Busy Weekend

There are some weekends that are busy and exhausting. This weekend was busy but not really exhausting. Everything just fell into place. Friday night, even with a booming headache we were able to play a game of Settlers with our good friend Ashley who is visiting. The fun part was staying up until 12:00am talking. That same night Ken surprised me with an early birthday present. A nice sleek new lap top. It’s a very long story regarding the laptop. Especially since I have never liked lap tops…until a few weeks ago when Ino did some kind of salesman circus trick showing me what I could actually do with a laptop side by side with a bigger screen monitor. I was sold. (I’m such a visual person. If you want to sell me something you have to “show” me its benefits). Ken, who is the master of finding good deals found some guy on Craig’s list who won this computer bundle and didn’t need it so sold it for a crazy low price. Ken couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I love how good he is at that.

Saturday morning was our turn to clean the church building. We are the team captains. We are also very lucky as our group always shows up. So it only takes us about 30-40 minutes tops. We went from clean up to Ken refereeing the young women’s volleyball games. I cleaned out the deep freezer. It needs a deep cleaning periodically as ice builds up on the insides. The kids squandered the ice and played with their Playmobil figures on the ice and snow. Very creative. I cataloged what was in the freezer which makes meal planning so much easier. Amazingly even with the cool air hitting my face I was hotter than a frying pan. The joys of living here. My main purpose for cleaning the freezer was not to produce snow for the kids, but because we were getting another order of amazing fruit from Bithel Farms. This is a berry company out of Oregon. I believe they will drop fruit anywhere as long as they get enough orders. So ladies, if you know a bunch of other ladies who want fruit it’s a great deal. I usually always get the red raspberries, individually frozen. Twenty Nine dollars for 14 pounds (it came out to about 12 quarts bagged). Not a bad deal. This time I also ordered dark pitted cherries. For the next 6 months we will have fresh fruit for our breakfast, snacks, and deserts. Yum!

Saturday night I attended an interfaith concert at our church commemorating service men and women of the military, law enforcement and firefighters etc. This is the 3rd year in a row our church has hosted it. After last night I wished I had gone to the previous 2. It was phenomenal and very well put together. I don’t know how to explain it but I become so teary eyed and weepy when participating in events that honor those who serve our country and cities. It’s the same feeling I get when we sing our national anthem or America the Beautiful and Battle Hymn of the Republic. Maybe I’m just a sap. One of the last songs commemorated each of these arms of service and the people were asked to stand when their portion was being sung. Tears were in the crowd as first you would see the police and firemen stand up, then the Navy, then Army, then Marines and Air Force. Very moving! Many in attendance were decorated soldiers, old and young. What a treat!

Sunday the Young Women put on a beautiful Sacrament program. Kat sang a beautiful solo portion of one of the songs. What a powerful voice she has, it was very moving (Kat I know you are reading this so WAY TO GO! You really shined up there and it brought tears to my eyes!) The spirit was so strong. So I would say it was a good day.

We spent a small portion of time this evening at the children’s hospital visiting a friend of ours from church whose daughter was bit by a snake Friday night. She’s only 4. It amazes me that we can transplant hearts, make tissue grow, and do a myriad of procedures but for a snake bite it’s a painful, scary wait. Unfortunately in this situation they did not know what type of snake it was. So no anti-venom could be used. What happens now is the poison just sits, travels, and swells in the body. Her leg is extremely swollen but still has a pulse which is a good thing. As a mother, I recognize the fear and anxiety that would come from worrying and watching over your young child hoping that your child will be ok. Fortunately, I think the visitors made her day and from what we are told that boosted her spirits. We are hoping for a good outcome.

Hey! Good news, we finally have BYU tv. And we didn’t have to go through Dish or Direct TV to get it. We are pretty stoked about that. (Celeste, add that to your 50 reasons why you should move back here)

Here we go with another week of school. Daria seems to have evened out now and is pretty happy about class. She has learned all that crazy information about “addends and subtrahends” because my friend Jenni, who as her husband says “could teach a rock to talk” sat down with Daria and Logan and did some really cool teaching techniques. She really does have a gift of being able to teach anyone something in a way that they will understand.

Dustin seems to live and breathe for school right now. He’s only 5. Here’s how excited he is for school. He picks his clothes out the night before and lays them on his bed. When I wake him up in the morning, he gets dressed and makes his bed (without me asking) and gets everything ready for the day. He complains that I make his lunch for him, he wants to do it himself. It really cracks me up (the making of the bed that is). Could it be that my son has inherited some of my “a type” personality?? Who knows how long it will last but I will enjoy it while it’s here.