Races, Homecoming, Birthdays, Canning, Dates, Cute

Here’s a few of the happenings of the last two weeks. 

Noah had a midweek race in Layton around the Layton Commons Park. I was able to get the last hour off from work so I could go and watch him run. This is the course that Josh and Daniel raced frequently so it was fun to watch Noah run it as well.

We love the bright orange shoes. It makes him easy to spot!

Two Saturdays ago Sarah had her last Homecoming Dance. Sniff, Sniff. I can’t believe she is a senior. It is sad to have so many lasts...Anyway, here she is before she left for the dance:

They went as a group of friends. For their activity it was decided to go to a flower farm, pick flowers and do some flower arranging. This was not Sarah’s choice of activity, but after much negotiations, the group decided to do flower arranging anyway. Sara wanted to go paintballing--a girl after my own heart. She is an adventure girl, but had to compromise. They also had their pictures taken at the flower farm:

My beautiful SENIOR!  I still can’t believe it!!

Last weekend was Grandma T’s birthday. We all got together at my brother Bryan’s house for a birthday party. Here’s grandma blowing out her birthday candles:

It was fun to all get together and visit.  We have a pedicure appointment scheduled in a few weeks that we are looking forward to.

We were running quite low on peach jam. I wanted to make some more peach jam so we went up to Fruit Way by Brigham City/Perry area and bought a half a bushel of peaches. They were so yummy!  I could have made more jam, but the leftover fresh peaches all got eaten.  I think these jams will last us for a bit, though:

I also put up some more spaghetti sauce. I don’t have any picture of the jars, but we got another 15 quarts. While I was out picking the tomatoes from our garden to make the spaghetti sauce I found this ginormous red bell pepper that was a lot bigger than my hand. The picture does not do it justice. I cut it up to put in my salad the next day, I hardly had any room for the lettuce after my bowl was filled with the cut up pepper--haha!

Aaron and I have been running a bit ragged lately. We wanted to go on a date so we made an appointment to go to the temple after work. However, wouldn't you know it, that morning our microwave died. That meant when I got home from work we went on a date to pick out a microwave instead of to the temple. Oh well, what can you do?!  I guess we will keep the romance alive by shopping at Lowe’s--haha! Here’s our new boxed microwave in the back of the van:

Other not so fun things we got to spend money on this week is an oil change and new tires for Josh’s car. Josh also has been retested for allergies since his allergy shots didn’t seem to be helping anymore. He found out he is allergic to some new grasses, mold and pollen. So that meant they had to remix his allergy serum and restart shots. He chose to do the accelerated regimen so he got to pick up a bunch of meds to take before each accelerated appointment and another epi pen so he is safe to start the new regimen. Poor guy! I just thought it was Sophie that was bothering him, but there’s a bunch more. Allergies are the worst. I am grateful for health insurance, though.

The Sadie Hawkins dance is coming up next month. Sarah decided to ask someone to the dance a few days ago. She asked for help making the poster. Once I had it sketched out for her she took it to her friend Gabby’s house so they could both finish their posters and then ask their dates together that night. 

Matthew had his Special Olympics Bocce Ball game Friday evening. I came over after I got off work to watch. Matthew and his partner Daniel are pretty good at it. Here’s Matthew taking a turn:

They won the gold medal and will be able to compete at the state competition in November. They are pretty excited about it! Matthew brought his medal home Sunday so he could wear it to church and show everyone.

Flu immunization season is in full swing. I am working both jobs at the same time right now and getting ready to start the third job next month. I am going a bit crazy, but so far things are going okay. My main job I have been at for about 4 and a half months. There really is a huge learning curve and let’s just say I am no young spring chicken. There have been many times I have felt overwhelmed, but things are starting to get a bit easier. Hopefully, it continues. I just have to remind myself of what Stuart Smalley from the old school SNL (Saturday Nigh Live)--Daily Affirmations would say--haha!

Noah had another race this past Saturday morning. This race was the Royal Run held at Roy High school. This is a favorite of the runners. Here’s Noah with his orange shoes:

Josh actually had the morning off work so he came to cheer on Noah with us. He told Noah that if he got under 21 minutes for the 3 mile race, Josh would take him out to Olive Garden for the never-ending pasta bowl. That was enough motivation that Noah delivered. Then Josh delivered on his end of the bargain for lunch:

Noah had to be at the high school by 6 am that morning. By that afternoon Josh and Noah were exhausted and passed out on the couch:

Daniel has had a crazy few weeks, too. His debit card chip stopped working. Since his MSF (every two week mission money) does not always cover everything he needs, he will dip into his checking account. Well his debit card stopped working so that became a quick problem. Only I am on his bank account so when Aaron tried to fix it, the bank wouldn’t talk to him. I don’t always get home from work before the bank closes so it was a bit of a problem. I tried to get off work a few minutes early and was able to make it into a branch 30 minutes before they closed. They were able to reprint a new debit card for him. We then went to the post office and priority shipped it out ato Daniel. It took a few days to get to him only to find the new card didn’t work when he went to use it. Ugh. Back to the bank I went and did the whole process over again. I priority shipped the 2nd card to him, but it never showed up. UGGGGGHHH!  So back to the bank I went again. Third time has got to the be the charm, right?!? Printed yet a third debit card and priority shipped it again. Thankfully, it actually made it to his apartment mailbox this time. So now he has some money and doesn’t have to mooch off other missionaries to buy a $2 drink at the gas station. That was frustrating!  Besides that he is doing really well. His 20th birthday is today. Wahoo!  He did have a doctor’s appointment scheduled for this morning where he would need to get some lab work done. He was really stressing about that because he is severely needed phobic. However, the provider he had an appointment with had to cancel the appointment last minute. Daniel wasn’t too upset and considers a good birthday present not to have to get his blood drawn on his birthday. He most likely will get transferred to a new area next week so he will have to set up a whole new appointment with someone else. Ugh. That is a problem for another day so I am trying not to worry about it for now. As for now he is doing well. He really loves his companion and the people he has been able to teach. He will be sad to leave this area. Here’s a few pictures he has shared:

We got to talk with him last night since it was P-Day. Aaron is on a business trip and joined the call from his hotel room. I think it’s pretty awesome we were all still able to join in on the same call even though we are all in different places. I love technology!

Sophie finally had a groom appointment this morning. She was starting to look really shaggy so she was in desperate need for a spa day. She absolutely HATES going, but she does feel better afterward. When I brought her home she ran inside and had the zoomies.

She looks cute again.

When she got inside the house she grabbed her toy to show it off:

Cavity, Growth, Races, Texas, Creepy, Shout Outs

Noah had a dentist visit last month where it was discovered he had a cavity that needed to be filled. I only have one day a week that the dentist is open where I can take him to get it done. That meant he had to wait over a month to get it filled. Noah got numbed up and couldn’t feel part of his mouth, chin, cheek and still couldn’t feel it when I dropped him off at school. However, things went smoothly with the filling which was good. He was pretty nervous about it.

Sophie loves listening to the piano. Every time the kids practice she will go and sit under the bench and listen:

Our garden is doing okay this year. We aren’t getting as much produce as last year, but still have some to can. I made some spaghetti sauce with the tomatoes. I think I can do one more batch of tomatoes before the end of the season which will be nice!

Aaron was nice enough to process the bottles in the pressure cookers outside while I cleaned up the huge mess in the kitchen. Tomatoes splatter everywhere and that took a bit to clean up. Aaron had a bit to clean up as well. While he was sitting their babysitting the pressure canner and making sure it was staying at pressure, Sophie snuck in between his feet and pooped. For whatever reason she won’t go in the grass, she will only go on the patio. Ewwww! I guess the grass might tickle her bum or something. What a weird dog. Anyway, Aaron wasn’t happy about cleaning that up--haha!

One jar of spaghetti sauce didn’t seal so I made a few pans of freezer lasagna to use it up. It turned out good if I do say so myself!!

Noah had a cross country meet up in Park City a week and a half ago. Aaron was able to go and cheer him on and take some pictures:

It was a hilly course and Noah was pretty tired by the end of the race:

Aaron’s parents have had a rough patch health-wise lately. We went out for a weekend visit to Dallas last weekend. We tried our redneck first class again. It is where you book an aisle seat and a window seat and hope that no one wants to sit between you and it worked. Wahoo for redneck first class!

On our way to their house we stopped and grabbed a quick lunch at Taco Bueno. This is where Aaron ate lunch every day while he was in high school. He likes to revisit when we come to Texas just to reminisce. He got a Muchaco:

It was a quick visit, but nice to see Philip and Elizabeth and Jill, Jeff, Sydney and Lila. While we were there we were able to help out with some chores around their house. 

While we were there we did do a quick trip over to Bucee’s. The mascot came over to take a picture with us, but ended up being a bit creepy. The whole time we were getting the picture done he kept rubbing my back. Ewwww! I was happy to step away from the creepy guy.

We flew out Saturday morning and flew home Monday afternoon so it was a quick trip. 

We made it home in enough time to talk with Daniel on his P-Day call. He got to tell us about Elder Gong visiting his mission. Daniel even got to shake his hand:

That was pretty cool! 

I got this in the mail the other day. It was a 'shout out' that Noah’s Math teacher mailed to us. It said, “Noah is such a hard-working student. He’s very diligent about using his time in class wisely and completing his assignments on time.  He is friendly to everyone and is a positive influence in our class.” That was awesome to read!! 

Matthew called me the other day because he was featured in a Utah Special Olympics advertisement video online. It was a clip montage so Matthew was only on it for maybe a tenth of a second, but he was still there. It took a bit of trial and error to finally screen shot his clip.

Aaron was out of town last week. In fact we got home from Texas at 4 pm and he had to be back at the airport at 7 pm to catch an evening flight to Las Vegas where he would be the rest of the week.  It was a bit of a rough week for me. Aaron felt bad for me and sent me a surprise Twisted Sugar cookie delivery. That was awesome!!

Flu immunization season is in full swing. I had my orientation and worked my first flu clinic yesterday. I also had an early morning blood draw clinic as well. Yesterday was a long day for me, but I will appreciate it when I see my paycheck--haha!

I love when the kids eat the last of something and leave the empty container in plain sight without throwing it in the garbage---Ugh!!

Noah had another cross country meet this past Saturday down in Taylorsville. This was a HUGE meet with schools from everywhere including Nevada. Finding parking was a bit of a nightmere. It took 20 minutes to find a very small parallel parking spot. Anyway, we were afraid we might miss his race, but we made it just in time. Phew! Here is all the boys in the sophomore boys race as it started:

We had to get Noah some spike shoes. We got fluorescent orange shoes to make it easier to spot him and it worked somewhat.  With so many runners it made it easier to spot him.

He PRd (personal record) at the end of that race which was awesome!! He is really liking cross country this year which I am happy about. The races are fun to watch.

A few weeks ago Sarah and Noah participated in March of the Titans. It is an all night fundraising activity. The more laps you walk around the track the more money gets raised. Sarah and Noah got there at 10:30 pm and stayed until 4:30 am before they were tired enough to come home. Noah did have a cat nap during the night at some point. Sarah grabbed a quick picture of Noah passed out on the ground:

Speaking of Noah we got this voicemail from his seminary teacher this afternoon, "Hello Brother Mancil, this is sister Wayment. I am your awesome son Noah’s seminary teacher. I just wanted to reach out. I had a prompting and I wanted to act on it and that is to tell you how awesome Noah is. He is a great leader in our class and I am always looking forward to when he raises his hand. He always makes the most beautiful comments and you can very much tell that the gospel is important to him spiritually. He is also a great friend. He has been reaching out to the boys around him in his seat and I don’t know, I think he’s a great way of showing people that he cares for them and likes being friends. Please tell him I freaking love him and I’m so grateful he’s in my Class.  If there’s anything I can ever do for him or for you shoot me a text or give me a call I would love to help in anyway. Thanks.”

That was so awesome!

Josh has been enjoying his classes. They do make their own fun, though. They had some extra sheep blood agar that they didn’t need. So they decided to have a target practice to see who could get their blood agar to stick to the bullseye.

Poor Josh, his shot didn’t even end up on the board. It ended up on the white board attached to the wall--haha, but a little gross.

They had another extra Petri dish. Josh decided to bring it home and see what was growing in my kitchen sink. He swabbed the inside of the sink and this is what it looked like after a week of growth. Ewwwww!

I found this funny meme this week. I feel old--haha!

I saw that Utah had a tornado the other day. It touched down in the Southeastern part of the state so not anywhere near us. I did take a picture and send it to Daniel since he deals with a lot more tornadoes in Nebraska than we do.

We did get this message from Daniel’s companion’s mom this week. This is the second missionary Daniel has trained. We hoped it would be a good experience for them both. I was happy to read this from his companion’s mom:

"Hello! I just wanted to reach out and let you both know how grateful I am for your son and for the example he's been to Jackson over the last couple of months in the field. Jackson has only good things to say about Elder Mancil! I know they work hard, but have fun too. It's been so fun to watch the growth that's occurred in such a short time. I'm getting a package ready to send Jackson and I thought I'd include a few things he can share with Daniel...can you let me what some of his favorite snacks or treats are? favorite fast food place? I was going to throw in a few gift cards so they can get lunch or dinner on the go 🙂"

That made my heart happy. I am glad things are going well.