Weekly Review June 3 '22

 I'm taking a break from helping Seth with a homework assignment; I'll see if I can get this done before I need to help him some more. He is working independently at the moment though, which is good. 

When I wrote last Friday we had three of Seth's friends over for pizza and cake. Saturday was Seth's actual birthday, so he opened presents when he got up. He was really happy with everything he got.

Besides the items in the picture, he also got a digital video game (so we just downloaded it for him)--Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga. He had a fun day putting together Lego and Mega Construx sets and playing the new game. 

He also played online with his older brothers for a while which was really fun for him. For dinner, we let him choose a place to eat; he chose Outback Steakhouse. 

Frank did not have to work much over the weekend as he had feared, which we were grateful for. He and I got a few chores done. I did a little bit of cleaning and organizing and we also went to the store to get some curtains. When we replaced our windows, we had to discard all our blinds because they don't fit the new windows. Most of our windows didn't have curtains and we haven't been able to find blinds to fit our new windows (they would have to be very, very narrow) so we hung some sheets up over the windows so the whole neighborhood wouldn't be able to see in our windows at night. We've been meaning to get curtains since then, but that is easier said than done. I went shopping for curtains last week and couldn't find any that worked. If I liked the color or style, they weren't the right size. Or if I actually liked both the color and the style and they were the right size, there was only one panel in stock! It was crazy! On Saturday we decided to try one more store and thankfully we found some acceptable choices there. I still wouldn't say they were exactly what I had in mind, but they are good enough. We got curtains for all of the windows in the house except for our room because our bedroom  was one of the three rooms that already had curtains. (The living room had curtains but when we took down those curtains right before the windows were replaced I decided to take that opportunity to wash them and they shrunk...a lot! Seth's room also had curtains but they had been there since he was a baby and they were made out of two cute Noah's ark print fabrics. He's kind of outgrown cute juvenile prints!) We purchased a couple of new curtain rods too. After we got home, we hung up the new living room curtains and a curtain in the kitchen--neither of those required hanging a new curtain rod. Then Frank hung the curtains in the guest room which did include hanging a new curtain rod. After that his back hurt too much to do anymore that day. We finally got the new curtains hung in Seth's room last night so the only curtains left to hang are the ones in Frank's office. It's nice to have curtains on the windows instead of sheets.

I can never remember much about Sundays. It was a 5th Sunday so all the youth met together which meant Frank and I got to sit together for that meeting. Oh yes! Now I remember...it was actually a pretty interesting Sunday at church because both the RS presidency and the Primary presidency were released and new presidencies were called. I had picked up on a few vibes and was pretty sure at least one and possibly both presidencies were changing, and I even figured out who the new RS president was going to be because a) I saw her walking down the hall with the 1st Counselor in the Bishopric, b) Frank slipped and ALMOST said something to her husband last Sunday but stopped himself and c) I was asked by the former RS president last week to help one of the sisters in the ward with budgeting and on Saturday the EQ president sent me a spreadsheet with some of this sister's financial information and I noticed that the email was sent not just to me but to this other sister who I was already suspecting was going to be involved in the upcoming changes. That was the real clincher! At any rate, I think both of the new presidencies are going to be great. The Primary president who just got released was called to be the 1st counselor in the RS presidency...reminds me of me, since I got called to be the 1st counselor in the YW presidency the week that I got released as Primary president. 

Monday was Memorial Day, of course, so both Frank and Seth were home. Seth had a lot of homework to do and unfortunately he had quite a meltdown over that but he finally gave up and got it done when he saw that we were not going to relent. He has had a lot of homework to do every day this week because this is the end of the school year and he has had quite a bit of catching up to do with a few missing assignments, some late assignments, and redoing a few assignments that he didn't do well. It has not been fun for either him or me, but fortunately we are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. When he finishes the assignment we've been working on today, he will only have one assignment left. I would like to say that he is learning to put forth his best effort and not to procrastinate but I think all he's learned so far is that he doesn't like me. Maybe next year...

On Tuesday I had my follow up appointment with the cardiologist. He said that my echo looked good...as a matter of fact, my heart looks better than it did a year ago. I have a leaky valve (have had it my whole life, probably). Last year it was leaking 10-15%. He says this year it is only leaking 10%. So that is good news. I don't have to go back for a check up for 3 more years. 

Wednesday was Frank's last day of work at Roy Rogers. Originally his last day was supposed to be Tuesday but it worked out a lot better for our health insurance coverage if he worked one more day, so he did that. Frank had me meet him for lunch at one of the restaurants for the last time. They scheduled him to be in a meeting starting at 3:00 pm that day, so he was working up until the last minute but now he is done! 

I had a dentist appointment that afternoon to make an adjustment to my crown because it's been bothering me...it's sensitive to cold and I always avoid chewing on that side of my mouth when it's something hard or really chewy because it's uncomfortable. The dentist just ground away a little bit on one side. Hopefully that will do the trick...it seems to be a bit better now. When I took Seth to the dentist back in February, I gave the dentist an invitation to the Washington DC Temple openhouse. He was very excited about it and proceded to let the whole office know about it! Because of that, the hygenist who helped the dentist with my tooth on Wednesday had recently attended the temple open house. She told me how much she loved it...how beautiful it was, how kind and helpful everyone was...she was just gushing about it!! That made me really happy. The dentist was complaining that she went without him...he was out of town when she went. He still hasn't gone himself, but he said he was planning to go this weekend. I hope he does.

After I got home from the dentist, we had a visit from Amanda, Jonathan, and Andrew. They've been visiting in the area for a while and had just gone to the temple openhouse as well. We enjoyed talking with them and we all took a walk down to the river behind our house. The river is not very high right now so we were able to walk across a really shallow spot to a small island that is in the middle of the river. The guys all tried a hand at skipping rocks...they are all pretty good at it, actually. It was beautiful by the river, but we didn't stay out too long because it was a very hot and humid day. (This whole week has been pretty yucky but that was probably the worst day. Today it is much cooler, thankfully.) 

We saw a crane:

And a duck:

Our visitors stayed until we had to leave for youth activities. We are glad they took the time to come see us!

The YW had class activities that evening. My class had a "spa night". We painted our nails and enjoyed talking with each other...getting to know each other a little better. Only two of the four girls in my class were able to come but it was nice to get to know those two girls better. Unfortunately, this was my class advisor's last activity. She got released on Sunday because she just moved to a different apartment and it's in another ward's boundaries. She has been a really good fit for my class and I haven't figured out yet who we need to call to replace her.

Yesterday turned out to be busier than I anticipated, mainly because Frank and I had to make a decision about which retirement plan he wants to sign up for with his new job. I thought we had until Monday to make this decision, but we got a call that morning saying we had to make a decision by 4:00 pm that day. We had already researched the plans and have actually been trying for weeks to get in touch with someone to get more infomation about each of the plans with no success. We had a lot of questions that needed to be answered before we felt like we could make a decision. It was pretty frustrating! We did finally get in touch with a couple of people and got most of our questions answered so we made a decision. Once you choose a plan, the decision is irrevokable and you have to stay with that plan until you retire (or change employers)...no pressure!!! Hopefully we made a good decision but I honestly don't know if we did or not. 

Last night a sister in my ward came over so I could talk with her about budgeting. Earlier that day, the RS president texted me to let me know that another sister in the ward will be reaching out to me for the same reason, and thanked me for my help. I was a little surprised by that because I had only agreed to work with one specific person; I didn't know I was agreeing to help multiple people! Hopefully it won't be too overwhelming though and I do want to help people in this way if I can. Anyway, the sister who came over last night...her situation is pretty difficult but I'll keep working with her and hopefully I will be able to help her get to a better place. It was a reminder to me of how blessed we have been!

Frank has been busy the last couple of days doing work for clients. He's had a little bit of down time, I think, but not much! I'm a little frustrated about it because I think he deserved a few days off before jumping into his new job. About a month ago he told one of his clients that they needed to find a new IT company to help them because they need more help than he feels he can provide for them. They said okay but later they talked him into staying with them. Most of the work he's been doing the past two days has been for this client. Seems like there is always someone who needs him! 

Speaking of being needed, I was asked this week to go to Girls' Camp later this summer as a camp mom. I like Girls' Camp and I'm sure I'll have fun but I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to go this year. We are leaving for Utah the following week so it's going to be a little crazy. Last time I went to Girls' Camp I barely slept the whole week. It will be great if I don't do that again but I've been in a pretty bad sleep cycle the last few months so I'm not very hopeful. I wake up nearly every night and lie awake for hours before going back to sleep (or sometimes I don't go back to sleep at all). This doesn't bother me as much as it used to when I had little kids. Facing a day full of caring for little ones when you're already exhausted can be totally overwhelming. Now I know I can take a nap if I need to, although 99.9% of the time I don't actually take a nap. Just knowing that it's a possibility makes a big difference!! 

I believe that is all our news for this week. 

Weekly Review May 27 '22

 Since I wrote on Sunday last week I don't have a lot to cover this week. We enjoyed having Scott here on Monday and Tuesday. His flight left around 7:00 pm on Tuesday evening, so we left to take him to the airport in the late afternoon. I guess we could have waited longer because he called to report that there was no one in line to go through security so he got through that really quickly. Oh well...there's no way of knowing what to expect. 

On Wednesday morning I had an appointment with my cardiologist to get an echocardiogram. It was just a yearly check up...when I went in last year they decided they wanted me to come back in a year so they could check to see if there were any changes in a year's time. I have an appointment next week to get the results, so I don't know yet if there are any changes. Overall, though, I have not felt my heart doing its fluttery thing very much at all in the last year. If anything, I would say it's better now than it was a year ago, but I guess we'll see what the cardiologist has to say next week.

We had a combined YM / YW activity on Wednesday evening. We met at a park where we first picked up trash and then played volleyball. We had ice cream bars for a treat, too. Only one girl from my class came--it was a busy night for a lot of families because one of the high schools had their graduation that evening (and most of the members of our ward go to that high school, even though it is not the school Seth attends). The girl in my class needed a ride, though, so I gave her a ride to the activity and back. 

Seth came with us to the activity too but Frank wasn't able to go because he had to work that night. Theoretically, he was supposed to be taking a nap during that time since he was going to be up all night but in reality he was working. That's because an emergency came up so he had to take care of that instead. He put in a full day's work on Wednesday, from 8:00 to 5:00 and after he had dinner he laid down for a nap around 6:00. But within a few minutes I heard him on the phone and soon he was downstairs getting ready to drive to Hagerstown to take care of an emergency at one of the restaurants there. He ended up going straight from there to the restaurant where he was doing the overnight job. He got home around 1:00 am, but had to be back at the restaurant at 5:00 am so he was up at 4:30 am. He didn't get back home until around 10:00 am, and in that time he had to go to 3 different restaurants (one in Frederick, one an hour away, and one 30 minutes away) to solve problems. So the bottom line was...in the 26 hours between 8:00 am Wednesday and 10:00 am Thursday he worked over 21 hours! It was crazy! On Wednesday evening when I realized that he was not going to be able to get any sleep before working all night, I had this really heavy, anxious "trapped" feeling of really not wanting him to have to do that but feeling that he had no choice. It's a feeling I've had a LOT during that three years that he has had this job. This is one of the big reasons I am SO GLAD that he will not be working at this job much longer. Frank and I were talking a few nights ago and I asked him how many overnight jobs did he think he has done in the last 3 years. We started adding it up and the total came to over 100 nights!! And I would say that 95% of the time he ended up working full days both the day before and the day after he worked all night. It's no wonder he's so exhausted. Enough is enough!!

And speaking of that...he was supposed to be off work at 2:00 pm today but he is still working because he got pulled into solving a bunch of problems. He's really frustrated about it. He has a feeling he will be working a lot this weekend even though it's supposed to be a holiday. We are both very glad that the end is in sight!

Yesterday Seth had an orthodontist appointment. No word yet on when he will get his braces off, but they said his teeth are looking good (except they want him to brush better...no surprise there). This morning I had a YW presidency meeting. We haven't had a meeting in a while so it went pretty long! I really love the two women I am working with though. We always have such a good time. 

Since tomorrow is Seth's birthday, we invited three of his friends to come over after school today and they are still here. They have mostly been playing Minecraft. We ordered pizza for dinner and we also had cake. (I am always happy to share cake with as many people as possible!) 

For once, my weekly post is not going to be long. Only a week and a half until school gets out. I can't wait!

Weekly Review May 22 '22

 We've had a busy weekend so I am late getting this week's post written. 

Last Friday (the 13th) Seth and Frank went to see the new Dr. Strange movie. Our stake was having a fathers / sons campout that night but it was supposed to rain (and it did) so they decided to go see a movie instead of going camping. I stayed home and read West With Giraffes, and almost finished it. I read the last few chapters the next day. I actually really liked this book, so if you are looking for a good book to read, I recommend it. 

On Saturday (the 14th) I got my hair done first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, Frank had some work to do for a client. When I got home Frank was still gone and he didn't get home until the middle of the afternoon. I spent most of the rest of the day going through our closet and bedroom, cleaning things out and getting things better organized. When Frank came home, he helped. We ended up throwing away a big bag of stuff and we had another large bag of stuff to donate. We were pretty tired by the end of the day, but felt like we got a lot accomplished. Darlee also contacted us that day because she was in the area for a study abroad. We were trying to figure out a time that we could meet up with her while she was out here but unfortunately we were never able to connect. We will see her when we visit Utah in July, though!

I can't remember much about Sunday or Monday except that on Monday evening Scott arrived. His flight was supposed to get in at 9:00 pm but his flight out of Denver was delayed quite a bit so he didn't get in until a little after 10:00 pm instead. Frank and I went to pick him up; Seth stayed home and went to bed since he had Seminary the next morning. The moon that evening was full, very large, and orange/red in color. It looked really cool! I wish I could have got a good picture of it but my camera on my phone isn't that good (plus it's hard to take a decent picture from a moving car). We enjoyed looking at it, at least, even though we couldn't get a picture. When Scott got in, it took quite a while for him to get his luggage too so we didn't get home until nearly midnight and we went right to bed. 

It's been great having Scott here this week! Some of my household chores have suffered since I'd rather talk with Scott than do chores, but that's okay...the house will still be here and need cleaning next week. ;) We didn't really do anything out of the ordinary until the weekend, but have just enjoyed having Scott around. He's been a big help with Seth as well. He talked through a couple of school assignments with Seth and helped him to get them done. He also helped Seth write a talk for Sacrament meeting, which Seth gave today. He picked Seth up from school a couple of times and just in general has given him a lot of good brotherly advice. I think Seth has really enjoyed having Scott here as well. 

Seth had school every day as usual except on Friday he got out two hours early. He's had a bit of school work to do since we are trying to help him get his grades up in a couple of his classes. This week was his last week of Seminary for the year. Originally, they were supposed to go next week too but his teachers told them that if all the kids in the class got their assessment done last week that they would get out a week early. All the kids completed their assessment, so Friday was the last day of Seminary. I am happy that we will be able to get up an hour later now! Wednesday morning was the last day of Seminary for the Seniors, so they had a little celebration and we provided breakfast for everyone. (They have breakfast once a week and we have not provided breakfast all year so we volunteered to do it.) The kids wanted pizza and donuts (yes, a really healthy breakfast!) so that's what we did. We also provided milk and orange juice. 

We weren't very happy on Wednesday afternoon when we found out that one of the boys in our ward, who sits next to Seth in Seminary, tested positive for Covid-19. It's been going around his family, but he tested negative that morning and felt fine so he went to Seminary and school as usual. He didn't start feeling sick until after he got home from school. He was not wearing a mask at Seminary and neither was Seth, so that means Seth has been exposed and we have been exposed to Seth. Because of that, Seth wore a mask to Seminary and to school for the rest of the week and we have been wearing masks when we go out in public. So far, thankfully, none of us have felt sick. Hopefully that will continue! 

This boy who came down with Covid-19 was also supposed to give a talk in Sacrament meeting today, so that is how Seth ended up being asked to speak instead. 

On Wednesday evening we had youth activities. My class combined with the yonger class and we did service for a family in our ward--we did yardwork. Mostly we were pulling weeds and digging up grass. After we worked for an hour, they built a fire in their fire pit and we made s'mores. Between sickness and lots of end of the school year events, we didn't have a lot of girls there that evening, even with two classes participating. My class only had one girl come and the younger class only had two. I think we will be combining a lot for activities over the summer, since we don't have a lot of girls to begin with and people will be going out of town. The YM celebrated Seth's birthday (a little early). Seth got to pick the activity they did and the treat they had. He chose to play pickle ball (again) and he chose chocolate cupcakes for their treat. Scott went with Frank and Seth to the YM activity and I think he had fun, but he ended up getting asked to teach the YM lesson at church today! (He was happy to do that, though.)

Frank had a meeting at the University of Maryland on Wednesday morning...it was the meeting where he fills out a lot of paperwork like his W-4 and so forth. He was about 10 minutes away from the university when he realized that he had forgotten to bring his passport and all the papers he had filled out already! He called me and I looked all over the house and finally found the papers on a bookshelf in our bedroom, which is not a place that he usually puts things that he needs to take with him. I scanned the papers and emailed them to him so that he could easily fill out new ones. 

On Thursday Frank and I had a meeting with our financial advisor to discuss retirement plan options. We have two retirement plan options to choose from with his new job and we have to make a decision about which plan we want before the first day that he works there. Whatever decision we make, it is permanent--we can't change our minds later. So we want to make sure we make the best choice. After talking to him, we have a bit more information but we still need to talk to someone at the University of Maryland before we can make a final decision. We talked about retirement in general also, and decided to make a few changes in what we've been doing  with our other retirement account. (All the retirement accounts that he's had with former employers have been rolled into one IRA, so we talked about that one too.) 

As I mentioned earlier, Seth got out of school 2 hours early on Friday. We had tickets to go to the Washington DC Temple Open House and needed to be there between 3:00 and 3:30. Because the University of Maryland is only a few miles away from the temple and Frank needed to bring in his passport to show them (they couldn't accept a copy of that) we decided it would make sense to leave early enough that we could go to the University of Maryland first and do that in one trip, instead of Frank driving down there again sometime next week. So that's what we did, and it was nice for us to see where he is going to be working. The campus is quite pretty. He got the rest of the paperwork done that he needed to do and then we drove over to the temple open house. 

The open house was really great!! The temple has not changed all that much, but we recognized all the changes, or course, having been there so many times before. Overall it is just fresher and prettier. There is a lot of beautiful new artwork, there are new furnishings and finishes on a lot of things, and there are a lot of new light fixtures including a large chandelier in the middle of the celestial room. (There have always been 12 small chandeliers around the edges of the celestial room but there was not a large one in the center of the ceiling before.) Overall, I like the changes even though I will miss the large mural that used to be on the wall at the end of the bridge. There is a beautiful painting there now, but I really liked the mural. The thing I liked the most about the openhouse was seeing how many people were there. There were tons of people there and it seemed that the majority of them were not members of the church. I really loved seeing all those people in the temple who wouldn't normally be able to be there! I felt like I was getting the chance to share this place that is so special to me with so many people. It was a really beautiful feeling. After we did the tour of the inside, we walked around the outside of the temple too. It was a very hot day (in the 90s) but the temple grounds are so beautiful too! 

I took this photo before we went inside. I was so happy to see so many people there!

Beautiful flower beds

View from the East side. The sun was in just the right place. :)

There is a new reflecting pool which is much nicer than the former one.

Doesn't the temple look beautiful??? It almost looks like a painting!! Again, so happy to see so many people!

Because Scott wanted to visit a couple of museums in Washington DC, we had arranged to stay at a hotel in northern Virginia on Friday night so we could go to the museums on Saturday. So after we finished at the temple open house, we drove to our hotel to check in. We changed clothes and then went to dinner at a Longhorn Steakhouse nearby. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing at the hotel. Frank took Seth swimming at the hotel swimming pool. 

On Saturday we went to the National Air & Space Museum. There are actually two of them--one is on the National Mall and the other one is near Dulles International Airport. We went to the one by the airport because Scott wanted to see the Space Shuttle Discovery and some of the other things that were there. (And actually, the museum on the National Mall is closed right now for renovations.) Dad and I have been there before but Scott and Seth had not been there. We spent the morning wandering around that museum. It is huge, with so many airplanes, helicopters, etc. 

This panoramic photo I took of the space shuttle makes it look curved, but I still think it's a pretty cool photo!

When we finished looking at all the planes, rockets, etc., we went up to the observation deck on the 7th floor where there were panoramic views of the entire area. It was really cool but impossible to get good photos through the reflective glass. By then it was after lunch time so we went in search of a place to eat. Scott had also expressed an interest in going to the Holocaust Museum but he decided he was too tired and the rest of us were tired too so we were all happy to go home. We stopped at a place called Moby Dick's which has yummy Mediterranean food for lunch and then we drove home. We unpacked and relaxed...I even took a nap...and then had leftovers from lunch for dinner. I swept & mopped the kitchen floor, practiced ukulele, and helped Seth write his talk. (Scott helped too, as I mentioned before). Seth was happy to have some screen time since he didn't get any on Friday. 

Today Seth did a good job on his talk. I taught my YW class (only 2 girls were there today) and Scott said his lesson with the YM went well. After church I had a YW class presidency meeting and Frank had Ward Council, both on Zoom. This afternoon we have had a couple of visitors from our ward to see Scott. First we enjoyed visiting with Brother Croy, who is the dad of the family that we bought our house from. He has a son a year older than Scott and another son who is Tanner's age. Then Scott's friend Michelle (who is a year older than him) came to have dinner with us. She is actually still here...they are downstairs laughing and talking. 

I will finish up with a couple of photos I took when we went on a walk earlier this week.

Weekly Review May 13 '22

 The last two weeks seem to have gone by very slowly, and yet it's hard to believe we are almost half way through May. I think I am more excited for school to end than Seth is. We had a fairly busy week. Let's start with the good news.

The good news is...Frank got a new job. 😄 He actually received the offer last Friday morning and I knew about it when I was writing last week, but he didn't want me to mention it until he'd had a chance to talk to his current employer. He signed and sent in the acceptance letter on Sunday evening and then talked to people at his work on Monday morning. It was a little tricky because the co-owner that he reports to left on vacation on Saturday so he hasn't been in the office all week. Frank was trying to figure out who to give his notice to. He finally decided to talk to someone in HR first, and then he talked to the other co-owner (the one who isn't out of town). He also sent an email to the co-owner who is on vacation. Overall, people were surprised / shocked and not incredibly happy that he's leaving. The news has slowly spread throughout his office but a lot of the people he works with at the various restaurants still don't know and I'm pretty sure they are going to be REALLY unhappy because they really like Frank. That's because when they have a problem that needs to be fixed, he fixes it for them, in a timely manner. Apparently they weren't getting that before he started working there. He has talked to a few of the vendors that he works with a lot and none of them are happy either. 

Anyway, I guess I should tell you about the new job. He is going to be working for the University of Maryland College Park as a manager of IT services within the department of Residential Facilities. This is the place that I mentioned a few weeks ago had been contacting him so we knew he was still in the running for the job. The salary is much better than what he is getting at his current job and it is unlikely that he will be working so much overtime. We're sure he will have overtime occasionally, but it probably won't be a lot. The guy he is replacing has been there many years and is leaving because he is retiring, so that's a fairly good sign that he was happy there and that the working conditions are good. The only downside is that he will be commuting again but we can live with that. Frank is really excited about the job and I am really excited for him to not be so overworked! When Frank got the offer, he called me and we agreed to think about it / pray about it over the weekend, but we knew from the beginning that it was extremely likely that he'd accept it. After I hung up the phone after talking to him, I just had such a huge feeling of relief and gratitude come over me. It just felt right to me. I could look back over the last several months and see how everything has been lining up. It's hard to explain, but it just felt meant to be. Frank was feeling the same way. 

On Saturday there was a youth temple baptism trip planned for our ward, so we had already been planning to go to the temple. It was looking a bit crazy for a while because the YW president came down with Covid-19 and then one of the daughters of the 1st Counselor in the Bishopric came down with it too, as well as one of the other girls in her YW class. Some of our bishop's kids had it a few weeks ago so they weren't sure they would be allowed to go either. It all worked out in the end...we only had 6 youth able to attend, but the bishop was able to go and Frank and I were able to go so we had enough adult leaders to take our little group. The bishop had a van that had enough room for all the youth to ride together, which of course they wanted to do, so Frank and I ended up being alone in our car together which was perfect because it gave us a lot of time to talk about the job offer. We hadn't gone very far before we realized that we were both talking about the new job as if it was a done deal. One of us would say "our health insurance is going to change...I mean, if we accept the job our health insurance is going to change..." We knew that unless we had a bad feeling about it, we were going to accept the job. Neither of us had a bad feeling, though. As a matter of fact, the more we thought about it the better we felt. So we knew that was our answer. 

It was really sweet to be in the temple with some of the youth from our ward (including Seth). I feel really fortunate that in the last 3 months I've been able to go to the temple 3 times. It's been wonderful!! The trip took most of the day but it was a great way to spend our day. One of the temple workers in the baptistry looked really familiar to me. As we were leaving, I finally thought to ask him where he lives and sure enough...he lives in Newark, Delaware. We were in the same ward with him when we lived there. He said we looked familiar to him too. 

It rained most of the day and it was windy and fairly cold too. I'm so glad Frank was doing all the driving! He handles bad road conditions (and driving in general) much better than I do. I don't enjoy driving in busy cities or areas that I'm not very familiar with or in bad weather. I wish those things didn't make me a nervous wreck, but they do!

Sunday was Mother's Day of course. It had mostly stopped raining, but it was still pretty cold...only in the low 40s, so I wore a coat to church. (In May!!) We had a recently returned missionary speak. He originally went to the Philippines on his mission but had to come home after a year because of Covid-19. Then he was home for a year and a half. During that time his family moved out of our ward--to Utah. When he went back on his mission he was reassigned to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania so when he finished his mission last week his parents came out here to pick him up and they drove down to our ward so that he could speak in a ward where he knew people. (And see old friends, of course!) For the second hour of church all the women and YW were invited to join the RS (the men and YM taught all the Primary classes). The Elders Quorum had set up a brunch for all of us in the RS room...tables with centerpieces and everything! We ate brunch while we listened to the lesson, which consisted of several women and YW sharing something about a woman they admired. It was all really nice.

I did receive some cards and gifts from my boys, Frank did all the cooking that day, and all three of the older boys called to talk to me. It was a lovely day.

On Monday afternoon I was surprised (in a nice way) when the parents of the recently returned missionary showed up at our house to visit. The mom served as one of my counselors when I was RS president, so we were pretty good friends and I hadn't had the chance to talk to her much the day before so I was happy for the chance to visit with them and get caught up. She has a lot of health issues so she was particularly careful during the worst part of the Covid-19 pandemic and never came to church so I actually hadn't seen her in a few years. We were having so much fun visiting that they ended up staying until Frank got home from work and we all went out to dinner together.

There was a RS activity on Tuesday...we planted flowers at a nursing home that is right next to our church building. There were only about 7 or 8 of us who came, but we got all the flowers planted pretty quickly. The weather warmed up on Monday, by the way, so it was quite pleasant that evening and it was nice to be outside. We've had warm pretty days all week although the mornings are chilly. Today it has been raining again too.

I had a dentist appointment Wednesday morning...just getting my teeth cleaned. Everything looks good but I am going to go back next month so they can try adjusting my crown. That tooth has never been the same...it still bothers me to chew hard or really chewy things on that tooth and sometimes it is still sensitive to cold. I just had ice cream last week and it really hurt! So I asked them to look at it again. The x-rays don't show any obvious problem but after investigating they think one buckle might need to be shaved down a little bit. On Wednesday evening we had a combined YW activity. It was nice to have an activity with the girls again...between Spring Break and leadership broadcasts, we haven't had an activity together for weeks. We did a mother-daughter hike and it was really nice. We had to detour a few times because the trail was somewhat muddy and wet in some places because of all the rain we've had recently. 

I can't think of anything unusual about yesterday except that my friend Rebekah texted me to say she had just tested positive for Covid-19. Her husband had tested positive the day before. I actually saw her and talked to her yesterday morning but we didn't stand very close together and she had a mask on so I'm not too worried about it. Hopefully she and her husband will both get better soon and not have bad cases of it. The YW president is finally getting better but she was quite sick and she is having a very slow recovery. 

Frank had to work last night...they were installing cameras at one of the restaurants. He left around 8:00 pm and didn't get home until 3:00 am. Unfortunately, I was awake when he got home. I woke up around 1:30 and didn't fall back asleep until after 4:00. Seems to be a regular occurance with me these days but it's a lot easier to make it through the day when you don't have little people to take care of, so it's not too bad. 

My friend Rebekah had a copy of the book for book chat that she finished reading so she gave it to me on Sunday. It took me a few days to find the time to start reading it, but I did finally start reading and I'm well into it now and really enjoying it. (The book is called West With Giraffes). I will probably finish it in the next few days. 

This week was midterm for Seth and he was doing quite a bit of homework to get all his assignments in. He did get all but one assignment done, but his grade for his English class is not at all good right now. That is because he hasn't done well on a lot of the assessments and they count for 90% of his grade. I am going to have to keep a closer eye on how he's doing in that class and maybe help him with some of these assessments. At least it is midterm, not the final grade for the term so he has time to bring his grade up. 

I think that is everything for this week except I forgot to mention when I was talking about Frank's new job that he will be starting that job June 6th. He gave his current employer 3 week's notice so his last day there will be May 31st. 

Oh, and here's something that shows how crazy the housing market is right now. The house on the end of our row of townhouses just sold and the realtor left this flyer on our door:

It's hard to believe a townhouse in our neighborhood sold for $368,000! (Ours wouldn't sell for quite that much because we're not an end unit, but still...pretty close to that.) I think they were asking $315,000 for it which is also crazy high but with 15 offers, the price was driven up. I'm sure this is not going to last forever...another bubble is going to burst eventually.

I took a few photos of wildlife on our deck and in the common area behind our house this week so I will finish up with those as well as a few of the common area I took this morning. It had been raining but then the sun came out and it was still sprinkling a little bit. It looked really pretty! As usual, the pictures don't capture how beautiful it was.