Weekly Review August 19 '16

Okay, I am finally getting a chance to post! It has been a busy weekend. Actually, the whole week has been busy, but in a good way. I am still really tired, though. Even if you are busy having fun, it still makes you tired.

Going back to last week first, though…on Friday afternoon (the 12^th) Frank and I were able to go to the furniture store to meet with a manager and show him what was wrong with the furniture we ordered. After pointing out to him the different things we were unhappy about, he totally agreed that the furniture was not up to par and he said they would reorder everything for us. They are putting a rush on our order, but it will still take about 6 weeks, so we probably won’t get the new furniture until the end of September or beginning of October. That is frustrating, but unavoidable. I just hope they get it right this time!

Saturday we had the Elders over for dinner, Jared worked and helped with an Eagle Project and Seth went to a birthday party for a school friend. Frank and I spent most of the day doing some cleaning in the basement. He was working on his office mostly but he helped me with a lot of stuff too. I worked on the open area by the back door & bedroom, which has been an absolute mess for a long time. We threw out some things, gave some things away, and took a load to the storage unit. It looks fabulous down there now, and I love being able to walk through there without tripping and / or climbing over things. Frank’s office still needs a lot of work and we haven’t even started on the laundry room yet, but it’s still a lot better down there. While Jared and Frank were at the storage unit, they set up a new set of shelves we bought quite a while ago so there is more room in there to store things.

On Sunday morning I noticed my back was twinging a bit which worried me because I was substituting a Primary class. I was fine all through church, thankfully! Afterwards my back started hurting more and was quite sore the rest of that day and Monday. It never got really bad, though. I just had to be extra careful what I did so I wasn’t able to exercise all week but by Tuesday it was a lot better and by Wednesday it was almost back to normal. I did get plenty of exercise this week anyway, though…we did LOTS of walking around.

On Monday I took Seth and Jared shopping to get school clothes. All Jared needed was a new pair of shoes, but Seth has grown out of all of his jeans. He also needed some long sleeve shirts (he has plenty of short sleeve shirts still) and some shoes. We found everything we needed pretty easily. Then we went to another store to order a bunch of stuff that Jared needs for college—we will pick all that up in Idaho Falls when we get there. That evening after family night, Frank took Jared to the store to buy him a laptop.

Jared went swimming with some friends on Tuesday and he got somewhat sunburned. He also changed out the faucet in the upstairs bathroom. (We bought a new one nearly a year ago but haven’t got around to installing it.) I did a lot of cleaning in my bedroom and the bathrooms, so on our way to the church for den meeting that night, Seth and I took another load to the storage unit. At cub scouts, we started working on making rockets for a space derby that we will be having sometime in the next few months. We also talked about pocket knife safety, since the boys will be using knives to work on their rockets.

On Wednesday the fun began! Hans and Griffin stayed in Gettysburg Tuesday evening (after going to Hershey Park on Tuesday) and on Wednesday Seth and I drove up to Gettysburg and met them there. (Jared and Frank were both at work.) We did the auto tour and then drove back home where we met Jared and Frank and we all went to a Baltimore Orioles / Boston Red Sox game together. It was very hot and humid, so just walking from our car to the stadium (not very far) was pretty uncomfortable. We had fun at the game, though. We had a somewhat severe thunderstorm every afternoon or evening nearly every day this week and since another storm was predicted for Wednesday evening, we came prepared with rain ponchos, and it’s a good thing, too! Sometime in the 5^th inning it started to rain and out came the ponchos. It wasn’t torrential, but we would have got pretty wet just the same. Then near the end of the 6^th inning, we got some pretty decent lightning, so they stopped the game and made everyone get under cover. By that time, the Sox were ahead 8-1, so we decided it was time to go home. That was a good choice for two reasons. First, because they ended up calling the game so we didn’t miss anything. Second, because right after we got to the parking garage, it turned into a torrential downpour with lots more lightning. We saw a video later of lighting hitting the stadium! Getting home was a little ugly but we are so glad we didn’t get stuck outside for the worst part of the storm. We got home really late and everyone collapsed into bed.

Cousins at Gettysburg

The baseball game:

On Thursday, we all went to a small local amusement park called Adventure Park. It was another really hot and humid day but we still managed to have fun driving go carts, going on rides, and playing mini golf. (I was really proud of myself because I won the mini golf game, although I beat Frank by only one point.) Frank had taken the day off because he had a dentist appointment in the afternoon (he got the 2^nd of 3 crowns done) so he had to leave earlier than the rest of us. We wore ourselves out, but at least it was fun. Earlier that day Frank and I helped out one of the sisters I visit teach. She was taking her car in to be fixed and needed someone to follow her there to give her a ride back home. Then it turned out that she had to buy the parts herself, so we took her to buy the parts and drop them off too.

It was so close!!

Cousins soaking each other.

One of my favorite rides...the Scrambler! Jared seems to be enjoying it too.

On Friday we drove to Philadelphia to attend the temple open house. The tour was wonderful and the new temple is SO beautiful!! I love that the architectural details of the temple are very similar to Independence Hall and other historic buildings in the area. We were hoping to see Maddie so we asked some of the other sister missionaries who were there if they knew where she was. They told us she wouldn’t be there until 3:00, and since our tour was at 1:00 we didn’t think we would see her unless we hung out for a long time. It all worked out perfectly, though, because after the tour and visiting the Visitor’s Center, going up to the roof garden, and taking some pictures, we were getting ready to go when Dad spotted Maddie and her companion crossing the street. They got there about a half hour early so that worked out perfect!! We didn’t get to talk to her for very long at all but it was still great to see her.

In the roof garden:

A few special effects:

Seth was taking this picture. He is really grossed out when Frank and I kiss each other, so...

Beautiful lights and furnishings in the Visitor's Center:

After the temple, we visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. We also had some Philly Cheesesteaks for dinner. Then we took the bus to the art museum because Griffin wanted to visit the “Rocky steps”. (I’ve never seen any of the Rocky movies, but apparently he runs up the steps in front of the museum in one of the movies.) So all the boys ran up the steps like Rocky while Hans filmed them. They weren’t the only ones doing it, either. I saw a ton of other people doing the same thing. We had to wait a long time for the bus to pick us back up and we were staying at a Fairfield Inn in New Jersey, so we didn’t get back to our hotel until nearly 10:00. Seth was really wanting to swim, though, so I took him down to swim while Frank did some work for a client and Jared went to sleep. The water in the pool was the perfect temperature, so I really enjoyed swimming and Seth had a successful night because he practiced floating and he actually was able to float all by himself for the first time! He still needs to work on it, but that was a big step in the right direction.

(I was using my phone to take all these pictures, so they aren't the best!)

We were in the very back of the room for this part of the tour, so Jared picked up Seth so that Seth could see. (I couldn't really see, either!)

The details in this room are a lot like some of the details in the temple. It was really cool to visit both the temple and Independence Hall in the same day!

The advantage to being in the back of the room for the first part of the tour is that when we had to turn around and go to the room behind us, we were in the very front for that room. It was a lot easier to get pictures. This is the room where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed:

Philly cheesesteaks:

I liked the part of the wrapper that says "Bite Me"!:

Blurry shot of Seth running up the Rocky steps:

Thankfully, we didn’t have to get up early on Saturday. After breakfast, we said goodbye to Hans and Griffin and we headed home. We didn’t go the most direct route home, though. We were pretty close to Valley Forge and I’ve always wanted to go there, so we stopped there on our way home and ended up spending 3 or 4 hours there. It was another very hot and humid day with a lot of walking! But it was also really beautiful there, and humbling to visit a place where so many sacrificed so long ago so that we can live in a free country.

We got home around dinner time. Snickers was very happy to see us! (Some neighbors watched him for us.) Jared left shortly thereafter to go to a dance (his last youth dance!) and Frank went to a movie. I got all the finances caught up while they were gone.

It is hard to believe that school starts tomorrow. This summer went by so fast! I am always sad to see summer end but I definitely got in my share of traveling and playing this summer and I feel more ready to get back to a normal routine than I usually do. That might have something to do with the fact that I don't have any kids going to Seminary this year too! ;) I'm also looking forward to the weather cooling down a bit since we have had many, many very hot and humid days this summer. I expect we will still have hot weather for a while, but the cool beautiful days of fall are just around the corner.

Weekly Review August 12 '16

We’ve had another busy week although I doubt it’s going to be very exciting to read about it.

Sunday was…restful. I actually took a nap! Our meetings were very good…nothing out of the ordinary, but just a strong spirit.

The rest of the week has been busy because I’ve been trying to go through the house and clean things out, move things to the storage unit, and organize. I have not gotten as much done as I would like, but I am making progress. I worked on my closet and on Seth’s room mostly. Jared is chipping away slowly at his room, too. Seth’s room is vastly improved although there is still work to be done in there. I wanted to work on the bathrooms too, but I ran out of time. Frank and I plan to do a bunch more tomorrow. One thing I’ve already noticed is that I have a better idea of where everything is and I can get to things I need much easier. It’s been really nice!

On Monday Jared had his appointment with the doctor to fill out his mission papers. I ended up taking Seth in too because on Sunday afternoon he mentioned that his eye hurt and within an hour or so it started to turn red and goopy. Because Seth’s throat hurt too and it looked a little red, the doctor tested him for strep throat, but he ruled that out. He definitely has pink eye so we’ve had to put drops in his eyes every day this week. Seth hates having drops put in and we had to fight him at first but I appealed to my Facebook friends for help and Amy suggested a method of putting them in that works fairly well and that Seth doesn’t mind too much so it hasn’t been too bad. Meanwhile, we got Jared’s paperwork filled out and he has everything submitted so all he has left to do is to meet with the bishop again and then the stake president. It’s exciting to have his papers almost in!

I went visiting teaching on Monday and on Tuesday I helped the sister I visited with some transportation needs because her car isn’t working. Tuesday evening, Frank and I went out to dinner with the another couple in our ward. It was fun to visit with them and get caught up on their lives. Jared met with our scoutmaster on Thursday to go over his Eagle application to fix the errors with the dates. He should be able to resubmit it in a day or two. Thursday evening we had an RS activity. We all went to a member family's house to help with sorting and packing because they are moving soon (but only temporarily—they’ll be back in about a year).

I took Snickers to the groomer yesterday, did shopping for Scott’s birthday on Wednesday, and throughout the week I’ve been working on a Primary lesson because I am substituting a class on Sunday. We had the Sister missionaries over for dinner last night and we are having the Elders over tomorrow. Jared worked yesterday and he will work again tomorrow. Squished in everywhere else I’ve been reading our next book for book chat. I’ve been late getting started on it, and just realized this week that I only have a few weeks left to read a 900 page book!! It’s called Bleak House and it is by Charles Dickens. In spite of the title, it is not a depressing book. It’s actually pretty interesting and fairly easy reading. I haven’t had much time to read and I’ve already read close to 200 pages.

We did not have regular den meetings this week because this is the week we normally have Pack Meeting (Day Camp counted for Pack Meeting this month) but because I had to cancel a few meetings in July while I was out of town, I decided to have a special den meeting today. I had the boys come to my house this morning and we made pizzas and baked them outside in our camp oven over the propane camp stove. They also put together some little cookbooks. Only three of the five boys were able to come, but it was fun. I did some planning for future den meetings this week too, so that is another thing that has been keeping me busy.

I’m glad we could bake the pizzas outside because it has been so hot and humid that I am avoiding lighting the oven in the house. We’ve had heat advisories the last few days and even with the air conditioning, the house still gets really hot and muggy. It’s the humidity that’s really making it feel worse. It's supposed to continue to be this way through the weekend and into next week. Well, it's August, after all.

Well, like I said…none of that is all that exciting, but it did keep me very busy all week! I haven’t been feeling very well a lot of the week either. I’ve been having these nasty stomach cramps off and on all week. They started on Saturday and I think today they are finally gone, but I had trouble with them all week. Some days were worse than others. But it could have been worse…I wasn’t nauseated or anything like that, and I was able to eat without any problems and I was able to do all the things I needed to do. So I’m grateful for that, and glad I’m feeling better now.

Frank has had a busy week too. He has been busier than usual at work so we haven’t seen him a whole lot. He was supposed to have a sleep study done last night, but our insurance denied covering an in lab study so we had to cancel it. He will probably have to do a home study instead That's pretty disappointing and it is slowing down the process too, but hopefully we'll get something done about it eventually.

Next week is our last week before school starts. It's hard to believe! I wanted to get Jared to the store this week to start shopping for all the things he's going to need for college, but I ran out of time for that. Maybe next week.... I did get school supplies for Seth at least. It's good that Jared doesn't go to school until the first week of September, so we still have some time left to get what he needs. We found out this week that Seth's teacher for 4th grade just got another job closer to home and so she resigned. This is really disappointing because she is the teacher Seth's 1st -3rd grade teacher specifically recommended for him. This teacher taught both Scott and Tanner in the past and I know she's a really good teacher. But I'm hoping that whoever the new teacher turns out to be that he or she will be good for Seth. Maybe it will be a blessing!

That's all I've got for this week!

Weekly Review August 5 '16

This week has been very busy and I am exhausted! It is good to be busy, though, and involved in worthwhile things.

Thinking back to the end of last week…it seems like a really long time ago! We had the Elders over for dinner on Friday evening. Jared worked on Saturday. Frank and I spent pretty much all of Saturday going through things and making piles of stuff to go to the storage unit. Frank was working on his office and I was working in the upstairs bedroom that no one is living in right now. We both made a lot of progress and by late afternoon we were ready to take a load to the storage unit, so we did that. We had to do all the paperwork first and then we moved stuff in. We brought Jared and Seth with us to help us. A thunderstorm was coming in and right when we finished putting stuff in the unit, the heavens opened, so we had to run for the cars and we all got really wet. There were some pretty close lightning strikes, too. When we got home, we sat in the car for a while waiting for the rain to slow down a bit. We still got really wet running inside, though.

I got the bedroom pretty much done, besides a bin of Legos that I need to go through. Frank still has a lot of work to do in his office. There is still a lot of work for us to do throughout the house, but it’s a start. It’s going to be a long process but the house will be a lot tidier when we are done and it will be easier to get to the things that we use frequently, so it will be worth it!

On Sunday, we had a lot of visitors because one boy was speaking before leaving on his mission and another was speaking because he just got home. There was an openhouse for the departing missionary right after church so we went to that for a while. We had the Sister missionaries over for dinner. Sunday went by fast, and I didn’t get a nap!

On Monday Seth went to the car pool boys’ house to swim for the afternoon. I went through all my clothes and gave away or threw away quite a few things. I also worked on Day Camp stuff and ordered some books from Amazon. When I was in Utah, a lot of you gave me Amazon gift cards for my birthday. I have been so busy since we got back that I actually forgot all about them for nearly a month! It was like having my birthday all over again when I found them! So I ordered a bunch of books which always makes me happy. We live in such an instant gratification world that all of them arrived in the mail on either Tuesday or Wednesday. Thanks again, everybody!!

On Tuesday I just did the usual chores, plus Day Camp preparations and I also took Seth to get a haircut. Our ward just switched our activity night from Wednesday to Tuesday, but we didn’t have den meetings this week because of Day Camp. Jared should have gone to YM but he ditched and went to see Jessie instead (it was her birthday a few days before). Yeah, I’m not sure he’s over her yet! :) Plus, I think he’s ready to be done with YM and move into the adult world.

We might be getting solar panels installed on the roof, so on Wednesday morning a guy came out to look at the roof and a few things like that to see if we are eligible to get them. (We’ll hear back about that soon.) The furniture was also scheduled to be delivered that afternoon, so Jared and I moved the old table and chairs into the living room to get them out of the way. The furniture did arrive, but we had to send it all back. There was a place on the table that they forgot to stain, the leaves were scratched, a couple of the chairs had gouges / cracks / dents, and the sideboard had a couple of spots that were not stained right. Needless to say, we aren’t very happy about it! To make matters worse, we are still in the dark about what they are going to do about it or how soon we may be able to get replacement furniture. You would think they would bend over backwards at this point to make us happy, but that hasn’t been happening. We’re really not impressed with their customer service!! But, at least we learned our lesson from our last experience with buying furniture and we did not give away the table and chairs that we have, so at least we still have a table to eat at, and a few chairs to sit on. I realize this is a total 1st World problem! I hope I don't sound ungrateful; I am very thankful we can get new furniture. It was just very disappointing to have that happen after waiting 13 weeks for the furniture to arrive. 

The rest of this week was dominated by Cub Scout Day Camp. It was from 1:00 – 8:00 pm on both Thursday and Friday, and from 9:00 to noon yesterday. I was a “den walker” on Thursday which means I had to get there by noon and I was picking up 3 other boys (besides Seth) so I had to leave home by shortly after 11:00. I spent the morning just getting things ready, mostly. I spent the rest of the day walking around with Seth’s den (8 boys), making sure they got to the places they needed to go at the right times. It was quite humid and fairly hot (but not in the 90’s at least!) which made it somewhat unpleasant but it could have been worse. Being out in the heat walking around for 7 hours can be pretty draining, though. I think the camp had a lot of good activities planned. The boys got to swim, fish, shoot BB guns, and do archery besides other things like tying knots, whittling, learning about plants & animals, etc. Seth had some grumpy moments throughout the day where he insisted it wasn’t fun and he didn’t want to go back, but I know he really did have fun a lot of the time.

In the pool.

On a hike, looking for signs of animals. We found some chickens!

Learning to tie two half hitches.

He did it! He successfully tied two half hitches!

Learning to shoot an arrow.

Shooting a BB gun.

Whittling a fish out of soap.

He caught a fish!!

Captain Moroni visits.

Seth with Tate, the new boy who just moved into our ward.

On Friday I didn’t have to be there all day, but Jared had a part at the beginning of the day which I stayed to see, then Frank and I had to be there a few hours after that to teach a cooking class to the Bears and to help them set up tents. Then there was a family potluck and campfire program after that, so I still spent literally the whole day either at camp or working on stuff for camp. The theme for the camp was Book of Mormon Heroes, and a different “prophet” visited the camp each day. On Thursday, Captain Moroni came. On Friday Jared was the “prophet” who visited, and ironically he played the brother of Jared (Mahonri Moriancumer). He talked to them about having to trust in the Lord when his people crossed the ocean, and did a little trust activity with the boys. He did a good job. Seth says that Nephi visited on Saturday.   

Jared as the Brother of Jared

 Seth doing the trust activity.


We were so busy when we were dong the cooking class, that I didn't get any pictures! I am really kicking myself for not getting pictures of our cheesy potatoes and cobbler when they were done. You'll have to trust me that they looked and tasted great!

I did get some pictures of setting up tents, though:

Seth's den doing their skits:

On Friday there was also an optional family camp out after the campfire program, and Seth really wanted to camp, so we planned to do that. So Friday morning I spent all morning gathering up / packing all our stuff to go camping. After Jared did his part at the beginning of camp, he and I came home and he, Frank, and I got all the food ready for our cooking class and then got everything packed into the cars. We barely got everything done it time to get back to camp in time for our class. Everything went well with the class, though. (I was worried about it because there were 24 boys, but it went fine.) We talked about planning a nutritious, well balanced meal. Then we had the boys help make dutch oven cobbler and dutch oven cheesy bacon potatoes. While the food in the dutch ovens was cooking, we taught them how to set up a tent and they set up 3 tents. Then we helped them roast hot dogs. All the boys got to eat a hot dog, and we served the rest of the hot dogs, the potatoes, and the cobbler in the potluck dinner. Jared helped us with everything and I’m really glad he was there. He was a really big help.

On Friday it looked like it was going to rain all day. We checked the weather for the evening and there was supposed to be a big thunderstorm in the night. When I told Seth that, he decided that he didn’t want to camp after all. Since Frank and I had agreed to camp only because Seth wanted to, we were just fine with coming back home after the campfire program! For the program, each of the dens (2 wolf dens, 3 bear dens, and 2 Webelo dens) did little skits and songs. It was pretty cute and not too long. Perfect! After they were done, we made s’mores around the campfire. It was nice and I am glad we went, but I was so tired by the end of the day. (I didn’t sleep well Thursday night, either. I was awake from 1:00 am to nearly 5:00 am! So I was operating on very little sleep on Friday.)

When we got home, we got unpacked and put everything away (except for some of the camping stuff, because we planned to take that to the storage unit on Saturday). Then Frank and I both took showers, even though it was 10:00 pm. I was sweaty, greasy, and smoky. I just couldn’t face crawling into bed when I was that dirty. We had talked about setting up a little tent in the living room for Seth to sleep in, but Seth was so exhausted that he fell asleep on his bedroom floor with just a blanket on top of him.

On Saturday Seth went back to Day Camp for the morning. They had a hike and a service project. When he got home, he was more than willing to take a shower. I think it was a great camp overall, and I am glad our stake did it. I think it was better than the district camps my older boys went to when they were in Cubs, and it was much more economical. It was great to see how many people in the stake pitched in to help in so many different ways. I’m glad we don’t have to worry about it again for another year, though!

Yesterday I tried to catch up on all the things I didn’t get done while I was involved with Day Camp. We also watched the Olympics a little bit. In the evening Frank and I went to the temple to help with a baptism trip. It was for adults in our ward who are new members or recently reactivated. It was very sweet and I am so glad we got to go. Jared worked on Saturday morning. We got his Eagle application sent in this week, but there were a bunch of problems with it so we have to make some corrections and send it back in.

Seth has been sleeping on our floor almost every night for months and Frank and I were getting tired of that, so this week we told him no more! For some reason, he actually prefers sleeping on the floor to sleeping in his bed (or the pull out bed under his bed, which we’ve tried too). So we told him he can sleep on a sleeping bag on his own floor instead. He’s been doing that all week and he’s been sleeping through the night and hasn’t come in our room once. I have no idea why he wants to sleep on the floor, but whatever works!! 

That is all our news for this week. I am looking forward to a week at home where I'm not going anywhere or preparing to go somewhere! Next week we will get to see Hans and Griffin, so we are excited about that.