.  A work in progress, but we'll get there.  Stay tuned for more "after" pictures.

 I also did a lot of work in Scott's room yesterday, but I didn't take any pictures.  I have most of his stuff boxed up now--he was supposed to do that before he left, but he didn't get it all done.  I want to have all of his stuff in boxes and moved elsewhere because one of the boys is going to move into his room this fall.  I agreed to let them do that so that Tanner can have his own room for the first time in his life--it's probably his last chance to have his own room, too, since after this he will be sharing with room mates, companions, and eventually (hopefully) a wife.  Having never had my own room myself, I'm sympathetic to his wish.  I decided it was ok to give up my craft room since I've accepted the fact that I'm probably not going to get any projects done while I'm the RS president.  Maybe in a couple of years!  I labeled the boxes of Scott's stuff and wrote down on cards what is in each box so he should be able to find things easily when he gets back.  I'm guessing he's not going to want a lot of it by then!

That's about it for this week.  The boys just took Seth to the park to play.  Frank has had an extremely busy week so he is taking a break from computers tonight.  He and I will probably go out to do something fun later.

Oh, one funny thing we've noticed Seth doing lately.  When he is coloring with crayons and makes a mistake, he has to scribble it out instead of erase (of course).  We noticed that when he scribbles something out, he stops and turns the crayon over and uses the other end to scribble it out, like he would do with a pencil so he can use the eraser.  It's so funny because he doesn't even realize that's what he's doing.  Cute!  I'm going to have him work on a few school work type things this summer so he won't forget everything he's been learning.  We found out who his teacher will be for next year and I've heard good things about her.  Several of his friends from his kindergarten class will be in that class too, so that will be nice for him.