Weekly Review December 20 '24

It's been a busy week and I'm exhausted but I'm also happy that it's almost Christmas and even better...I'm almost ready for it! Frank helped me print address labels which made getting the Christmas cards ready a lot easier and quicker. They went into the mail yesterday. All the shopping is done and the majority of gifts have been delivered, and everything that has come has been wrapped already. (I did a big wrapping session on Monday and since then have been wrapping things as they have arrived.) I made fudge last night. All that is left to do is wrap a few more things when they arrive, bake some cookies, and make a few more kinds of candy. Three weeks ago, I had NOTHING done, so I feel like everything coming together so quickly has been a miracle! 

A quick update on camp: The high council member who talked to me on Thursday called me back on Friday night to let me know he had contacted the stake camp director to get answers to a lot of my questions but she has a wedding the end of this month (besides Christmas) so she wants to wait until January to even think about it! Which is okay with me, honestly. I don't really want to think about it either. He also encouraged me to talk to my bishop about the situation which I ended up doing briefly on Sunday...not because I asked to talk to him, but because the member of the stake presidency who oversees Seminary visited our ward on Sunday and he told the bishop that I needed to talk to him. I was kind of surprised when my bishop came to me in the hallway and said "I hear you need to talk to me." Anyway, I told him a little bit of the situation and expressed some of my concerns and told him I don't necessarily want to get released from Seminary but I really didn't know if I could do both camp and Seminary and I also told him I don't want to be the one to make the decision! He was very understanding about it and we'll probably talk again sometime but I don't know what's going to happen with all of this yet. He did mention that they were planning to discuss Seminary in a few months and that one thing they have been wondering is why both teachers are from our ward when there are kids from 3 wards in our class. I ended up talking with my team teacher about it this week and that was a good discussion. But for now, it's all on the shelf and gratefully I am not really worrying about it, thanks to that feeling I had when I was at the temple last week. What a blessing that has been to me.

Okay, that wasn't as quick as I thought it would be. 😅Going back to last Saturday...Frank had to do some work for a client in the morning. I worked on Seminary lessons and got my lessons for this week mostly prepared. I also got caught up with regular chores and had a phone meeting with my team teacher so we could plan the schedule for the first month of next year. That evening Frank and I went to a concert...it was a jazz band Christmas concert at the local community college. One of the boys in my Seminary class is in the band. They were really good and they actually played a bunch of Christmas music (jazzy versions). We really enjoyed it!

On Sunday afternoon I had choir practice. It started snowing a little while before I left:

It kept snowing while I was at the practice and when we came out, there were huge snowflakes coming down. It was really beautiful!!

It wasn't supposed to stick for very long, and it didn't...it started raining later and by morning nearly all the snow was gone. However, my team teacher and I decided to give everyone a break and cancel Seminary for Monday. I taught my two lessons on Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Monday and Tuesday, we moved the assessment from Wednesday to Thursday, and did a mini version of Thursday's lesson today, along with breakfast and some fun. It all worked out great. It was particularly nice for me not to have to get up early on Monday morning because on Sunday evening I went to a concert and was up until about 10:00. I went with a friend in my ward to the concert and it was beautiful.

Monday felt kind of strange...I kept forgetting what day it was since I didn't have Seminary as I usually would. It was good, though...I got a lot accomplished. All the regular chores, plus wrapping presents. Seth had to work that night so we didn't have family night activity until Wednesday evening but we did do the lesson part on Sunday. 

Both of my lessons this week went well. I taught about Moroni 10:3-5 and on Wednesday I also prepared a game to help them review the doctrinal mastery scriptures in preparation for the assessment. On my way home from Seminary on Tuesday I was waiting at a traffic light at a major intersection when a truck that was pulling into the left turn lane beside me hit my driver's side mirror and destroyed it. Nothing else on the car was damaged and I wasn't hurt at all, just startled. I was stunned for a few seconds and then I decided I'd better pull into the left turn lane behind the truck so I could get their license plate number. I didn't think the driver realized he had hit my car because he didn't slow down or get out of his truck or anything. When the light turned green, we both turned left and then I pulled into the right lane next to him hoping I could wave and catch his attention or something but he didn't look my way. Then he suddenly turned left into a parking lot and I couldn't do that from the right lane, so I kept going but wondered if I should turn around and try to find him in the parking lot. Ultimately, I decided to go home and call the police and see if they could help me track down the owner of the vehicle. A trooper called me back and filled out a report and later he brought the report to me and gave me contact information for the owner of the truck. The trooper had gone to his house but he wasn't home and he had also tried to call him. I did tell the trooper that I didn't think it was a deliberate hit and run. He told me I could try calling the owner myself. I also talked with Frank, of course, and he wanted to wait to make a decision about calling our insurance until the next day. He thought maybe he could replace the mirror himself and avoid involving the insurance company. (Tuesday is Frank's night he works at the temple so he wouldn't be home until late.) Here's some photos I took of my car as soon as I got home:

On Wednesday morning Frank called the owner of the truck and he said he knew he hit my car and that he had pulled into the parking lot so we could exchange insurance information. I wish I had known that! He admitted that he was at fault and gave us insurance information and seemed totally cooperative. But then later that day his insurance company called us and said that he is disputing that he is at fault. What??! They said they would need to get a statement from me and that someone would call to get that, but no one has called yet. They also said that the car can't be driven with the mirror gone so that has definitely complicated out lives the last few days. It will be better now that Frank is off work and I don't have Seminary, at least. We're not happy about this whole situation, though. We can't get the car fixed until all these complications get worked out and they don't seem to be in much of a hurry to do anything about it. Frank called again today to find out what's going on and they said they should be contacting us on Monday. Hopefully that will actually happen. Although I'm not happy that this has happened, I keep reminding myself that it could have been a lot worse!

Since we were trying to juggle using one car, we decided to go shopping for groceries on Wednesday evening (I usually go on Thursday mornings). Frank had to take his car in to get the registration renewed Thursday morning and he also needed to do some work for a client that day so he needed the car. (He got permission to work from home on Thursday which helped a lot. He normally works from home on Wednesdays and Fridays so that helped too.) I kept busy at home on Thursday with all the regular chores plus Christmas tasks. I also finished sewing the January pillow covers and made a list of things I want to get done over Christmas break and started working on a few of those things.

Today was a fun day in Seminary. We did a gift exchange game (tied in with the "gifts of the spirit" lesson topic) and my team teacher and I provided breakfast. She made french toast bakes and I brought stuff for a hot chocolate bar. Cleaning up took quite a bit of time, though. As soon as I got home I took Frank to one of his clients to do some work...dropped him off. They said someone there would bring him home later because I was going to the temple and wouldn't be back for hours. I ran back home to drop off all my Seminary stuff and then went to the temple. I did initiatories today and it was lovely. 

On the way home it started snowing and it snowed all the way home but even though it was coming down pretty hard, none of the snow stuck. Frank ended up having a lot of work to do for his client so he was still there and asked me to stop by to pick him up on my way home. Then he realized he needed to stay longer but I missed his text about that (I was driving) so I did stop by but then went home and picked him up later when he was done. In the meantime, I worked on the budget. When I picked him up, he had to take a phone to someone at another location so I took him there and then we stopped at a store to get a few things before going home. It was almost time for Seth to get home from school by the time we got home. 

The rest of the day has been busy as I have been finishing the budget and making pizza for dinner. Seth is on his first date tonight. He's on a double date with some friends in our ward; he asked his friend Lori (who lives in another ward in our stake). They are at the other boy's house watching a movie. Frank was awesome and drove Seth to Lori's house to pick her up (about 30 minutes away) and then drove both of them to Tommy's house (where they are watching the movie, another 30 minutes from Lori's house) and then back home (about 15 minutes). We'll have to go back to get Seth later, but Lori's mom is picking her up so we won't have to make that big round trip again.

Today has been so busy that it hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm on "vacation"! I am really looking forward to having some down time with family, though. 

To finish up, here's a few photos of Christmas decorations at our house.

Weekly Review December 13 '24

 When I wrote last week, I was feeling pretty sick. I didn't feel better on Saturday the 7th...if anything, I felt worse. This caused me some distress about Seminary since I teach on Mondays and Tuesdays. I texted my team teacher and we figured out a plan in case I wasn't well enough to go on Monday but thankfully I made a miraculous recovery on Sunday. I woke up still feeling rotten and didn't go to church but I took a nap in the afternoon and woke up from that nap feeling a whole lot better. By Monday morning I was almost completely back to normal. I am thankful for that tender mercy! 

Back to Saturday, though...Frank went to the store to get me some juice and soup which I really appreciated. Frank and Seth set up the tree and decorated it...my contribution was to unpack ornaments from the boxes that they handed to me. I did a lot of reading and made a lot of headway on the book chat book (I Capture the Castle). As a matter of fact, I finished the book on Wednesday. I liked it--especially because the ending was not predictable. I don't think I did much of anything else on Saturday. Frank got Chinese food for dinner for all of us. We had a fantastic sunset that night too.

We got three new ornaments for the Christmas tree this year. Here they are:

This one is from Discovery Cove in Florida...the place where we got to swim with dolphins.

This one is from Bok Tower Gardens which is another place we visited in Florida.

We got this one from the copper mine that we visited in Utah.

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't go to church on Sunday. Frank sent me the link so I could sign in and listen to Sacrament Meeting, but he was trying out a new laptop with the camera system that day and it didn't work well at all. I could not hear any of the music...the only sound that worked was the sound from the microphone. (It did work well, though...good volume and very clear). The main problem was that the video feed was way behind the sound so nothing matched and the video and / or the sound went out completely more than once. With all the distractions and the times things cut out I missed a lot of what was said in the talks and I felt really sad to miss the music (couldn't remember the hymn numbers they announced by the time we were singing and since I couldn't hear the music I couldn't even play the hymn on my phone instead). I definitely couldn't sing either! I remember thinking by the end "well, this is a good object lesson. Sometimes our choices lead us to being cut off from the blessings we want." My choice to stay home from church cut me off from being able to participate in worshipping with my ward. Don't get me wrong...I didn't feel guilty; staying home probably was the right choice since it gave me a chance to rest and recover and I wasn't sharing my germs with others. Just a good reminder why I want to make the effort to go whenever I can!

After church we watched Music and the Spoken Word. That evening I had a Seminary training meeting for the new curriculum--thankfully, that was a Zoom meeting so I could still attend. After that, we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. 

Monday's Seminary lesson went remarkably well...or maybe I just had a better attitude about it. I remember there were plenty of kids who didn't open their scriptures or do anything I asked them to do (as usual!) but for some reason it didn't bother me as that sometimes does. I just kept calling of them anyway, and managed to get a few really great comments. Tuesday's lesson was still a mess in my mind--I hadn't felt up to working on it over the weekend--so Monday afternoon I had to finish preparing that lesson. It went okay too. 

Seth worked on Monday afternoon. He doesn't work again until this coming Monday. That seems to be the trend lately. Seth got up for Seminary as usual on Tuesday but then he started feeling sick and threw up before it was time to leave, so he ended up staying home that day. (From both Seminary and school...he also didn't go to the YM activity that night.) He didn't seem to feel too bad after taking a long morning nap, though, and he never threw up again. Meanwhile, I had agreed to take a friend to get an x-ray done (she needed a ride) that morning. I knew it would take a while, but it ended up taking quite a bit longer than I anticipated. When she got there, she had to check in and then wait for them to call her up to process her paperwork. Then we had another wait until they called her back to get the x-ray. Then I waited a really long time for her to come back out. She thought they were doing one x-ray of her right elbow, but they actually did multiple x-rays of her whole right side. She was pretty wiped out by the time she was done and I took her straight home so she could take a nap. The whole adventure (including travel time) took over 3 hours. I felt like I needed a nap by then too, but didn't have time. 

On Tuesday evening Frank didn't go to the temple because he had some work to do for a client. I went to a band / orchestra / choir concert at Seth's high school because two of my Seminary kids were performing (one in the choir and one in the orchestra). My team teacher came too and we sat behind the kids' parents and enjoyed talking with them a bit before the concert started. The choir program is definitely different from my high school choir experiences...the choir only had 27 kids! It was actually an elective class--not an auditioned choir. Many of the kids had Hispanic or Arabic names and at the beginning when they introduced the choir they mentioned that many of the kids were learning how to sing, many were learning English, and some were learning both! They did do a pretty nice job and there was a sweet feeling about them...I could tell the kids are good friends and all were doing there best. They sang some fun songs, too, although I was disappointed that this was a Winter Concert, not a Christmas Concert. The choir sang one Hannukah song and one Christmas song (Feliz Navidad). Everything else was more contemporary tunes but they were kind of nice. I particularly enjoyed Flander's Field. I really liked the band and orchestra numbers as well...they each did three songs. Then at the end the band, orchestra, and choir combined to perform "Sleigh Ride" which apparently is a tradition they do every year. It was fun.

On Wednesday morning we had a guest teacher for Seminary--one of the brothers in our ward. I think the kids really enjoyed listening to him. When I emailed him the night before to make sure he didn't need anything, he said all he needed was a strong cup of hot chocolate (then he said "just kidding!") I realized that getting him a cup of hot chocolate would actually be pretty easy so I surprised him with one and he was pretty tickled about that. The rest of Wednesday I got caught up on the household chores that I didn't have time to do on Tuesday. I tried to work on Seminary lessons for next week too but didn't make much progress. That evening I went to a piano recital for one of the other Seminary kids in my class. (He's actually not a member of our church but has been meeting with the missionaries for months and he has attended Seminary very faithfully all school year. He really knows his Bible and makes great comments!) This recital was at Walkersville High School (not Seth's high school). Seth came with me too. This young man doesn't have a lot of family support--he lives with an uncle and a cousin; his parents are living in another country, I think. My team teacher had an event for one of her kids so she couldn't attend the recital and the family in our ward who bring him to church and support him in other ways couldn't attend that night either, so it was good that Seth and I were available to go. The recital was for a piano and a guitar class. There were only about 6 piano students and I'd say this young man was the most advanced although he plays by ear, not by reading notes. He dressed up in a suit and looked very sharp, and he did a nice job! We gave him a ride home afterwards. I enjoyed the guitar performances too...they were quite good!

Yesterday I did all the usual Thursday chores (vacuuming, laundry, grocery shopping) and also tried to work on Seminary lessons but still didn't make a lot of progress because there were a lot of distractions. I do have a basic outline for Monday's lesson but need to fill in a lot of details and all I've done for Tuesday's lesson is read it a couple of times. So I will have a lot of work to do on Seminary lessons this weekend. Oh well! Those are the last two lessons I will have to prepare this year. I'm looking forward to a 2 week break from lesson preparations. One of the main distractions that happened yesterday is that I got a call from a member of the high council asking to stop by to talk to me about YW camp. That got me anxious as I suspected I was going to be asked to be in charge of cooking...and I was right. I didn't say yes to him, but I didn't say no either. I expressed a lot of concerns and asked a lot of questions and he said he would try to get answers to my questions and asked me to think about it for a few days. I want to help out, but helping with the cooking last year nearly killed me...it was so exhausting and my feet gave me a ton of trouble. Of course, last year I was the assistant and all I had to do was show up and help--I didn't have to do any of the planning, gathering equipment, shopping, etc. Now they want me to do all of that too and I honestly don't know if I can do all of that, either mentally or physically. I did tell him that I just don't know if I can teach Seminary and be planning this at the same time--just too much on my mental plate! I mean, just thinking about the possibility yesterday made it impossible for me to focus on the two Seminary lessons that I need to be preparing right now. 

Today I went to the temple and was so glad to back! When I was sitting in the session today and my thoughts strayed to the YW camp dilemma, I suddenly just felt very peaceful about it. I don't know what that means, exactly...whether it means I should accept the assignment and it will work out or if it means it's okay for me to say no. 😊 But at the moment, I'm just grateful to be feeling less stressed about it. 

After I got home from the temple, I updated the finances (which thankfully didn't take all day like last week). 

We've had some rain and some fog this week. The last couple of days have been really cold. In between everything else, Frank and I have been trying to get Christmas shopping done and we did get most of it done. The hardest person to shop for is Seth because all he wants is Legos and Mega Blocks, and we'd like to get him something besides that, so we have been racking our brains for ideas and then trying to decide what things he might like without asking him because it would be nice to surprise him with some things that he is not expecting but that he would like. I'll let you know after Christmas if we were successful! I also have no idea what to get for Frank--probably because Frank doesn't know what he wants either. He has a wish list, but most things on his list are just things he is thinking about and not really sure if he even wants them! I have this challenge every year. 😟 I am still working on getting Christmas cards sent out--hopefully those will be going out by Monday. I completely forgot about our secret Christmas service that we usually do every year until yesterday and it was already too late, so I guess we won't be doing that this year. 😞😢I do feel somewhat relieved about what we've been able to accomplish this week, though. Hopefully by this time next week all I will have left to do is some wrapping and some baking. I will definitely be feeling giddy at that point because I will be done with Seminary for the year! I really do love my Seminary class, but I ready for a couple of week off!

Between last week and this week, Seth and I managed to complete his FAFSA and get it submitted also. It's actually a LOT easier than it used to be since they use last year's tax return data instead of this year's (I used to have to estimate what our income, taxes, etc were going to be for the year and then go in later and add corrected data after we filed...it was the worst!!) AND they import your tax data directly from the IRS now instead of having to enter all the data manually. Thank you to whoever decided to make those changes!

We are looking forward to seeing Ben, Dee and Brennan next week end...they are coming out here for a wedding for one of Brennan's friends...as well as Jared & Jessie, who are arriving on Saturday and will be here for a week. Merry Christmas, indeed! 😊

PS to Weekly Review December 6 '24

 I just remembered something I forgot to mention in my last post. On Tuesday I taught a Seminary lesson about the priesthood. As part of the lesson, I showed the class Frank's priesthood line of authority. Later, my team teacher told me that she had noticed the last name of the man who ordained Frank's dad because she was pretty sure one of her sisters in law had the same last name, Dahle. After checking with her sister in law, it turns out that the man who ordained Frank's dad--James Keith Dahle--is her sister in law's father. What a small world! Her sister in law's name is Noel. Frank doesn't remember Noel specifically even though they both grew up in the Hendersonville Ward together because she is probably about 7 years younger than him, but he does remember her dad, who served as his bishop when the ward met in Brevard (I think he said they met in the American Legion building) and later was his YM president after the church building in Hendersonville was built. What a fun coincidence!

While I'm recording things that I forgot previously, I want to share a text message that a member of our ward sent to Frank and I to share with Seth about a month ago: 

Thank you for passing the sacrament to me today. I noticed that at first you were holding the tray at your waist, which is pretty high compared to me when seated.

You noticed how high it was too and you lowered your arm to make it easier for me to take the sacrament. This simple act of lowering the tray made me think of the following:

1. I don't mind reaching up to meet the Lord and renew my covenants with Him. However, as a priesthood holder and good person, you helped me reach Him a little easier. Thank you for that. 

2. I also had the thought that as you noticed it was a bit high for me to reach...you noticed me. You were thinking about what you were doing in the moment, you thought about someone else and how you could help that person. I know this may sound a bit overblown for literally just lowering a tray for someone, but this simple action brought a warm feeling to me to know there are youth who are willing to serve and to meet others where they are at...even if they are actually 2 feet lower than you. 

Thanks for your service, keep up the good job. 

-Brother Nate Rector

I loved the thoughts this brother shared and love even more that he took the time to share them with Seth. Awesome!!

Weekly Reviews November 29 and December 6 '24

 I didn't write a weekly review last week because we were in North Carolina for Thanksgiving. Now I have two weeks to cover, but I've forgotten most of the details so maybe this post won't be too long. Besides that, I'm feeling quite sick tonight and I've spent most of the day updating the finances (I had two weeks' worth of finances to catch up on also) so my brain is pretty fuzzy. 

Seth was sick last week with a lot of congestion and other cold symptoms. He went to Seminary on Monday the 25th but felt sick to his stomach so he came home with me and went back to bed. After an hour or so of sleep, he woke up and felt quite a bit better so he went to school for his classes that afternoon (just missed his CTC class in the morning). He was better on Tuesday but started having cold symptoms. Fortunately, he was fairly functional and able to travel and didn't seem too miserable, but he was not 100% all week. By Sunday he was improving, but I started having a mild sore throat around Friday and by Sunday I was feeling a little sniffly, too. I had a really bad headache Sunday afternoon but felt better on Monday, other than having a lot of gunk in my throat. I've been that way most of the week...my throat has been slightly sore and I haven't had much of a voice, but other than that I haven't felt too bad and I've been able to do all the things I needed to do, but yesterday I took a turn for the worse. My nose started running and today I'm more congested and I've started coughing and generally feel pretty rotten. I hardly ever get sick, so I really can't complain. I just hope I start feeling better again soon. I'm thankful that I felt better earlier this week since those are the days I teach Seminary. I was able to go to Seminary every day, including today, but this morning when my alarm went off I decided to skip exercising and went back to sleep for a while.

Now that I've explained all that, I will see what I can remember about last week. Saturday the 23rd both Frank and I got haircuts. Seth worked that evening and we had the Elders over for dinner. Sunday the 24th I had choir practice before church because we sang in Sacrament Meeting that day. We sang Amazing Grace. I took Seth to his mission prep class that night and talked to Jared on the phone while I waited for the class to finish. Seth actually came upstairs as soon as the class ended and he introduced me to his friend Lori. They've been friends for a while and we often hear him talking to her (they play games together online sometimes) but Frank and I hadn't met her. On the way home from mission prep, Seth told me that Lori had admitted to Seth that she likes him and asked if he likes her. He told her he mostly likes her as a friend but would be willing to spend more time with her. We'll see if he actually asks her out on a date sometime. At least he is thinking about it!

The next few days were busy with preparations for our trip to North Carolina. On Monday when I was doing laundry I noticed shredded candy wrappers on a shelf in the laundry room. We had some leftover candy from Halloween sitting on that shelf, but I had taken it upstairs on Saturday because we were planning to take it with us on our trip to NC. I checked the bag and found a small round hole nibbled into the bottom in the back that I hadn't noticed when I picked up the bag. Yikes! I'm just glad I noticed it before we started eating it. That bag went into the trash. I was immediately anxious about all the Christmas candy and other treats that I already purchased, which was on the shelf above the leftover Halloween candy. I checked over all of it very carefully and thankfully didn't find any holes and there were no shredded wrappers on that shelf either. I ended up going to our storage unit to get a large plastic bin so I could store all the Christmas candy in that. (Frank checked the mouse traps that evening and did find and disposed of the culprit. Hopefully we won't see any more mice for a while!) In the meantime, that little adventure took quite a bit of time that I hadn't planned but I still managed to get the packing and everything else done. I even finished quilting the other pillow cover for January, but I ran out of time to sew the backs onto them and I haven't had time or felt well enough to do that since we got back. I don't have very good photos of them (too dark) but here they are:

Seth had school on Monday and Tuesday with a 2 hour early dismissal on Tuesday. Frank got off work early too so we were able to leave for North Carolina by about 1:00 pm. That turned out to be a great time to leave...we just sailed along and didn't run into any traffic until the last 30 minutes of the trip. We had reservations at a hotel in Christiansburg, Virginia which is about halfway to Brevard so we only had a 4 hour trip and arrived right around dinner time. Originally, we had hoped that Seth would do a lot of the driving so that he could get in a lot of driving hours but since he wasn't feeling his best he decided he didn't want to drive until the next day. Then when we got about an hour from home, he realized that he had left his glasses and his learner's permit at home so he wasn't able to drive at all. That was frustrating, but he wasn't feeling well the whole trip so probably wouldn't have driven anyway. 

On Wednesday we got a fairly early start and drove the rest of the way to Brevard without encountering much traffic again. We drove through some of the areas that were hit really hard by Hurricane Helene, and we could definitely see evidence of that. In eastern Tennessee there was a bridge on the interstate that had completely collapsed and there has not been time to rebuild it entirely so there is a temporary bridge that is just one lane each direction. We could see destroyed buildings and huge piles of debris on either side of the road--really sad! I didn't think to take pictures then, but on the way home I took a bunch. In Asheville we saw some more destroyed buildings and there were fallen trees all over the place. Trees had fallen onto the guardrails along the side of the interstate in many places. The town of Brevard itself was mostly undamaged but areas on the outskirts were flooded and we saw more damaged buildings and lots of destroyed trailer homes and there were piles of cut up trees all over the place. Here are some of the photos I took. They don't really show how bad the damage looked in real life. First, a few of the Blue Ridge mountains:

This is a badly damaged building we passed in Asheville:

This is a damaged building just outside of Brevard:

We had some fun with our hot chocolate cups at the hotel. It bugged us that the cups said "Must. Have. Coffee." on them so we changed them:

This sign is warning trucks over 10 feet wide that they have to get off the road and take another route because they aren't allowed onto the temporary bridge:

We're coming out of the mountains and down into the valley where the worst flooding happened:

Some debris:

On the temporary bridge:

Lots more debris piles:

Damaged buildings:

And more debirs piles:

We got to Brevard around noon and couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00, so we went to Dawn's house first (Frank's sister). Then we got some lunch, went to visit Frank's parents for a while, and then checked into our hotel. Frank and Seth did some grocery shopping after that while I stayed at the hotel and worked on Seminary lessons for this week. I got one planned that day and the second one mostly planned on Thursday. We went to a Mexican place for dinner that night. 

We didn't have Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday because the church (where we usually meet) wasn't available that day. We had Thanksgiving dinner on Friday instead. On Thursday, we visited with Frank's parents and his brother James and we prepared some of the food for Friday. We helped Dawn make some turkey rolls and nearly set her house on fire making stuffing for those (the water with butter in it boiled over and briefly caught the stove on fire). Thankfully, no permanent damage was done! That evening, we met at Dawn's house to have sandwiches for dinner and we played a domino game called Mexican Train, which was really fun. Frank's parents came to have dinner and to play with us too. We stopped at the church on our way back to the hotel to drop off a bunch of the food items that we had made and to set up some tables and chairs.

On Friday morning we were back at Dawn's house to make mashed potatoes. We all met at the church at lunch time for our Thanksgiving feast. All the food was delicious, and afterwards we played another fun game of Mexican Train. (It was paticularly fun for me because I won!) By the time we finished, it was dinner time so we ate leftovers for dinner and then cleaned everything up. We said our goodbyes to everyone because we were leaving for home Saturday morning. I utterly failed to take photos of our feast and of the family! 

The drive home went smoothly and we got home in time to unpack and attend a wedding reception for our bishop's daughter. (She's a year older than Scott and she and Scott were pretty good friends.) I guess it technically wasn't a wedding reception...they called it a "happily ever after party" because she actually got married in July. They were sealed in the Washington DC temple earlier that week...we were invited to the sealing too, but we weren't able to go since we were in NC. The party was lovely and we saw lots of good friends. The weather turned quite cold that day and it's been that way ever since. I guess our mild autumn days are gone for good and winter is here to stay for a while. 

I've already talked quite a bit about this week, but there are a few things I haven't mentioned yet. On Sunday evening there was a choir practice and social that I planned to attend, but since I was losing my voice and had a bad headache, I decided to stay home and go to bed early instead. I was sorry to miss it, but I think that was a good choice. (Seth also decided to stay home from mission prep since he was still recovering.) The practice was to learn some songs that our ward was singing at the town of Walkersville tree lighting ceremony, which was on Wednesday. We sing for this event every year and I always enjoy it but since I had no singing voice at all by Wednesday and still wasn't feeling well and hadn't learned the songs, we decided not to go to that this year. It was really cold and windy too so I wasn't too excited about the idea of going out. Again, I was sorry to miss this event too but it was probably a wise choice to stay home. 

Seth worked on Monday but that is the only day he was scheduled to work this week. On Tuesday Seth had a follow up doctor appointment about his medication. While we were there I also got a flu shot. My arm has been a little sore since then, but not too bad. We had family night on Wednesday evening since Seth was working on Monday (We couldn't have family night on Tuesday either because Frank was at the temple and Seth had a YM activity.) Seth gave a lesson and we played a game of Uno No Mercy, which I lost. (If you end up with more than 25 cards in your hand, you're out.)

In between everything else this week I have been getting caught up on all the regular chores (so much laundry!), working on Seminary lessons for next week (one is planned; I need to finish the other one), doing a lot of other Seminary tasks (such as submitting reciepts for reimbursement), trying to get started on preparations for Christmas without much progress (I got a lot of the decorations put up, but the tree isn't up yet), and trying to get rest so that I will start feeling better. I've taken a couple of naps which has been really helpful. I've been squeezing in some reading here and there and I'm a decent way into the next book chat book. I gave it the wrong title in my post last time...it's actually called I Capture the Castle. It's a unique book, but I mostly like it so far. 

I didn't take my usual Friday trip to the temple today since I wasn't feeling well. I miss the temple and hope I can go next week! That reminds me that Frank and I were actually planning to go to the temple on Monday for a special meeting for all the temple workers and their spouses. We decided not to go since I wasn't feeling well and also Frank heard that it was going to be super crowded and he's never a fan of going places where there are crowds. I was sorry to miss that meeting as well, but it was probably the best choice...kind of the theme of this week!! 

I mentioned about a month ago that my left arm / elbow were hurting. It still hurts when I move it certian ways or lift heavy things with that arm. Shortly before our trip to NC, I was texting Amy and mentioned my arm. She responded that the symptoms I was describing were very similar to something she experienced years ago and that she had been diagnosed with "tennis elbow". She said she got a brace for it (which can be purchased at places like Walmart) and that wearing the brace for a few weeks cleared it up. I purchased a brace a few days before our trip but I haven't been able to get it to fit right. While we were on our trip, my arm started feeling a lot better but it has bothered me more since we got home. I'm trying to pay attention to what motions seem to cause my arm to hurt. So far it's things like moving laundry from the washer to the dryer, taking dishes down from high shelves, carrying the vacuum upstairs, and so on. I guess I just can't do those things anymore! 😂 Fortunately, the pain is not severe so I can cope with it but I guess at some point I should have a doctor look at it. 

That's all I can remember of the last two weeks and I'm more than ready to go to bed so I will sign off until next week.