Weekly Reviews March 29th and April 5th '24

 I didn't post last week because I was out of town. I got home on Wednesday (April 3rd) but since then I have been very busy trying to get caught up on everything that piled up while I was gone. I am finally almost caught up...this is the last thing I need to do. I'm not sure how much I will be able to remember about the last 2 weeks but I'm sure no one will complain if I don't go into a lot of details. 

On Saturday the 23rd I got my hair cut. That's the only thing that is on my calendar and now I can't remember anything else about that day. I'm sure it was busy! On Sunday the 24th we met for the first time with our "new" ward. All the wards in our stake had fast & testimony meetings that week. Several of the new members of our ward shared testimonies and overall it was a very beautiful meeting with a sweet spirit. For the second hour, we all met together for Sunday School instead of RS and Priesthood meetings so that there would be more opportunites to get to know each other (plus no RS presidency was called, so there was no one to preside at a RS meeting). Jared & Jessie came over as usual for dinner and games, and I gave them some bags of Easter treats. 

For Seminary that week I taught two lessons about prayer...both related to the Doctrinal Mastery scripture 2 Nephi 32:8-9. They went okay but our class has reverted somewhat these last couple of weeks and the kids haven't been participating as much. My team teacher and I are hoping that they will be improved when we go back this week...hopefully they were just getting tired and needed a break! I guess we'll see. I felt a bit more free that week because I didn't have Seminary lessons to prepare for the following week. I enjoyed the break! I can't remember any details of what I did most days, besides the usual chores. I also started to prepare for our Utah trip. 

On Wednesday the 27th I did my VITA shift as usual. I can't remember a lot of it now except that one woman I helped began by telling me that her husband had passed away a few weeks before. I felt so sad for her, although she seemed to be coping fairly well. We were busy but not too busy so that was nice. 

That evening I had book chat. I didn't love the book we read (The Unsinkable Greta James) and a lot of the other book chat members didn't like it very much either. We did have a good discussion, though. Now we are reading It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. I haven't started reading it yet becasue I don't have a copy of the book yet. While I'm waiting to get that book, I have started reading Freewater, which is the 2023 Newbery winner. 

Seth and I started packing on Wednesday the 27th and I realized that Seth didn't have very many long sleeve shirts that still fit him so on Thursday morning when I went to the store I looked for some long sleeve shirts for him. At first I didn't think I would find any because the stores are geared up for the coming warmer seasons so all the short sleeve shirts are out. But then I found a clearance rack and managed to find three long sleeve shirts his size. Two of them cost $3.00 each and one of them was only $.50! So I scored three new shirts for him for only $6.50...nice!! 

For Seminary Thursday morning, one of the families provided a yummy breakfast. My team teacher planned a short Doctrinal Mastery review which involved looking for plastic Easter egg halves and then putting them together (two parts of the key phrase for each scripture) and then putting the egg in the right part of the egg tray (which had the scripture references). The kids seemed to really enjoy this, once they woke up enough to get into it!

The rest of Thursday was busy with laundry and other chores, plus finishing packing which took almost all day for some reason. I barely got everything done in time to leave for the airport shortly after Seth got home from school. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:00 pm so we had to be at the airport at 5:00 and left home around 3:30 since we knew traffic might be bad. We weren't sure how the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse would effect traffic on I-695; luckily, it wasn't any worse than usual and we arrived at the airport in plenty of time. While we were waiting to get on our flight to Chicago, we met a missionary who was just arriving to serve his mission here in Baltimore. 

Our flight to Chicago was completely full but uneventful. Our flight from Chicago to Salt Lake City was delayed about 30 minutes. Then after we boarded we ended up sitting on the plane for over an hour before we finally took off. This was because of delays in loading the baggage (which included "human remains", according to the captain...thanks for sharing that with us!) and a shift change of ground personnel, plus waiting for a couple of planes to land before we could take off. We finally got off the ground and then the rest of the flight was smooth. This flight was not completely full so Seth and I had an empty seat in between us. I tried to sleep and did sleep a little bit, but not much. Our flight didn't land until about 2:00 am Utah time which was 4:00 am at home and since I got up at 3:30 am Thursday morning, that meant I had very little sleep for over 24 hours. (Kudos to Scott for picking us up at that terrible hour!) When I got to Mom's house, Amy had woken up so we ended up talking a bit. Then I woke up again only about 3 hours after I went to sleep and never went back to sleep or took a nap so I was pretty tired by the end of that day.

I don't remember a lot of details about what we did each day of our trip, either. It was a very laid back and relaxed vacation with a lot of sitting around and visiting...very nice! I didn't get a ton of sleep, though! On Friday the 29th, Janna came over in the morning to visit. I was coordinating with Rachelle to plan a family Easter dinner for Sunday and at Mom's house we were planning what we would bring and what groceries needed to be purchased. (Hans did most of the shopping although I ended up getting a ham and a couple of other things on Saturday.) On Friday I also saw Jeremy and Ammon and of course my own boys. Lots of talking & fun!

Ammon and Seth, with Scott photo bombing

And without Scott

My three boys (Jared was in Maryland)...we were comparing heights. Tanner is still the tallest, but they are all pretty close. Seth has almost caught up with Scott.

On Saturday the 30th I helped Tanner make some cookies and then went with him to deliver them to a bunch of his friends. The following day was his last day in his ward (the married student ward he's been in for nearly 5 years) so he wanted to give cookies to his closest friends. It was fun to meet a bunch of his friends and they all told me what a great guy he is and how much they'll miss him. In one way I was feeling very old though...all of his friends looked so young to me!! One couple had a two year old and were expecting a second child and that mom looked like she was about 16 to me. A few others were expecting babies and one couple had just got home from the hospital with their first baby who was born the day before. I kept looking at all these young people and wondering how they could really be old enough to be parents! 😅 I'm sure people used to think the exact same thing about me, though. I often had people tell me I didn't look old enough to have kids. (Or to have kids as old as they were at the time...as a matter of fact, that still happens to me sometimes.)

After delivering most of the cookies, we got some burgers for dinner, then delivered a few more cookies, and then we went to visit some Maryland friends that live in Utah now. (The McClatchie family). They have been in Utah a few years but have moved into their new house since the last time we saw them (they were having a house built). Their new house is beautiful, and we had a great time visiting with them...stayed a lot longer than we intended. Then after I got home, I ended up staying up even later talking to Scott and then to Amy. (But I loved having the chance to talk with both of them!)

In spite of the late night, I still woke up pretty early on Sunday the 31st. I connected to my home ward and watched most of Sacrament Meeting, which included some beautiful talks and music. Then I showered and went with Amy and Mom to Mom's ward...Hans had left earlier because he was part of a musical number and he needed to practice. The Primary presidency was in charge of the meeting and they planned a program that was similar to a Primary program, except they included the whole ward...children, youth, and adults. There were many short speaking parts and lots of beautiful musical numbers. It was a wonderful meeting! I especially loved the children's songs and the men's song that Hans was a part of.

After that meeting I went back to Mom's and ate breakfast (hadn't had time to eat before the meeting) and visited until it was time to go to Scott's Sacrament Meeting. (Seth and Tanner also went to that meeting.) Scott's ward's meeting was also really beautiful, with some gorgeous music and heartfelt testimonies and it finished up with a powerful talk given by Scott. I definitely felt incredibly spiritually fed! It was a lovely Easter, in spite of the cold and rain. 

After I got back to Mom's, we finished up dinner preparations (cutting up fruit for a fruit salad and making a green salad...Hans had made an apple cake and he, Mom and Amy had made a potato salad and some deviled eggs the night before; I helped a little bit with the potato salad before I had to leave with Tanner). They put the ham in the oven to warm up earlier too. We all headed to Tim & Rachelle's house where we enjoyed a delicious dinner and lots of (loud!😆) visiting with extended family and some friends. A lot of Shellie's and Tim's families were there, as well as Amy's boys, the whole group from Mom's house, and Rachelle's sister and her mom and Jay and a few family friends. I did not take many photos on this trip at all (too busy enjoying the moment, I guess) but Rachelle thought to get a picture of all the siblings and Mom together.

Monday the 1st and Tuesday the 2nd were quiet days where I mostly just enjoyed visiting with family at Mom's. Erika came over on Monday to cut Mom's hair so we got to visit with her. Amy and I also finished up Mom's tax return...I can't remember what day we worked on it earlier (maybe Friday?) Amy prepared most of it before I arrived in Utah, but I checked it over for her. When we got to the state part of her return, the software was doing something funky and it took us a while to figure it out, but eventually we did and were able to get her federal and state returns filed. On Monday evening Scott, Lexy, Seth and I watched a movie called Arrival together...I really liked it! On Tuesday Amy and I went through some of Mom's fabric scraps and chose some to keep (I brought home quite a bit...hoping to use some of them to make a quilt someday.) I was particularly happy to find a couple of fabrics used to make blouses for my mission, a few more used to make shirts for my boys, and even one fabric that was used to make dresses for Amy and I when we were little girls! (A cute "paper doll" pattern.) 

Seth enjoyed playing video games and spending time with his brothers while we were in Utah. Scott took him to dinner on Saturday and Tanner took him to see a movie (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) on Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, at home, Frank had Easter dinner with the Hatches (Jessie's family). He worked, of course, and did work for clients. He also went through all his clothes and filled a bag of things to donate. It rained a LOT, including a large thunderstorm that woke him up one night. It has continued to rain quite a bit since we got home and everything is very GREEN. It still isn't very warm, though. 

Amy flew home Tuesday evening and Seth and I flew home Wednesday morning. (Well, it was morning when we left Utah...we arrived home around dinner time.) We were on a nonstop flight coming home which was really nice. I actually slept for a while, which surprised me since I slept well the night before. We landed in Baltimore a few minutes early but then we had to wait nearly an hour for our luggage to get unloaded...not sure why. Frank picked us up and we stopped at Cafe Rio on the way home to pick up some dinner. After we got home, Frank went to bed and Seth and I ate dinner and unpacked. I was in bed by 10:00 pm and didn't expect to go to sleep since it was only 8:00 pm in Utah and I'd been staying up MUCH later than that most nights, but to my surprise I fell asleep quickly. 

I'm so grateful I got to go on this trip, but it is also really nice to be home. I've spent the last few days getting back into my regular routine (exercising and regular chores) as well as getting caught up on everything, as I mentioned before. Besides getting caught up with laundry, meal planning, grocery shopping, finances, and cleaning, I also got our tax returns filed yesterday and our business annual report filing done today. I got both of my Seminary lessons for next week prepared also (did most of that yesterday; did some preparation in Utah and a little more on Thursday). It's been pretty busy and I've felt a bit stressed at times but I finally feel like I'm caught up and ready to move into a new week.

Jared came over for a while yesterday afternoon. He took Seth driving for a while and then later he and his father-in-law met Frank and Seth for dinner at Applebee's because there was a great sale on wings. (I stayed home to work on Seminary lessons and let them have their "guy time"!) None of us felt the earthquake that happened in New Jersey, although apparently many people in Baltimore did.

Today we enjoyed watching General Conference--it was wonderful! We invited the Sister missionaries over to watch the second session and to have dinner with us. We put some white chicken chili in the crock pot this morning and I made a green salad shortly before Conference started, so everyone was able to eat whenever they got hungry during the session. We had a few snacks and lots of leftover Easter candy too. (I made treat bags for each member of the family to take to Utah--I left a treat bag for Frank as well--but there was a lot of candy leftover which I pulled out today.) 

Here are a few pictures to finish up. It rained a lot on Wednesday and overnight so the river was really flooded Thursday morning. (It's gone back to normal now.) We also had some beautiful sunrises on both Thursday and Friday:

And here is one more picture that was just shared with me this week. It was taken at the ward Easter dinner a few weeks ago. Remember I mentioned that Seth was one of the narrators? I'm grateful to have this photo since afterwards I regretted that I had forgotten to take any photos of Seth in the program.

I've probably forgotten tons of things, but hopefully that was the most important stuff!

Weekly Review March 22 '24

There was quite a bit going on this week so this post may be kind of long. I'll try not to get too detailed, but you all know that I am not good at not getting detailed! 

On Saturday I finished up Seminary lesson preparations and did all the usual chores. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner. I picked them up at a park and it was a beautiful warm day with lots of people out enjoying the lovely weather. It felt like full-on spring! I say that in the past tense because it got a lot cooler this week...I'd even describe it as being cold a lot of the week. Today the high was 51 and we've had below freezing temperatures overnight the last few nights. Our heater has been coming back on, which wasn't happening for a while. 

Sunday was eventful since there were a lot of changes in our stake. I went to choir practice before the special meeting that they had for the entire stake. The meeting was broadcast to all the buildings so we went to our usual building. They had maps showing all the new ward boundaries in the foyers and a QR code you could scan to download a document which had the entire stake membership listed with which ward each person is now in listed next to their name. In the meeting the stake presidency explained some of the process they went through to decide the new ward boundaries and how everything came together and they testified about the inspiration they received in making all those decisions. In the meeting many of the wards also sustained new bishoprics and Elders Quorum presidencies. Every ward in the stake had changes to their boundaries and some of the changes were extensive. Two wards were dissolved and three new wards were created, so we now have 9 wards in our stake and each ward is approximately the same size. (I guess there was one ward that didn't change...the Frederick 2nd Ward...but that's because it's for all the Spanish speakers and it's boundaries cover the entire stake.)

We are still in the same ward (Walkersville Ward)--but just barely!! The southernmost part of our (former) ward was put into Frederick 1st Ward and the dividing line is Schifferstadt Boulevard...the main road that runs just south of our house...so we are literally right on the southern boundary line. There's a family that lives just on the other side of Schifferstadt Boulevard from us...their road and our road could actually be the same road, but the name changes as you cross Schifferstadt Boulevard...and now they are in the other ward. The last few weeks, as we've been contemplating the possibility that we might be moved into another ward, we were keeping a mental inventory of what other families would be moved with us. All of those families were moved...we are the only ones in the group who are still in Walkersville Ward. A lof of people in our ward have expressed surprise that we didn't get moved...but they have also been nice enough to add that they are glad that we're still in the ward. 😊

Although our ward lost a number of people in the southern part of the ward, our western boundary was extended so we have a lot of new ward members who used to be in the Frederick 1st Ward. Five of the youth in my Seminary class who used to be in the Frederick 1st Ward are now in our ward, so that is great! They all attend the same high school as Seth, so he is no longer the only youth in our ward who attends his high school. In addition, there is another boy from Frederick 1st Ward who does not attend our Seminary class because he goes to a high school farther north who is also in our ward now. He is in the same CTC class as Seth so they know each other and have become friends (and I know his mom because she comes to my book club). Besides more youth and their families, we also have several other older couples who are strong members so overall the changes have been really good for our ward. We will, of course, miss all the families who were moved out of our ward. It just so happens that both the RS president and the Primary president were among the families moved to the other ward so there will definitely be a lot of changes coming up! (We lost the RS 2nd counselor and both the RS secretary and Primary secretary too.) Hopefully I'm safe from getting a new calling...I feel fairly safe where I'm at as a Seminary teacher. 

I would say that in spite of all the changes I just mentioned, the impact on our ward was a lot less than many of the other wards. At the meeting they told everyone who had been moved into another ward that they were released from their current callings, so there are a LOT of people without callings and a LOT of wards without a lot of the leadership positions (or any other positions) filled. I was looking at the ward organizations in LDS tools yesterday (it took them a few days to set up the new wards and even now not everyone has been moved into their proper ward yet) and it's kind of crazy because although every ward has a bishopric and at least an Elder's Quorum president, 6 of the wards don't have RS presidencies, 6 don't have Primary presidencies (and the ones who do don't have full presidencies) and 5 don't have YW presidencies (and again, the ones who have them do not have full presidencies). 

Jared & Jessie were in one of the wards that was dissolved--Braddock Heights Ward--and now they are in the Brunswick Ward. Their ward is going to be meeting in our building so maybe we will see them once in a while in the halls! Our building has had 3 wards meeting in it but now we will have 4 wards, so we are going to be crowded. (We've had 4 wards meeting there in the past, so we know it's possible but it's not ideal.) 

Sorry I am going on and on about all the ward boundary changes. I'm sure most of you don't care about the details, but one of the purposes of this blog is to help me remember the things I want to remember. Hopefully you just skimmed through all that! Here is one last thing I want to remember, though, and then I promise I will move on to something else. Another thing I have been thinking about the last few weeks when we knew changes were coming and that we might end up in another ward is this: I kept thinking that if we got moved into another ward, it would likely be into Frederick 1st Ward and I was thinking that at least Seth would be with a few kids he knows because over half of our Seminary class was in Frederick 1st Ward. I realized later in the afternoon on Sunday that nearly all of the Frederick 1st Ward youth that attend our Seminary class were actually moved into Walkersville Ward, and all but 2 of the other ones were moved into one of the newly created wards (Catoctin Ward). So if our family had been moved into Frederick 1st Ward with the rest of the families in our area of the ward, Seth not only would have been moved away from all the kids in our ward that he's known all his life, but he also would have been moved at the same time that all the other kids he knows from Seminary were moved into our ward and he wouldn't have known any of the kids in our new ward. That would have been really rotten for him, so I feel really grateful that things worked out the way they did. A tender mercy for our family, for sure! 

No more ward boundary change information, but I'm not done with Sunday yet! That afternoon I went to the RS broadcast commemorating the RS birthday. Our ward decided to do it at 4:00 because that was better for a lot of people. It was really nice. When I got home, we had dinner and games with Jared & Jessie, as usual. We played a game called Timeline, which involves putting different historical events in the correct order. I'm usually really good at this game, but didn't do too well this time. I kept drawing cards with inventions, and I'm not as good at placing them in the proper time as I am with actual events like wars and such. It was still fun, though! 

Frank had Monday and Tuesday off work because it was Spring Break for the University of Maryland. I don't think he got a whole lot of down time, though...he ended up doing a lot of work for clients. We did get to go out to lunch together on Tuesday, which was nice. 

I taught Seminary on Monday and Tuesday as usual. Monday's lesson was about baptism and Tuesday's lesson was about enduring to the end. They went okay. Attendance wasn't as good this week as it usually is. Actually, Seth didn't make it on either Monday or Tuesday...he didn't sleep well so he was really tired those mornings. I went over Monday's lesson with him on Tuesday but I haven't had a chance to do Tuesday's lesson with him yet. 

Wednesday's VITA shift was busy but overall it went well. My first appointment was with a lady who is deaf and there was no interpreter so that was a bit challenging! I ended up writing notes to communicate with her and it all worked out. She was a bit upset / frustrated when she arrived but she left happy, which made me feel happy. At one point she wrote me a note that said "no one has ever explained to me how that works, so thank you for explaining that to me." (I explained the difference between itemized deductions and the standard deduction.) When I sat down with the lady for my last appointment, I quickly realized I was not going to be able to complete her tax return because she moved to Maryland partway through the year from Louisiana. We can complete tax returns for two states, but only if they moved from an adjoining state such as Virginia or Pennsylvania. She then explained that she had actually completed her return in Turbo Tax but she got a message and knew something was wrong. She couldn't afford to go to a paid tax preparer either. I told her if I could see the message, maybe I would be able to help her figure it out. She was able to pull it up on her phone, and it turns out that the message was saying that she couldn't e-file (and when I looked at it closer, I could see why she couldn't e-file, but I'll spare you all the details on that!). I explained to her that nothing was wrong...she just needed to print her return and mail it in instead of e-filing. She was overjoyed that her problem was solved and said "thank you so much! You have been such a big help to me today!" That was a nice way to end my shift. 😁

After I got home from VITA, I somehow miraculously managed to get most of my Seminary lesson for Monday figured out before dinner time. After dinner I went to the store and Frank took Seth to Seminary. After I got home with the groceries and put them all away, I went to bed. I woke up briefly when Seth and Frank came home, but fell back asleep quickly. For YM they played a "get to know you" bingo game, since there were some youth attending our ward activities for the first time. 

There wasn't any school today (end of term) so yesterday was our last day of Seminary for the week and one of the families brought in breakfast (we usually do that on Fridays). Since Seth was home today, I decided to go to the temple yesterday. As a result, yesterday kept feeling like Friday and today has felt like Saturday! 😂The temple was wonderful as usual, but I struggled a bit to stay awake. 

After I got home from the temple, I did laundry and vacuumed and watched the BYU basketball game (sad that they lost!). One of my ministering sisters came to visit me that evening.

Today I woke up briefly around 4:00 am when Frank was in the shower. Then I woke up again when the alarm went off at 5:00...that's what time Seth has to get up on school days and I forgot to turn the alarm off. However, I fell back asleep again and the next thing I knew it was nearly 7:00. It was nice to get a decent night's sleep and I'm sure I needed it but I had a bad dream between 5:00 and 7:00 which involved getting bitten by venemous snakes that also wrapped themselves around my legs and refused to move. I was really happy when I woke up and realized it was just a dream! 

Today turned out to be pretty eventful in an unexpected way. I was trying to finish up my preparations for Monday's Seminary lesson so I could move on to preparing Tuesday's lesson. I did get some things done but then Scott called me. I was happy to talk to him, of course...hadn't talked to him in a while. I was still on the phone with him when I heard loud sirens, so I went to the front window in time to see a couple of fire trucks and an ambulance racing down our street to the back part of the court. (It's hard to explain, but we live on this weird cul-de-sac that has 3 "branches" and we live on the first "branch" that you come to when you turn off of the main road onto our street, so there are 2 more "branchs" behind us). I walked out to our deck in the back of the house to see if I could see what was happening. A lot of trees block the view to that part of the court so I couldn't see much but I could see a lot of firemen jumping off trucks, grabbing hoses and ladders, and running around. I also had a clear view of the fire hydrant and saw a fireman rush over to it and open it up...a lot of muddy water came out for a few seconds and then it turned clear and they attached the hose to it. Seth decided to walk out the front door and around the corner to get a better view, and he soon came hurrying back to report that a lot of thick black smoke was coming out of the front door and second story windows of one of the townhouses at the back of the court, and that firmen were on ladders and were breaking the windows. I went back out with him in time to see the fireman break the second window, but by then there was only a little bit of smoke so they must have put the fire out very quickly. I'm sure there was quite a bit of water and smoke damage to the house, though. 

I took several photos but they really don't capture the crazy scene with all those emergency vehicles on our street!

From the deck--Seth coming back to tell me about the thick black smoke

How the scene looked when I got outside...a little smoke, and a fireman on a ladder breaking one of the upstairs windows.

Lots of emergency vehicles

More emergency vehicles

 

...and even more emergency vehicles

Firemen on the roof 

More firemen on the roof

Firemen entering the house

I was trying to figure out what was in the doorway...maybe rolled up carpet?

Another view of emergency vehicles

And more

And another big truck arrives (kind of late!)

Another view from the deck, while they are wrapping up all the clean up.

After all that excitement (this happened shortly before 11:00 am) I managed to get my Seminary lessons done (I have some minor preparation left to do, but not much) and I also got the budget updated and made a batch of brownies to take to our ward Easter party this evening. 

The Easter party was a dinner and program. It was well attended, and quite a few of the new families who were just moved into the ward attended, so that was nice. I got the chance to talk with quite a few of them and there was actually a lot of mingling at the tables...lots of new families sitting with long-time ward members, which was sweet to see. I think we are all going to get along great! At one point I said to Frank "I think someone should get a photo, since this is our first ward activity after the boundary change" so Frank got up and took a photo:

Seth was asked to be one of the narrators for the program. The narrators told about Jesus's death, resurrection, and visit to the Nephites and there were pictures to accompany the narration. We also all sang several songs throughout the program. The dinner was really good...we had ham, green beans, cheesy potatoes, and rolls and there were a variety of desserts. 

After we got home, Frank had some work to do for UMD (something that had to be done later in the evening and could be done remotely) and I've been working on this post. Now it is actually Saturday so I am going to post this long entry and go to sleep!

Weekly Review March 15 '24

 This week was fairly busy; I feel like I had something "extra" nearly every day. Last Saturday I spent most of the day preparing Seminary lessons. I kind of went down a rabbit hole with the first one which took way too long but I really enjoyed it...there was so much good stuff in 2 Nephi 27! (The Follow Him podcast, which I listened to earlier in the week, really helped me see a lot of that good stuff.) The second lesson came together quicker, thank goodness. The first lesson was on the restoration of the gospel and the Book of Mormon in particular. The second lesson was about identifying and overcoming the tactics of Satan, which was a super interesting topic, actually. Both lessons went fairly well...the second one probably better than the first one. I was concerned about how awake the kids would be--with the daylight saving time shift--and they were pretty tired but it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. 

Anyway, back to Saturday...I did manage to get a few other things done besides preparing lessons, and then we set our clocks forward an hour and went to bed. I usually struggle a lot with the shift onto daylight saving time but I haven't had as much trouble with it this year (for which I am very grateful!). Or maybe I'm just used to feeling tired and trying to stay awake all the time. 😅At any rate, I didn't feel more tired than usual. I did notice that I woke up to my alarm nearly every day this week, which rarely happens. (I usually wake up at least a few minutes--if not an hour or more--before it goes off). I'd say I've been woken up by my alarm maybe 10 times this whole school year until this week. So I'd say my body was definitely feeling the need for more sleep at night! 

On Sunday we had church as usual although that was our last meeting with our ward as it now stands. On Sunday we will find out what changes have been made. Rumor has it that we will be losing a handful of people and gaining others (more than we're losing), but will not lose any youth and if that is true then we will still be in the same ward since Seth is in the youth category. I guess we will see what really happens on Sunday, though! After church my team teacher and I had a phone call meeting where we planned out the rest of the Seminary year. We figured out what lessons we'll be teaching each week and also chose guest teachers for the weeks that we have 5 days. That's actually only 3 weeks because the next two weeks the kids have Friday off of school, the week after that is Spring Break for us so we have no school, and the week after that we aren't starting Seminary until Tuesday because my team teacher is going out of town the weekend before and will be flying home on that Monday. Because of that, we decided to give everyone a day off from Seminary to help them ease back into the school schedule after Spring Break. After that we have three 5-day weeks and the week after that is the last week of Seminary! (It's actually a 5-day week too but one of those days we'll be doing the assessment and the last day will just be a fun day so we don't feel like we'll need a guest teacher that week either.) Eight more weeks until Seminary is done, and one of those weeks we're on break...but who's counting? 😂 We have another four weeks of school after that...Seminary ends earlier because the Seniors finish early and graduation happens weeks before school gets out. I still think that's strange, but that's how they've always done it around here. 

That was a long tangent, sorry!! Also that afternoon our good friends Aaron & Susie Schlenz stopped by to visit us. They used to live in Maryland and were in our ward for years and our kids and their kids were good friends. They live in Texas now but Aaron had a conference for work in DC so they were here for that. We had a great visit with them! Jared & Jessie came over Sunday evening for dinner, to do laundry, and game playing, as usual. We played speed Uno and everyone had fun.

It rained most of the day on Saturday and the river was up quite a bit on Sunday:

It was also super windy on Saturday and Sunday both, and the temperatures were in the 40s so it felt really cold. It warmed up during the week, though, and most of the week has been warmer than usual. Yesterday and today both got up into the 70s, which is particularly warm for this time of year. (I didn't even wear a sweater to Seminary this morning!) It's going to drop back down to more seasonable temperatures soon though. You know I'm never going to complain about unseasonably warm temperatures, though! 

I mentioned that I had something "extra" nearly every day this week. On Monday I went to lunch with my friends Michelle and Crystal...we served together in the YW presidency recently. We realized that we don't get the chance to talk to each other much anymore, so we decided to go to lunch together. It was really great to get caught up on how they are doing and what's going on in their lives. We talked for so long that I picked Seth up from school on my way home.

On Tuesday I went shooting with Jared, Jessie, and Jessie's mom, Tracy. Jared taught us a lesson first and then we shot for a while. I've only been shooting once before and it was a year ago, so it felt like I was starting all over again but I do feel like I got a little more comfortable with it and learned a few new things like how to load the gun. I'm feeling a bit more motivated to try to go more often so that I can keep learning. Jessie took a few photos that she shared with me:

I guess I didn't do anything "extra" on Wednesday, but I worked my VITA shift as usual. We had enough volunteers again, which was nice, but I did have kind of a crazy day because the taxpayer who came in for the first appointment of the day arrived several minutes late and then he had a pretty complicated return--he had a regular job, plus he was an Uber driver and a Door Dash delivery person, and he also worked as a contractor for several months before he got hired as an employee at his regular job. Oh, and he was in college too and had expenses related to that. It took a long time to sort all of that out so I ended up completing only 2 returns that day. I did do at least one review too...I can't remember now if I did more than one. 

Seth had YM as usual that night. Frank was busy doing some work for clients, so I dropped Seth off but Frank picked him up so I was able to go to bed. For their activity they made pies (in honor of "Pi Day", a day early) and they delivered one to one of the YW leaders who just got released. 

I forgot to mention that we had a guest teacher for Seminary Wednesday morning. She taught Seminary for years...as a matter of fact, she taught at least two of my older kids, if not all three of them. She's a great teacher and we had a good time. At one point, she had a couple of the boys attempting to juggle (part of an object lesson). 

Yesterday my "extra" thing was to take Seth to the orthodontist. Everything looks good with his teeth and he doesn't have to go back for a year. Other than that, I got regular chores done and I also worked a lot on one of my Seminary lessons for next week and got it mostly done. I'm not super happy with it...I wish I had ideas to help it be more interesting and meaningful...but at least it's mostly prepared. I can think about it over the weekend and I maybe I will come up with something to make it better. 

Since yesterday was "Pi Day", we had pizza for dinner and I made a chocolate pudding pie also:

This morning Seth drove to Seminary. It was his first time driving on a major road (something besides a residential neighborhood road) and he did okay but definitely needs a lot more practice. It was a good time to try it since there isn't a lot of traffic at that time of day. He did get us there without hitting anything or anyone, so I call that a win! 😉 The family who provided breakfast this morning went all out and brought cereal, scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, and strawberries as well as juice and milk. I spent a good portion of the day preparing my second Seminary lesson for next week and I have an outline completed for that one too. I'm glad to have that done...I still need to prepare Power Point slides for each lesson, but getting the outline done is the hard part. I was able to get the finances caught up before Seth got home from school too which I was happy about. Now Jared is here visiting and playing games with Seth and I will be starting to make dinner soon.

I did a little bit of reading this week...I decided to start reading The Unsinkable Greta James for book chat, even though I haven't finished Atlas of the Heart yet. So far, Unsinkable is pretty good. I don't remember now how I ended up doing this, but this week I watched videos the Church made of the interiors of both the Manti and St. George temples (which were both renovated recently). They are both so beautiful!! I have been in the Manti temple a few times (a long time ago) but I've never been inside the St. George temple. I'm mentioning this because I just wanted to comment on how inspired I am by these pioneer era temples. The early pioneers had so little to work with...both technologically (building equipment and methods) and resources. It's amazing to me that they were able to build these beautiful buildings with such incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail. What a labor of love for the Lord and His work! I'm sure they made huge sacrifices to build these temples. 

I'd better end there so that I can go make dinner.