Weekly Review September 27 '24

I'm getting to this week's review much later than I hoped, so I will try to keep it brief. This week was quite busy and went by fast. Last Saturday, the 21st, I had an appointment in the morning to get my hair cut. Frank and Seth went later that afternoon to get haircuts too. I went to lunch with my friend Rebekah. She got a full time job so we can't go to lunch together on weekdays anymore. Since we were on the letter "I", we went to IHOP. That evening Frank and I went to another ward member's house so they could show us how to take care of their daughter because we are going to be watching her tomorrow evening. Their daughter is an adult but disabled and very much like a child (but a sweet one). She can only say a few words (one of them is "hi!"). They showed us how to feed her and went over everything we'll need to do to help her. We ended up visiting with them for quite a while too. 

Sunday was busy with choir practice (we sang in Sacrament Meeting that day), church, family night, and mission prep class. It was my turn to take Seth to mission prep. I talked to Jared on the phone while Seth was in his class. Seth did a better job at remembering to come out when the class ended, but the class went overtime so I still didn't get home until close to 9:30. 

I taught Seminary on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. My first lesson was on 3 Nephi 8-10 and the other two were covering 3 Nephi 11:1-12. There's a doctrinal mastery scripture in those verses so Wednesday's lesson was the lesson where they start memorizing the scripture reference and key phrase. The lessons went well overall although I was a bit disappointed with Tuesday's lesson...the class wasn't much in the mood to share their thoughts that day and I really wanted to have a great discussion about the wonderful events in 3 Nephi 11. I'm pretty sure I'm the one who learned the most while preparing. 

I had some kind of event or activity every day this week which made it really busy and I haven't made much progress on next week's lessons. I have an outline for Tuesday's lesson and a partial outline for Monday's lesson. I will need to work on those tomorrow morning. 

On Monday I had signed up to help with a lunch that our ward was providing for medical volunteers at a free medical / dental clinic. This clinic is run by a charity called Mission of Mercy. Our stake has partnered with this charity for several years. The clinic is held two or three times a month on Mondays at our stake center and the wards in our stake rotate the responsibility to provide lunch for the doctors and dentists who volunteer at the clinic. I think it is really a wonderful service they are providing...free medical and dental care to those who can't afford it. I have not forgotten how hard it was to pay for medical care back in the early days of our marriage before we had good (or sometimes any) health insurance coverage. Anyway, I signed up to provide fruit for the lunch so I took a bunch of apples, bananas, and clementines over there. That evening a couple in our ward took us to dinner at Cafe Rio. He is one of our ministering brothers and she is my ministering sister, so they called us and told us they wanted to take us to dinner. We enjoyed talking with them and appreciate being ministered to...it's been literally years since a ministering brother has contacted us. 

On Tuesday after school I took Seth to open a bank account, which took about an hour. Then we ended up going back in on Wednesday for two reasons...one, they forgot to give Seth his ID back after they opened his account and two, they left a letter out of his email address when they entered his contact information. We did get his ID back and got his email address corrected. Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening Seth had a YM activity, as usual, which I always take him to now that Frank is working at the temple every Tuesday evening. That means it was another night that I was up later than I wanted to be, but it was not as late as Sunday night.

On Wednesday evening I went to soccer games again...this time for boys in my Seminary class. Two boys are on the JV team and two are on the varsity team. Both teams won...the JV won 8-0 and the varsity won 5-0 and one of the boys in my class who is on the varsity team (my team teacher's son, actually) kicked a goal. We have had a lot of rain this week (but not anywhere near what the southeast US has had the last few days from Hurricane Helene) and on Wednesday it rained on and off all day. It was supposed to stop raining in the evening but it was still "misting" during most of the games so I got pretty damp (my hair was wet, not damp) after sitting in the mist for 3+ hours. I'm not complaining, though...it would have been much worse if it had been actually raining. My team teacher and her kids were there and we sat together so I mostly enjoyed the evening, even though I was getting wet. I was up late again, though!

On Thursday I went to a cross country meet for two more boys in my class. That was in the afternoon and was only for about an hour. I convinced Seth to come with me and in the end he was really glad he did because not only did he get to support his friends from Seminary, but he also ended up seeing 3 or 4 kids from his previous school...friends that he hasn't seen in a long time. One of them was a boy that Seth has known since they were three years old...they were in preschool together and were in the same school class all the way from preschool through 5th grade. They hadn't seen each other since then and Seth kept talking about how different this boy looked. It made me laugh because this boy seemed just as surprised to see how tall and grown up Seth is now! 

Today I went to the temple. Frank worked from home today (and Wednesday). Seth worked this afternoon and will be working again tomorrow afternoon. 

We've had rain on and off all day today too, but nothing very heavy. Frank's hometown of Brevard is getting slammed, though, from what we hear. They are right in the path of Helene and there's been very heavy rain and high winds and lots of flooding in their area, according to the news reports. Frank has tried to call his parents several times today but both their land line and their cell service seems to be down. (Not too surprising.) It's pretty likely that their power is out. He has been able to get some text messages from his sister Dawn so we know she is okay, but she hasn't been able to get in touch with his parents either and it's too dangerous for her to go out so she can't go over to check on them. Hopefully thay are okay and we will be able to get in touch with them soon. They are not in an area that is prone to flooding so we're not overly concerned, but it would be great if we could actually talk to them and confirm that they are well. In the meantime, we are praying for them. 

During the days this week I was busy with all the usual homemaking responsibilities. I also took a nap nearly every day, even if it was just 30 minutes (a few days it was longer than that). I haven't been sleeping as well at night so between late nights and waking up in the middle of the night (or an hour before the alarm goes off) I have been pretty tired. I've been reading the book chat book here and there, in snatches of time and I'm about 3/4 of the way through it. I'm enjoying it.

Frank is asleep now and I'm ready to be asleep too so I will go convince Seth to stop playing games now and go to bed.

Weekly Review September 20 '24

Here we go with another weekly review. We are 4 weeks into Seminary and 4 1/2 weeks into the school year and yesterday was already midterm. Last year at this time I was an absolute mess and I am so grateful that this year is going so much better! I feel like I can teach Seminary AND have a somewhat normal and balanced life, which makes me very happy.

Last Saturday Frank and I went to the Frederick County Fair. The fair started on Friday and has been going all week...I think tomorrow is the last day. One of Frank's clients is a sponsor for the fair and they often give us free admission and ride tickets. This year they gave us three admission tickets and three unlimited ride passes. After looking at them, we realized that the unlimited ride passes included admission so we actually had 6 admission tickets. So Frank and I decided to use 2 of the admission tickets on Saturday (Seth was at work) and then we used the 3 admission / unlimited ride passes on Monday evening so we could all go together as a family night activity. 

On Saturday, Frank and I walked around and looked at all the exhibits and saw a bunch of animals. We also ate lunch and got a few fair treats...ice cream cones and deep fried Oreos. We were there for about 4 hours and it was mostly pleasant but it got quite hot the last hour that we were there. By the time we got home, I felt exhausted and decided to take a nap...I was surprised that I slept for an hour and a half! I felt better after that, though, and got Saturday chores done, finished up my Seminary lessons prep, and ran some errands including going to the church to make copies and going to the library to pick up the next book for book chat. It is called Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. I haven't had a ton of reading time, but I have been reading bits here and there and so far I like it a lot. 

Sunday was busy as usual. I never know exactly why Sundays go by so fast, but they always do. I helped in Primary instead of going to Sunday School. My friend Rebekah is in the Primary presidency and she asked if I could sit with a class during singing time and then be the second adult during the lesson time (she taught the class). The class was small...just two boys...but they were pretty active little boys so they kept us busy. (They were pretty good though.) After church I had choir practice again. After lunch, Jared called me...he calls every Sunday afternoon and it is nice to hear from him regularly. He and Jessie have been busy with work (for Jared...he's working as a teller at a bank) and school (for Jessie...she has a LOT of reading to do for her classes) and with furnishing their apartment with estate sale finds and with exploring their new surroundings. 

That afternoon I had an inservice meeting for Seminary...it was in person, at the stake center. (Last year we had one inservice meeting all year and it was via Zoom). It was really nice to meet with a lot of the other teachers in the stake and to get ideas from each other. At the beginning of the meeting they asked us to go around the room to introduce ourselves and they asked each person to share something unique or interesting about themselves. One of the teachers named Gerilyn, who I have talked with several times in the past, said that she has an identical twin sister named Terilyn. The bells started ringing in my head when she said that...I remembered that when Amy and I were in the twin study at BYU, there was a set of twins named Gerilyn and Terilyn. Sure enough, when I asked her...she was in the same study with us. So funny that I have known her for over a year and we never made that connection. What a small world! (She did always look kind of familiar to me...now I know why!) Even crazier...it turns out that in that group of about 20 people at that meeting, a third teacher is also a twin, two other teachers are parents of twins, and our area coordinator (who was presenting the training) and his wife are both also twins!! Had to get a photo with Gerilyn at the end of the meeting:

Seth had mission prep class that evening and Frank took him. I went to bed and fell asleep before they got back, although I did wake up briefly when they got home. 

The rest of the week has been pretty standard work / school / Seminary, with a few extra things thrown in. My Seminary lessons this week were both doctrinal mastery lessons and I was actually combining 2 lessons each of the two days I taught. We were doing "catch up" lessons to cover DM scriptures that we missed over the summer. Both of these scriptures were in Alma (Alma 39:9 and Alma 41:10) and were part of Alma's talk with his son Corianton, which is why we decided to group those two together. They were two different topics, though, so that made it a bit tricky. They weren't my best lessons, but they went okay.

As I already mentioned, we went to the fair on Monday. Frank usually gets home from work around 4:00, and we decided to go shortly after he got home. That turned out to be a good idea because there weren't as many people there as there were later in the evening so there were no lines or very short lines for all of the rides. We went on rides first...I went on the most because I like fast spinning rides but they make both Frank and Seth feel sick so they won't go on that kind. We all went on the Ferris Wheel and the Merry Go Round together, though, and Frank and I went on the swings and Seth and I both went on another ride that could be spinning, but only if you decided to turn the wheel in the middle of your car. We went in different cars so that I could spin and Seth could just gently turn. Besides those rides, I went on two other fast spinning rides by myself. 

Frank and Seth on the Ferris Wheel:

Me waiting to get on the "Sizzler":

Ready to ride!

All of us on the Merry Go Round (Seth barely visible behind my shoulder):

After the rides, we got some dinner and then walked around the exhibits a bit so that Seth could see the things he wanted to see (and I got to see some of the the things I missed on Saturday because Frank always goes through things much faster than I do and I didn't want to keep him waiting on me for too long). I liked this Lego version of Van Gogh's "Starry Night":

Then Seth went to see the animals but Frank and I were tired so we sat in front of the milking parlor and watched cows being milked while Seth did that. A lady sitting next to me was telling her granddaughter that she lived next door to a dairy farm growing up and she knew it was a lot of work to be a dairy farmer. She was really interested when I told her that my dad grew up on a dairy farm. 

Frank and I also went to the birthing center and saw two newborn calves.

This one was less than an hour old:

And this one was less than 2 hours old:

 

I was actually kind of sad that we hadn't gone to the birthing center earlier because we could have seen both births if we had...we were at the fair when they were born. Oh well! It was pretty fun to watch these little calves on their wobbly little legs, trying to figure out how to nurse.

After Seth finished looking at the animals and met us at the birthing center, we got some fair treats (a funnel cake and more fried Oreos) before heading home.

On Tuesday I was planning to take Seth to the bank to open an account but Seth had quite a bit of homework so I decided to wait. (He had a project due for his history class on Thursday and since he had to work on Wednesday he knew he needed to finish it on Tuesday.) I did pull all of his savings out of his banks and counted it so it's ready to go into the bank when we open his account. That evening Frank did his usual temple shift and I took Seth to his YM activity. They had planned to play soccer at a nearby field but it was raining so they did indoor soccer instead. I sat in the car and made a phone call to one of my ministering sisters and then read through my next Seminary lessons. There was a supermoon and partial lunar eclipse that night but since it was raining we couldn't see the moon at all, oh well! Maybe some of you saw it if there were clear skies where you live.

Frank worked from home on Wednesday and I worked on preparing Seminary lessons. I am teaching 3 next week. I got two of them planned and partially planned the third one. I finished planning the third one yesterday. I still have to create some Power Point slides and make copies and things like that so I still have some prep work to do but the hard part is done. 😊 As I mentioned earlier, Seth had to work after school.

Since yesterday was midterm, schools got out 2 hours early. I took Seth to the bank to open an account but it turns out they were really busy and didn't have anyone available to help us but the guy told me how to go online to make an appointment for another day. When we got home I tried to make an appointment for today but there weren't any available today either. Hopefully we can get an appointment for sometime next week, but we have to wait until we know Seth's work schedule. I went to soccer games for some of my Seminary girls again last night. Since the JV girls lost the game I went to last week and one of them actually wasn't there, I decided to try again last night. I'm glad I did because both JV girls were there last night and both of them got to play and their team won their game 7-0. I stayed for part of the Varsity game and decided to leave at the perfect time...as I was walking out, the girl in my class kicked a goal and I had a perfect view (better than I would have had from the stands). I hear her team won their game also. Like last week, there was a group of people from my ward who attended the games so I got to sit with people I know. It was fun and the weather was nice too so it was great to be outside! 

Today is "fair day" (kids under 18 get in free) so school got out 3 1/2 hours early. (Some years they get the whole day off but other years they get out early.) Seth has been home for a couple of hours and is enjoying some game time before he goes to work later this afternoon. I think having the shorter school days really helps our Seminary kids...they were all a lot happier and more awake than normal the last couple of days! This morning we had breakfast too which also perks them up. I love them and I'm really enjoying spending time with them each morning!

Frank is working from home again today because of the construction going on near his building. He found out yesterday that they are going to move his department to another building temporarily. He will probably be working from home on both Wednesdays and Fridays for a while, though.

That's all I have to report this week.

Weekly Review September 13 '24

 This week went pretty well and was a little less Seminary dominated. On Saturday morning Seth went to work; he worked until early afternoon. Our ward had an activity from 11:00 to 2:00. It was supposed to be a ward picnic at a park but since it was supposed to rain and be kind of chilly the activity got moved to the church and we ate inside. They also asked us to bring board games. Frank and I sat at a table with some of the newer members of our ward (people who were in another ward before the boundary changes). We enjoyed hot dogs & hamburgers and after eating we pulled out the games that we brought and played a game called Get Wild. And it did get a bit wild! It was competitive and fun and most of the people at our table decided they wanted to get the game for their family. We had other people coming by our table to see what was happening because we were a little loud, I think! We really enjoyed getting to know the other families a bit better, too.

On the way home from the activity, we stopped at Wal-Mart to get a few things I needed for Seminary on Monday. After we got home, I buried myself in lesson prep and managed to get all three lessons completed before bedtime. I even ended up preparing a different lesson than I had originally intended to prepare for one of the days. I'm grateful that lessons seem to be coming together so much more easily this year! Frank picked Seth up from work and the two of them played video games together for quite a while. (Male bong time!)

On Sunday after church I had choir practice and then I made a bunch of copies for Seminary before going home. Seth had mission prep that night and I offered to take him since Frank has to get up early most mornings too. Last time Seth went to mission prep he stayed after the class about 30 minutes talking with friends so this time I told him before class that he needed to come out right when it ended because I needed to get home to bed and so did he. The class was supposed to end at 8:30, but I didn't see anyone come out until about 8:40. I saw a few more people trickle out a few mintues later so I texted Seth to remind him to come out. I waited some more and texted him again and tried to call him but it went straight to voicemail. By that time a lot of people had come out and had either left or were standing around talking outside so I finally went to the house and rang the doorbell. Seth forgot that he was supposed to come out as soon as class ended! How do you forget that quickly? By this time it was after 9:00 and I was pretty unhappy since it was already an hour past my ideal bedtime and we still had a 20 mintue drive to get home. 

By the time I got to bed, I was so wired that it took me a long time to fall asleep and then I had bad dreams about the next day's Seminary lesson and then woke up an hour before the alarm went off and didn't go back to sleep. That meant I got maybe 4 hours of sleep so I was exhausted and I noticed that I was in pretty low spirits that day, so lack of sleep really does seem to make a difference. (I felt that way nearly all last year!) Seminary actually went pretty well overall but I came away not feeling very good about it. I did take an hour nap after getting home and felt a bit better after that. 

My Seminary class on Monday. I had 4 different activities prepared and they moved every 8 minutes to a different table to do a different activity:

(At one table they got a snack)

The rest of the week went better as far as sleep goes, thankfully, and I have not needed to take many naps (although naps are still very welcome any time!) 

For family night on Monday we watched the broadcast of President Nelson's 100th birthday celebration. I had to take a photo of President Nelson because Tanner picked out the tie he is wearing:

For those of you who might not be aware, Tanner works at a men's clothing store in Salt Lake City called Mr. Mac's, and many of the general authorities get their suits and ties from there. One of Tanner's co-workers was trying to choose a tie to go with the suit and he asked Tanner for help. He sent Tanner a photo of a couple of different ties and asked which one would be best and Tanner said "definitely the red one", so that's the one he chose. Kind of fun that he can say he picked out a tie for the prophet to wear for his 100th birthday!

I taught Seminary on Tuesday and Wednesday also and both of those days went well. On Tuesday we talked about Samuel the Lamanite's prophecies about the coming of Christ and the signs of His birth and death. We did an activity where the kids created "announcements" for Christ's birth and death. Here are photos of their announcements; some of them are pretty clever:

Frank did his temple shift as usual on Tuesday evening and I took Seth to the youth activity. They were having their annual "movie night"...when they show the movies that each class made. They've been working on these movies since March, with a lot of interruptions for various reasons. The movies were pretty cute. The YM did a western and it was pretty funny in places. My favorite parts: a scene where they used the double doors of the gym as "saloon" doors and a scene where our bishop rode a kid's hobby horse like it was a real horse. 

Frank worked from home on Wednesday as usual but he also worked from home yesterday and today because they are doing a lot of construction right next to his building and it is very loud and causing stuff to vibrate too. Not sure how much longer that is going to be going on. 

On Wednesday I got both of my Seminary lessons prepared for next week, so again...preparation is going a lot better and a lot quicker. 😁 I definitely need to look them over again tomorrow and may make some changes and I also need to make a bunch of copies, but the bulk of the work is done. We had the missionaries over for dinner on Wednesday evening. One of them was getting transferred the next day so we got to say goodbye. 

Seth didn't make it to Seminary yesterday or today. He didn't sleep well at all Wednesday evening and he worked Thursday afternoon and was really tired this morning. He's not off to a very good start with attendance...hopefully he will do better in the coming weeks. Seth worked today after school also and he is working a lot of the day tomorrow as well. 

Last night I went to a couple of soccer games at one of the local high schools (not Seth's high school...another one that is nearby). I went because 2 girls in my Seminary class are on the JV team and another girl in my Seminary class is on the Varsity team. My team teacher and I are trying to go to some of the events for the kids in our class. The JV team lost their game by quite a bit, unfortunately, but the Varsity team won 2-0. The girl in my class kicked the first goal so that was fun to see. It was a nice day yesterday so I enjoyed being outside for a few hours and I sat with a few other people from my ward so I enjoyed visiting with them too. I did get home and to bed later than usual, but it wasn't too bad.

Earlier in the week I finished quilting the second Halloween pillow cover and yesterday I sewed the backs on to them so they are done. I don't like them as much as the September covers, but they turned out pretty well:

The black borders don't show up very well in the photos. I'm glad to be done with another set and will start working on the January ones next. (The original pillows are November themed so I don't need covers for November and I already made the December covers last year). 

Today I went to the temple as usual. I did initiatories and had some sweet experiences there. 

Frank's dad had surgery yesterday...he had a spot on his head that was malignant so they removed it. He has to go in for a follow up next week. The surgery went well and he seems to be recovering okay so far. 

That is all the news around these parts this week.

Weekly Review September 6 '24

We had another busy week; still mostly dominated by Seminary for me but that's kind of to be expected. Things are starting to settle down a little bit. 

Last Friday afternoon Seth worked. Frank and I went to pick him up and we cashed in some "wooden nickels" to get free ice cream cups. (That's a Roy Rogers thing.) Seth was supposed to work on Saturday afternoon also but after being up for a few hours he started to feel really tired and then he threw up, so he had to call in sick. He felt a bit warm to me also. He laid low the rest of the day and didn't eat much until evening but when he tried some soup that evening he threw up again. Thankfully on Sunday he started feeling better again (although we did have him stay home from church) and he's been fine since then.

I did a bunch of stuff on Friday evening that I usually do on Saturdays (like mopping the kitchen floor) so that I could focus on Seminary lessons on Saturday. I did get both of my lessons for this week prepared and it didn't even take all day! I actually can't explain what happened, but when I sat down to work on the first one (I had written down a few notes earlier in the week) I just knew what I needed to do and had a really good feeling about it. The second one came together fairly quickly too. As I said, I can't explain it, but a few things have been changing for me. One is that I feel like I've been blessed with an extra measure of love for the youth in my class. I did come to love them over the last school year, but it was complicated by all my anxieties as a new teacher and my frustration / disappointment over the lack of participation. I've been praying a lot that I will be able to love them more, no matter what their choices are or how willing they are to participate. I've been really focusing on being grateful that they are making it to Seminary at all and trying to praise them for that. Near the end of last week, I was looking at the photos I took during the first week of Seminary and I was just flooded with love as I looked at the faces of these youth. The other thing that changed last week was that as I was reading parts of President Benson's talk about pride (referenced in the Come Follow Me material last week), I recognized that a lot of my anxieties as a teacher are pride-driven. I worry too much about whether the youth are going to like my lessons and me as a teacher. I worry too much about a lesson "flopping" and then I look bad. So I started praying that my pride wouldn't get in the way of my lesson preparations. My focus should be on pleasing the Lord...teaching what He wants me to teach, and not on pleasing the youth. (I want them to be happy in Seminary, of course, and I try to plan things that will be engaging and interesting for them, but I'm realizing that can't be my entire focus.) So anyway, those things changed how I felt as I was preparing lessons and it made a big difference. Sorry for rambling about that, but I'm still processing how I'm feeling and I want to remember what's been happening because for me, it is a miracle!

On Saturday evening, Frank and I went to dinner with two couples from our ward. One of them is the couple that we share birthdays / anniversaries with. We never went to dinner in April to celebrate our anniversaries together because the husband was having some really severe health problems at that point. Thankfully, he is doing better now. The other couple was our bishop and his wife...Frank works the same shift at the temple as our bishop's wife and he knows she is good friends with the wife of this other couple so when he saw our bishop's wife at the temple on Tuesday he asked if they would like to come to dinner with all of us. We had a good time!

Sunday was busy with Church, Music & the Spoken Word, scripture study, and podcasts. (I listened to the Follow Him podcast and also a podcast about the new hymns called Come Follow Hymn). There was not mission prep class because of the holiday weekend.

Frank and Seth both had the day off on Monday for Labor Day. I guess I got a day off too since I didn't have to get up for Seminary although I still had to do grocery shopping, vacuuming, and laundry as usual. Frank went shopping with me and both he and Seth helped with laundry. We had family night and went to Rita's for treat. I finished quilting the second September pillow cover and then sewed the backs on so they are done! I am happy with the way they turned out:

I taught Seminary on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and both lessons went well. We are definitely getting more participation from the youth which is lovely. There is a more light hearted atmosphere and I think we are all enjoying it more. Both of my lessons were on Helaman 5:12. For the second lesson, I gave them rocks to paint that included the reference and the key phrase. My sample rock:

Youth painting their rocks (or sleeping! 😂):

On Tuesday Frank worked his temple shift and I took Seth to the youth activity. They did a photo scavenger hunt in downtown Frederick...it's the same one I put together last year; they wanted to do it again! It went later than normal though so I was up later but I have still been sleeping fairly well and taking naps most days so I've been doing okay. 

On Wednesday evening I had book chat. We discussed Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian which I didn't finish...I'm on page 156 of 412. I just didn't have much time for reading the last month! According to everyone who read it, there really isn't a plot. It's more like vignettes. I'm going to continue reading it until I get the next book we're reading which is called Crossing to Safety. I had to request it through interlibrary loan also, so it may take a while to get to me. 

Today I went to the temple as I usually do on Fridays. I saw a lot of deer today. The last part of the drive to the temple is on a road that winds through a wooded park. There are often lots of people riding bikes or walking on trails next to the road. When I was driving to the temple, I came around a bend and saw deer on the left side of the road so I slowed down and a doe and two fawns walked across the road in front of me to the other side. Then when I was on the way home from the temple driving on that same road, I came around a bend and saw deer on the right side of the road so I slowed down and a buck and a doe crossed the road in front of me. Pretty cool! I have seen deer on this road more than once in the past, but never twice in one day--both going and coming. I didn't get photos of the deer but here are a few of the temple:

Seth had a thing at his school this morning called Senior Sunrise. It was at the same time as Seminary so he missed Seminary. All the Seniors met on the baseball field to watch the sunrise together which unfortunately wasn't so good this morning because it was really cloudy, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway. This afternoon he had work; he hasn't been home very long and he is getting in a little bit of video game time before it's bedtime. Seth drove to work and back today and he drove to Seminary a few times and to the youth activity on Tuesday evening; I try to have him drive as much as possible. He's not getting a lot of driving time in but he's up to 35 hours and 23 minutes; we've got 24 hours and 37 mintues to go before he can take the driver's test. At the rate we are going it's going to take a long time but at least we are working at it. 

I spent the rest of the day working on the budget and I did a bit of quilting. I'm working on the October pillow covers now and I finished quilting the first one today. I'm teaching three lessons next week because we have 5 days but we haven't started getting guest teachers yet so one of us has to teach three lessons. I've been working on them here and there when I get a chance and my lesson for Monday is almost completely done; I just have one more thing to prepare. I have an outline for my Tuesday lesson and all I've done for Wednesday's lesson so far is to read it, so I have quite a bit more work to do and will obviously be working on those tomorrow and probably Sunday too. I think they'll probably come together fairly easily; I hope so anyway!

Last week I mentioned that the weather had turned really hot and humid again; this week we went back to chilly mornings and beautiful days. Tomorrow we are supposed to get rain. It's nice to be out of the hot and humid cycle again. It's definitely starting to feel like fall. 

Weekly Review August 30 '24

We had a pretty busy week (mostly Seminary dominated). Here are the details.

On Saturday Seth worked from 8:00 to 2:00. Things seem to be going pretty well there. He's learning a lot and seems to somewhat enjoy it. Frank and I went on a date. We went out to lunch together, got some Crumbl cookies, and then ran some errands I needed to do related to Seminary. I know...super romantic! 😄 We picked up Seth from work and then I spent the rest of the day doing Seminary related things...mostly working out all the details for Monday's lesson / activity. Who knew organizing a nerf gun battle could be so complicated? Yes, you read that right...we had a nerf gun battle for the first day of Seminary. More on that a little later. 

On Sunday after church I had a few more Seminary things to do, which included a trip to the church in the evening to do some set up. Between that and watching Music & the Spoken Word and reading scriptures, the day was filled up. Seth went to our stake's mission prep class that evening. Frank took him to that and stayed to bring him home...the class is held at the teachers' house which is about 20 minutes away so it didn't seem worth coming back home. Seth drove there and back so he got in some driving hours. Meanwhile, I was at home doing one last thing...sorting through the nerf guns I borrowed to choose the best working ones to take the next morning. I discovered that in the large bin I borrowed from a friend, several of the guns were water guns, not nerf guns, and that a few were a different kind that didn't use the same ammo. Thankfully, there were still just enough for the number of kids in our class if I used one of Seth's guns. I borrowed guns & ammo from a couple of friends and one of them had labeled some of her ammo but not all of it so I labeled all the rest of hers so I would be able to return the right bullets to the right person. I also counted how many bullets I got from each person...I knew some would get lost, but I wanted to get as many back as possible. That all took a lot longer than I anticipated so I got to bed later than I planned and by then I thought Frank & Seth should be home and they weren't so I was slightly concerned and didn't go to sleep until after they got back. Turns out that Seth stayed inside talking with some friends for about 30 mintues after the meeting ended! Going to bed later than I planned was kind of a theme for the week, actually, but trying to get to bed by 8:00 is always challenging...the world in general doesn't operate on that kind of schedule.

As I mentioned earlier, we had a nerf gun battle on Monday morning. First we reviewed the last part of Mosiah and the entire book of Alma because that's what we missed over the summer break. Hopefully many of the kids read scriptures with their families over the break but we wanted to do a brief review anyway. One of our main goals for this week was to give the youth a chance to have fun and get to know each other better so that's why we planned a nerf gun battle. We tied it into all the wars in the book of Alma and talked briefly about how the tactics the Nephites used to fight the Lamanites relates to the tactics we can use to fight our spiritual battles. For the "battle" we hid a "flag" and the two teams were racing to see who could find it first. You tried to slow down the other team by shooting them with nerf guns...anyone who got hit had to return to the gym and read one of the Doctrinal Mastery scriptures before they could return to the search. I think the kids had a lot of fun and bonded a bit and also got to know some DM scriptures a little better. I enjoyed seeing them play and I tried to get some photos; it was hard because they were moving around so quickly! Here's a photo of all of them right before we started:

Seth and a few others reading Doctrinal Mastery scriptures:

A few of the boys hiding in a doorway:

The youth were great about helping us clean up, but we still had quite a bit to do after they left like doing a final sweep of the building looking for stray bullets and also counting the bullets to see how many we'd lost. Miraculously, only about 5 of around 250 went missing! 

I guess I'll finsih with Seminary while I'm at it. On Tuesday my team teacher taught a lesson about how to give a devotional. On Wednesday I was in charge again and we had the youth mark all this semester's Doctrinal Mastery scriptures in their Books of Mormon and then they worked in pairs to make posters representing each of the DM scriptures. It was a lot easier to plan than the nerf gun battle, thankfully! It was a fun day because they were able to talk with each other while they worked. Here are a couple of my favorite posters:

Yesterday my team teacher taught a lesson about acting in faith. This morning we had asked each of them to bring in a paper lunch bag with three things that represent something about themselves. We numbered the bags and passed them around and everyone tried to guess which bag belonged to each person. Then we revealed the answers and each person explained why they had put those things in their bag. We had a smaller group today than normal because there was a "Senior Sunrise" activity at one of the high schools this morning that was at the same time as Seminary, so most of the Seniors from that high school went to that instead of Seminary. It was fun to have some relaxed time with the ones who came and to get to know them better. 

Overall, I am happy with the way this first week went. I feel like we have a different dynamic and a better "vibe" than we had last year, with more participation from the youth. Hopefully it will last! I feel like my team teacher and I have shifted a lot in our focus and maybe that is helping. We're really trying to focus on helping the youth feel loved and on keeping lessons simpler and trying to involve the youth more. We also implemented a "no phones" policy this year and so far that seems to be helping too although we've had to give a lot of reminders. (Not surprising.) One change I haven't mentioned yet is that we have a youth attending who is not a member. He's a senior in high school and has been meeting with the missionaries in our ward for a while. He has some really great insights! He may not come all the time, but he did come every day this week. I'm not sure if I've mentioned that Seth is the Seminary class president this semester. He's been doing a good job.

I promise this whole post won't be about Seminary, but that did definitely dominate my week. Besides actually being there every day, there has been loads of administrative type stuff to do every day and tons of communication to both youth and parents and planning and trying to work out carpool stuff still and trying to find rides to Seminary for one of the youth whose parents can't get him there. Hopefully things will settle down after a while. I'd forgotten that there's tons of stuff to do outside of Seminary besides preparing lessons. I'm remembering now that is part of why it gets to be so overwhelming. So here it is Friday afternoon and I have barely done any lesson prep for next week. Ugh!! It hasn't been for lack of trying. I have been sleeping okay, thankfully. My new pattern is that I get to bed later than I planned (more like 9:30 instead of 8:00) but I sleep until the alarm goes off. I think I have woken up 3 or 4 times every night but only long enough to see what time it is and I immediately fall back asleep. Much better than last year where I was going to sleep around 8:00 or 8:30 but then waking up at midnight or 1:00 and never going back to sleep! I'm grateful. I have also given myself permission to take a nap every day, even if it's only 30 minutes, and I have done that every day so far except today. That seems to help too.

All right, so besides all that, what else happened? Seth worked on Monday afternoon and will be going to work in a few minutes. He works a few hours tomorrow too. 

Frank started working at the temple on Tuesday. The temple president spoke at our stake conference and mentioned that they have a need for a lot more temple workers. Seth looked at me when they said that, but I really don't think I can be a temple worker and a Seminary teacher too. I actually was thinking about being a temple worker in the spring of 2023 and the feeling I got was "wait, not now" and then I got called to be a Seminary teacher shortly after that. Anyway, as I was explaining to Seth why I couldn't do it right now, the thought occurred to me "but Frank could." Then that afternoon Frank said to me "I'm thinking about becoming a temple worker." I told him I thought that was a great idea, so he contacted our bishop who immediately recommended him to the stake president and sometime late last week someone from the temple contacted him and asked him to come in on Tuesday for an interview and to get set apart. (He asked to work on Tuesdays because he works from home on Wednesdays so he doesn't have to get up so early on Wednesday mornings.) Anyway, his appointment on Tuesday was at 5:30 so I was surprised when he wasn't home by the time I got home from activity night with Seth around 8:30. I wasn't too worried though...it occurred to me that maybe he had stayed and worked a shift even though I thought he told me that he would just be getting set apart. I thought maybe I had it wrong. I fell asleep before he got home but woke up slightly when he came home. When I had a chance to talk to him about it later on Wednesday, he said that I wasn't wrong...he hadn't been planning to stay after getting set apart but they were so busy that they asked him to stay a while and he ended up working the whole shift. He'll be working every Tuesday. That means that I will be up later on Tuesday because I have to pick up Seth from YM activity night, but that's definitely a sacrifice I'm willing to make! It will be so good for Frank to be in the temple regularly and I'm sure our whole family will be blessed for it. 

As I mentioned, I did take Seth to activity night on Tuesday and rather than going back home, I just took one of the pillow covers with me and worked on quilting it while I was waiting for him. (I finished quilting the first one and I'm working on the second one now.) One of the YW who is in my Seminary class didn't really want to do what they were doing that night so she came over and sat with me and talked with me for quite a while. She's a senior and we talked about her plans for college etc and it was just really great to have a chance to talk to her outside of Seminary.

On Wednesday Seth had his Senior portraits taken. I'm not positive, but I think some of them actually turned out good. (He has never mastered smiling naturally on demand. I remember I struggled with that too and most of my school photos are terrible until about 11th grade!) 

Today I went to the temple and got to do an endowment session for the first time since about May so that was nice. I like the adjustments they've made. My session was packed with every seat full and I was in the back row so it took a while to get through but the temple is always a nice place to be!

We had quite a change in the weather this week from last week. Last week it was chilly in the mornings and warm and pleasant during the days. This week we went back to temperatures in the high 90s and high humidity. Yesterday was particularly muggy...it felt like a swamp outside!! We got a pretty severe thunderstorm last night and today it is not quite as humid or hot but it's still not super pleasant. It's been cloudy all day and we've had some sprinkles of rain. 

I believe that's all the news we have this week.

Weekly Review August 23 '24

 Let's see what I can remember about this past week. When I left off last week, Frank wasn't feeling well. He still felt pretty sick all day on Saturday and didn't feel super great on Sunday when he got up but he seemed to turn a corner on Sunday afternoon and he's been fine since then. 

Meanwhile, Seth and I had haircuts Saturday morning. Seth was supposed to have orientation for his job after that but shortly after getting home from his haircut he started feeling sick and he threw up, so he had to call and change his orientation to Tuesday. Apparently it was one of those strange episodes that he sometimes has when he feels sick, throws up once, and then he's fine. I was glad he didn't have the stomach flu or anything like that, but the timing was not ideal. 

Even though Frank wasn't feeling well, he had a few things he had to do on Saturday. Our stake conference was that weekend and Frank is in charge of the technology for our building. The Saturday evening session for adults is not broadcast to our building, but the general session on Sunday morning is broadcast from the stake center to our building. The guy in charge of the technology for the stake wanted to do a test broadcast, though, so it made sense to do that on Saturday evening during the evening session. So Frank had some things to do to set that up and then of course he had to be at our building on Saturday evening for the evening session to make sure the broadcast was working properly. Since Frank was going to our building, we decided that it made sense for me to go with him and watch the meeting from our building instead of going to the stake center by myself. I missed the interaction with other stake members, but since we were all alone, I didn't feel like I needed to dress up and I also took one of the September pillow covers with me to start quilting it. The broadcast worked fine, all the talks were excellent, and I got a lot of quilting done so that was great. I did stop quilting occasionally to write down some notes and thoughts that came to my mind as I was listening. 

On Saturday I also made two batches of muffins and froze them for later use during Seminary and I did the regular Saturday chores and a bunch of other Seminary things. I can't remember details now, I just know I was busy all day.

Frank had to be at the church a bit early on Sunday morning to make sure everything was ready to go for the broadcast of the general session. That broadcast went fine too and once again...all the talks were excellent. The temple president spoke and mentioned that they really need more temple workers. That's something I want to do but I don't feel like I can do it right now; however, it occured to me that Frank probably could do it and after the meeting he mentioned that he was thinking about being a temple worker. I told him the same thought had occured to me so he contacted our bishop and started that process. He asked to work on Tuesday evenings because he works from home on Wednesdays and doesn't have to get up as early. He can do his temple shift after work which is really convenient because the temple is only a few miles from his work. 

On Sunday afternoon we had an information meeting for the Seminary youth and their parents. At the end of the meeting we had refreshments and the parents had time to talk about carpools. We didn't have a great turn out so a lot of people were missing and it turns out that all of the people who were there from TJ didn't need a carpool...either their youth is driving now or going to a special program at a different school or something. It's actually not a really big deal to me either because Seth can go with one of the boys who is driving (he often went with him last year) and on the days that boy doesn't come to Seminary, I can take Seth to school myself. He actually has CTC in the morning the first half of the year so if I have a lot of cleaning up / wrapping up to do after Seminary I can take him directly to the CTC instead of to school to catch the bus to the CTC. I think it will all work out. That being said, though, for some reason I left the meeting feeling really anxious and kind of down. I'm not sure exactly why. I didn't sleep well that night either, but thankfully I've slept great the rest of the week and the really down and anxious feeling I had went away after a day or so. I mean, Seminary starts on Monday morning and I'm not ready yet so I'm not feeling totally calm about it but I'm not in a frenzy of nerves, either. I expect I'll be working on a lot of things tomorrow but by the end of the day hopefully I'll have Monday's lesson all ready to go. It's actually more of an activity than a lesson.

Monday evening was back to school night for Seth's high school which we normally would have skipped at this point because he knows his way around but they had a meeting for all the Seniors and their parents so we went to that. He also had to pick up a chromebook because starting this year the school district isn't letting students bring their own device from home anymore...they have to use a school issued chromebook. At the Senior meeting, the principal was talking about how fast the year would go by and encouraging the students to make the most of it. I had this weird moment where I suddenly remembered taking Seth to freshman orientation and it seemed like that was just yesterday...the last three years really did go by in the blink of an eye; how did that happen?? I'm not sure I'm ready for all this Senior stuff, but I guess I will have to be.

On Tuesday Seth had his orientation for his new job at Roy Rogers. Then the next day they called him back and said they forgot to have him do one thing so he had to go back in to get that done. I got all the usual chores done that day and I also made some breakfast things for Frank so that he has some quick options he can grab in the mornings before work. I made a batch of muffins, a batch of banana bars, and some egg bites. (These are all recipes for the diet that he's on.) We enjoyed being a part of Ammon opening his mission call via Zoom on Tuesday evening. 😊

Wednesday was the first day of school. 

His last "first day of school"! Seth is wearing a jacket because it was only about 53 degrees that morning. The weather really cooled down this week and we have had chilly mornings but gorgeous days with highs in the low 70s. 

I tried to get a lot of Seminary lesson prep done on Wednesday but I wasn't very successful. I'm not sure why...I got interrupted a lot by texts and emails...but really--I should have been able to get more done. I did a lot of other things for Seminary too, though, including a trip to the fabric store to get supplies for the bulletin board we are making for Seminary. I was really good and didn't spend any time looking at fabric for pillow covers, even though I wanted to! Another thing I did on Wednesday was to fill out all the school forms for Seth. Most of them are online now and I only have to go through them to make changes or updates, but it does still take time. Then he brought home a few things from the CTC that I had to fill out. He seemed to enjoy his first day back.

On Thursday I met with my team teacher again and we got the bulletin board mostly put together and did a bunch of other things too. As usual, it took hours to get everything done. Frank did some work for a client after work so he got home really late. I got to talk to Tanner for a while that evening...great to get caught up with him! Our ward activity night is on Tuesdays now but this week it was on Thursday because all three wards that meet in our building had a combined activity. They all watched the Church's youth music festival together. I actually forgot to ask Seth what he thought of the festival. I know he stayed late because he was talking with some friends from another ward. 

This morning I went to the temple, which is always wonderful. 

On the way home, I called Amy and talked to her...always love talking to her! 

Now it is Friday evening and I am home alone because Seth is at work (his first shift) and Frank is at the church. There is a special devotional for the youth tonight at our building...8 stakes in the area are invited and a member of the Quorum of the Seventy and his wife are there to answer questions. Frank is there to help with the microphones and all the other technical stuff. I'm kind of bummed that Seth is misisng it but we didn't get his work schedule until Tuesday and it was too late to make any changes at that point. 

Our baby all grown up and on his way to his first day of work! 

I will be going to pick him up in about an hour. I got a text from him about 30 minutes ago that said "On my break, this is honestly not that bad." I'm glad it seems to be going okay so far. 

That's mostly what I have to report this week. I can't remember a lot of details...just know I was busy all day long every day. In between lots of Seminary preparations and all the usual things I need to do, I did make a little bit of progress on projects. I went through a few more files and did some more organizing in the laundry / storage room. On Wednesday Seth and I took some things to the storage unit and now the laundry / storage room looks a lot better. I also did quilting whenever I got the chance and today I finished quilting the first September pillow cover. Seth is not getting much driving done but our plan is to have him drive whenever he has to go somewhere. It's going to take a long time to get 28 more hours, but we'll just keep chipping away at it when we can. I feel like even with the little bit of driving he's been doing that he's been improving and gaining confidence, so that's good. 

I'll finish up with this humorous moment. I've been trying to gather up a bunch of nerf guns for an activity we are planning to do the first day of Seminary. I wanted to get a gun for each youth, if possible...we could have up to 25 in our class this year. I borrow 10 guns from one friend and I had asked another friend too. She said "I have a few guns and a lot of bullets". I went to pick up what she has last night and she gave me this bin:

Does that look like a few guns to you?? There are about 30 guns in there!! Made me laugh...if that's a few guns, I'd hate to see what she thinks a lot of guns are. I'm just happy that I have more than I need now, though!

Ready or not, here comes Seminary! If I survive, I will write again next week and tell you about it.