SNOW, California, Flute, Dance, Resting Bitter Face, Caroling

We have been keeping busy these last almost three weeks!  I need to be better about keeping up with our family happenings!

Anyway, Daniel got the opportunity to go to the Footlocker race in California a few weekends ago with Cross Country.  It was a quick trip.  The Syracuse XC team shared a tour bus with the Layton High XC team.  Everyone met at Layton High for a parent and athlete meeting Thursday evening.  After the meeting the athletes loaded the bus to drive through the night and get to California the next morning.  Daniel was too cool to give much more than a quick hug and a whispered I love you before he got on the bus. This was the best picture I could get before Daniel dismissed us to go home--haha!  Here he is saying goodbye to Aaron:

I tried for a second picture, but it didn’t work out very well....

I was glad the XC team left when they did Thursday night.  A few hours after they left a HUGE  very windy snowstorm moved in.  The next morning I had to leave to go to work at 4:50am and there was so much snow.  You can see our snow frosted windows in our family room as I was leaving for work:

Our front porch and stairs were snow covered:

Our driveway with a good 8 inches overnight:

I had to drive down to Bountiful that morning.  However, at 4:50am the snow plows had not yet been out and it was BAD.  That drive was in the top five of the worst ones I have ever driven in.  This was a main  five lane highway by my house that hadn’t been plowed.  It was crazy.  The pictures really don’t give the snow conditions justice.  It was bad.  It took me an hour to drive the usual 30 minute commute to Bountiful that morning and it was still heavily snowing the whole time. 

Anyway, I made it to work.  I have been doing my Davis School District CNA Clinical Instructing job the last few weeks.  I have also done some CNS clinic jobs as well.  That has been keeping me busy lately.

Daniel made it to California Friday morning.  The XC team walked the race course to prep for the next days race.  After that they spent the afternoon on the beach then checked into the hotel.  The next morning they had the race.  After that they drove to Mesquite, Nevada where they stayed the night.  The next morning they drove home.  It was a quick trip, but he had fun.  In order to do such a trip they have very strict rules all the athletes have to agree to abide by.  The coach’s rule was ‘The trip money we had to pay beforehand would guarantee the travel out to Footlocker, but the athlete’s behavior would guarantee the trip home'.  The punishment for breaking the rules was that the parent would have to drive out to pick up the kid no matter where they were.  So Daniel had fun--maybe a little too much fun.  I got a call from the coach early Sunday morning.  She said Daniel and a group of others were found breaking curfew in the hotel--running around the halls and goofing off at 2 am.  Luckily, she said she would still let them ride the bus home, but they were in trouble.  BOO!!  After telling me what had happened she then handed Daniel her phone so he could talk to me. I was not happy about it, but what can you do?  In order to ‘punish’ the kids, she made that group of rule breakers do a HUGE service project which involved cleaning out and organizing the XC closet at 5 am the following Friday morning.  The chance to go to Footlocker again next year will be decided later on, but they have to show they are committed through their attitude throughout this next year.  Anyway, Daniel did have fun on the trip.  He was exhausted by the time he got home and basically slept all the evening and all that night:

Daniel got to go to the beach and then play frisbee.  Later on they also went hot tubbing in-between the race and workouts.  

It looked like a fun trip.

My family let me know a few times that through my appearance, I don’t always look approachable.  I guess my resting (we will call it ‘bitter’) face, or the expression I make most often, doesn’t always appear friendly.  They basically say I look like this:

Or this:

I don’t purposely try to look mean, I guess it just comes natural for me--haha!  Isn’t my family nice?!  Thanks guys! HAHA!

We did get an unexpected visit from our local missionaries.  They decided to randomly stop by and share a message with us.  It was fun to visit with them.  One of them was even from Texas close by to where Aaron grew up.  They only stayed for about 20 minutes before they had an appointment.  Aaron was able to drive them to their next appointment which was nice because it was stormy and COLD.  It made me miss Josh, though.

Sarah had a dance performance last week.  Here’s the group picture of the different dance teams:

Sarah has been trying a ballet point class this year.  It was cool to see how much she has learned:

Here’s one of Sarah’s team dances:

It was our Ward Christmas party this past weekend.  After dinner they had a talent show.  They had sent around a sign up sheet for the past few weeks at church.  Sarah wanted to do a flute duet with me so she signed us.  Wait, what?  I HATE getting up in front of people!  However, Sarah talked me in to doing it.  I was even more nervous because the week leading up to the party she kept forgetting to bring her flute home from school so we could practice together--ugh!  Anyway, it all worked out.  We played the Christmas song ‘Carol of the Bells’.  

Although I was terrified to perform, I was glad to be able to perform with Sarah.  

The Priest’s Quorum had a cooking activity this past week.  They cooked dinner for the oldest Young Women group.  After cooking dinner they all went home to change into their church clothes.  From the selfie it looks like Daniel is proud of his dinner offering which was a bacon wrapped something or other--haha!

The city youth council helped put on a Christmas party for the city.  They had different craft booths and different groups come and sing for everyone.  They even had a live reindeer you could take pictures with.  Daniel was there to help out with the city youth council, but Sarah had to miss this activity since she had dance at the same time.  Here’s Daniel with the reindeer:

He said it was COLD at the party.

Daniel has gotten a huge shoe interest lately.  He bought these shoes last week and can’t stop admiring them.  He even wore them to church with his suit. That wasn’t a battle I wanted to fight Sunday morning so he wore them.  What can you do?!

I was up early enough to catch this pretty sunrise in our backyard the other morning:

Sophie is a snuggler.  She will follow me all around the house just waiting for me to sit down so she can jump up and sit right next to me.  If she feels I am taking to long doing whatever I am doing, she will come over and nudge my leg with her nose, lick your hand or jump on my leg to make sure I don’t forget about her.  I was playing the piano the other day and she felt like I was taking too long when she just jumped up on my leg to let me know she needed attention right then.  How can you say no to that face?!

The other day I gathered up all the water bottles from around the house.  I put them together on the counter and entitled this piece of artwork ’Not Mine’ since no one claimed ANY of those water bottles.  Ugh!

For some reason I CANNOT wrap Christmas presents and make them look pretty.  I have struggled with this my whole life and have finally given up.  I just tell my family at least they are wrapped even if they don’t look pretty.  This meme pretty much sums up my feelings:

We talked with Josh on his P-day yesterday.  He had a pretty rough week.  He caught Covid and was basically quarantined in his room for the week.  He was pretty sick for the first few days.  Thankfully, his companion didn’t get it, but it made it a long week for both of them.  Josh finally got out of quarantine Monday and said he was feeling a lot better.

BOO!!

Yesterday the young men and young women had a combined caroling activity.  They also combined with another ward--the ward that we got split off of at the beginning of this year.  Last year they did this and had so much fun that they wanted to repeat this activity again this year.  Luckily, there is a construction guy that had access to the diesel and trailer that was willing to drive it again this year.  They drove all the streets in both of our wards to let everyone see them sing.  I guess that is one of the perks of living in Utah where our wards are less than a mile squared area wise. Here they are going past our house:

Sarah, Daniel and Noah had a great time.

Quinceanera, Thanksgiving, Brakes x2, Chores, Pizza

I am behind!!  Here’s highlights of what has happened the last almost three weeks.  Aaron had Veteran’s Day off from work, but the kids still had to go to school.  Aaron and I did a day date.  We decided to check out the Costco down in Salt Lake.  It is the largest Costco in the world so we wanted to see what it was like.  The place was massive!!  They had whole size pigs and lambs for sale from the walk in fridge area.  They had a ton of everything.  It was crazy!!  We did get our Thanksgiving turkey there so it wasn’t a wasted trip.  Afterward we had lunch at the Spaghetti Factory.  We both ordered the Spinach Tortellini with Alfredo sauce--yum!!  We even got to sit in the street car to eat. We had a fun day just spending it together.  Here we are in the street car:

The next day we went out to lunch with G&G T and then to the Desert Star theater.  We watched the show ‘A White Christmas Story’ which was a spoof on the show White Christmas and a Christmas Story.  It was pretty funny.  We had a good time:

Sarah was invited to a Quinceanera.  Her friend from school was turning 15.  She now lives here in Utah was originally from South America.  It was a HUGE party with a TON of family and a TON of friends.  Sarah didn’t quite know what to expect, but luckily, Josh has been to a Quinceanera party in Chicago.  Sarah was able to ask him about it during a P-day call and he told her what to expect.  Sarah went and hung out with friends and danced from 5-11pm.  She had lots of fun and got to eat a lot of good, authentic food.  Here’s the fancy invitation Sarah got: 

Sarah before she left to go to the party:

She was pretty worn out by the end of the party.  She had worn boots and had some nice blisters by the time she got home from all the dancing.  She had a good time.

Matthew is teaching primary and absolutely loves it.  He team teaches with Aaron and Brother Griffeths.  He really enjoys all aspects of primary, but his favorite is singing time.  Matthew will get so excited and yell out the answers to all the questions so, occasionally, Aaron has to remind him that it is actually for the primary kids and not for the teachers.  He also loves the songs with actions.  He got to choose what action they did for ‘Do As I am Doing’ and was pretty excited about that.  I found this meme and just laughed because Matthew has some pretty sweet moves--haha:

The following Monday was a pretty busy day.  It started out with attending Daniel’s CCR meeting.  It is a meeting with the school counselors to register for the next year of school.  They present all the class options and then let you choose which ones to take.  I can’t believe we are registering Daniel for his senior year!!  That is crazy.  Anyway, Aaron and I were with Daniel and helped him sign up for classes.  After that I had to drive down to the new prison to get my new ID card.  I still work for CNS, but will be doing clinics for the STAFF (not the inmates) at the new prison.  In order to do that I needed a Department of Corrections ID.  I have been trying to get this done for quite a few months.  They would send me the paperwork to fill out and when I turned it in, it would either end up lost or they would tell me they sent the wrong paperwork and I had to fill another stack of paperwork out.  It was a bit frustrating.  They have relocated the prison and are trying to move everything over to the new location so things have been chaotic for them.  I was glad to finally get a chance to get my new ID because it has taken quite a while to get to that point.

When I got back from the prison I had to check Noah out of school to take him to get his braces fixed.  Saturday he had broken the bracket off that holds the main wire in place on his bottom jaw.  I had to get him in that day or wait a week so I raced back from the prison and got him there in time.  Phew!  After Noah’s orthodontic appointment I had to go and pick Matthew up and take him to his psychiatrist appointment.  It was just for a follow up visit and to renew his medication prescriptions.  We had to restart a med he had been weaned off from because he was struggling for a bit.  However, after restarting the medication he is doing a lot better.  That was super busy day, but I was glad to get everything accomplished.

Two Sundays ago Sarah was asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting.  She spoke on her favorite Conference talk from this past Conference. She did great.  Daniel also got to teach the lesson in the Priest’s Quorum that Sunday, too.  It was interesting to see how each of them prepared.  Sarah started on her talk as soon as she was asked a few weeks ago.  Daniel waited until Sunday morning to prepare his lesson.  What can you do, though?!

It was Thanksgiving this past week.  We also had to get Josh’s Christmas package put together and mailed by the end of the week.  You can see Josh’s Christmas box on the table.  You can also see Noah helping Aaron prepare the brine for the turkey:

Then Aaron worked with Daniel to change the front brakes in the Camry.  Here they are finding the tools they need:

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I made the kids help me clean since we were hosting dinner.  Noah cleaned out and reorganized the pantry.  Sarah cleaned out and wiped down the fridge.  Daniel started on organizing the cupboards, but didn’t get very far before he had to go into work.  Here’s the middle of all the chaos--Sarah emptying the fridge and Noah pulling everything off the shelves in the pantry:

Thanksgiving was great.  We had G&G T and my sister Johanna and her family over.  We only had 13 people this year, but it was good.

Josh was able to call us that evening, too.  Matthew doesn’t always get a chance to talk to him so he was excited to see him.  Josh was able to do some service that morning then eat a Guatemalan Thanksgiving dinner that evening with a family in Chicago which was nice to hear.

The next day Aaron and Daniel got to change the rear brakes on the van.  Yes, both cars needed new brakes at the same time.  Bleh.  At least it is all done and hopefully, will last awhile.

This is what happens when you leave your phone unattended by a teenager....

Josh’s Mission President and Companion will post pictures of the Zone Conferences on Facebook.  I had to laugh when I saw this picture.  Josh and his companion were at this Zone Conference.  They are both super tall and not hard to spot in the pictures--haha!

Josh called last Monday afternoon which meant the kids all got to talk with him.  Aaron even joined in the call from his car at work:

Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving none of us felt like making dinner so we stopped by to pick up some pizza from our favorite pizza guy:

We had Sarah’s CCR meeting this past week.  I can’t believe she will be in high school next year!!  She got to hear all the class options from her counselor.  She won’t actually register until the spring when they have their back to school night for incoming sophomores.  However, it was good to see all her options so she has time to think about which ones she wants to take.

We finally cleaned off our ceiling fan in our bedroom which had quite the accumulation of dust on it.  I don’t know why it catches so much more dust than anything else.  Anyway, I found this meme and thought it was hilarious.

These past two weeks have been pretty boring for us. I had surgery two weeks ago to correct a problem I have been dealing with for a few years.  The surgery was more invasive and painful than I thought it would be.  I didn’t realize it would take me so long to recover so I have been down/taking it easy for a lot of the last two weeks. However, today I am happy to say that I am finally starting to feel more like normal.  In this picture I am waiting for my IV to be started and to be taken back to the OR.  I told Aaron after I had changed into the hospital gown and cap that I was bringing sexy back--haha!