It was exciting to hear that you are now a zone leader, and I am also glad that you are not in Culiacan any longer. I hope this little town is safer. Is it? I am so glad that the little girl is okay after being run over. That is such a wonderful miracle! Say “hello” to your new companion for us. How is the work going? Tell us lots more about what’s going on with you.
If you make pie, make sure that the squash it cooked nice and soft. You don’t want it hard at all or you will have yucky tasting lumps in it.
We had a very nice week this week. I told Dad that we needed a fun meal to eat in honor of Halloween, and after putting his great brain to work, he came up with the idea of chili, cornbread, and salad for dinner and apple crisp for dessert. It turned out to be a fun and delicious meal, and we saved the dessert for after pumpkin carving. Sometimes things like pumpkin carving seem not worth doing because the kids are so old, and they are not very into it, but I have been realizing lately that ignoring traditions is not a good idea. I am sorry that we didn’t do madlibs at birthdays this year and that we didn’t take kids out for their birthdays, either. I want to start traditions up again. I know that they are important to family unity.
Anyway, Dad cleaned out all the pumpkins, and Thomas got a pattern for a witch pumpkin carving off the internet. He worked very hard on his pumpkin, and I will include a picture of it for you. I had Dad get out the power tools and made a moon on our pumpkin with a dremmel tool, and then Dad drilled holes of different sizes streaming out from the moon. It was fast and fun. The girls weren’t as in to carving their pumpkins, but doing it really put them into the Halloween spirit, and they got out the costume box and rummaged around in it till they each found a costume. Katrina chose to be a samurai, and Miriam decided to be a fairy. After we were done, we ate the apple crisp with ice cream on top which was delicious, especially because we had apples from the neighbor’s tree to use. It was a very fun night, and I’m glad we did it.
On Tuesday, the Church broadcasted a 100 years of scouting event live from the conference center which Thomas, Dad, and I attended. It was really cool, Matt. It had those log towers that scouts lash together on either side of the stage, and it started a flag ceremony that had scouts rappelling down from the ceiling. It was pretty cool. My favorite part of the program was when they had lots of little cub scouts come on stage to sing the National Anthem. The program recounted the history of scouting and highlighted some of the most important aspects of scouting in fun way with lots of music. They sang a cute song to the moms. The chorus said, “Ma, you earned your Eagle. No one can disagree. Ma, you earned your Eagle, but they gave the badge to me.” It was really cute. The BSA presented President Monson with an award, too. It was all pretty cool.
Wednesday night we did a Stake harvest activity for the young men and young women. I started doing decorations for it at 5:00 and worked with the other leaders till the activity started at 7. I will send pictures. Each ward had a booth for the kids to do activities, and they got root beer floats to eat. Our ward did a photo booth which I thought was a great idea. I wondered how they would get the pictures to everyone, but they just took the pictures with the kids’ own phones. Genius. We also had a DJ, so after the booths, those who wanted to could dance. Katrina seemed to have lots of fun, and Thomas did too, I think. It was worth all the work.
Thursday was Halloween. At work we had a Halloween party in every period. We showed two movies and fed the kids root beer floats, popcorn, and pumpkin pancakes with syrup and whipped cream. It was a really fun day. Miriam wore the fairy costume to her work, and I got to see her in it because I stopped by there after my work.
After work I went to Costco and, along with my monthly shopping I bought mini tacos and sweet potato fries for everyone to eat before their Halloween activities. While at Costco, I saw Jon who had just gotten off work, and we talked for quite awhile.
When I got home, Dad was home early which is unusual and so nice. He had some work to do for school, so I visited with Jon who’d come home for awhile. He and Thomas hung out and ate mini tacos and sweet potato fries. Jon helped Thomas spray his face and hair black as night with black hair spray the way you used to and then after Jon went home, Thomas put on all black clothes so he couldn’t be seen in the dark and then went to the Taggs to be in their haunted house. He enjoyed scaring people who couldn’t see him. After dressing up, Katrina left for Ashtyn’s Halloween party. She was a bit hesitant because she wasn’t sure about what kind of scary movie they would be showing, so she warned us that she may be coming home early. Turns out that they were having so much fun talking that they didn’t show a movie at all. She had a fun time.
Dad and Miriam and I had such a nice evening at home! First, Dad and I sat on the bench outside and passed out candy to all the little kids who were trick or treating. It was fun to see the costumes and visit with the neighbors. Sylvia and Kellie were out on their doorstep, too. The weather was perfect, and it was a fun, neighborly thing to do. When it got dark, Dad and I went in and we watched a movie and ate ice cream with Miriam. It was a cute, funny movie that made us laugh a lot. It really enjoyed it even though we had to keep jumping up and answering the door to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, ha ha.
Friday, Dad and I went on a date. We started out buying tamales at a place owned by the parents of one of our peer tutors at school. They were delicious, but HOT!!! After the first couple of bites I couldn’t taste anything anymore, ha ha. Dad and I each snarfed up three of them and then went on a date where we walked around some gardens which I really loved. Then we watched a movie. There are lots of good movies out right now which is nice. We ate a huge bucket of popcorn and then after the movie we got our free refill to take home to the kids, but only half of the bucket was full by the time we got home, ha ha. After that we had fun eating ice cream and making fun of the old movie on Sci Fi Friday. It was so fun to be with Dad! The kids had a good time, too, I think. They also had ice cream along with left over sweet potato fries and the movie that they didn’t get to see with us on Thursday.
Yesterday was Saturday, and Thomas was dreaming peacefully when the subject of wrestling came up in his dream, and he jumped straight up out bed. He was supposed to be at his wrestling coach’s house at 8:30 that morning to pick up potatoes to sell for a fund raiser for the wrestling team. Luckily, it was before 8:30, and I got him there on time and also Katrina on time to play practice. The coach said every boy was expected to sell at least ten 50 lb boxes of potatoes, so Thomas got ten loaded up in our van. I was not very happy about it, imagining having to keep the potatoes and pay the $200 ourselves if they didn’t sell. I left for the church to do crafts with the women of the ward and told Thomas to go door to door and not to come back till he sold all his potatoes. But when I got to the church, I realized that everyone was there instead of at home, and no one would be around to buy Thomas’s potatoes, so I had him come over to the church and let the ladies know he was selling potatoes. From that he got 8 orders, and was able to get 2 more after that, so the potato fiasco wasn’t a fiasco at all. Like I told Thomas, potatoes are pretty cool. When you guys were little, if I was low on money for the week, I’d buy a big bag of potatoes and serve them all week in the form of mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, scalloped potatoes, potato soup, fried potatoes, etc. No one’s going to go hungry with potatoes around, ha ha.
I had fun doing crafts at the church, and Miriam came over after awhile. She wanted to go shopping with me, so she helped me by finish making a candy cane wreathed while I finished the greeting cards I was making. After that we went shopping. Miriam ordered an evening gown online, and it came on Thursday. Luckily it fit and looks great. It is a long black Ralph Lauren gown with long sleeves and rhinestones on the shoulders. Anyway, we were shopping for shoes and accessories, but after looking around she decided to wear shoes she already has and no jewelry. We also ate at Subway which was fun.
Dad worked most of the day and also went to Salt Lake to see about selling some stuff to his friend, Ray. At dinner time, the kids bought themselves Wendy’s and we had a nice time sitting around the table visiting while they ate. Now we are all fasting for fast Sunday. This morning, Dad, Miriam, Katrina, and I went on a drive before church. We left Thomas home because they always want his help to collect fast offering. It was snowing on our drive—the first snow of the season. We drove up the canyon for awhile before we headed back home to get ready for church. When we got home we found out that Thomas was there the whole time because for once they hadn’t needed him to help out the Deacons. I was sad that we hadn’t taken him, but I think he was happy because he had promised Katrina earlier that he wouldn’t play Christmas songs until December, but with her gone on a ride, he could play Christmas songs through the house and watch it snow.
During church, Cassandra and Emerson tried to Skype with us, but I had to tell them we were in church. We were really sad to have missed talking to them. They wanted to try and Skype later, but I guess it didn’t work out. I’m hoping we can Skype during Family Home Evening tomorrow. That would be so great! I got to Skype with Cassandra and Lily on Friday, and Lily waved around her wand with a star on the end and sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to me. She also got real interested in a dead bug she found in the corner. She is so cute! Cassandra says she hasn’t gotten any emails from you. Have you written her? Could you write even a short one to let her know you get her emails? That would be awesome.
Now it is Sunday evening. It feels very late, but it is only 7:16 because we are now off daylight savings time so it got dark an hour earlier than last night. Yuck. We have to go off it every year, though, or the kids would have to walk to school in the dark during the winter. We may not be the same time as you anymore, either. We had a nice family home evening and read from Grandma Haws’s life history in honor of her birthday which was yesterday. Yesterday we and Elizabeth’s family gave her flowers which Julie and her kids delivered for us and we also sang “Happy Birthday” to her as a family over the phone.
Work has been going well. I love my job! I work one-on-one with a couple of students, and being a mom of teenagers really helps me relate with them and enjoy teaching them. I also did monthly inventory on our food and household items and did most of the monthly shopping. It’s quite a big production, but this month was easier for some reason, which I am very grateful for since I have less time these days.
I get Wednesday off of work and so does Katrina, but not Thomas or Dad. I’m going to call Elizabeth and ask her if she wants to do something with me and Katrina. That should be fun. I am trying to remember Jesus more, and reach out to other people, but have not done as good a job at it as I committed to do, and so I am sad about that. I will keep trying, though. I hope that you have been able to do lots of good things and I look forward to hearing about them all. You are in our thoughts and prayers, Matt. We love you!
Love,
Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment