Christmas Ornaments 2016

We have this tradition that every year we add an ornament to our Christmas tree. Usually we get an ornament from a place that we visited. Other times, we get an ornament that represents something important that happened that year. (You can read more about our ornaments here, here, here, and here.)

This year, we ended up getting not one, not two, but THREE new ornaments. This is mostly because we did a lot of traveling this year and it was hard to choose just one place to remember. First, we got this ornament while we were visiting Utah:

We will never forget how beautiful Zion National Park was (or how hot it was, either!)

Then we took a trip to Philadelphia to tour the new Philadelphia Temple and see some of the historical sites there, and while we were there we got this ornament:

Finally, on our way back from Philadelphia we stopped in Valley Forge and we picked up this ornament there:

I've wanted to visit Valley Forge ever since I read about it as a little girl, so I am grateful I finally got to go there! It didn't disappoint.

We are going to need a bigger tree if I keep this up! Maybe next year I can keep it down to one ornament!

Weekly Review December 16 '16

What we did this week: Last Friday we went to a Christmas party that a guy in our ward was having and it was really nice. A lot of people from the ward came and we had a lot of fun visiting and eating yummy food. Saturday was pretty busy. I made cookies in the morning and got the 12 Days of Christmas service project put together (we do this for someone every year). I went to a baby shower that afternoon. I went straight from the shower to Pack Meeting. Sam had come up that afternoon so he and Seth and Frank met me at the church. We gave out awards (Seth earned 3 or 4 belt loops) and had refreshments (the cookies I made) and then we went to a museum nearby where they were having Christmas activities as a part of an event called Museums by Candlelight. (They do this in Frederick every year and I've been taking my kids to various museums for this event nearly every December since we moved here.) We went to one museum and we were going to go to one other place too but we spent so much time at the first place that we never made it to the other place. There were lots of crafts and activities and demonstrations, so the boys kept pretty interested and busy. After we finished there, we (Frank, Seth, Sam and I) went out for dinner. When we got back, they watched a movie but I didn’t want to watch it so I cleaned the kitchen floor and then read.

Cub Scouts at the museum:

On Sunday we woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground. We hadn’t expected that! It all melted before church was over. I was looking at the front lawn and thinking that I was going to need to rake one more time this week and I was dreading it because it hurts my back. Then the next door neighbor decided to use his lawn mower to mulch the leaves all over his yard and while he was at it, he did our yard too. So I was grateful for that!! All the leaves are off the tree now so I won’t have to do any more raking this year. Sam had to head back to Fort Meade that afternoon, after church. I had choir practice that evening. I love the songs we are singing for Christmas! The rest of the week has been pretty busy with all the usual things, plus a few extras. Frank went to a homeowner’s association meeting on Monday evening. I worked at the school library Tuesday afternoon. It was busier than it’s been the other times I’ve volunteered there but it was nice to have something to do. That evening one of Frank’s clients had their office Christmas party at a restaurant here in Frederick, and they invited Frank and I to come too. It was a little awkward being at a party where I didn’t know anyone very well, not to mention that everyone was drinking, but they were all really lovely people so I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. They have been really great to Frank as he’s been recovering from the car accident, and I have appreciated their concern. They all call him “to the rescue Frank” because he comes in and saves them when their technology fails. After we got back from the party, we took the 12 Days of Christmas box and dropped it off.

On Wednesday I went visiting teaching and we had the Sisters over for dinner. I finished reading my book chat book Tuesday evening (great book; definitely worth reading), so I made a trip to the library to return it and some other books that I checked out for Cub Scouts. I did some planning for Cub scouts, too—we are having a Christmas activity for den meeting next week so I was looking online for ideas of things to do. I found a TON of ideas, so now I just need to figure out which ones will be best for our group.

Yesterday I got my hair done. I spent a lot of time in the late afternoon / evening on the phone with Jared because he had a couple of issues going on. For one thing, he dropped his phone and his screen wouldn’t work at all so he couldn’t use his phone (although he could answer it if someone called him). He had some information in the notes on his phone that he needed for a final he was taking today, so he was pretty stressed out. Anyway, we got that worked out. Frank went online and found a store there in Rexburg that he could take it to and they had the part to fix it and were able to fix it in about an hour, and it didn’t even cost a whole lot either so it all turned out okay in the end. Besides that, Jared’s ride down to Utah had fallen through but thankfully Scott was able to work things out so that he could drive up there to pick Jared up. (They did that today. Jared had one final this morning and his clean check this morning too and that’s all he had left to do this semester.) We were also trying to figure out getting Jared's interviews done so that he can be ordained an Elder and go to the temple while Scott is here for Christmas. And we are still working on getting Jared to the airport on Monday! I'm sure it will all work out, though.

Today has gone by fast; I’ve mostly been catching up the budget. We took Seth to see the new Disney movie, Moana, this evening. It was really good and we enjoyed it. Sam got here shortly after we got back to spend the weekend with us. He actually stopped at the same theater that we were at on his way up here, but he watched Rogue One instead of Moana. Yesterday it was SUPER cold here. The high temperature was in the 20s and we also had 40 mph wind gusts. Fun! Today is pretty cold too but not as windy so it’s not nearly as bad. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get freezing rain.

I guess most of you get Tanner's letters so you know that he was in a car wreck last week and that he is okay. When I told Seth about it, he said "Well, every time I say the prayer I pray that Tanner will be watched over, so that makes sense." We all pray for Tanner's safety, actually, and we are very grateful that he and his companion were protected!

That's all I can think of to report this week. Here's our outside Christmas decorations, to finish up (taken before our neighbor mulched the weeds and mowed our lawn):

Weekly Review December 9 '16

For someone who thought she was almost done with Christmas preparations last week, I sure spent a lot of time this week working on Christmas stuff!! On Saturday we put up the Christmas tree and all the other decorations.  Monday I got most of Tanner's package ready to mail, and did some present wrapping. On Tuesday I did some more online shopping—mostly looking for ideas; I don’t think I actually ordered anything that day. On Wednesday I actually did order a few things, plus I spent a couple of hours wrapping presents and got everything wrapped that I have purchased so far. Yesterday I spent all afternoon addressing and stuffing Christmas cards, and I got them all mailed (except for a few because I’m trying to track down the correct addresses.) I also got Tanner's package mailed last night (it had to be there by the 13th for their Christmas Conference on the 14th). So yeah—I’d say most of my “free” time was spent on Christmas stuff. I got all the regular housework done too, so that was the bulk of my week.

We did do a few other things, though. On Saturday before we put up the outside Christmas decorations (we have a few plastic candy canes, little lights, etc. on each side of the front walk) we decided the lawn really needed to be raked again so Seth and I did that (mostly me). I don’t think we’re going to manage getting the Christmas lights put on the house this year (we’re pretty sporadic about that anyway) but I really wanted the house to look “Christmas-y” from the front. I’ve been looking longingly at the neighbors’ lights on their trees, bushes, houses, stair railings, etc. but we don’t have any place to put lights outside except for the house itself. So I looked around at stores and found these two small white plastic trees with colored lights on them that can go outside. We put those in front under the window, and they look pretty nice. I mean, at least we have a few lights in our yard now! I would include a picture except I haven’t taken one yet and right now it is sunny outside so the lights wouldn’t show up. I will have to take one sometime this week when it’s dark and include one in my post next week. Besides working on all the Christmas decorations, we also had the Elders over for dinner that night.

On Sunday we had tithing settlement after church. I was so busy making sure our records were correct and that we were up to date on paying our tithing, that I completely forgot to have Seth get his tithing ready!! So I will have to do that with him soon. Frank had physical therapy twice this week—on Monday and on Wednesday. It seems to be helping his back and neck. He has one spot on his back that is really bothering him so he will continue to go to PT until that gets cleared up.

Seth’s ADHD medicine ran out last Friday. I had tried to get it refilled, but the pharmacy called me on Saturday to let me know that they didn’t have his medicine in stock and would have to order it and it wouldn’t be there until probably Thursday or Friday of this week. Since Seth really doesn’t get much done at school without his medicine, I decided it would be worth it to try to find a place that had his medicine on hand. That wasn’t too simple, though, since the prescription couldn’t be transferred to a different pharmacy. Instead, I had to call the doctor back on Monday and explain the problem and see if they would write me a new prescription that I could take around to pharmacies until I found one that had his medicine in stock. Thankfully, the doctor agreed to do that so we picked up the written prescription late on Monday. On Tuesday morning I set out to find a pharmacy that had his medicine on hand and thankfully the second place I tried had it, so I was able to get his prescription filled and picked up that afternoon. He had to go without his medicine at church on Sunday (he did better than I expected, though—not nearly as wiggly as I feared he would be) and for two days of school, but at least the whole week wasn’t a waste.

On Tuesday evening we had den meeting as usual and afterwards I had Cub committee meeting so Frank came over to pick up Seth at the end of the den meeting. It was a good thing, too, because the committee meeting went really late. On Wednesday I discovered that the garbage disposal wasn’t working anymore. It’s been leaking since September—we’ve had a pan under the sink to catch the water and we’ve had to empty it frequently—but Frank just hasn’t been up to getting down on the floor to put in a new disposal. (We bought a new one back in October, I think.) I can live without using a disposal for a while—just have to remember to throw things in the trash instead of down the sink—but by the next day there was a nasty smell coming out of there so we decided we’d just have to put in the new one right away. We did that last night—mostly Frank did it, with a little bit of help from me. It was really hard on him and he is sore today but he did successfully install the new one and it works great. It is a lot quieter than the old one, too, which is nice. Back to Wednesday—I also went to see my friend Wanda for a little while that evening because she called me to let me know that she was moving to a new care facility the next day. (It’s kind of a long story why she was moving, but I knew she was probably going to be moving soon. I was surprised it happened so quickly, though.) I was able to get the address and phone number of the new facility so I’ll still be able to visit her. It’s in Mt. Airy, though, (about 25 minutes from Frederick) so she will be farther away and won’t be in our ward anymore. I will miss her!! We are working on getting in touch with the leadership in the Mt. Airy Ward, though, to help her make the transition to her new ward.

Today Seth got out of school 2 hours early and he was invited to go to the carpool boys’ house to play after school so he is there now. Tonight a friend in our ward is having a little Christmas party, which Frank and I are going to attend. I made a cake to take to that (made some of it last night and finished it this morning).

Today it is really quite cold. It’s been cooler this week although the daytimes have been fairly mild and one day it rained all day (not even close to cold enough to snow). But today it is in the 30’s and windy so it is feeling a lot more like winter. The colder weather is supposed to continue and we may even get snow sometime next week.

In between everything else, I have been reading here and there in the book we’re reading for book chat. It is really interesting. It is called “Nothing to Envy” and it’s about everyday life in North Korea. Wow, can I just say how lucky we are to be born and living in the United States??!!! I feel really blessed.

I’ve been trying to follow the Light the World calendar and so far I’m having a different experience than I expected. A lot of times I read the theme for the day and look over the suggestions for ways to serve and realize that either I have already done something that fits that day’s theme, or I just did something in the last few days that fits one of the suggestions. I’m not saying that I am this amazing, super righteous person. I’m just saying that doing this has helped me realize that living the gospel of Jesus Christ on a daily basis gives us lots of opportunities to serve others and to be more like the Savior—even more than I realized!! I haven’t done anything out of the ordinary, nothing even that I feel is worthy of sharing with the #LIGHTtheWORLD hashtag. But it’s been kind of encouraging to me to see that maybe I’m doing better at this “trying to be like the Savior” thing than I thought I was. And participating in the church gives us ample opportunities to do the kinds of things the Savior did (and does) which in turn should help us become more like the Savior. And that’s the whole point, really, isn’t it?!! I’m probably not making a whole lot of sense, but I guess what I’m saying is that this experience has strengthened my testimony that the church is God’s kingdom on earth. That the things we talk about and learn about at church are really important and necessary. Because if we take those things seriously, and really try to go home each Sunday and LIVE the teachings we are hearing, that we are doing the things that will help us to become more like the Savior. It’s so simple that I think we sometimes miss the importance of it all.

Okay, and with that—I am off to an appointment with the missionaries!!

Just a few pictures to finish up. I finally remembered to take a picture of one of the new kitchen chairs:

(Someday we'll get around to buying a table that matches.)

And here is the sky Wednesday morning, mid morning. The sun had been up for hours, but it still looked kind of colorful:

Weekly Review December 2 '16

I don't know where this year is going. December already!!

This week has been pretty busy; not sure how interesting it will be to read about, though. We had guests for the weekend, as I mentioned last week—Breanna and her husband Nick and their baby boy, Keiran. (Breanna is my friend Marci's daughter--they lived in our ward a number of years ago.) We enjoyed having them here. Her husband was really friendly and nice and their baby was really good—he hardly cried at all! Plus, he’s really cute! They spent most of Saturday out seeing the sights in Frederick and visiting old friends. On Sunday, they came to church in our ward and Breanna enjoyed seeing some people she used to know. She had a friend come visit after church and we played games and we all had dinner together before they had to leave to drive home (they live in Maine).

I had to take a picture of me with Keiran to send to Marci. I knew she would be jealous that I was holding her grandson!!

Meanwhile, on Saturday Frank took Sam to look at a car that he was thinking about buying and he decided to buy it, so he was able to drive himself back to Fort Meade on Sunday evening. He left shortly after Breanna’s family left, so after having a houseful, we suddenly were back down to just 3 people at home again. It seemed kind of quiet and Seth enjoyed all the company but after they left and I asked if it was okay with him that everyone was gone, he said that the best thing about being back to just us is that he can walk around the house in his underwear again!! That cracked me up!!

Fraank is doing a lot better. He’s off the crutches and limping only a little bit. So on Monday he went back to work! He’s been doing okay so far. He’s tired when he gets home but not extremely so. He is glad to be back at work in a lot of ways—he was really getting tired of just lying around all the time! Today he worked from home, but he went in to the office every other day this week. It’s been strange for me to be in a quiet house again during the days, and I miss getting to spend so much time with Frank, but I do seem to get more done! On Monday I went visiting teaching, worked on Cub scout stuff, and raked the leaves in the front yard. It was supposed to rain the next day, so I decided I’d better get the leaves raked before then. It did rain, and our yard looked great for a few days. But Wednesday night it was windy so yesterday our yard was all covered with leaves again. I wouldn’t mind so much if it didn’t hurt my back to rake. Plus, it’s kind of annoying that I have to rake when we don’t even have any trees in our yard. Dang neighbors’ trees!! Well, I guess I enjoy looking at the trees all year so it’s only fair that I have to rake a few leaves too. But it’d be nice if all the leaves fell into their yards. J

On Tuesday I went to see Wanda for a little while, and Seth and I had den meeting. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner on Wednesday. That evening, I got a text message saying that Seth’s school was closed the next day due to a sewer problem. What??! Remember how earlier this year he got a day off because the air conditioning wasn’t working? I guess attending school in an old beat up building has its perks. They did get the problem fixed, so he was back at school today. Today is our stake temple day, so I went to the temple this morning. Frank isn’t quite up to going yet, but he should be soon. Since Frank was working from home, he offered to take Seth to school so I could leave earlier. That was nice because I was able to get to the temple in time for the 9:00 session (when I take Seth to school, I usually just miss the 10:00 session and have to wait until 11:00, or do initiatories instead.) The temple was very quiet at that hour and there were only 9 people in my session. Two of them besides me were from our stake, though. When I got out of the session, I saw quite a few more people from our stake and / or ward who were just getting to the temple. I’m sure it got busier as the day went on. Before leaving the temple, I went down to the distribution center to pick out a new temple dress. It’s actually a Christmas present, but Frank told me I’d have to pick it out myself. I’ve had my temple dress for 25 years and it’s a little bit snug (those darn 10 pounds I’ve gained in the last few years!) plus I’ve been deciding lately that as I get older I’m going to want a dress that zips in front. (Back zippers can be awkward and challenging to reach.) I actually did find a dress that I like, with a front zipper, AND in my size so I’m happy about that. After leaving the temple, I made a stop at the LDS bookstore to do some shopping. When I got back to Frederick, I met Frank at a restaurant for lunch. So by the time I finally got home, it was almost time to pick up Seth from school! It was a busy day, but I enjoyed going to the temple a lot. I was thinking today (not for the first time) how amazing it is that Heavenly Father is willing to give us ALL that He has. We just have to keep our covenants. The promised blessings if we do are incredible!

Besides everything else, I’ve been focusing big time on Christmas preparations this week. I wrote the annual Christmas letter and got copies made of it. I created our Christmas card and ordered it and picked them up. (Now I just need to address all of them and put them in the mail!) We wrote a Christmas letter for Tanner, as requested by his mission president (they will give all the letters to the missionaries to read at their Christmas conference). I did a lot of shopping, mostly online, and I’m happy to say that I am almost completely done with Christmas shopping too! Throughout the week as I have been working around the house I have been listening to Christmas music and that is one of my favorite things about this time of year…I LOVE Christmas music!! We are planning to put up the tree and do the rest of the decorating tomorrow, so by December 3^rd we will have almost everything ready, and will hopefully be able to focus more on the great spiritual feelings of the season. Oh, and I did watch the Light the World video earlier this week and I loved it!! We are planning to follow the calendar and try to do something each day to be more like the Savior. 

I’m sure we will still have plenty to do this month. There’s still some shopping to do, and we need to plan the Christmas service project we do each year, and get a package mailed to Tanner, and later in the month I will need to do some baking and candy making and (of course!) some present wrapping. But it feels nice to have so much done already.

To finish up, a few pictures. The sky has been really putting on a show lately. Here's one I took late yesterday afternoon:

And here are a few of the sunrise this morning:

Weekly Review November 25 '16

This week was pretty quiet; I’m not sure I will have a lot to write about. I will try to think of something though!!

We didn’t go back to IKEA on Saturday. We decided that everything else could wait a bit—no rush. The chairs were really the thing we needed the most. They totally don’t match our table, but that’s not a big deal. We’ll get the new table in the next month or so, I think. Frank put one of the chairs together on Friday and I did another one on Saturday. I put together the other four on Monday. They were fairly simple to do, but my arms were sore afterwards! It is really nice to have 6 matching chairs, with backs! Saturday was a funny day because it started out warm and sunny (as it has been the last few weeks) but half way through the day a storm rolled in with some rain and a lot of wind, and it got a lot cooler. It’s been cooler since then, even cold at times, but still not too bad. I can’t complain! We spent the afternoon watching the BYU game (we were able to watch it online through BYU TV). On Saturday evening, Frank and I went out to dinner. When we were driving to the restaurant, we noticed large areas where the power was out (because of the wind we had earlier) but luckily they did have power at the restaurant that we had chosen to go to. It was nice to go out alone together—we hadn’t done that in quite a while.

Frank’s knee was hurting a lot on Saturday evening / all day Sunday because he accidentally knelt on it Saturday afternoon. He didn’t sleep well Saturday night and he also felt like he was coming down with a cold so he didn’t stay for all of church, but he did go to Sacrament Meeting. He had a meeting that afternoon with the bishopric (to talk about / work on home teaching assignments) and he did go to that. I had choir practice after he got back, so the day seemed to go by fast.

On Monday, besides putting together chairs and all the other Monday chores, I put away my sewing table and some other things to make room in the upstairs bedroom because we are having some guests coming tonight. I also started a project for Christmas (so I’m not giving any details on that!) On Tuesday I spent a lot of time planning for Cub Scouts and I also finished the project for Christmas. Frank had PT that morning for his neck and back—it’s helping a bit. Tuesday was Seth’s last day of school this week.

On Wednesday I took Snickers to the groomer so he looks super cute now. I went to Wal-Mart and to the grocery store since I wanted to avoid all stores for the rest of the week. Frank and I made pies and sweet potatoes to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner. I went to the library to pick up the next book for book chat and we went to the storage unit to get out the pack and play since our guests have a young baby. I also cleaned out my desk, which had gotten pretty messy. Besides all that, we also drove to Fort Meade (about an hour away) to pick up Sam. So that was  a very busy day!

We had Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday afternoon with some friends in our ward. Even though we didn’t have to cook the whole meal, I still feel like we spent a lot of time Thursday morning finishing up our contributions to the meal. I made the topping for the sweet potatoes and we baked them. I also carmelized some pecans to put on top of the pumpkin spice pie I made the day before. Frank made banana pudding (the kind with vanilla wafers and bananas and whipped cream layered with the pudding). I also did the laundry and vacuumed the whole house that morning, so we certainly weren’t relaxing! We had a delicious dinner, though, and I think everyone had a fun time. This family had also invited over three other families in our ward, so there was quite a crowd. The tables looked amazing and all the food was really good. Although I admit I don’t like the topping for the sweet potatoes when it’s made with gluten free flour! We used gluten free so that a couple of the guests who have gluten allergies could eat the sweet potatoes. I didn’t think it would make much difference, but it did taste different and I didn’t like it. Oh well! Besides the things I mentioned, we also made a chocolate cream pie, a pecan pie, and a ham. After eating, we played a few games and then headed home because Snickers needed to be fed.

This morning I visited with my friend Wanda for a bit and then got the budget caught up. I got to talk with Amy for a couple of hours—we haven’t had a chance to talk to each other since I was in Utah in September, so it was nice to talk to her finally. Our guests will be arriving any time now. My friend Marci's daughter and her family are coming to stay for a few nights. Marci and her family lived in our ward several years ago. Her daughter (Breanna) was a beehive when I was the beehive advisor. She is married and has a 3 month old baby boy now. They live in Maine, but are in Maryland for Thanksgiving and needed a place to stay for a few nights. So we will have a houseful the next few days, but the more the merrier, right?

That is about all that we have been doing this week. Since it's Thanksgiving, I want to say that I feel like I have a lot to be thankful for. I have everything I need temporally, PLUS I also have the blessings of the gospel in my life every day. I have good health and I have a wonderful, righteous family. I feel very, very blessed!

Sorry no pictures this week. I didn't even think to take pictures on Thanksgiving!!  

Now on to the Christmas season!!! It's a busy time, but it's wonderful too. 

Weekly Review November 18 '16

This week has gone pretty well. Frank has improved quite a bit, and he’s starting to be able to do more things without as much pain, so that is nice. On Saturday, my Cub Scouts did a little service project to help the Primary leaders. The following day was the Primary program, and the Cubs helped the leaders prepare a treat to give to all the kids in Sharing Time after the program. They built “walls” out of rice crispy treats. (They were supposed to represent the wall Samuel the Lamanite stood on.) It was a fun and easy project, but nice that they could help the Primary a little bit too.

 I spent a lot of time on Saturday doing Cub Scout stuff. Our ward (pack) just started using an online program to track the Cub Scouts’ and Scouts’ progress so I put in the information for all my Cubs on Saturday. It took a long time since I was putting in all the information for all of the Bears at once, but it will be much simpler to track their progress from here on out. I can go in each week and record what they did after each den meeting, and the parents can also go in and record things that the boys do at home. It’s a pretty nifty little program.

Besides that, on Saturday I tried to watch the BYU game but it wasn’t on a channel that we get and I couldn’t get the online live stream thing to work, so that was a bummer. Unfortunately, the game tomorrow is on the same channel, but maybe I’ll have better luck with the live streaming thing this time. Sam was here on Saturday, and he wanted to go to a movie so I dropped him off at the theater, and Frank picked him up. A guy in our ward helped Dad out a lot by changing the brake pads and rotors on his car. Frank got the wrong parts to start out with, though, so he kept busy running back and forth to this guy's house and the parts store.

As I mentioned, Sunday was the Primary Sacrament Meeting program, which is always one of the best meetings we have all year. This year’s program did not disappoint. Frank was able to stay for all the meetings, too! After church, my visiting teachers came to see me and Frank had a presidency meeting. Then I went to choir practice. After dinner, Frank and I took Sam back to Fort Meade. He will be back again for Thanksgiving.

Monday was busy because I was getting things ready for den meeting the next day, shopping for Tanner's birthday, and Seth and I had dentist appointments, besides all the usual things. For den meeting on Tuesday, we did a bunch of little science experiments. It was pretty fun, and we got a lot done. Frank had a PPI with a member of the stake presidency while we were at den meeting. He says that went well. On Wednesday I did some service in the morning—about four of us went to help a lady with some house cleaning. She had knee replacement surgery so it’s hard for her to do all the cleaning herself. I got Tanner's birthday package mailed that day too, and we had the Elders over for dinner that evening.

Frank and I have been trying to figure out what to do about a kitchen table and chairs, so on Thursday we decided to go to IKEA and check out what they have there. We had already looked online and found some things we liked but we wanted to get a closer look at them before deciding. We actually decided to get a different table than we originally planned and we also decided that as long as we are at it, we want to get a bed (headboard / footboard) for us as well. (We got a King size mattress about 4 years ago and since then we've had our mattress on a metal bed frame. That's actually fine except that the frame is lower than most beds so the underbed storage containers we had under our bed don't fit under the frame. So all that underbed storage has been sitting on our floor for all these years, which I don't like.) Anyway, there wasn’t enough room in our car to bring all that home, so we just got the chairs (so at least we have 6 chairs with backs now, although they still need to be put together) and we were planning to order everything else online. But after looking at things closer online after we got home, we have some questions about what bed to get for sure, so we may possibly go back to IKEA tomorrow. We haven’t figured it all out yet. The IKEA furniture isn't exactly what we wanted and it is certainly not as high quality as the dining set we originally ordered, but it is also much less expensive, so I'm happy. It probably won't last as long but it also isn't a huge investment and I won't be as upset when the inevitable scratches and dents come along.

By the way, there is a great view of the temple from the Capitol Beltway on the drive back from IKEA. I tried to get some pictures, but I only had my phone so they aren't too great:

The trip to IKEA took a good part of the day, since it is about an hour away. It was hard on Frank walking all through the store (there weren’t any carts for him to ride on) but he survived. When we got home, I hurried to get vacuuming done and then went to the grocery store before picking up Seth from school. I had book chat that evening, which I always enjoy.

Today I’ve been getting all the finances caught up, which has taken most of the day. We are had the Sister missionaries over for dinner tonight.

Frank had physical therapy on Monday and Wednesday, and he is done with that for his knee (he will start on PT for his neck and back next week). He also had his follow up appointment with the surgeon today. The surgeon said he can go back to work when he feels ready to do it. The physical therapist warned him not to rush it too much, though. He won’t go back next week, but he may go back the week after that. We’ll see how well he does this coming week. It is encouraging that he is doing so much better. He really seemed to “turn a corner” this last week. I don’t want him to rush back to work too soon, though. Last time he really went back to work too soon and it was very hard on him.

This post is short and boring, but that is about all that is going on around here!

Weekly Review November 11 '16

Well, this week has been pretty eventful. For starters, the school week was ridiculous. Monday was a normal school day but there was no school on Tuesday since they use the schools as polling places. Then the rest of the week was parent / teacher conferences, so Seth had school 4 hours late on both Wednesday and Thursday, and he got out 3 ½ hours early today.

Last Friday, other than the usual stuff I do, I took the sister missionaries to an appointment. We got there and the person they were supposed to be teaching wasn’t there, but then they discovered that she had left them a message that she needed to reschedule, so at least she hadn’t completely ditched them. We tried checking on a few other people, but no one was home. We wanted to give the Sisters a desk so after that we went back to our house to pick up the desk and take it to their house. Then I couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to go together, so Frank came over and helped us figure that out.  On Saturday we had Pack Meeting—we distributed the bags for Scouting for Food. Seth and I worked together to get the bags put on all the doors for several streets. We worked hard for 3 hours and Seth did a good job and only complained a little bit when he started to get tired, so I was proud of him. We had the Elders over for dinner and watched most of the BYU football game (we had to turn it off while the Elders were there.)

On Sunday Frank made it to Ward Council again but had to leave after the sacrament again. Hopefully he will be able to go to all of church again someday! I’m sure he will, but it is going to take time. The rest of Sunday was very restful, which was nice.

On Monday I met with the new Wolf den leader to answer questions and give her information on how we are doing things in the cub program. I also had a doctor appointment (just an annual check up). Since Seth was out of school on Tuesday, he was invited to play at the carpool boys’ house for the afternoon. Frank and I voted. Then we avoided the television / social media for the rest of the day and went to bed at the usual time. I just couldn’t face all the election stuff! Frank often wakes up in the night and that night was no exception, so he just happened to be up and online around 3:00 am when it became apparent that Trump was going to win. I woke up shortly after that, as I sometimes do when Frank is awake. Frank said “Trump won” and I was so surprised that I couldn’t go back to sleep for over an hour. I certainly did NOT expect that! Since then, I have heard constant laments about the state of our country but to my surprise, I have been feeling remarkably cheerful. Not really because Trump won…more because Hillary Clinton lost!! Sorry, but I just really, really, really didn’t want her to be president. I don’t like Trump either. But since we’ve got him, I’m interested to see what he will do, and I’m hopeful he’ll change a few things that I don’t like. Also, overall I have to say that in my lifetime elections have come and gone and no matter who wins, whether I like them or not, whether I agree with their politics or not, the quality of my everyday life is really not impacted much by who is in the White House. I feel very, very blessed to live in a country where I have the freedom to worship how I choose and where we are incredibly prosperous compared to most people in this world. I have a roof over my head, plenty of food to eat, clothes to wear, numerous comforts (such as running hot water, air conditioning, and central heat), good health, the opportunity to get whatever education I want and to become whatever I want to be. How can I complain when I have all of that? Yes, this country has problems—big ones. But we are still incredibly blessed. There isn’t much room in my heart for anything but gratitude.

Okay, off my soapbox! J Wednesday was also busy. I had another annual check up procedure (totally routine) and in the afternoon I went to a little birthday gathering for a friend in the ward. We just talked and had yummy food. I had a parent teacher conference for Seth after school. He is actually doing pretty well. He is focusing a lot better than he did last year (there is room for improvement still, but he’s making progress). He tested above average in both reading and math when they tested him at the beginning of the year. He’s also been calmer and getting along well with others most of the time AND his teacher said she wishes all of her students had such a neat and well organized binder! She showed it to me, and she’s right—it’s pristine! He does like things to be “just so”, although you’d never guess that when you look at his room.

After going to the conference, I came home and made dinner and then went to visit  my friend Wanda for a bit. She had called me earlier in the day, crying, but I couldn’t go see her right then. It’s really unusual for Wanda to be down like that, but she’s been struggling a bit lately. She was feeling better by the evening but she still enjoyed the visit. We talked for a while and then we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy together. They had a Jeopardy category on The Chronicles of Narnia—I got all of those answers right!!

Yesterday I got my hair done in the afternoon and that evening we had a dinner and activity for Relief Society. One sister did a presentation about the joy of laughter; Frank helped her with the technical aspects of her presentation. He tried to show me how to do it, but I didn’t have enough time to learn it well enough to feel confident that I could do it, so Frank came over to the church to help with that part. We had a nice dinner and played a game to get everyone to laugh. It was a fun evening.

Sam also got here last night—a member of our ward works near Fort Meade so he picked him up and brought him (a different member than last time). Sam has today off since it is Veteran’s Day, so he came to spend the weekend here. However, he didn’t finish work as early as he anticipated on Thursday so he had to grab all of his stuff really quick and when he got here he realized he left a pile of stuff that he meant to grab, including his toothbrush and his Sunday clothes. The toothbrush I was able to help him with, but not the Sunday clothes so this morning I drove him back to Fort Meade to get his stuff. We went from there to the temple. The temple was totally packed today—besides being a federal holiday so a lot of people were off work, there were three stakes there for their temple day. I couldn’t even find an empty parking space, but had to park on the curb on one side, at the very back of the parking lot. In our session, they had to bring in chairs and put them along the wall so there would be enough seats for everyone. Crazy!! But it was great to see so much temple work getting done for so many people, and I was happy to finally make it to the temple again, after trying to get there unsuccessfully last week. We didn’t get back home until close to 4:00 and so it was almost time to start making dinner. Frank picked Seth up from school while we were gone. I am tired now, but it was a good day.

Frank had PT today and on Wednesday. He is supposed to start walking without his crutches as much as possible now, although today they worked his knee pretty hard so they told him to use the crutches again for a few days. He is hoping to go back to work in a few weeks, but we will see how he is doing. I don’t want him to rush into it. He is tired of not working, though.

I finished reading The Bronze Bow to Seth. It is was one of my very favorite books as a child, and I still love it. It was satisfying I to see that Seth really liked it, too. Now we are going to start From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. basil E. Frankweiler. I finished reading The Graveyard Book, but I haven't started another book yet.

It is still warmer than average here although it is cooler today than it’s been in a while. We got a lot of rain on Wednesday but the rest of the week has been sunny. The whole world has turned gold and orange, and it is beautiful!!!

That's everything around these parts for this week.