Weekly Review July 29 '11

When I got the photos off the camera this week, I found several pictures that Seth took himself, apparently--like the little "gem" above. He looks like an alien with no mouth!

And this one, where at least you can see his mouth!

And this one, where he has the cutest cheesy grin (although he's still washed out).

He took this one of me, which is much better than the one Frank took at the zoo (I don't always wear that shirt, by the way). Not bad for a four year old!:

And here is one that I took of Seth--you can see his new haircut! (All four boys got haircuts last Saturday evening.)

That's all the pictures for this week; we didn't do anything very exciting, obviously! It was a very quiet week. The boys kept busy hanging out with friends, Frank looked for a job, and I kept the house in order. That mostly sums it up!

I had a presidency meeting Tuesday evening, the boys had YM Wednesday evening, and our home teachers came to visit us on Thursday evening. Scott had an orthodontist appointment Thursday morning and Seth had his yearly check up this morning. Scott goes back to the orthodontist in October for an x-ray to see how how his top wisdom teeth are doing; I hope he is not going to need to get them out yet--it's expensive. He also gets an impression for a new retainer because his 12 year molars have finally come in all the way (now that he is nearly 17 years old)! Seth had to get 3 shots at the doctor; he was pretty traumatized by that but he's recovered now. At least he got cool band-aids, a lollipop, and a little frog toy. He doesn't have to get shots again until he's 11, thank goodness! He remembers the older boys getting shots earlier this summer and he tried to convince the doctor that he is "not big enough to get shots yet"! He's obviously forgotten all those shots he got when he was a baby.

The boys enjoyed sleepovers and swimming outings with various friends. The weather cooled off a little bit the beginning of this week, so it was actually nice enough to do things outside like play basketball. It has gotten super hot again the last few days, though. We've been trying to let them have as much fun with friends as possible this summer since they are not going to get a vacation at all.

Frank has been trying to convince me to take the boys and drive out to Utah for a few weeks. As much as I would like to see everyone out there, I don't think we'll be doing that. Besides the obvious expense involved, the boys are not enthusiastic about a long drive like that, and I know I'd be miserable thinking of Frank all alone out here, trying to find a job and most likely feeling down. This has really not been a good week for him although he doesn't complain.

Frank has done a little bit of work this week, but the job search is pretty much at a standstill. After 7 weeks of being unemployed, applying for tons of jobs and only having one interview, it's hard to feel optimistic. Besides that, he found out that his former employers are not being honest with prospective employers who call them--they are telling them that he was laid off for financial and "other" reasons, which leaves them wondering what those "other" reasons might be. It's really frustrating that they would do that, when the only real reason he was laid off was because they couldn't pay him. I have a lot of very angry thoughts about all that, but I will keep them to myself! Considering that the job market is so slow right now and his former employer is trying to sabotage his ability to find employment, we have started to think a lot about starting our own business. This week we talked to an accountant who gave us a good idea of how we should set that up and what kinds of things we would need to do. Of course, the key part of making a business run would be getting clients, though--and that could be very difficult to do. So we haven't decided what to do yet, but we are keeping it in mind.

We did have some fun last week--on Saturday Frank and I were able to go see Harry Potter 7, part 2. We had some complimentary tickets to the local movie theater that we have been saving for several months--we're glad now that we didn't use them sooner! It was really nice to get out of the house and do something just for fun. We really enjoyed the movie, too. We mostly liked it, although we didn't like some of the things they changed from the book. But overall, it was really good and I was surprised at how emotional I got at some parts! Tanner got to see it with his friend last Friday, so Scott is the only one who hasn't seen it yet. He's not all that anxious about it though--he actually says he'd rather see Captain America! (What's wrong with that boy?!) I guess Seth hasn't seen it, either, but he's too young to see it.

Tonight Scott is hanging out with the girl he met at Youth Conference again. Her name is Ally. I met her when I dropped him off tonight, and she is definitely a cute girl and seems really nice. The bad news for Scott (but maybe good news for us?!) is that although she is his age, she skipped a grade in school so she just graduated from high school in June. She'll be going to LDS Business College in Salt Lake City this fall. So I guess he'd better spend time with her while he can!

Seth made a large purchase this week--he decided he was tired of trying to convince the older boys to let him play with their nerf dart guns so he got one of his own. I found him dumping out his piggy bank--I didn't even know he remembered he had one! But he did, and since he's never spent anything before he had a pretty decent amount accumulated in there. Now he has his own dart gun, but I've noticed he still plays with the older boys' guns!

That brings you all up to date on us, until next week....

Weekly Review July 22 '11

Let's see if I can get blogger to work this week! I am thinking pretty seriously about going back to email, but I'll give it another try. Especially since my address book got wiped out several months ago....

This week was fairly eventful, with some sort of event nearly every day. On Sunday evening Frank went to a resume writing workshop done by a guy in our stake who has been in HR for about 30 years. He enjoyed the workshop and learned some valuable information. Afterwards, he ended up talking to the guy giving the workshop for a long time, so he didn't get home until late.

Frank had an interview with a recruiter Tuesday afternoon and a job interview Wednesday morning, so the job hunt is starting to warm up a little. The job interview went very well; the guy said he'd probably hire Frank on the spot except that he couldn't pay him enough. Frank told him if he made an offer, he'd consider it. The guy was going out of town for a few weeks, though, so we won't hear back from him for a while. In the meantime, Frank did quite a bit of work this week which always helps.

I got my hair done on Monday, which meant that Seth got to play with his good buddy Tyler (his mom cuts my hair). Tuesday I had book club. The book we read this time, Perelandra, made for a very interesting discussion! Wednesday night our ward had a combined Preparedness Fair / Pioneer Day celebration with lots of booths on various topics such as making homemade bread, food and water storage, 72 hour kits, disaster preparedness, etc. There was also pioneer music, dutch oven cooking, a pie eating contest, first aid demonstrations by the cub scouts, a taffy pull by the activity days girls, and a candy store. I thought it was pretty nice and we had a pretty good turn out. I think there would have been even more people if the weather had been more cooperative. We've had temperatures in the 100's this week with humidity to boot--not very pleasant weather to be outside! (The fair was held in the parking lot, not indoors.) Jared's friend Sage came to hang out all day on Thursday. This morning Seth went to a birthday party for Tyler and this evening all the boys and I went swimming. My visiting teaching companion has a pool at her house and she thought it would be fun to invite all the ladies we visit and their kids over to swim. The kids swam while we visited. We had fun, but only one of our three ladies was able to make it today. We'll have to catch the other two another time. Tonight Tanner is spending the night with his friend Seth--I think they are going to go see Harry Potter 7, part 2. Scott is staying with his friend David's younger brother, Danny. The rest of Danny's family went to DC to see the play Wicked, but since Danny is autistic, they didn't want to leave him alone for that long. (Danny is Tanner's age.) Danny came over earlier and went swimming with us. After dinner, Frank took Scott and Danny back to Danny's house.

Besides all that, the older kids had various social activities. Tanner and Jared spent the night with Ryan and Bryson Tuesday night. Scott met a girl at Youth Conference that he really likes; he spent Wednesday afternoon and evening at her house. Scott's friend Ricardo came here one day and Scott spent time with his friend David another day. I'm sure I'm forgetting something! These guys really keep me going, trying to keep up with their social lives.

The older three boys, to my surprise, watched the movie Pride and Prejudice with me one evening. I had to explain a bit to them about how 19th century English society operates! They didn't think it was a great movie or anything, but they did watch the whole thing.

Frank and I went to the library to pick up a book for Jared and while Frank was browsing in the Sci Fi section, I ended up in non fiction and wound up bringing home The Idiot's Guide to Geography, Life 20th Century in Pictures, and The Greatest Disaster Stories Ever Told. I'm still wondering what that combination of books has to say about my personality!

Fun quote from Seth. He asked me Wednesday night at bedtime where Scott was, and I told him Scott was hanging out with a girl that he likes. Seth asked "Is she a hot girl, or a warm girl?"

We are really glad that Anna & Buck's little Ivory June arrived safely this week! What a sweetie for coming a little early. :) So now I'm a great aunt! I can't wait to meet her someday...

Weekly Review July 16 '11

So we did a few fun things this week. Yesterday we took Seth to the National Zoo. (Did you know that admission to the National Zoo is free? Well, it is. Your taxpayer dollars are paying for our free entertainment. The parking isn't free, though.) Poor deprived Seth has never been to a zoo before now! He seemed to have a good time. He says the tiger was his favorite animal. He is looking at the map of the zoo in the photo above.

I do not like this photo of me (I have a funny look on my face because Frank didn't give me a chance to smile), but pictures of me are hard to come by, so I included it so that someday my great grandkids will know that I really existed!

One of the cheetahs. We really enjoyed watching them. We also liked the lion cubs.

Seth is watching the zebras. He loved the noises that they made!

Only Seth, Frank and I went to the zoo. The oldest two boys were at Youth Conference and Jared had spent the night with a friend from the ward on Thursday--they had invited him to go with them to see the midnight showing of Harry Potter 7, part 2. (He enjoyed that a lot, by the way.) We figured it was a good day to go since we knew the older boys weren't interested in going to the zoo anyway, and Frank and I needed a break from the harsh realities of life when unemployed. Thankfully, it wasn't a super hot day, but we did get pretty tired and hot anyway. I don't think we will be doing that again for a while!

Other fun things about this week:

Scott had his friend Abbie over on Tuesday morning to "hang out". She was arriving early, so Scott was up early too. (Frank's comment: "We should let him invite a girl over every day!") They spent quite a bit of time down by the river talking--I admit there is sadly no place in this house to entertain a guest with any semblance of privacy!

On Wednesday the women in my book club got together to celebrate all the July / August birthdays since there are quite a few of us with birthdays in those months. We met at a park that I've never been to before. It was a bit of a drive--it was way up by the Pennsylvania border--but it was a beautiful drive and the view from the park was fantastic. It's located on the edge of a mountain. A long time ago it was a major tourist spot with hotels and an amusement park but all of that disappeared around World War II. Now it's just a really nice community park. The weather was nice and cool up there and I really enjoyed visiting with friends.

That evening my friend Jeanine and her boys came over. Jeanine had asked if we could have her two oldest boys, Joey and Kalvin, spend the night with us since they all had to be at the stake center at 5:00 am for Youth Conference. They live in Westminster, which is about an hour away from the stake center but it is only about 10 minutes away from our house. We were glad to have them stay, of course. Jeanine insisted that they bring us dinner that evening, and she did--along with several other bags of assorted groceries that she thought we could use. That was really thoughtful of her, and it really cheered me up!

On Thursday I enjoyed going to Barnes & Noble to spend the gift card Mom & Dad sent me for my birthday. Frank came too--he still had some of his gift card from his birthday left! I have a weakness for children's books so that's what I ended up getting. When I was a little girl, one of my favorite series of books was the Betsy-Tacy series. The author wrote 3 other books that were not officially part of that series but that included some of the same characters that appeared in that series. Those books were out of print for a long time but now they have been reissued, so I got two of them. (I already own the other one.) I've been wanting to read them for a long time, so it was fun to do that this week. I'm looking forward to reading the other two books that I got, too.

Tanner and Scott were at Youth Conference from early Thursday morning until this evening. They went to Kirtland, Ohio this year. I think it is really great that they got to do that! I haven't heard a whole lot about their experiences yet since they've only been home a few hours but I think they had a really good time. They were not allowed to take any electronics of any kind--even their phones. Before they left, they were moaning about how boring the bus ride there and back was going to be, but now they admit that the bus rides were a lot of fun. (I told them so!) They both met lots of cute new girls, too! They had a testimony meeting this morning in the Kirtland Temple before they left and they both admit that they (and everyone else, apparently) cried through the whole thing because there was such a strong spirit there. Scott's bus was in a very minor (thankfully) accident on the way home; no one was hurt but it delayed them a bit so they got back about an hour later than planned. I am looking forward to hearing more about their experiences over the next few days.

I think that covers the fun things we did this week. We did all the more ordinary things such as cleaning house and buying groceries, of course. Jared mowed the lawn and Frank trimmed the apple trees in our front yard. I met with one of my counselors to talk about the Cub Scout program. Frank did some work on computers in the stake. Snickers got a haircut. I worked on Sharing Time. Frank kept looking for a job. He had another very interested recruiter call him this week but so far most of the positions they are trying to fill are temporary and too far away to commute. He would be willing to do something temporary if it were nearby, of course, but if it isn't commuting distance it doesn't make sense to move. This is just not a great economy for looking for a job and I'm afraid it's going to take some time to find something. Some days I feel ok about that and other days I panic. On a good note, though, we are definitely seeing some of the blessings of paying tithing including the fact that the little that has been coming in is stretching a lot farther than expected.

Update on Seth: the last month or so he has begun to dress himself. He's known how to do it for a while, but now he goes to his room most mornings after breakfast and gets dressed without me asking him to. Very nice! I've had some interesting conversations with him lately, like the time he told me that when "you and Daddy got married, I watched you through a window. Scott and Tanner and Jared were there, too." He also told me once recently that Jesus loves him all the time and that He wants him to be nice. Even if Jared is mean to him (Seth), Jesus wants him to be nice back. What do you know--he really is listening in Primary! Hard to tell, because he rarely sits in his seat for more than a minute. And last week when we were talking about families being sealed in the temple and I showed them a picture of a sealing room and asked them if they would like to go to a place like that, he loudly proclaimed that he did NOT want to go there and that he did NOT want to be sealed to his family! Tough luck for him, since he already is. :)

I have finally succeeded in getting all the boys to bed, and it is my bedtime, too, so I'd better post this and get to sleep!

Sorry for the Difficult to Read Posts

I just want to apologize for the last several posts, which I realize must be hard to read. The last one (July 9 weekly review) is particularly crazy, with some paragraphs squeezed together and others with huge breaks in between. I have no idea why blogger is mangling my posts or what to do about it (if I did, I would fix them!) It's very frustrating to me. If any of you more experienced bloggers have any suggestions, please let me know!

Thanks!

Weekly Review July 9 '11

The photos above were taken on July 4th, while we were
waiting for the fireworks to start. We went to our usual viewing spot--the top
of the parking garage at the hospital. Several families in our ward go there
too, so it's always fun to visit and share snacks while we wait. I was trying
to take Seth's picture, but he kept moving around! The one in the middle was
the best I could do. In the bottom photo, you can see Scott enjoying a popsicle
along with members of the Hernandez family. These photos were taken before the
rain started! The fireworks started shortly after the rain (thankfully) and the
show was pretty short, but we still got soaking wet. We didn't let that
interfere with our enjoyment of the show. Seth was really enthusiastic--laughed
and clapped through the whole thing--which was fun.

I didn't mean to start out by talking about the fourth of
July, but blogger is being difficult and won't let me put the photos anywhere
else, so I thought I should explain them.
The reason I am late gettting this week's post done is because blogger
was down when I tried to post on Saturday, and this is the first chance I've
had to do this since then.

Sunday (the 3rd) I had visits after church so the day seemed
to go by fast. Scott and Jared both bore
their testimonies that day but I missed them both because I had taken Seth out
to get a drink and use the restroom.

The rest of the week was quieter than usual because Tanner
and Jared were both gone to scout camp from early Monday morning (I had to get
them to the church at 5:30 am) until Saturday morning. Frank was up even earlier than I was on
Monday because he went to help cook for the annual 4th of July breakfast that a
family in our stake always does. It's
become quite a large event, with a really great program and a lot of people
from the community attending as well as church members. Scott got a ride to the breakfast with
friends, but I skipped it this year because I knew Seth would be bored and I
didn't like the idea of trying to keep him happy and entertained for
hours. Frank is always too busy cooking
to help with him, so I would have been on my own trying to eat and get him
fed. I just decided it wasn't worth
it!!! We had a nice dinner of grilled
hamburgers and such before we went to the fireworks, though, so it was still a
nice 4th of July. We missed having
Tanner and Jared there, though.

I didn't write down much on the calendar for last week, so
now I can't remember much else that happened.
My birthday was relaxing but quiet, with Tanner and Jared gone. We waited to have cheesecake until Sunday,
after they got back. I got several cards
from friends and family, which was nice.

I think Scott missed having Tanner and Jared around,
although he would probably never admit it!
He tried to keep busy with friends.

Frank and I went to the temple on Friday afternoon. We didn't think to check the weather, so we
were surprised when we got ready to leave and discovered that it was
raining. We hadn't made it very far up
the road when the rain turned into a torrential downpour--it was very hard to
see the road! We kept plugging along,
though, and finally got out of the worst of it although it continued to rain
fairly hard all the way down. The
weather caused traffic problems so we ended up missing the session we were
trying to get to by just a few minutes.
During the day, the sessions are held an hour apart so rather than wait
for the next session we decided to do sealings instead. That turned out to be really great--there was
a sister there with some family file names, including her own parents, to be
sealed. The feeling in the room when
those sealings were done was just amazing!
Another fun thing that happened while we were at the temple that day was
that when we first got there we saw a wedding party out front and I recognized
one of the people there as a member of our ward in Delaware. I greeted him and asked if he was there for a
wedding, and he said "Yes, my son's!"
So that was neat to see them on their special day. On the way home from
the temple, we stopped to have dinner--a late birthday celebration for me. At church on Sunday they announced that the
temple is now closed through the end of the month for maitenance. I knew that was going to happen soon (they
close the last half July every year) but I didn't realize it was closing this
week. I am really glad we managed to get
there before it closed!

Saturday morning there was a baptism for two of the kids in
our ward; both families are pretty good friends of ours, so Frank planned to
come as well. We were about to leave
when we got a call from Tanner--they were arriving home from scout camp much sooner
than we had expected. So Frank went to
pick them up first and he arrived at the baptism a little late. He was still there in time for the baptisms
and was able to assist with both confirmations, so that was nice. Afterwards, we were invited to join the
families for lunch, so we went home to change and pick up Tanner and Jared (who
had showered and unpacked while we were gone).
We had an enjoyable afternoon, visiting with these two families and
eating the yummy food they had prepared.

I think Tanner and Jared enjoyed their week at scout camp
and they got a lot accomplished. Tanner
completed 3 merit badges, a patch (for Kayaking) and almost completed one other
merit badge--he only has one thing left to do for swimming. This is the third year in a row he's done
swimming, and something always interferes with him being able to finish
it. The first year someone tripped him
and he got a big gash in his knee, so they wouldn't let him in the pool after
that. The second year he got an ear
infection after the first couple of days.
This year a thunderstorm prevented him from being able to get in the
pool to do the last requirement. But his
scoutmaster has promised to take him to the pool to do that last thing! Jared finished three merit badges (including
swimming!) and has two others that he almost finished. We are proud of them for working so hard.

Frank's left eye started bothering him late in the week and
by Saturday it was fairly red and swollen.
His right eye was starting to feel sore as well. So Saturday afternoon he called the doctor
and was able to get some medicated eye drops for his eyes (they think it is
pink eye). His eyes got worse on
Saturday and by Sunday morning they looked pretty bad and it was painful for
him to open them (especially in brighter light) so he ended up staying home
from church. They are looking better
now, but still not completely healed.

Job search update:
near the end of the week Frank was contacted by four different head
hunters who had seen his resume and feel that he is a good fit for some of the positions
they have available. Some of them are
temporary positions, but others are more permanent. He has been busy following up on those, but
doesn't have any interviews yet. He did
meet personally with one of the headhunters yesterday morning (Monday) and he
gave him some good ideas of things he can do to be more competitive. It is a little encouraging that someone has
finally started to contact him--up until now, he hasn't really received any
response from any of the positions that he has applied for. Frank also signed up to attend a resume
writing workshop this Sunday, which is being done by someone in our stake. Hopefully that will help him get his resume
looking even better.

I took advantage of the quiet this last week to get some
reading done. I finished Out of the
Silent Planet as well as the next book in that series--Perelandra. They were both interesting and I enjoyed
them. I spent quite a bit of time
working on Sharing Time for Sunday. Some
weeks I know immdediately what I want to do and other weeks I have to pray and
struggle a lot before I get it pulled together.
This was one of those weeks where I had to pray a lot! I ended up doing two completely different
things for the younger kids and for the older kids, but both went well so I
feel good about that.

We've been having some difficulties with Frank's former
employer this week over the health insurance payment we sent in the week before
last--they claim they never received it.
That has caused us quite a bit of stress the last few days, but I think
we have it cleared up now. We ended up
stopping payment on the first check and sending a new check and the paper work
again--this time by certified mail, so we will have proof that they have received
it. An extra hassel that we didn't need! I was quite upset about it yesterday--I am
just so sick of being treated like we have done something wrong! Even for someone like me, who always tries to
see the other person's point of view, it is hard not to get angry. The less contact we have with them, the
better it is for us. The weeks that we
have not had any contact with them have been much less stressful for us! So hopefully there won't be a need to have
contact with them very often anymore.

That wraps it up for this last week!

Weekly Review July 2 '11

July? Can it really be July? Where is the summer going?! I don't think I'll ever get used to my kids not getting out of school until the middle of June.

So what is there to say about this week? I had ward council and Frank and the 3 older boys had stake priesthood meeting on Sunday, so that kept us pretty busy that day.

On Monday I helped drive girls to girls camp--they went to a camp in Pennsylvania about an hour and a half away. The drive was actually pleasant--it was funny to listen to the girls' conversations on the way there, and the scenery was beautiful, too. I drove through the largest orchard I have ever seen!

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful. The boys were busy with various activities with friends and Tanner had a babysitting job one evening too. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with their comings and goings! I was busy with Primary stuff; I had a presidency meeting Friday morning and I spent a lot of time preparing for sharing time (the things I planned to do took more preparation time than usual). Jared had an orthodontist appointment Thursday morning because his wire came completely loose--Frank took him to that.

I started coming down with a sore throat early in the week and haven't felt my best--I'm a little congested and my head has been aching, too. So I've been trying to take it easy a little. I'm thankful it hasn't turned into anything too nasty. I used some of my down time to read the books for book chat. We are reading Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, both by C.S. Lewis, this month. They are the first 2 books in a trilogy he wrote. I'll probably read the 3rd book also, but we didn't think we'd have time to read all three in one month. So far, it seems like a pretty good series. I finished the 1st book today and started the second one.

Frank had quite a bit of work this week. He did a couple of small jobs for people in our ward and worked all day Wednesday, as well. We are thankful he is bringing in some income--especially since the full time job search isn't going well. He has applied for several jobs but so far hasn't heard back from anybody except for people that say he doesn't have enough experience or that they can't pay him enough. That's been discouraging. He did get a big compliment this week, though. He had two of the employees at FSA (the client that left Griffin back in May) contact him to tell him that three people from their new IT company were there this week and all three of them kept saying that whoever had been taking care of FSA's network up until now had done a fantastic job. Kind of ironic! (Which reminds me--the talks in Sacrament Meeting this week were on being prepared. The last speaker made the comment at one point that "Sometimes, it seems like the better you do your job the worse your boss treats you." I had a wild urge to yell "amen!")

Although the job hunt has been discouraging, I think we have felt a lot less stressed this week. I think that's mainly because we haven't had any contact with anyone from Griffin this week. I hope that continues. Maybe they are finally starting to realize that Frank isn't trying to take away their business.

Tanner and Jared are going to scout camp next week, so today they had to pack. Jared needed a new pair of shoes, so I took him shopping for that. Other than that, they already have everything they need. Frank helped do cooking for a meal for all the missionaries in the area, so he was gone for several hours in the middle of the day.

This is really a boring post, but I can't think of anything else to say. I guess that's good, though--at least there aren't a lot of bad things to report!

We hope you all have a great 4th of July weekend! We are so thankful to live in this wonderful free country!

Weekly Review June 25 '11

We'll start out this week with a little photo essay on unique things to do in the summer time, Seth style. First, you could have an indoor picnic on the living room floor. (Above)

Or, you can see if you can fit into one side of your brother's shirt and watch television:

Last, if you're not in the mood for either of those things, you can always persuade your older brother to help you build something with your moon sand:

(Which you immediately smash flat, within minutes of it's completion.)

I don't think there is a whole lot to say this week. Frank and I have kept busy trying to keep up with the kids' activities and the usual work that needs to be done to keep the household running smoothly, as well as working on his job search and trying to negotiate with his former boss. Oh, and I did get to do one very pleasant unexpected thing. That pretty much covers it, but if you'd like a few more details, you can keep reading.

Scott and Tanner have been gone since Wednesday morning, attending a high adventure camp that our stake does each year called Camp Helaman. It's for the boys 14 and up, so Jared can't go yet. We are expecting them back this evening, so I can't report much about it except that I know they were going to participate in water sports, white water rafting, spelunking, and paintball as well as camping in tents and having daily devotionals with church leaders. We haven't heard anything from them, so hopefully that means they are having a great time. I took them shopping on Tuesday to get the things that they needed for that, and Frank helped drive the boys and some of the equipment up (using another ward member's trailer attached to our Expedition.) It was a 2 1/2 hour drive, one way, so he was gone most of the day Wednesday doing that.

Jared had to go take the BSA swimmer test on Tuesday so that he can participate in swimming and other water events at camp in July. He passed the test, so he is good to go. I did some visiting teaching that day, too.

I was in the middle of making dinner Wednesday when my friend Susie called and said that she had been given 3 tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert (one of the missionaries who taught her the gospel got them for her--her husband sings in the choir) and wanted to know if I would like to go. Well, of course I wanted to go! The catch was that I had to be ready to leave in less than an hour. Frank, being the great husband that he is, insisted that I go and took over making dinner for me and took care of Seth and Jared for the rest of the night so that I could go. The concert was at a place called Wolf Trap in northern Virginia, so it was a bit of a drive. I rode with Susie and two other women in our ward (one of them is my Primary secretary, Ruth). The concert was, of course, absolutely fantastic! I don't think I've ever heard the choir live in concert before. (I have, however, been to General Conference a couple of times. But I think the last time I did that was when I was about 14 or 15.) Anyway, it was heavenly. Ruth and I had seats next to each other (Susie was several rows in front of us) and we ended up sitting next to several women who had husbands in the choir. They were very friendly and chatted with us about their trip. They wanted to know if the weather is always so hot & humid here during the summer! Well, it is (especially in August), but Wednesday was particularly bad so they got to experience the DC area at its worst! We felt so bad for the choir and orchestra members, under all those lights. We were in a partly open air building with a professional stage and a ceiling, but no walls and no air conditioning. Miraculously, no one fainted and the heat did not seem to hinder their ability to sing at all. When the concert ended, the choir member's wife sitting next to me (she had even insisted on switching seats with me at intermission because she noticed I couldn't really see very well around the person in front of me) gave both Ruth and I a sample CD with 5 songs on it, which we are both thrilled to have. It took a very long time to get out of the parking lot and we got home after midnight, but it was well worth it! I feel very blessed to have had that opportunity.

I was gone Thursday evening as well--I attended an interest meeting to discuss the possibility of starting a private middle / high school. A couple of women in my ward are hoping to start the school if enough interested people (and, of course, funding) can be obtained. They want to start a satellite school associated with a school out in Utah called American Heritage School. (I'm guessing some of you out there have probably heard about it; it's located right across the street from the Mt. Timp temple.) If you haven't heard about it, the school incorporates LDS doctrine into the curriculum and they teach the kids using a unique approach which involves research (from original source documents rather than text books as much as possible), reasoning, relating to self, and recording. Anyway, after attending the meeting I really like the idea but it would certainly be a lot of work to get it going and I'm doubtful there will be enough people to make it work. The school in Utah looks extremely successful and impressive, but they have a huge base of LDS people to draw on (although the school doesn't have to be exclusively LDS kids) for both staff as well as people willing to donate. I certainly couldn't afford the $5000 per year tuition per child that the Utah school is charging, even if Frank did have a job. They said they are hoping to find a way for it to cost less than that, though. So we'll see how it goes. I am disillusioned enough with the high school here that I am willing to look into other options.

I think Jared missed Scott and Tanner a bit this week, but he didn't lie around pining away. He spent the night with his friend Bryson on Thursday and then spent Friday afternoon at his friend Ian's house. He has a party with his middle school class this afternoon, but I'm not sure he's going to that. He is feeling "wishy-washy" about it. Right now he and Frank are gone--they went to mow the lawn for a single lady in our ward. They took Seth with them, too; he still has a certain fascination for lawn mowers.

I'll finish up with the job search update. With Frank's former boss, negotiations seem to have broken down. In response to our proposal, they sent an ammendment to the original agreement that they wanted Frank to sign. The amendment did change some things which would make the agreement a lot less restrictive, but there were still some areas that concerned us so Frank called to try to discuss it with them. He didn't get to say very much, though. It just turned into another conversation where his former boss was yelling and swearing at him while Frank tried to get him to see reason. Frustrating! Then the next day his former boss sent him an email that said "I guess Shelton went with you too" (Shelton is one of Frank's former clients.) We assume from that message that Shelton has decided to leave Griffin Networks and that Frank's former boss thinks Frank is responsible. Well, he's not--he hasn't spoken to them at all, and Frank immdediately sent him an email letting him know that. A few minutes later his former boss called again and yelled some more. So we've decided to keep any necessary communication to emails from here on out. Frank doesn't have to listen to that anymore. As far as the agreement goes, we've just decided to let it go on the back burner for now. The agreement as it stands would never stand up in court. Besides that, his former boss keeps saying things to Frank that are inconsistent with the written agreement he wants him to sign. So for now, we feel like it is more important for Frank to focus on finding a new job. He applied for several jobs this week, both in this area and elsewhere. If he gets a job here that his former boss feels is creating competition, then we'll deal with it then. If he gets a job somewhere else, then he won't be able to complain at all.

Certainly all this conflict and uncertainty is taking a toll on us. I haven't been sleeping well at all, my stomach feels upset a lot, and I have felt my heart doing a lot of fluttering. I'm sure everyone else is feeling at least some distress as well. Seth sometimes acts out and other times he is clingy. I'm certain he can feel the tension around here even though he doesn't know what's going on. Even our little Snickers seems to know we are stressed. He sticks pretty close to Frank most of the time. One day I found him curled up in a corner, not a place he normally chooses:

Well, in spite of it all, we are resilient people and we are trying to put our faith in God. We know He will always be there for us! I keep running into that theme in my scripture reading lately. I'm sure it's not a coincidence.

One final note: I'm sorry if my posts haven't been very readable lately. I've noticed that blogger didn't put in any of my paragraph breaks the last few posts. I have no idea why or how to fix the problem. So I apologize for that!