Weekly Review December 8 '17

I don't think this week's post will be super long either. We are keeping very busy, though! I am going to do categories again this week.

Weather: It's starting to feel a lot more like winter. No more 50s and 60s! It is actually really cold today. We've had a lot of cloudy days too and we might even get some snow tonight and tomorrow. Thankfully, the new coat I ordered also arrived this week and it is super warm. I love it!

Temple: Last Friday Frank, Jared and I were able to go to the temple. (We hired a boy in our ward to come stay with Seth while we were gone.) It was our stake temple day, and we had a special meeting in the large room on the 7th floor. This is the very last time we will ever do that because there aren't going to be any meetings like that anymore. It was a very good meeting and I'm glad Jared got to go to one. After the meeting Frank went home because his back was hurting a lot. Jared and I stayed and went to a session, which was completely full with people from our stake. I was sitting on the very back row, so it took a while to get through the session but it was very nice to be there. Jared got to speak Spanish with a couple of people too, which he enjoyed. The temple grounds are all decorated for Christmas and it is beautiful!!

Jared: He is doing pretty well but I think this week was a little hard for him. He mentioned that he felt like he had been home a lot longer than 2 weeks (earlier this week; now he's been home for 3 weeks exactly). I know what he means--to me, it feels like he's been home for months, not weeks. I think the initial excitement of getting to see us again has worn off now and he is missing his mission more. He also mentioned that he doesn't feel like he is doing anything really important right now, and he's not used to that. So please keep him in your prayers. Jared is keeping pretty busy. He worked every day this week except for Tuesday. He was scheduled to work Tuesday also but he called in sick. He's had a mild sinus / congestion illness ever since he got home (actually he was sick before he left his mission) and I think the long hours of working were starting to get to him. He wasn't incredibly sick, I think he just needed some time to recuperate both physically and emotionally. He has been a lot better since then, although he is always tired after being on his feet all day at work. He worked two "opening" shifts this week, which means he had to be at work at 5:30 am. He got his first paycheck yesterday and he was happy about that. Jared is definitely going to go back to school in January. He got signed up for classes, he found a place to live, and we bought him a plane ticket. So he is going!! I think that it will be really good for him to go back to school so I am glad he is going although of course I'll miss him. He and Tanner will be flying back to Utah together on January 4th; school starts on January 8th for both of them. This week Jared went to Institute again. He has also been asked to help the Seminary students prepare a musical number for the Christmas program so he went to Seminary this morning (before work) to work on that with them. On Monday he went to both the dentist and the orthodontist (after work). He had to get a new retainer made because his old one had a crack in it. A guy in our ward took him to dinner on Wednesday night, which he enjoyed.

Seth: He started the next session of swimming lessons on Saturday. It is a shorter session--only 3 weeks instead of 6. He will start another 6 week session after Christmas. I decided to move his lessons to Saturday mornings instead of Wednesday evenings because I wanted to see if being on his medicine for his lessons would make a difference. (His medicine wears off by evening.) So far, I would say it definitely helps. He seemed to be a lot more focused and cooperative for his lesson on Saturday. He started putting his face in the water a lot more and by the end of the lesson he was gliding across the pool on both his front and his back. Floating on his front was really the only skill he had left to do on level 2, so they bumped him up to level 3 and he can start using goggles now too. So we are pleased that he made so much progress in just one lesson! He has his second lesson tomorrow; we'll see how that goes. Seth gave a talk on Sunday in Primary. The Primary kids are going to do a live nativity for our ward Christmas party next week and Seth has been asked to be one of the three wise men. I have to figure out some sort of costume for him by next week.

Christmas preparations: I made a lot of progress on Christmas prep this week. I got most of the Christmas cards addressed and mailed. (Still waiting on a few addresses.) I also mailed packages to Scott, Tanner, my parents, and Frank's parents. Scott is not going to be able to come home for Christmas (bummer!) so I mailed his presents. Tanner is coming home, but I mailed him his Christmas pillowcase and some buckeye candy because he loves those. I did a lot more shopping and I am mostly done although not completely. (Shopping included an exhaustive search for chocolate oranges which was finally successful.) I wrapped everything I have purchased so far! I worked on our 12 Days of Christmas service project. We finally got the tree and other decorations put up this week too. I planned to do that on Saturday, but we ended up being really busy that day and didn't get anything done other than going to the storage unit to get the decorations out. Jared put the tree up on Tuesday and on Wednesday I put on all the ornaments and got the rest of the decorations put up too.

Renata: She needed help getting her outside lights put up so we asked the missionaries to help. I went over to her house on Tuesday afternoon with 3 sets of missionaries, and we got all the outside lights put up in a little over an hour. She was grateful!:

My phone: It's acting up again. I'm getting parts of text messages or missing them completely. Frank also called my phone today and it didn't ring. So it looks like I will be getting a new phone for Christmas, whether I want one or not.

Baptisms: Remember the investigator couple who got married a few weeks ago? On Saturday, the husband got baptized. It was a very lovely baptism. Tomorrow his wife will be getting baptized.

Yard work: Our lawn became completely covered with leaves a few weeks ago and I kept looking at it and thinking that I needed to rake it, but didn't have enough time. Frank and I have been discussing the idea of getting a leaf blower to make that job easier, since Frank can't really do it and it is a lot of work for me to do it alone (most of the time I won't have Jared or any of the older boys here to help). So on Saturday we went to look at leaf blowers and found out they aren't terribly expensive, so we got one. Then we took care of all the leaves in the yard! (Frank helped, although he shouldn't have--he paid for that later.) It was definitely easier with the leaf blower / mulcher, but it was still a decent amount of work. We barely finished in time to change and go to the baptism. One of our friends in our ward brought us a snow blower on Saturday too so our new shed is pretty full now.

Self Reliance Group: We had our next to last meeting on Sunday and it went well. For this Sunday's meeting, each group member will be doing a 5 minute presentation about their business. We have invited a few guest business professionals to attend to give them feedback. We are also going to have refreshments.

Caroling: On Sunday afternoon, we all went caroling with our bishop's family and a couple of other families in the ward. The bishop wanted to deliver a gift from the ward to several single sisters in the ward, so members of the ward council and their families were divided into groups to go caroling and deliver the gifts. Our group went to 6 different sisters' houses and we actually found all 6 of them at home and all 6 of them seemed to really appreciate our visit. It was a lot of fun. Sunday was especially crazy, though, since we barely had time to eat in between church and caroling. Then I went right to choir after caroling (I was actually pretty late because caroling took longer than expected) and straight from choir to my self reliance group meeting. Then I got home just in time for the First Presidency Christmas Devotional! So yes--that day was packed.

Cub Scouts: We had den meeting on Tuesday and I have 2 Bears now because one of the younger boys turned 9 in November. I started working on a new adventure with them called "Roaring Laughter" and it was fun.

Frank: He had a busy week. In addition to working full time and doing work for clients, he also had his monthly PPI with the bishop, had an EQ presidency meeting, and did some visits. His back, shoulder, neck, and knee have all been bothering him a lot more the last few weeks. Hopefully it's just the change in the weather and he'll adjust soon. It looks like we are getting close to getting the settlement for his accident, which will help with getting caught up on all the medical bills but sadly will not take away his pain.

Service: I've been trying to participate in the Light the World program this month but I haven't been doing very well--at least, not at doing service that fits the theme for each day. However, once again I am noticing that I have opportunities for service pretty frequently. (This week: caroling, hanging lights, gave a ride to someone, etc.) I also signed up to help with babysitting for a RS temple trip this week. That was on Thursday, and I expected to be at the church babysitting most of the day. As it turned out, though, all of the women who had signed up to go ended up not being able to go. What that meant is that I suddenly had 5 free hours that I didn't expect to have. Although I was sorry that no one was able to go to the temple, I was grateful for that extra time. The last couple of weeks have been very busy and I had been feeling pretty stressed about all the things I needed to do that I wasn't getting done. I had been praying for help to get everything done. This seemed like an answer to prayers. I felt like I was really blessed for being willing to serve in this way. If I hadn't signed up to help, I'm sure my day would have been filled up with other things. But since I thought I needed to keep that time open for service that didn't happen at the last minute, I had all that free time. I worked hard all day and got a ton of things done--mostly Christmas stuff. I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done on that this week if this hadn't happened. I know that we get many blessings from serving, but we also get blessings just for being willing!

Other stuff: I went to the weekly religion class where we talked about doing family history work. Frank and I went to lunch with another couple in our ward today. I exercised every day. I crocheted every day too. I did not get anything done on the upstairs bedroom still, but I will keep trying! It doesn't look like it is going to be done before Christmas, unfortunately.

That is all of the news from these parts this week.

Weekly Review December 1 '17

This week's post will be a lot shorter than last week's, never fear! I'm going to do categories again, but there are fewer categories and less to talk about in each category than last week.

Jared: He started his new job this week and he has worked every day. The first day he only worked 4 hours, but he worked 8 hours each day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and he is working 6 hours today and 4 hours tomorrow. He is learning how to do everything and so far he seems to like his job, although he is tired at the end of the day. He gets off work at 4:00 most days which is fairly convenient since I have to pick Seth up around 3:30. I pick up Seth and then we go directly to Chick fil a to pick up Jared. The morning drop off time (usually 8:00) is less convenient, but we are making it work. It looks pretty likely that he will be going to BYU-I for the winter semester. He has been cleared to register for classes and we are looking for a place for him to live. Our stake president told him he should go ahead and register for classes because he has not heard back anything yet about when Jared can return to his mission. It is going to be kind of crazy getting him ready to go to school at such short notice, but I think we will figure it all out. Jared went to Institute this week and he gave a talk in the YSA ward on Sunday. He is going with us to the temple tonight.

Weather: We have mostly had really nice weather the last couple of weeks It gets pretty frosty int he mornings but daytime temperatures have been in the 50s and even 60s most days. It has also been sunny almost every day. Wednesday was particularly nice. We got a sprinkle of rain last night and it was a bit cooler but today is still sunny and fairly mild. I guess that is supposed to end midweek, but we are enjoying the nicer weather while it lasts. At least I am--Frank, of course, would prefer a couple of feet of snow! It feels colder to Jared because he is used to much warmer temperatures. Rexburg in January is going to be a big shock for him!!

Christmas Preparations: I've been trying to get all the shopping done, which has been greatly hindered by not getting a list from most of the people I am shopping for. So I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked, but I am getting there. I got our Christmas letter written and will be sending out cards next week sometime hopefully.

Cub Scouts: Last night we had Pack Meeting. Seth got awards for finishing 3 adventures, plus he also got his Religious Knot. For the meeting, we went to a local Christmas event--The Frederick Scents and Sweets Competition. It's a display of wreaths and gingerbread houses made my both professionals and amateurs. There are prizes in each category, and in addition to awards from the judges, there is also a "people's choice" award in each category. That means we all got to vote for our favorites, which was kind of fun but also hard because in some categories there was more than one entry that I wanted to vote for. One of our neighbors entered a gingerbread house in the "professional" category (she decorates cakes and such professionally) and her daughter (who plays with Seth, she's a little younger than him) entered a gingerbread house in the children's category. Our neighbor won first place in the professional category and her daughter won the people's choice award in the children's category. Here are their entries:

Here are some of the other entries:

This one won first place in the teen category

This one won first place in the children's group category.

This one won first place in the children's category. I don't think it won for its quality of work, but instead for its creativity and cleverness. The different buildings represent famous Frederick landmarks, with names that are a play on the real name--like "Wafer Park" for "Baker Park" and "Hershey Barracks" for "Hessian Barracks" and "Taffy Recreation Center" for "Talley Recreation Center."

This one was in the children's category and I wish it had won something because it represents the true meaning of Christmas.

The rest of the photos are different entries in the amateur category, with the final one being the one that won first place in the category:

Here are some of the wreaths:

And here is Seth getting his awards:

Other stuff I did this week: I had choir practice and self reliance group meetings as usual on Sunday. Only two more weeks and I will be done with the self reliance group! I am looking forward to my Sundays being a bit less busy. I worked at the school library on Monday morning. As usual, it wasn't very busy but I re-shelved a lot of books and I changed all the displays so that there were Christmas, Hanukkah, and winter themed books instead of Thanksgiving and fall themed books. I set up appointments so that Jared can get his teeth cleaned and his retainer replaced while he is home. I FINALLY got Seth's prescription filled so that he is focused again. I went to PT on Tuesday, where she did a re-evaluation because I don't feel like it's helping me much. I went to the weekly religion class on Wednesday as usual. I also went to a baby shower that evening, which was really fun. I cleaned my desk and I also cleaned the stove, both of which really needed it! I also kept crocheting, as usual. That's it, besides all the usual house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, etc plus extra chauffeuring, since Jared is home. We did add him to our insurance so he can drive himself places now, but I usually need my car so he can't take it very often.

Frank: He is keeping as busy as usual. He had an EQ presidency meeting last night besides all the usual work for both Marriott and for his business. He's having fun playing with his 3-D printer, too.

That's all there is to say this week. I told you it would be shorter! :)

Weekly Reviews November 17 & 24 '17

Hello everyone! I have not fallen off the planet or forgotten all about my blog. Last week just got kind of crazy and since then I have been very, very busy so there hasn't been a lot of time to update my blog. Now I have two weeks to cover, so I will try to keep it brief. I think I will do categories this time, rather than give a daily play-by-play. Here we go!

Jared: You all know that Jared is home for now, and I'm sure you are all wondering how he is doing. So far, he is doing really well. It's hard to believe that he has only been home for a week--it seems longer than that! He has been keeping pretty busy and he is still in good spirits. The first couple of days he was home, we mostly hung out at home and talked and regrouped. We met with the stake president Saturday morning so he could get released and the stake president gave him some good advice. He encouraged Jared to work with the missionaries in our ward as well as the Spanish branch, to serve and to share his testimony, and to live and to look as much like a missionary as he can while he is home. He also said he could attend the Spanish branch meetings about once a month, which Jared is excited to do. Jared called a few friends to talk to them that day. We were all a little anxious about Sunday, just because we knew a lot of people would be surprised to see him and there would probably be innocent but awkward questions from people. I really wasn't anxious about how our ward would react to him--I knew they would all be totally awesome and supportive, and they have been. As it turned out, we really didn't get many awkward questions either. Our bishop recognized him from the pulpit and just said that he is home for a while and will be returning to his mission in a few months, so please give him a hug and welcome him home. That really helped to take a lot of the awkwardness out of the situation, which we all appreciated. Jared had a very busy day on Sunday. Seth's Primary teacher asked him to help with his class so he did that. After church, he met with our bishop. They are going to give him a calling in the ward but they haven't decided what yet. They are also going to recommend him to be called as a temple worker. If he is still here in March when the temple closes, they will give him a family history calling also. After meeting with the bishop, he came home long enough to eat something, then he and I went to choir practice. After that, he helped me set up my room for my self reliance meeting, then helped with the missionary preparation class, and then watched the face to face broadcast with the YSA ward members. He also got asked to give a talk in the YSA ward this Sunday! This week he has been helping with lots of things around the house. He got a job working at Chick fil a--he will start on Monday. He had the interview on Tuesday and they hired him on the spot. He had to fill out some paperwork and turn it in yesterday morning, and he got a short orientation then. We don't really know how long he will be home, but we are assuming he will be home for a year until we hear otherwise. Jared also called BYU-I to find out if there is any possibility of him returning to school for a semester and there is a chance that may work out, although we are not sure yet. Still working out the details. Hopefully we will know more about that by next week. So overall, Jared is doing as well as can be expected. He has a really good attitude about the whole situation which has been extremely helpful. He could have some hard days ahead--especially if he is home for a long time. I think it will be easy to get discouraged and I think the months ahead could become very long for him. But right now he is doing really well. Please continue to pray for him, though!

A few pictures Frank got at the airport:

That's a "Welcome Home Jared" sign that I am holding. I am the worst and didn't get any pictures of Jared hugging Frank or Seth. I did get this blurry picture of Snickers being really excited to see Jared:

Frank and I: How about us? How do we feel about Jared being home? Well, obviously it hasn't been easy for us but we are doing pretty well also. The hardest part was the time between when we found out he was coming home (Thursday evening, around 9:00) and when Jared got off the plane (Friday afternoon, around 4:00). We were really anxious and upset, of course, and didn't sleep well (I didn't really sleep at all) that first night. It was really disorienting to find out he was coming home and to find out he would be home in less than 24 hours. Everything was happening so fast. I think we were both kind of in shock! It was really hard to wrap our minds around what was happening. Once we were able to see Jared and see that he was okay, it was easier. We did talk to him Thursday evening, but very briefly. So it was a relief to get him home. The next couple of days were still somewhat anxious and I didn't have much of an appetite for a few days but things have been a lot better since then. We are getting used to the "new normal" and are focusing on helping Jared make the most of the time he has to be home. Of course, it IS nice to see him again! We missed him while he was gone! It has been great to hear more about his mission experiences. We don't really understand all the reasons why it was necessary for Jared to come home or why he may have to be home for so long, but I have mostly come to terms with that. I know there is a good reason, even if I don't completely understand what that reason is. It has been harder for Frank to accept and he is still a little angry about it but I'm confident that he will work through those feelings in time. I still have moments when I feel a little sad that Jared is not still serving as a missionary but it actually hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be. I'm grateful for that. We would still appreciate your prayers on our behalf, though.

Frank's work / business: Frank continues to be really busy. Most of the time, he is able to work from home or from the Frederick office, so that has been really nice. On Monday he got a new boss, so he did go down to the main office that day to meet his new boss. His business has been fairly busy too. One of his clients had a big issue a few weeks ago and he ended up spending all day on Saturday the 11th as well as some of Sunday the 12th fixing that issue. He had to go down to the same client's workplace yesterday to fix another problem.

Choir practice: Our ward hasn't had a choir for a couple of years but a new choir director was called recently and we started rehearsals again on Sunday the 12th. Choir practice is from 4:30 - 5:30 and my self reliance group meets from 6:00 - 8:00, so this has made my Sundays even more crazy but I love singing and have really missed choir so I am going anyway! At our first rehearsal, we found out that we were singing the very next Sunday! So we learned a Thanksgiving hymn and we sang that on Sunday. We also started learning a couple of Christmas songs and for our second practice on Sunday we worked on those. Jared is the only tenor in the choir right now so our director is really glad he is here!

Bedroom painting project: I moved all of the stuff in the upstairs bedroom to the closet in the downstairs bedroom and then moved all the furniture away from the walls in the upstairs bedroom so I could start working on them. I cut away the loose / peeling paint from around the large bare spot on the wall and I applied spackel to all of the dents and nicks on the wall to smooth them out. The next step is to sand all of those down, plus apply primer to the large bare spot. I intended to do that the day after I applied the spackel, but that was the day before Jared came home and everything went crazy, and I haven't been able to get back to it yet. This week isn't looking too good either, but maybe the week after that I will get back to it! So Jared came home to both of his possible bedrooms being kind of torn apart but he is making the downstairs bedroom work. It is mostly livable, he just can't use the closet. A few "before" pictures. You can see the large white bare spot on the wall in the second one. Now there are white spots all over, on the places that I patched:

Self Reliance Group: My co-facilitator ended up being out of town for 3 Sundays in a row. She came home on Monday and she will be facilitating our last three meetings since at this point I have facilitated 6 meetings and she has facilitated 3. I am glad to have her back! Everything went pretty well while she was gone, though.

Christmas preparations: Last week I was going a little crazy trying to get Christmas preparations started. That was mostly because I had to get Jared's package mailed to arrive by December 8th, which ironically I don't have to do now. If I had only known, I wouldn't have been stressing out about it so much! Christmas has been stressing me out this year mostly because I can't get any of the four adult men in my life (Jared, Tanner, Scott, or Frank) to tell me what they want. They all say they don't want anything. I did finally manage to extract a few ideas from Scott and from Jared and I got a few things for them. I actually think I'm done shopping for Scott, but most of the things I got for Jared were mission related, so now I need to start over for him. He has been able to give me a few ideas, though. I have also managed to come up with a few things for Tanner and Frank decided that what he really wants is a 3-D printer. I told him to go ahead and order it, and it came last Thursday (the 16th) so he got Christmas early. I may get him a couple of small things, but the printer is a fairly big ticket item, so that is mostly all he is getting. He is enjoying figuring out how it works and has already made a couple of cool things with it. I haven't even started shopping for Seth yet, but he is the one member of my family who has produced a decent list, so he will be easy to shop for. Although I am not feeling the time crunch I was before, I would still like to get most of the shopping done this week so that I can relax and enjoy the real reason for the Christmas season! I was really on the ball this year and last week I ordered our Christmas cards and I was able to pick them up on Monday. Since Jared wasn't in the family picture we took this summer, I put a picture of him in front of the San Antonio Temple on our card, along with the family picture of the rest of us. When I found out he was coming home, I wondered if it would still be okay to send those cards out! But I have decided it's fine. We still want to include a picture of him on our card, wherever he is, and his mission was a big part of what he did this year. Tonight I made buckeye candy. I don't usually make it this early, but I want to send some to my boys and it freezes well so it will still be good for Christmas. It is nice to have that done already--one less thing to do later.

Renata: You may remember that Renata is one of the sisters I visit teach--the one from the Ukraine and whose husband suddenly and tragically passed away a few months ago. I was supposed to help her last Friday night, but since Jared had just come home I didn't really feel like I could be away from home, so I had to cancel on her. I texted her on Saturday to see how she was doing and found out that she needed help picking up her sisters from the bus station on Monday. Or actually, she needed someone to stay with her kids while she picked them up. She had someone lined up to pick them up but then that person couldn't do it. So I ended up going over on Monday evening to stay with her kids, and I got to visit with her for a few minutes before she had to leave. One of her sisters will be here for about a month and after that her parents are coming to stay with her for a while so she will be well taken care of for a while. She said I can still come to visit while her family is in town, though, so I am sure I will still see her sometimes.

Swimming lessons: Seth finished his first session of swimming lessons this week. Last week during his lesson he was being pretty uncooperative. He doesn't like putting his face in the water and that's what the teacher was trying to get him to do. They finally convinced him to do it but he didn't complete everything they wanted him to do. Frank took him to his last lesson this week and he did much better at putting his face in the water and they were even able to get him to float on his front for the first time. (He's been floating on his back like a champ. He loves doing that now!) So how did we get him to be so much more cooperative? Bribery will do the trick every time. After swimming lessons he is always hungry and asks me to stop to get him some chicken nuggets or something on the way home. I always refuse, opting instead to let him have a snack when we get home. So this week we told him that if he put his face in the water and did everything the teacher asked him to do that Frank would stop anywhere he wanted on the way home to get something to eat. Yep, we have really stooped that low. But it worked! Floating on his front was the last thing he needed to complete for level 1, so he is now officially in level 2. I have signed him up for the next session, but I moved him to Saturday morning because I'd like to see how he does when he is on his medication. (His medicine has worn off by evening.)

Parent Teacher Conference / school schedule: Seth's school schedule has been crazy the last week because of parent teacher conferences and Thanksgiving. Parent / teacher conferences started last Friday and continued on Monday and Tuesday, so Seth only had half days on those three days. He got out 3 1/2 hours early on Friday, went in 4 hours late on Monday, and got out 3 1/2 hours early on Tuesday. Then he had Wednesday through Friday off for Thanksgiving. So it's been a pretty ridiculous week with school work. His medicine ran out on Sunday and although I had already called in his prescription, I wasn't able to find a pharmacy that had his medicine in stock so we finally had to have it ordered. It won't be here until Wednesday. In the meantime, he's been fairly hyper and unfocused but it was a pretty good week to have that happen since there wasn't a lot of serious work getting done at school. I had a conference with Seth's teacher on Tuesday and he is doing pretty well overall. He is a strong math student and he is way above grade level on reading.

Frank's parents: Frank's parents were planning to come here for Thanksgiving this year. The plan was for them to leave Sunday after church and drive part way here that day, spending the night in a hotel that we got them, and then drive the rest of the way here on Monday. On Sunday morning, Frank's dad called to say that he had fallen down their front steps on Saturday. Thankfully, he didn't break anything but he hurt his back and was sore all over and in no shape to travel. So they couldn't come after all, which was a bummer. We were looking forward to seeing them, of course. They may be able to come see us after Christmas instead. One piece of good news, though--Frank's dad was ordained a High Priest on Sunday.

Thanksgiving: We stayed home and had our own Thanksgiving dinner this year. It's been a number of years since we've done that since lately we've either gone to Brevard or been invited to someone else's house for dinner. Although Frank's parents weren't here, we did have Jared here, of course, and Sam also came up to join us. I invited one of the sisters I visit teach to come, but she had other plans. I made pies on Tuesday and casseroles (green bean and sweet potato) on Wednesday. We still had to do the turkey, stuffing, rolls, gravy, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese (mostly for Seth) on Thursday. It's amazing how much time it can take to make one meal!! I also put together some trays of cheese & crackers, olives, and pickles to snack on. Everything turned out great and we enjoyed our meal. That evening we went to some friends to share dessert and play games. We brought banana pudding, chocolate pudding pie, pumpkin spice pie, and chocolate pecan pie (purchased at Cracker Barrel earlier in the week) to share and they had apple pie, pumpkin pecan pie, and vanilla ice cream. Everything was really yummy and we had a fun time playing games. (I totally forgot to take pictures on Thanksgiving. What can I say? My brain is dead.)

Wedding: A couple who have been attending our ward for several months and investigating the church decided to get married this week. They asked our bishop to marry them and he thought it would be nice to have a very simple reception for them afterwards, so he asked the RS sisters if they could pull something together. Of course, a lot of people were out of town (including the RS president) but a small group of us put together a little reception for them. It wasn't a ton of work, but it did end up taking quite a bit of my time yesterday. They have three little girls (the youngest was born last Saturday morning!) and yesterday when I was at the store buying some fruit for the reception I got a text asking if anyone had a dress that would fit the oldest daughter (age 7). (The girls didn't have any dressy clothes, so they were trying to find nice clothes for them to wear to the wedding.) So I offered to see what Walmart had, since I was there already, and I ended up buying a couple of dresses for her to try on. It was kind of fun shopping for a girl for once!! They loved both of the dresses, but chose one of them and I will return the other one next time I am there. In the afternoon I helped set up for the reception--Jared and Sam both came to help too--and the wedding was last night. Everything turned out really nice. This couple is on date to get baptized sometime in December, so we are all happy about that.

Cub Scouts: We didn't have den meeting this week, but last week we met. I had my one Bear finish up one thing he had left on an adventure so he will be getting a lot of awards at our Pack Meeting next week. We had Cub Committee meeting after den meeting where we planned our pack meeting for this month and also made some plans for the Pinewood Derby in January. All the boys got their car kits that night, too, which I had wrapped in Christmas paper earlier that day.

Crocheting: I am still working hard on my second afghan, doing four rows every day (except Sundays). It is getting very big and I should be done with it shortly before Christmas. Here is the afghan as of today (it's actually twice as wide; it's folded in half in the picture):

School Play: Last Saturday there was a school play at Seth's school. He wasn't in it, but one of his best friends, as well as several members of his class, were in it so he wanted to go. So I took him to see it. All of the actors for this particular play were in 4th, 5th, or 6th grade. Knowing that, I didn't have really high expectations going into it, but it was actually really well done. I was totally impressed! The kids were really into their parts and did a superb job! It was more like a high school play. Besides that, the teacher in charge got up before it started and told us that students had actually done almost everything for the play, including planning the costumes, directing the choreography, managing the stage, etc. They even had a student director! There were adult helpers, of course, but the students did most of the planning and decision making. That made the production even more impressive.

Physical Therapy: I'm still going once a week. On the days that I got to therapy, I am really achy all over afterwards, so they are definitely doing something. Just not sure if it is good thing--ha! We had to sign up for next year's benefits recently and found out that Marriott won't offer health insurance with our current company next year so we had to switch to another carrier. Turns out my physical therapist doesn't accept my new carrier so I'm not sure if I will keep going there or try to find someone else or what. I feel like I will probably have to go to PT for a long time before it really makes a difference.

Tanner's birthday: It's tomorrow so I got a package mailed to him earlier this week. I had the same stress over that as I am having with Christmas--no idea what to get him, and he doesn't know what he wants either. So I just ended up sending a couple of fun things I thought he might like, and I put some money in his account so he can get some other things he wants / needs.

Religion class: I missed it last week because I was shopping that morning and it took way longer than usual--I was getting all the Thanksgiving food plus trying to get a bunch of Christmas stuff and my list was HUGE. I saw more than one person start to get in line behind me at the check out and then decide that they didn't want to be behind me! By the time I got through my list, got home, carried in all those bags, and put everything away, the class was half over. This week I went but the teacher totally forgot that we were meeting so he didn't show up. He felt really sorry when he remembered, but you know--it happens. I had a lot to do that day anyway so it turned out to be a good thing.

Book Chat: We met last Thursday (the 16th) and discussed Watership Down. We had a smaller group than normal, but it was fun. Now we are reading  The Case for Christ. I haven't gotten very far into it yet, but it is pretty interesting. I was at book chat when Frank called me to say that something was up with Jared and the stake president was coming over to talk to us, so I left there in a tearing hurry. I was partway home when I remembered that Frank had said that the stake president asked if we had heard from Jared (we hadn't) so at that point I knew that at least Jared was not dead! Up until then, I wasn't sure. We are, of course, very thankful that he is okay.

So much for being brief!! Believe it or not, I left a lot of things out, so you can see that our last couple of weeks have been jam packed. I have been running from one thing to the next every day. The next couple of weeks look pretty busy too but hopefully things will calm down a bit.

If you made it through all that, you deserve a medal! I will try to keep it shorter next week.

Weekly Review November 10 '17

Here is what we did this week:

Friday: Frank and I went to dinner that evening with another couple in our ward. We enjoyed dinner and visiting with them. Frank’s steak he ordered wasn’t done enough though and it took 3 tries for them to get it right. Why does that always happen to him??! I swear it happens to him 90% of the time. It never happens to me.

Saturday: This was a really busy day for me. It started out by meeting at 8:30 at the church to help distribute bags for Scouting for Food. That went well. I took Seth and two other kids with me and we got through our assigned route quickly. Then we met up with another group and helped finish their route, which also got done quickly. We were completely done by 10:00, which I hadn’t expected. (Last year I think we were going until noon!) Then I did end up taking two boys out to their aunt’s house because their grandma wasn’t home (I had picked them up at their Grandma’s house earlier) but we still got home earlier than I had expected, which I wasn’t complaining about. I had time to eat something and change clothes and do a little bit of crocheting before I needed to leave again. This time, I met a friend at the church and we drove down to the temple together. A couple in our ward  were going through the temple to receive their own endowments so we went to their session with them. It was really nice! I got back home around 6:00 and we made dinner and then I cleaned the kitchen floor. By 9:00 I was yawning like crazy and ready to go to bed, which was ironic because it was also the night we set our clocks back an hour.

Sunday: I did some indexing in the morning before church. I had the self reliance group as usual that evening. The other facilitator ended up having to take an emergency trip to Utah so I was on my own but it went fine. (She will also be gone this Sunday, and possibly the one after that.) We still had low attendance—only about half of the group showed up although we got some of the people that didn’t come last week so that was good. One of them even brought some homemade cookies to share and they were delicious! One of the group members came by to let us know that he is not going to be able to finish the course right now. Another member has not been there since the 2^nd week so I’m guessing he is not going to finish either. That means we have 8 members in our group instead of 10 now.

Monday: This day was pretty busy but mostly with the usual things. I had signed up to volunteer at the school library but when I got there she asked if I could come in on Wednesday instead, so I did that. This was a fairly warm and sunny day and we had rain predicted for a lot of the week so I decided to mow the lawn that afternoon. Maybe that is the last time I will have to do it for a while? We’ll see. For family night activity we played Clue and Frank would have totally beat us except he thought you couldn’t make the final accusation unless you were in the room where the murder occurred. So I sort of won instead. We got frozen yogurt at Menchie’s for treat and the pumpkin yogurt is really good! I want to go back and get more!

Tuesday: This day was also pretty busy with mostly the usual stuff. It rained pretty much all day and was colder. I gave a friend a ride from the doctor to pick up her daughter at school. I also went to physical therapy and I finished one of the Christmas projects that I have been working on (hooray!) That evening we had den meeting for the Wolves and Bears at our house because the church was being used for voting so we couldn’t meet there. It was kind of crazy with 4 cub scouts plus 3 siblings plus Seth (because the Webelos leader cancelled their meeting so Seth was home) but we got through everything I wanted to get done. My one Bear just finished earning his Bear Badge, so I am happy about that. He moves into Webelos in January.

Wednesday: I was gone most of the day because I worked at the school library in the morning and went from there to the religion class and from there to Walmart. I got home from Walmart in time to put away all the groceries and then go pick up Seth at school. On the way to the religion class I picked up a friend in my ward, whose car is getting fixed right now. She had decided to walk from her house to the stake center (about 7 miles!) but realized when she got to TJ High School (near my house) that she wasn’t making good enough time and she was going to be late. So she called me, and since I was just getting ready to leave the school I went back a mile or so to pick her up. I’m pretty impressed that she walked that far! (I took her home, too.) That evening I took Seth to swimming lessons. So all in all, I wasn’t home much!

Thursday: I just had the usual things to do (laundry, vacuuming…) so that was nice for a change. I don’t feel like I got as much done as I should have, all things considered, but I did get everything on my list done. That evening I went to a RS Meeting where we were making different crafts out of mason jars. They had about 5 different jars to choose from, but I chose to make some nativity jars—which are Christmas decorations. They look like this:

All I had to do was attach the silhouette stickers and tie the raffia around the top. I made two last night and brought three more home to finish, but I am actually going to give all of them away because I think they will make great gifts for the sisters I visit teach. (Most of whom are less active.) I really like the jars and wouldn’t mind having one, but we already have plenty of Christmas decorations!! I really enjoyed the evening; I haven’t been to a RS meeting for a while because I wasn’t able to go to the last couple of meetings they had. It’s always nice to get out of the house and chat with other women.

Friday: Today Seth does not have school because of Veteran’s Day. It is much colder today than it had been and really feels like winter. (We had a freeze warning overnight and another one tonight.) I guess most of our beautiful fall weather is over now, although we may get another nice day or two sprinkled in. I’m thinking seriously about splurging on a new winter coat. The coat I have isn’t all that warm. I’ve been working on the usual Friday things (mostly budgeting) so there isn’t a lot to say about today yet. Seth cleaned his room this morning because I told him he had to do that before he could play games and for once he did it quickly without complaining, so that was nice.

Update on Snickers: We took a urine sample into the vet a few days ago and the results of the testing they did came back great. He is going to continue on the special diet that he’s been on, except that we get to switch to dry food now instead of the canned food. I’m happy about that because the canned food is messier and more of a hassle. He will have his urine and his blood tested again in February but until then he is good to go. Tomorrow is his birthday, and he will be 9 years old. There were a few times this last year that I wasn't sure he was going to be with us much longer, so I am glad he is making it to this milestone and doing better!

Here are a couple of fall pictures to finish up this week's post. Our last sunny day:

And the gray skies of November!:

Weekly Review November 3 '17

This week was quite busy with a few unexpected things happening.

Friday: We went to the Financial Planning Workshop that evening and it was really interesting. I went to two of the classes and Frank went to one of them. Frank went home after the one class since he wasn’t feeling great. There was some good information and now we need to find some time to actually write our will (don’t worry—neither of us is going to die soon, it’s just good to be prepared) and to meet with a financial planner to talk about our plans for retirement. It’s hard to believe Frank is only about 20 years away from that. Before we went to the workshop, Frank went out and bought a new television. Why? Because Seth started watching it after school and suddenly the picture went out. There was still sound, but no picture. So after calling the company that made it and checking several “fixes” online, he decided it was shot. And since Seth and Frank can’t live 24 hours without television, he bought a new one. He did find a nice one (same size as the old one) for a good price.

Saturday: Frank seemed to “turn the corner” and started feeling a lot better than he had the rest of that week. In the morning he was looking up some more things about the old television online and found one more thing that might be wrong with it. So after taking the back off and taking off some parts and getting some things soldered back together, guess what? The picture was back! Part of me was glad because we only had that television for 3 years and I thought that was awfully early for it to die, but part of me was frustrated that we had already bought another television! (It was already out of the box and all set up.) So now Frank has a really large television in his office area, which he is pretty happy about. I have no idea what we are going to do with the even older one that he already had down there. I took Seth to his “make up” swimming lesson that afternoon. While we were on the way home, he said his head hurt and shortly after we got home he said his stomach hurt too and then he started throwing up. He threw up several times and then laid on the couch for a few hours but by early evening he was feeling a lot better and started wanting to eat food. He had crackers and soda and kept everything down and said he felt just fine. He’s been fine since, so that was kind of weird. (I’m not complaining about the short duration of his illness, though!) In the meantime, I tried to get everything else done that I needed to do that day, which was just the usual Saturday chores. That evening, Sam and Daniel arrived to spend the night. Daniel was here because he had a job interview in this area on Monday.

Sunday: The morning was a bit eventful for me because my blow dryer was having issues. It hasn’t been sounding great for a while, and I even remember earlier in the week thinking that I should probably get a new one before it died completely. I forgot, though. When I turned it on Sunday morning it sounded absolutely terrible, so I was kind of afraid to use it. I decided to let my hair air dry but my hair takes so long to dry that it soon became evident that it was not going to dry in time for church. So I did use the dryer to help dry it, worrying the whole time that the thing was going to blow up or burst into flames or something! I did manage to get my hair mostly dry, though, so I didn’t have to go to church with dripping wet hair. (Frank tried it out later that day and it started smoking!! So we threw it away.) This Sunday was our Primary Sacrament Meeting presentation. When Seth started throwing up on Saturday, I thought for sure he would miss it but then he got better so fast that he was able to go. I felt kind of guilty about it, since he had been throwing up less than 24 hours before, but I really didn’t want him to miss it when he seemed to feel just fine. (Plus he kept insisting that he was fine and that he could go.) Hopefully he didn’t expose anyone to anything. The program was really great, as always, and Seth did a good job on his part. It’s hard to believe that he is one of the oldest kids in Primary now. Next year will be his last year for the program. After church, we enjoyed visiting with Daniel and Sam. They had dinner with us and then they both headed south—Daniel was staying with a friend in Virginia that night because it was a lot closer to where his interview was. I went to my self reliance group meeting as usual and Frank went to visit a family and to take them the sacrament.

Monday: I volunteered in the school library that morning, then spent the rest of the day doing the usual chores. I also set up a new sign up genius for help for Renata for the next couple of weeks and read over the self reliance materials for our next meeting. We had family night that evening, of course.

Tuesday: It was a beautiful day, weather wise. I was working hard to get everything done that morning and while I was cleaning the bathrooms my back started hurting. It hurt quite a bit the rest of the day. Not enough to keep me from getting things done, but enough that I had to move slowly and more carefully. I did manage to get everything done, though, and even worked on Christmas projects for a while, which was something I hadn’t planned to do that day. We had the Elders over for dinner that night; I made homemade pizza which they really liked. Trick or treaters started arriving shortly after we finished dinner, even before the Elders left. They didn’t have a car and were waiting for their ride so they ended up staying a lot longer than they planned. They sat out on the front step with Rank while he passed out candy; I took Seth around our court. As usual, that is all he wanted to do. I would say nearly 75% of the people in our court don’t pass out candy anymore but he still filled his pumpkin most of the way up. We had a lot fewer trick or treaters come by this year than the last few years so we still have a lot of candy leftover which is bad news for Frank and I since we are trying not to eat that kind of stuff! It is hard not to eat it when a big bowl of it is sitting in front of you.

Wednesday: My back felt a lot better, thankfully. It was cloudy and a lot colder, and when I went to the store there was Christmas stuff EVERYWHERE. It felt like we went from beautiful fall to dead of winter overnight, which was strange! (Yesterday it was sunny and warm again, though.) I worked on Christmas projects a little and ordered some donuts for a Cub Scout activity on Saturday. I went to the religion class as usual and took Seth to his third swimming lesson that evening. I am getting to know some of the other parents whose kids have lessons right before Seth as well as at the same time, and it is cool that I have had chances to talk to them about the church a little bit. Frank had his monthly meeting with the bishop while we were at swimming lessons. When we were getting ready to say prayers that evening, Seth jumped on the bed and banged into Frank’s left knee really hard which of course hurt a lot!  (That’s the knee that he had surgery on, you may remember.) He actually used crutches to get around on Thursday and today it is still hurting although it’s getting better.

Thursday: I had physical therapy first thing and I got an hour of physical therapy instead of the usual half hour since the appointment after me cancelled. She worked me all over, especially after I told her about my back hurting. Last night I went over to help Renata with her kids. She goes to a bereavement support group on Thursdays so I stayed with her kids while she went to that, then helped her with bedtime and talked for a while with her after she got back. Her son had been coughing and didn’t act like he felt very well. I had been there less than an hour when he lay down on the couch and went to sleep. He slept the rest of the time and when she got home and took his temperature he had a fever. So meanwhile, I spent most of the evening listening to her little girl’s chatter and brushing Barbie dolls’ hair! Not something I have ever done as a mother!

Friday: There’s not a lot to write about today yet. It was very foggy this morning and now it is cloudy and getting colder. So we are back to winter today, I guess! I’m just doing the usual Friday chores today so there’s not much to write about. Tomorrow is going to be quite busy so I’m glad that today is pretty low key.

Frank was able to help me get the pictures off my phone this morning, so I will include a small photo dump! (I haven’t been taking very many pictures lately,though.)

The Sister Missionaries, who recently left us:

The afghan I am working on now:

(These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, so I have quite a bit more done now.)

The last time I went to the temple, they had added these sort of tree things to the flower beds. They make me think of the middle East, for some reason:

The temple, on that same day. Very sunny and beautiful!:

Seth's school project on Italy:

More of the afghan (lots of new colors!):

Blurry photo of Seth at the Trunk or Treat games (he is wearing a Master Chief costume, minus the mask, and no--I don't let him play Halo! But he knows all about it, thanks to his older brothers) In the picture, he is playing "human Hungry Hippos". (People lie down on a board with wheels, hold onto a laundry basket and try to "capture" balls with the basket. A team mate pushes them out to the balls and then pulls them back to bring in the balls.):

Seth floating all by himself!:

I took this picture because I was watching Fox news one morning and I was like "Hey! I know where that guy is!":

I completely forgot to take a picture of Seth in his Halloween costume, but here is Snickers in his:

I will end on that adorable note!!