Weekly Review February 24 '17

Let's start with a sunrise:

This week was maybe a little more eventful than last week, but still not a lot going on. We went to the temple Friday night as planned—just to the 7^th floor meeting. As I anticipated, Frank wasn’t up to doing anything else. The meeting was really nice, though, and it is always really sweet to be in the temple with lots of other people I know. Feels like what I imagine the Celestial Kingdom will be like! We were going to have a teen age boy in the ward come stay with Seth while we were gone, but then Sam showed up (we didn’t expect him to come so early) so Sam stayed with him instead.

On Saturday morning we all went to the church to help load up chairs to take to the Stake Center; then we went to the Stake Center and helped set up all the chairs. A few other people from our ward came, and a few from another ward came. It was a pretty small group, but enough to get everything done in a reasonable amount of time. Frank went to the leadership session of Stake Conference that afternoon but by the time he got home from that he was hurting a lot and decided not to go to the adult session on Saturday evening. I did go, and it was really good. We had a member of the seventy visiting—Elder Clay—and he gave a really good talk. I really liked him; he was funny but also got some really great points across. His talk on Saturday night focused on personal revelation, and he basically said that if you are a baptized member with the gift of the Holy Ghost, then you can receive revelation. On Sunday he talked about handling questions and doubts, and he said “if you have a doubt and that’s all you focus on, you will leave the church, guaranteed”. He talked about better ways to handle questions that come up and said that all of our questions will be answered eventually. We all went to the general session on Sunday morning. I was singing in the choir, so I didn’t get to sit with Frank and Seth. Before the meeting started, they had a slide show running on the televisions with pictures from service projects throughout the year and they also had pictures of all the missionaries serving from our stake right now. I had to send pictures of my two boys to the stake executive secretary earlier. Well, since I was singing in the choir and we had practice right before the meeting, I didn’t get to see the slide show. After the meeting ended, I ran back to the cultural hall to watch the slide show and I saw a whole bunch of pictures of the service projects but they turned it off before they got to the missionaries. I was really sad I didn’t get to see that part! Oh, but they did ratify Jared’s ordination as an Elder (although they read his name as “Jared Anthony Cleveland” instead of “Antony”. Wasn’t the first time that’s happened to him and won’t be the last either, I’m sure, though.)  I had choir practice again that night because we are still preparing for the Easter fireside. I have Messiah songs running through my head pretty much all the time, but that’s okay.

Seth was out of school Monday for President’s Day and Tuesday for a teacher work day. Frank had Monday off for President’s Day too. We took Seth to see the new Lego Batman movie, and it was pretty good. Seth loved it, of course, and there were lots of funny parts that adults could appreciate too. There were funny references to all the other Batman movies, and even the old Batman television show from the 60’s. On Tuesday I took Seth to the park for a couple of hours. Our ward has a weekly play group for all the young moms; it’s usually on Wednesday but this week they moved it to Tuesday so that older kids who are normally in school could come too. A couple of the boys Seth’s age came so that was fun for him. This whole week has been pretty nice (feels like spring again) although it was only in the low 50s on Tuesday and a bit windy, so it was a bit on the cold side, but not too bad. Yesterday it got up into the 70s! Felt like April 23^rd, not February 23^rd. I drove around with the windows down and the sun roof open!

Frank had his second cortisone shot on Wednesday morning. I took him to that, since it makes him feel dizzy. He hasn’t been as nauseous this time, but he has been in a lot more pain. His whole neck just hurts a lot. He had planned to work from home Wednesday, which turned out to be a good thing. Yesterday he decided to take the day off. He is still groaning every time he moves; I hate it! I can’t say he just took it easy, though. He still did quite a bit of work for clients and he has also been working on a computer for a lady in our ward all week. She asked Dad on Sunday if he could look at her computer for her because it had been having some problems the last few days. We went over Sunday evening so he could look at it and he left some things running on it that night. Anyway, it turns out her computer has a really bad virus and he will probably have to wipe her hard drive to get rid of it. In the meantime, he got all of her stuff off of her computer and put it on a laptop that we had lying around and gave her that to use. Actually, we’re just going to let her keep it since we don’t need it. If he is able to get her computer working again, her kids can use that one. She came over to pick up the laptop this morning, and she is really grateful. Dad spent a lot of time on it and she offered to pay him but he didn’t charge her anything, because she and her husband just separated and we know money is tight. He has a big soft spot for people in situations like that.

Speaking of laptops, that reminds me that I got a new one this week! Frank needed to buy a couple of laptops for a client and I ended up going with him to buy a new one. (I think that was Tuesday night.) We’ve been talking about getting a new one for me for months because my old one is falling apart. The case is breaking open. We just got the new one set up yesterday, but haven’t had time to get all of my stuff transferred off the old laptop yet, so I am still using the old one. Hopefully by next week I will be using the new one.

Wednesday I went visiting teaching and yesterday I got my hair cut. In between everything else, I have been busy this week working on a Cub Scout slide show for the Blue & Gold Banquet, and wishing I had got that done before Jared left. It would have been a lot easier with his help! I did finally succeed in getting it done, though, and Frank just added the music to it for me last night so it is ready to go. Good thing, since the Blue & Gold Banquet is tonight! (The slide show is just pictures from all of the activities we did this past year in Cub Scouts.) We also made a cake for the banquet last night, although it still needs to be decorated. Technically, Frank is supposed to be helping Seth make the cake but I have a feeling I’ll be doing it since Frank is hurting so much right now. Please continue to keep him in your prayers. Today he went to the data center here in Frederick to work, since it is not so far to drive.

I just heard yesterday that the DC temple is going to be closed next year (March) for extensive renovations and won’t be reopened until 2020! Two years! I am super bummed that it is going to be closed for so long, especially since the next closest temple (Philly) is two and a half hours away. However, when the renovations are done, there will be an open house and the temple will be rededicated. So I am really, really, really happy about that!! That is going to be AWESOME!!! Also, Seth will be old enough by then to go to the dedication. Actually, I hope all of myboys will be able to come to the dedication somehow. I think it is something that everyone should get to experience at least once.

That is all the news from these parts, at least all I can think of for right now, so I will end with a sunset:

Weekly Review February 17 '17

This week was pretty calm without a lot going on, so I’m not sure I’m going to have a lot to write about but I’ll try to think of something interesting to say. Last Friday evening, Frank and I went out to eat. We tried a place we hadn’t been to before, called Moe’s Southwest Grill. It’s a lot like Café Rio, except that the food isn’t nearly as good. So we probably won’t be going back there. I mean, it wasn’t bad food, just not very good either. I had leftovers but when we were leaving I put the container in one hand to open the car door with my other hand and it slipped and hit the ground. The lid popped off and all my food fell out onto the ground. So we scooped it all up and threw it out. At least I didn’t mind losing it too much, since it wasn’t that good! It was nice to get out of the house for a little while, though, and spend some time talking without Seth interrupting us. We talked about how we’d like to do something special for our anniversary (maybe go on a cruise or something?) but Frank needs to be feeling better than he is now before we do any traveling, so we need to wait and see how he’s doing before we make any plans. On that note, the cortisone shot never seemed to make much difference for him, unfortunately. He has a second shot scheduled next week so maybe that one will help. If he gets three shots without results, then they will have to figure out what to do next.

Saturday was fairly busy; Frank took his car in for an oil change and he got a haircut too. We had Seth’s friend Krish over to play for the afternoon and we fed the Sister missionaries dinner that evening. When we went to pick up Frank’s car, we did some shopping too. In between I practiced songs for choir and worked on Cub Scout stuff and taxes and cleaned the kitchen floor., so I was busy most of the day.

Sundays seem to go by so much faster now that we have meetings starting at 11:00 instead of 9:00. That evening I had choir practice and a Cub Scout day camp planning meeting. They overlapped, but they were both at the stake center so I went to choir first and then left early to go to the planning meeting (arriving a bit late for that). We are singing 3 songs at Stake Conference this weekend so we went over those at the practice. I really liked the RS lesson on Sunday from the Gordon B. Hinckley manual; it was about being optimistic. Here’s a quote I particularly liked: “As a missionary in England, Elder Hinckley worked hard to follow his parents’ counsel [to be optimistic]. He and his companion shook hands each morning and told each other, ‘Life is good.’ Almost 70 years later, he suggested that a group of missionaries in the Philippines follow the same practice. “Every day is a great day in my life. I hope every day is a great day in your lives—every one of you. I hope you can get ready to go in the morning and shake the hand of your companion and say, ‘Brother (Sister), life is good. Let’s go out and have a good day.’ And when you come in at night, I hope you can say to one another, ‘It’s been a good day. We’ve had a good time. We’ve helped somebody along the way….We’ll follow up with them and pray and hope that they will come into the Church.’ Every day ought to be a good day in the mission field.”” I really wish I had heard this quote before my mission. I could have used a lot more optimism when I was a missionary!! I spent way too much time and energy worrying, blaming myself when things didn’t go well, and just plain feeling sorry for myself. I would have had a much better experience if I had had a better attitude. I think I have learned since then to do better, though.

I did a lot of reading this week. Remember that 500 page book we’re reading for book chat? I finished it. It was pretty interesting and after reading a bit on Monday I decided that I was going to be really distracted until I finished it, and since I had some time on Tuesday I decided to just finish it. So I did! I made myself get my regular work done first and then I just read most of the afternoon and evening. I enjoyed the book a lot, although I would have liked the ending to be a little more conclusive. I didn’t feel like all the loose ends got tied up, but I guess that’s how real life is, more often than not.

Meanwhile, Tuesday was also Valentine’s Day. I got Frank and Seth cards and chocolate, and Frank got me a card and a beautiful arrangement of red roses and white calla lilies. Seth brought home Valentines from school, too. We had some little vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting as a special treat that night after dinner. I put a card and a small box of chocolates in Jared's suitcase before he left, and I sent cards to Tanner and to Scott. I talked to Scott last night, and he said the Valentine we sent him made him cry! (In a good way.)

Valentine's table;

Wednesday I went to the temple, which took a good part of the day. We have a 7^th floor meeting at the temple tonight (for stake conference) which Frank and I are planning to attend, but Frank doesn’t think he’ll be up to doing an endowment session or anything so I decided to go do an endowment session on Wednesday instead. It was really nice, as always, to be in the temple! I love it!! Afterwards I visited the distribution center briefly and also went to the LDS bookstore to return some books we bought for Jared. (We tried to get the missionary library for him there earlier but they only had 2 of the books. We bought them, thinking we could buy the other 2 online but it turned out we couldn’t buy them separately—only as a set with the 2 books we already had. So I bought the set and then returned the 2 we had already purchased.)

Yesterday I just kept busy with the usual things (grocery shopping, laundry…). I also tried to set up visiting teaching appointments, but I wasn’t able to get in touch with anybody. I’ll keep trying. I told you this week was pretty calm!

Frank has been quite busy still, with work and with his business. He just keeps going, even though he is never out of pain. I appreciate that he works so hard but feel bad that he is doing so much when he doesn’t feel well. I just keep reminding myself that after the first accident he did finally start to feel better in time, and that this time he will feel better too—eventually.  It takes a lot of time, but he’ll get there.

It’s mostly been cold this week; feels a lot more like winter. It was really windy on Sunday night / Monday and we got some rain too. A couple of days this week (including yesterday) I saw a few snow flakes drifting down now and then. In the meantime, I think some of my bulbs are starting to come up already because overall the winter has been so mild. There are green shoots all over the front flower bed. I hope they don’t come up too soon and then die when it freezes again.

Well, I think I have bored you long enough now. I am sorry that there is not much of interest to report. It is nice to have some peace and quiet for a change, but it doesn’t make for very interesting blog posts. To finish up, here's a nice sunrise we had one morning;

Weekly Review February 10 '17

For us, this week has been kind of a roller coaster with Jared leaving and all. Last Friday he went to the temple. We took the Elders in our ward out to dinner that night (because one of them is going home this week) and Jared met us at the restaurant on his way home from the temple. Saturday was kind of my melt down day—Jared had to work in the morning and after he got back from work, some friends had planned a get together with him and he ended up being gone all day until late evening. I told him a few days before that I didn’t want him to be gone all day so I was upset about that—we wanted to spend time with him too, plus we still had several things left to do to get him ready to go. So, I was upset (Frank too), but also didn’t want to spend his last few days arguing with each other, and I was hitting that point where I was realizing that he was really leaving and feeling sad so—emotions were just running pretty high!! But we got through it.

I was actually gone a lot of the day on Saturday too. A guy who used to live in our ward lost a  brother in a horrific car accident a few weeks ago and on Saturday they had a memorial service for his brother. They asked people from our ward if they could help with a luncheon for the family, so I went to help with that. I was told I would be helping to make sandwiches so I didn’t expect to be gone that long, but it turned out we were actually setting up the whole luncheon before the service and helping to serve it after the service, so I ended up being gone for about 5 hours instead of the 1 or 2 I had anticipated. It was okay, though—I didn’t have anything else planned (until after Jared got home) and I wanted to help.

Sunday was a lot calmer than Saturday and we enjoyed being together as a family for church (Sam was here too which was nice). I went to choir practice and everyone else watched the Super Bowl—I watched the second half with them after I got home from practice. I still don’t get why everyone wants to watch the Super Bowl when we aren’t pro football fans at all, but whatever!! It was fun to spend the time together, although I admit it didn’t feel much like Sunday to me anymore.

Monday was super busy since we had to finish everything else that Jared needed to do. He packed his bags and he did pack up some of the things in his room too. (Didn’t have time to go to the storage unit, so they are still sitting in the living room. They are too heavy to move by myself.) He got his hair cut and we made two trips to the store before the day was over, getting last minute things he needed. He got everything to fit in his bags and they were even well under the weight limit, so that was good. That evening we went out to the stake president’s house so that Jared could be set apart. It was really nice and the stake president gave him a great blessing. It was long! After that we stopped to get frozen yogurt on our way home, for family night treat. Jared had a few more things to finish up when we got home and we finally got to bed about 10:30. It was a short night—even shorter for me than everyone else because for some dumb reason I woke up at midnight and couldn’t go back to sleep.

Jared’s flight left at 5:25 am, which meant he had to be at the airport about 3:30, which meant we had to leave here about 2:30 which meant he had to get up about 1:45 to shower and get ready. I was already awake, of course. We didn’t want to leave Seth alone here for 2 hours in the middle of the night, so we got him up and he came with us. We were driving to the airport and Frank kept asking Jared if he had remembered to pack certain things. He asked if Jared had his glasses, and Jared said “of course I do…here, I’ll show you.” He pulled out his glasses case, opened it up, and…no glasses!!! He had packed them on Monday, but then took them out to wear them Monday evening and then left them on his nightstand. Well, we were already about 20 minutes up the road, but we had to turn around and go back because that is one thing he really needed and of course he couldn’t just go to the store and buy some. We also couldn’t send them to him because the Mexico MTC doesn’t accept ANY packages. So that was stressful, but we were able to go back for his glasses and we still made it to the airport by 4:00 am. (One good thing about that time of the day—no traffic!!) When he went down to get his glasses, he discovered that he had left his watch on his nightstand too and he also grabbed a pair of sunglasses. So it was good that he was able to get all of those things. I hope he didn’t forget anything else, but I did find an electric razor on top of the storage cabinet in the bathroom the next day when I was dusting. I’m not sure if it is his or an old one. That would also be a bad thing to forget, but at least a razor can be purchased pretty easily. I guess we’ll find out when he writes next week.

So anyway, we got Jared on his way:

I cried a little bit in the car on the way home, but I did the same thing when I dropped Tanner off and when we dropped Scott off. I’m okay. Jared called us from a pay phone in Houston to let us know he made it that far and then we got an email from him that night letting us know he got to Mexico safely, which hopefully you all saw. His email made me laugh when he talked about it being scary to be in a new country with no way to contact anyone and where he understands hardly any of the language. EXACTLY why I felt a rather high level of anxiety on Tuesday!! It’s pretty scary sending your child into that situation. So it was especially nice that they let him email when he got there. Anyway, after dropping him off, we got back home around 5:00 am and went back to bed. I woke up again at 7:00 am for some reason and was awake for a while, then woke up again around 8:30 and never went back to sleep. So that was a really bad night for sleeping!! To our surprise, Seth woke up all bright eyed at 8:15 so we got him ready for school quickly and Frank took him to school on time. Frank had taken the morning off, but he had meetings in the afternoon so he went in to work for those. I dragged around the house, getting the regular chores done and getting ready for den meeting that evening. I tried taking a nap around 4:00 after Frank and Seth got back home, but for some reason I only slept for about 20 minutes. I made it through den meeting and a cub committee meeting that evening, though, and then Tuesday night I slept like a log all night so Wednesday I felt much more rested.

Frank got a cortisone shot on Wednesday morning; I went with him to the doctor for that. He hasn’t noticed it helping his pain level much yet, although they said it could take 3-5 days before he feels a difference. In the meantime, the shot made him feel kind of dizzy and queasy for a few days. He worked from home on Wednesday but yesterday he put in a full day at work, even though he was still feeling a bit dizzy and queasy. Not fun! Hopefully it will help him feel better eventually though.

Meanwhile, I have been working on some Cub Scout stuff (including meeting with the other den leader to plan), working on our taxes, and I started reading the book chat book. (All the Light We Cannot See)  It’s pretty long (over 500 pages) but it’s fascinating so I don’t think I’m going to have a hard time getting through it. My visiting teachers came to see me last night. This is two months in a row that they have visited me, shared a message, prayed with me AND brought me a treat too. I feel pretty spoiled.

My right eye has been giving me trouble this week. On Saturday when I was coming home from the funeral luncheon, I noticed that my right eye was hurting. When I got home, I looked at it and it was all swollen underneath the outer corner of my eye. It continued to be swollen and sore (worse in the mornings) for the next couple of days. It isn’t sore anymore and the swelling has mostly gone down but I haven’t worn my contact lenses since Saturday. I’m trying to give it plenty of time to heal completely. I don’t know what it was—some kind of infection. That seems to happen to me occasionally. One of these days I really need to go to an eye doctor to try to figure out why I am somewhat prone to eye infections.  

The bi-polar weather has continued here. It’s been mostly warmer than usual and Tuesday and Wednesday were particularly mild. I think we got up into the low 70s both days, or at least into the high 60s. Tuesday was windy too and it still felt completely comfortable and no need for even a jacket. In February—crazy!! In spite of Wednesday being so nice, we had snow predicted for Wednesday night / Thursday morning. We were supposed to get 1 to 3 inches of snow, but it mostly fizzled in our area. We just got a dusting—didn’t even stick to the roads and barely stuck to the grass. That didn’t stop them from deciding to have a 2 hour delay for school on Thursday, though. Ridiculous! We had a few snow flurries throughout the day on Thursday, but nothing that stuck. It was definitely cold again and today is cold and windy but tomorrow we are supposed to be back into the 50s or 60s again. You are not going to hear any complaints from me about that, but Frank, of course, has done ample complaining about the weather this winter. I do wonder what summer is going to be like! Super hot? I hope not.

Yesterday we got a picture of Jared from the MTC. Apparently, a couple in Scott’s ward recently returned from serving in the Mexico MTC. When Scott told them his brother was going there, they said they would talk to someone who is still in the presidency there and get a picture of him to send to Scott. So they did…and Scott sent it on to us. Here it is:

 He looks good to me!! That nametag looks really good on him! It was really nice to get that picture.

I am still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I have TWO missionaries in the field now!! It is awesome, but seems strange to me too.

Weekly Review February 3 '17

This last week went by fast. I am happy that we are in February now! January is not my favorite month. We’ve really been spoiled this winter, though. We have had very few miserably cold days. Of course, we’ve had hardly any snow too. Frank is so sad about that!

Last week when I wrote, we were getting ready to go to the Pinewood Derby. Last year we combined with two other wards for the derby, but this year we did it by ourselves. We only have 10 Cub Scouts in our ward, but it was really nice to do it with a small group. The kids all seemed to have fun and no one seemed upset if their car didn’t do very well. Seth’s car was one of the ones that didn’t do very well, but almost all the cars we’ve made over the years have been duds. This year, I think it was Jared’s fault because when he was putting the first wheel on Seth’s car the wood split on either side of the groove where the wheel goes. I mean, he didn’t do it on purpose, but that meant that wheel didn’t go in quite right and didn’t turn very well. I really think the wheels turning well is more important than anything else (weight of the car, aerodynamics, etc.) Anyway, Seth thought his car looked really cool and he had fun at the derby and he didn’t care at all that he didn’t win anything, so it was fine.

We had a pretty busy weekend. On Saturday Jared and I went to the temple and he got to see a different movie, so that was nice. I mean, it would have been nice anyway! I always enjoy going. Sam came on Saturday afternoon to spend the rest of the weekend with us; he wanted to be here to hear Jared’s talk on Sunday. So yes—Jared spoke on Sunday and he did a great job. His topic was “being a disciple teacher”. All the talks were really good and it was a very uplifting meeting. Jessie and her whole family came to hear Jared speak also, which I thought was really nice. I didn’t have choir practice that night because there was a stake youth fireside but I have it every Sunday from here on out until the beginning of April! Jared went to the fireside even though technically he’s not a “youth” anymore—I think he just wanted to see friends and socialize mostly, although he said the meeting was really good too.

We fed the Sister missionaries on Monday. This week has been fairly quiet without a lot going on other than we’ve been trying to wrap up all the odds and ends of things Jared needs to do to be ready to go in a few more days. Since I wasn’t swamped, I also started a few other projects. One is a Cub Scout slide show for the Blue & Gold Banquet, which will be at the end of this month. My main motivation for starting that now is that I’m not sure how to work the program but Jared does, so I wanted to get it started before he leaves. If I can ask him questions and work out the bugs, I think I’ll be able to finish it without him here. I also started working on our income tax return, which seems to get more complicated and take more time every year! But I am making progress.

Jared has had a fairly busy week. Besides working on mission stuff, he also went to one of Jessie’s swim meets on Tuesday. He worked on Wednesday and he’ll be working again tomorrow. He also went to his high school on Wednesday and again today to help his former theater teacher teach some technical theater stuff—he’s supposed to get paid for that. He is at the school now but will be home soon and then he is going to go to the temple. He has NOT done any packing in his room yet and I’m afraid he is going to run out of time to get that done which means I get to do it after he leaves. I ended up doing that for both Scott and Tanner after they left.

I had book chat last night. Since we started meeting in the evening, we have been having one person bring dessert instead of doing a potluck lunch like we used to do. But over the years we have developed this tradition to have fondue for our February meeting, so this time we still had fondue. One of the book club members always makes cheese and chocolate fondue and the rest of us bring things to dip in them (fruits, cake, pretzels, bread, kielbasa, vegetables, etc). It’s always really yummy!! We discussed the book A Man Called Ove, which is really good--if you haven't read it, you should! Now we are going to read a book called All the Light We Cannot See. I put it on hold at the library last night so hopefully I will get it soon.

Frank has had a very busy week. He continues to have a lot of things to do for clients, but he has also been very busy at his regular job. He has got home pretty late a couple of nights this week. The reason he is so busy at Marriott is because while he was out on leave, some of the people who were supposed to be working on some of his projects didn’t get anything done on them. So now he is trying to get those projects caught up. He did get one of them finished up this week. I haven't noticed him being in as much pain this week, but I'm not sure if that is because he is feeling better than he was last week or if he just hasn't been around as much. He's scheduled for his first cortisone shot on Wednesday and I hope that will help him a lot.

We have Sam coming to stay this weekend again—so that he can see Jared one more time before he goes. I am excited for Jared and mostly happy that he is going but I am also trying to ignore the twinges in my heart when I realize that he probably really won’t live at home ever again after this. I mean, he’ll be here to visit in between college semesters and such, but that’s probably it. When I realize that all three of myolder boys are mostly at that stage, it makes me feel kind of sad. I’m not sure how we got to this point! I am so proud of all three of them and I love seeing the great young men they have become. I really wouldn’t trade! But I do wish that they could all move into houses on the same street with us or something! J

I can’t believe I forgot to mention last week that the new Super Wal-Mart near us opened last Wednesday! I mean that is so exciting, right?! I actually do the Wal-Mart shopping on Wednesday every week, so it was convenient for me. On the first day they had free samples of food and a big cake and such (I skipped the cake though—wasn’t really feeling it at 10:00 am). The new store is huge and clean and even more exciting—they have brand new shopping carts! I thought they’d just bring over all the old ones from the old store, but they didn’t. The wheels run perfectly smoothly with no clunking or anything…such a luxury! J I don’t like the layout of the new store as well as the old one, though. It’s nice that it’s bigger and has more selection, but the sections I need to use the most are spread out all over the store instead of right next to each other like they were in the old store. That’s progress, I guess! I’m currently just trying to memorize where everything is located in the new store so that I don’t have to go back and forth looking for things.

I have started to learn how to play the ukulele. Jared has one, and he put an app on my phone that has a series of basic ukulele lessons on it so I can keep working on it after he’s gone. I would like to have Seth learn how to play too. I’ve only done one lesson so far so I’m not proceeding very quickly, but the one lesson was pretty fun.

I’ve been having some issues with vertigo the last few weeks. It’s nothing to worry about…it’s happened to me before and I know what causes it, and it’s nothing serious. It’s kind of come and gone a lot over the last few weeks, but on Sunday morning things were really spinning and I even started to feel nauseated! So I said a prayer that I would feel better because I really wanted to enjoy Jared’s talk, and the vertigo went away for the rest of the day. I’ve had a few issues with it this week, but not much and nothing that made me feel sick. I just have some exercises I need to keep doing and it will go away eventually.

This is another short one, but that is everything that has been going on around here. Here's a funny picture I took of Seth earlier this week. I guess he is getting ready for summer!!

Weekly Review January 27 '17

Wow, January is almost over already! It hasn’t felt much like January a lot of this month. We are having a fairly mild winter this year. A couple of days this week, it felt more like March than January but today it is cold again and I hear we are supposed to have “below average” temperatures all the way into next week. Oh! We did have some winter weather on Monday. Out of the blue we got freezing rain / sleet late on Monday afternoon. It really came down for a while and we had this slushy snow-like stuff accumulating on the cars and lawns. It just so happened that I was driving right then, too—how fun! We got home without any mishaps, though. It has mostly been cloudy and gloomy for weeks, in spite of the warmish temperatures but we did get a few sunny days this week. I was pretty happy about that! I don’t do well without sunshine. I start to get pretty depressed.

I have been healthier this week than last week. I felt a lot better on Saturday and by Sunday I was practically back to normal. I started taking Melatonin this week so I’ve been sleeping better too. I had kind of an ADD day on Saturday. I kept getting distracted and doing things I hadn’t planned to do instead of the things I had planned to do. I did get a lot done, just not the things on my list! We had the Sister missionaries over for dinner. On Sunday I substituted a Primary class—the 5 and 6 year olds. They were pretty good and I enjoyed being in Primary. It’s fun to do that once in a while. Jared has helped substitute in Primary every week since he’s been back, except last Sunday. I guess we are taking turns. I’m trying to adjust to having church at 11:00 instead of 9:00. I do enjoy not having to get up quite so early, but the time I have to do things after church seems so much shorter! The day just goes by really fast. I was watching more home movies on Sunday afternoon and Jared and Seth were watching with me. I had a choir practice that night (a stake choir practice—we are going to have an Easter program) and I was really surprised when I got back from my hour and a half practice to discover that Seth was still watching home movies!! I didn’t think they would interest him that much but he loved them.

Seth didn’t have school again on Monday. This time it was a teacher work day, since the term just ended on Friday. We are officially half way through the school year! It has gone by fast. Jared had to work that afternoon and since there was an open jump while he was there, I was able to get Seth in for free. He enjoyed playing on the inflatables and a couple of families from our ward were there too so he had other kids to play with. He had a good time. The freezing rain / sleet started coming down right before we left there to come back home.

Tuesday was busy because I had visiting teaching in the morning and Jared had a dentist appointment in the afternoon. While Jared got his fillings done, I went to visit my friend Wanda for a while. She is still happy in the new place and they are even helping her walk with a walker a little bit. They did have a bad stomach virus go through everyone there and Wanda said she had been sick twice since Christmas. As a matter of fact, the day I went to visit her was the first day they were letting visitors back in, so that was fortunate timing! Seth had a busy day at school that day too—his class had a field trip to the Natural History Museum (Smithsonian). He enjoyed seeing the dinosaur bones, Hope diamond, etc. Frank had his follow up on his MRI on Tuesday also. He has two herniated discs in his neck which are bulging and inflamed…they are affecting two of his vertebrae, and that is what is causing all the pain in his back, neck and shoulder. The treatment for this is cortisone shots. If that doesn’t help, then he will have to have surgery. He went to the specialist who does the cortisone shots yesterday and that doctor agreed that he needs to get cortisone shots and see what happens. We scheduled his first shot, but it isn’t for another couple of weeks. The specialist was also concerned that his shoulder hurts and he said if the cortisone shots don’t help his shoulder feel better then he will want to get an MRI done of his shoulder as well. Goodness!! We call this the “accident that keeps on giving”. But we are hopeful that the cortisone shots will help and that he won’t need surgery or further treatment. Please keep him in your prayers!

Seth and I didn’t have den meeting on Tuesday because we have the Pinewood Derby tonight. It was nice to stay home that evening for a change! Jared has been helping Seth get his car made; once again he didn’t want to cut it at all—it’s still a block shape. They painted it to look like Master Chief’s cryo tube. (Yeah, I don't know what that is either. Video game related!) It looks pretty cool; I will include pictures in next week's post. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on Wednesday or Thursday other than my visiting teachers came to see me last night. I have had very few visits from visiting teachers in the last 4 or 5 years, so I really appreciate that these ones are coming! Jared and I have just been working really hard this week to get everything ready for his mission. We did get a lot done…a lot of things are checked off the list now. Jared’s suit coat came in and it fits this time, thankfully, We ordered a few more things which should be here in a few days. We bought him an iPod shuffle for his music; he also needs to download the Book of Mormon in Spanish and the last General Conference talks in Spanish to put on there.  We finally got the packet sent off to his mission and we made a lot of copies of things he needs to take with him and I got his white pants hemmed. He will be speaking in Sacrament Meeting this Sunday because next Sunday is fast Sunday. Jared also finished all the stuff he needed to do on the missionary portal. The main thing we have left to do is purchase his bike. Then all he has left is marking all his belongings and PACKING!! It’s hard to believe he’ll be gone in less than 2 weeks. I’m glad we are almost done with all the preparation things, but I will miss him after he’s gone.

I’m sorry that this week’s post is pretty short, but I can’t think of anything else to tell you about. I have to go get a few things ready for the Pinewood Derby now.

Weekly Review January 20 '17

I just want to say that 24 Hour Sudafed is great. That is what is enabling me to sit upright and feel fairly human today—I took one last night. You’ll remember I had a bit of a scratchy throat and headache when I wrote my post last Friday. The sore throat kind of hung around for several days and I didn’t feel my best, but didn’t feel really terrible either. Then on Wednesday the congestion suddenly got worse and my nose started to run…you know, when you go through a whole box of Kleenex tissues in one day, and they start to feel like sandpaper? Yeah, that was Wednesday. Yesterday was not quite as bad but still not great. Today my nose isn’t running anymore. At least, not much. I still have a slight sore throat and headache. But it is manageable. I’m hoping I’m on the tail end of this thing now.

I didn’t have an incredibly productive week since I haven’t been feeling my best, but I got a few things done. Frank has been super busy—work for clients as well as a lot of meetings and some late days at work. He got home pretty late last night because of a meeting but he said it went great and he and his team got a lot of praise for a project they’ve been working on, so that was good to hear. He was off work on Monday for MLK Day but he was gone almost all day because he drove down to one of his clients to do some work and then had to do more work for another client on his way back. His cold / sinus thing seems to have gone away thankfully but he’s very tired. His knee continues to hurt quite a bit, as well as his back. Every time I hear him going up or down stairs, I feel like we need to start looking for a 1 story house! He says this is only temporary, and hopefully it is, but I am still feeling like we need to start looking into possibilities. Even though his knee will probably improve, neither one of us is getting any younger. His knee may cause him at least a little bit of trouble for the rest of his life, and maybe somewhere up the road I won’t want to be going up and down stairs either. Frank had his MRI on his back on Wednesday. He has an appointment with the orthopedic doctor on Tuesday where he will find out the results of that. I’m really hoping they will be able to do something to help him so that his level of pain will diminish.

I have not been sleeping very well lately, which has not contributed to my productivity. I keep waking up in the early hours of the morning (1:00 ish) and staying awake for 2 or 3 hours. Not very fun! I did that last night as well as the night before. At least last night I wasn’t feeling miserably sick and blowing my nose constantly, which is what I was doing the night before.

Okay, this post is sounding totally depressing!! Life really isn’t that bad. J We are mostly happy! We had Sam come stay with us over the weekend. He arrived Friday evening and stayed until late afternoon on Monday. (He had MLK Day off work too.) We didn’t do anything special, but we enjoyed having him here. Jared and I picked up his suit that we ordered and his new glasses because they both came in. Saturday was Frank’s birthday, of course. He got a few presents and that evening he and I went out to dinner. He had to go to a store near his work to buy some computers for a couple of clients, so we did that first and then went to eat at a place near his work called Copper Canyon. It was a little more upscale than the basic chain restaurant (Olive Garden etc) and we enjoyed it. The food was really good. We were at a table by the windows that looked out on a little lake. It was a nice view, even though it was raining. We were supposed to get snow on Saturday, but we got cold rain instead. Anyway, we had a nice dinner and we were talking about where we are at in life and realizing how blessed we are. Things are a lot better for us than we would have anticipated at this point in our lives. We are grateful!!

Sunday was pretty relaxing for most of us, but Frank had meetings before and after church, so he was pretty wiped out. Jared was going to wear his new suit but when he put the coat on we realized that it was the wrong size (too small, especially in the sleeves). He did wear the pants and they look really nice and fit great. That evening we had cheesecake for Frank’s birthday; it was yummy! 

We also had family night. On Monday Jared worked most of the day and as I mentioned, Frank was gone too. Seth, Sam and I hung out. I got laundry done and stuff like that and also got things ready for den meeting the next day. I had some free time and I got out our old home movies and watched some of them. My boys were so cute!!!! Sometimes it’s crazy to me to realize how grown up they’ve all become. It really doesn’t seem like that long ago that they were little.

On Tuesday I realized that I needed to buy a few things for den meetings and we needed to return Jared’s suit coat and order a different size so we both went to the mall and took care of his suit coat (the new one should be here this week) and then we went to Wal-Mart to get the things I needed for den meeting and we did the weekly shopping while we were there (I normally do that on Wednesday). That turned out to be a really good thing since I felt a lot worse on Wednesday so it was nice that I didn’t have as much to do. It made Tuesday quite busy, but I got everything done that needed to be done. Jared came with me to den meeting that evening to help with building wood boxes. I’m really glad he was there—I really couldn’t have done it without him. Only 3 of the 5 boys came, which on the one hand is frustrating because now two of them are behind on the wood project but on the other hand it was good because it allowed us to give more attention to the 3 boys who came. Plus, we discovered after we got there that we only had one good screwdriver (we had forgotten that Frank needed to use one of the screwdrivers we had put in the box to take with us and it never made it back into the box) so they had to take turns with the screwdriver and that was difficult with 3 boys so 5 boys taking turns would have been a lot worse. We did manage to assemble the boxes and they started sanding them. Next time they will finish sanding and paint!

On Wednesday I tried to take it easy, but I did have a few things to do. I went through Jared’s mission call packet as well as the packet of things we got from his mission and made a list of EVERYTHING we still need to do before he leaves. It’s a pretty long list, but most of them are little things. I had lunch / visiting teaching that afternoon and I went even though I wasn’t feeling great because I didn’t want to reschedule visiting teaching. It was nice and since I took some medicine before I left, I didn’t feel too bad. We went to this Vietnamese place and I got some soup. It was good, but you need a tutorial to figure out how to eat it!! That’s because it had tons of really long noodles and these very thin but very large slices of chicken in it. Nothing was bite sized, and I had a fork, a funny spoon, and chop sticks. No knife. Even if I had a knife, the bowl was steep without much of a bottom so there really wasn’t any way to cut things up. I can’t use chopsticks to save my life. So, I managed to twirl some of the noodles around my fork to eat some of them but really—it was difficult! I ended up bringing most of the soup home. I ate some of it yesterday, after cutting up the noodles and chicken into manageable sizes! Meanwhile, Jared was gone most of the day—he went to the temple with another man in our ward. That’s the third time he has gone to the temple, and he says he’s seen the same movie all three times! That evening we had the Elders over for dinner. Jared went to Jessie’s swim meet.

Yesterday I also tried to take it easy as much as I could. I had an appointment in the afternoon to get my hair cut, though, and I didn’t want to change that. Jared had to work that afternoon…that was Frank’s day that he was at a meeting late, and it worked out that he was able to pick Jared up from work on his way home. So I did have a pretty relaxing evening with just Seth here, which was nice. I’ve done quite a bit of reading while I’ve been “resting” this week, and I read two books and started a third one. They are children’s books (Newberry winners) so easy and quick reads.

Today Frank had organized an “Elders Quorum” lunch (wives and High Priests were invited as well) at Noodles & Co. I decided to go because I wasn’t feeling too bad and he also thought some of the wives would come. It turns out I was the only female there, but it was still okay. A lot of people had said they were coming but almost everyone must have had a change of plans because it was just Frank, Jared, and I plus one other guy. We still enjoyed ourselves, though. Tonight Jared is going to the temple again…he is going to do a session and then he is helping with our ward’s youth baptism trip. 

I can't think of anything else to tell you about, so I guess that's it!

Weekly Review January 13 '17

I guess I did jinx us when I said last week that we’ve all been healthy because Frank has not been feeling very well this week…he’s congested and his voice dropped a couple of octaves like it does when he’s sick. He hasn’t been really miserable or in bed sick, though. He’s been able to manage his symptoms with medicine and he went to work as usual all week and his voice is actually better now than it was. Meanwhile, I started getting a headache and slight sore throat on Wednesday. It magically went away yesterday during the day but the scratchy throat returned last night and today I am trying to ignore the fact that my head hurts, my nose is starting to run, and my head still aches. I’m not doing a very good job, though. Hopefully it won’t turn into anything really bad and I’ll feel better soon.

The weather has been bi-polar this week. Saturday, Sunday and Monday were super cold (highs in the 20s) and sometimes windy too. Tuesday was not quite as cold (high in the 30s) but we got freezing rain that night and we had another 2 hour delay on Wednesday morning. It was warmer on Wednesday, though, and we got regular rain too and the temperatures went up into the low 50s. On Thursday, spring appeared to arrive and the high for the day was 66 degrees! I thought it was wonderful and Frank thought it was disgusting! Never fear, though, today the high is 55 (still pretty pleasant) but tonight it is supposed to drop back down into the 30s and we are supposed to get snow overnight and into the day tomorrow. Happy Birthday to Frank!! One bad thing about the weather flip flopping, though, is that Frank’s knee hurts more when the weather changes and so that means his knee has been hurting fairly constantly this week.

Last Saturday I did mostly Cub Scout stuff—helping Seth do some of the things he needed to do as well as planning. I had just made some comment about being glad I didn’t have to go anywhere since it was miserably cold when the Sister missionaries called and wanted to know if they could get a ride back home from an investigator’s house. So of course I went and got them since I didn’t want them to have to walk a long ways in the cold.

Sunday was really good. I just re-read a Conference talk about true worship this week and I feel like that has been happening to me more lately. All the talks and lessons have been so good lately, and I’ve really felt the spirit while at church. We just started the lessons from the Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley book, and I was reminded how much I love President Hinckley!! He had a way of explaining gospel principles that just makes so much sense to me and is so profound. I can just hear his voice while I read his words. I’m really excited to study his teachings this year. Also, I have a new favorite scripture from this week’s Sunday School lesson: D&C 45:3-5. We read that scripture in class and for a few minutes, I could really imagine the Savior doing that for me—pleading my cause, being my advocate. It’s a hard moment to describe, but it was sweet. Also, read D&C 34:1-6. You will love it!

We have church at 11:00 now and I like it because I have that extra hour or two in the morning before church that I can read the scriptures and the lessons for the day. It’s really nice. On Sunday evening I had to go out in the cold again because we had a meeting to start planning the stake’s Cub Scout Day Camp for this summer. It was only a small group who showed up, but we decided on what dates for the day camp and the place and the theme, so we got a lot accomplished. We’re going to have a Pioneer theme this year and I think it’s going to be awesome!

Monday was really busy because I took Jared to the dentist and to the eye doctor. He has two cavities so he has to go back in a few weeks to get those filled. At the eye doctor, we ordered new glasses for him and he has a new prescription for contact lenses too. We need to order those soon. That morning he got up early to go do some service—helped set up tables and chairs for a free medical clinic that a local charity called The Mission of Mercy was having at a local church (not one of ours). Our ward and another ward were supposed to provide volunteers, but the other ward skipped out on us so when it was time to go back that afternoon to take everything down, I went to help too. (Frank said he would just have to go help, but I told him no way!!) We had to be there right after I picked up Seth from school so he came too and he helped wipe down some of the tables. When we got there, we discovered that there were still a lot of people waiting to be seen so we had to kind of work around things and take down tables and chairs as they finished with them. We still got done in about an hour. I noticed that the guy from Mission of Mercy who was in charge of getting things taken down spoke Spanish to a lady who was there so I told him Jared was going to be learning Spanish soon and it turns out that this guy actually lived in McAllen Texas for a few years! That was kind of cool. It was good to do that service because I found myself reflecting on how blessed we are to have good health insurance and financial security. So many of those people waiting to be seen had kind of a defeated look about them. It must be hard to rely on free medical clinics for your health care needs!

On Tuesday I did some online shopping for Frank’s birthday and for Jared’s mission stuff, and got ready for that evening’s den meeting. It looked for a while like we might not have den meeting since freezing rain was in the forecast and the school system cancelled all their activities after 5:00 pm, but since it looked like the freezing rain wasn’t coming in until later in the evening we did have den meeting and there were no problems with the weather. The rain started to come down just as we were leaving the church so we got home before the roads were bad. For den meeting we didn’t do any building—we’ll start that next week. I gave them time to work on the designs for their Pinewood Derby cars and we talked about the materials they were going to use for their cars and for their other project, which will be a shelf / shadow box. One of the counselors in the bishopric has a lot of scrap wood he is letting us use and he even offered to cut the pieces for us ahead of time, so that is going to help a lot! We also watched a video on how to make the boxes, just to give them an idea of what they will be doing.

Jared had an appointment to get a flu shot on Wednesday morning. I thought he was going to get a meningitis booster as well, but when we got there they checked his records and said he had already had that done a few years ago so he only had to get one shot. He wasn’t disappointed about that! After taking Seth to school (that was the morning he had a 2 hour delay) Jared and I went to Wal-Mart to get a bunch of things on his list for his mission. We also had the regular grocery shopping to do and the place was crowded with long lines, so it took a long time to get all of that done. We went to the Super WalMart on the other side of Frederick because the WalMart near us is closing in a few weeks and a lot of things are out of stock. The new Super Wal-Mart that will replace it doesn’t open until the 25^th (the day after the current store closes). Anyway, it took us longer to get everything we needed because I don’t know my way around that Wal-Mart nearly so well. I’ll be glad when the new one opens and I’ve learned my way around it! We stopped at Costco after that to grab a couple of things and by the time we got home and put everything away it was almost time to go pick up Seth. I wasn’t feeling very well by then either so I spent the evening relaxing.

As I mentioned before, I felt a lot better on Thursday and that was a good thing because we had planned to go to the temple that day. I had a lot to do besides the temple trip, but I want Jared to be able to go as often as possible before he leaves and of course it’s important for me to go, too! As usual, the traffic was bad and we got to the temple shortly after 10:00 so had to wait nearly an hour for the next session. However, Jared needed to get some more garments and we wanted to get him some temple clothes too so we were able to do all that before the session started so that worked out well. After the session, we sat in the Celestial Room for probably 30 minutes talking about various things we noticed / learned and I also ended up explaining more about sealings to Jared so we went up to the 6^th floor so he could see the sealing rooms too. By the time we changed and left the temple, I was shocked to discover that it was nearly 2:00!! How did that happen?? We still needed to go to the LDS bookstore to get some books Jared needs for his mission (they were out of 2 of the ones he needed, though, which was frustrating) and we were starving by then too so we stopped to get some lunch. We ended up picking Seth up on our way back home, and then stopping at the grocery store since I needed to get a few groceries too. We didn’t get home until about 4:15 so that was a long day! It was funny, though—after I got home I managed to get all the other things done I needed to do except for folding the laundry, which I did this morning. It seems like when I take the time to go to the temple, everything else gets done somehow! I really enjoyed being in the temple, too. I always love being there, but being there with one of my boys makes it that much better. I also noticed that once I got there, I wasn’t so worried about all the other things I needed to do that day. I suddenly lost all desire to rush and I just wanted to take my time and enjoy the feeling of being there. It was wonderful!

On Thursday evening there was a RS meeting and I almost didn’t go but I did and I’m glad I went. It always uplifts and strengthens me to spend time with other women of faith. For this meeting, we met together with another ward and they had invited people from a couple of local service organizations to come tell us about their organizations and what service opportunities they have available for volunteers. It was actually really interesting and I found out about one place here in Frederick that offers financial help like free tax preparation and budget coaching. I am really interested in finding out more about volunteering there. It’s too late this year for me to sign up to help with tax preparation because I have to take a fairly extensive training course to do that, but I could sign up to be a budget coach. I’m going to look into that, I think. I know most people would think I am crazy to want to do something like that but for some inexplicable reason, I just really enjoy financial stuff and I know that your finances can have a big impact on all aspects of your life. If you don’t know how to manage them wisely, you can really make yourself miserable! So I get excited about the idea of helping people get in control of  their finances. It’s something that can be life changing.

Last night I didn’t sleep very well so I got up pretty late today and as I mentioned I’m not feeling great so I’ve been trying to take it easy as much as possible. I’ve been trying to get through my list of things to do for the day but I haven’t made much progress yet besides getting the laundry folded and writing to Tanner. Oh, and I re-read a great Conference talk today about being a righteous judge. Amazing! I’m really not sure where today has gone, though! I did leave early to pick up Seth from school—besides the fact that he gets out an hour earlier on Fridays, his class (and all of the other Upper Elementary classes and the Middle School class) had a music concert today a half hour before dismissal which he really wanted me to come to, so I went to that too. It was pretty good, actually. Each class played a song that they had composed themselves, using several instruments. I was kind of impressed!

Frank has had a busy week doing maintenance and other tasks for clients. He also had another appointment with the foot doctor (yesterday) but his foot is doing much better and he doesn’t have to go back unless he has more problems. He got some new special shoes with inserts last week that have been helping with his feet, too. He went to the orthopedic doctor on Wednesday evening and that doctor can’t figure out what is going on with his back, so he is scheduled for an MRI on his back this coming Wednesday. Hopefully they’ll know more after that. It will be nice if they can find something that is treatable (and hopefully easily treatable!) so that he can start feeling a lot better. In the meantime, the doctor prescribed three different medications for him to take which help with the back somewhat but also make him feel dizzy and nauseous, so that is not much fun.

Jared is working on mission preparations. With all the shopping we did this week, we are almost through his entire list of things to buy but we still have lots of things to do like get his driving record and copy his immunization records and so forth. We also got an email from his mission this week with a pretty long list of things he / we need to do as well as a whole lot of information about his mission. The attachment they sent us is pages and pages long and includes a large booklet on bike safety that he has to read because he’s going to be tested on it when he gets there! It turns out that about 5 years ago, 2 missionaries in his mission were killed when they were hit by a car while riding their bikes. It really wasn’t their fault (the car was passing another car and pulled into their lane and hit them head-on), but still—you can tell they are pretty anxious about bike safety in his mission. The booklet lists several possible accident scenarios (they even have names like "The Crosswalk Slam" and "The Red Light of Death") and how you can avoid them. I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel about that! I mean, it’s good that they are helping the missionaries be so aware of bike safety and ways that they can protect themselves, but I never knew there were so many ways to get hit by a car while riding a bike! Wow, I feel so confident that my son is going to be out there on the roads on a bicycle after reading all of that! (Not to mention I have another son out there on a bicycle right now!) We did learn some other things about his mission like a) more bikes get stolen in his mission than any other (oh joy!), b) everyone in the mission (including Sisters) rides their bike all day on Saturdays, and c) EVERY missionary in the mission learns Spanish, and they all have to be prepared to teach all the discussions in either Spanish or English. It is the only “bi-lingual” mission in the whole church. It said that at any given time, 75% of the missionaries in the mission are assigned to Spanish speaking areas, while 25% are assigned to English speaking areas. So Jared will probably teach in both languages at different times during his mission, depending on what area he is assigned to. I think that is pretty cool!!

Jared is also working again. He contacted his old job to let them know he is back in town and they put him on the schedule starting today. As a matter of fact, that is where he is now—at work. He has been trying to figure out how to apply to work for the school system also because his high school theater teacher has some work he needs done that Jared could do and get paid for it, but he has to be a school system employee first. He has been trying to find that application to fill out but he keeps getting the run around—first they told him it was available online (but he couldn’t find it), then they told him he could pick up a paper copy at the office, but when he tried to do that  they told him it is only available online. Never mind that someone from the same office told him an hour earlier that it was only available on paper at their office and he could come pick it up there. Hopefully he’ll figure it out soon. It would be nice for him to earn some money before he goes.

That is all the news we have this week. Sorry no pictures this time!