27 February 2022 Disneyland

Ah!  What a fun week we had.  I'm not ready to fully return to real life in the morning!  Jude had a cold or maybe it was just teething, either way he was super snotty most of the week.  He was pretty well tempered even though I don't think he felt very well.  My transition to part time at work is in progress, it should probably complete at the end of next week and I can reduce my hours the following week.  I'm looking forward to getting some of my time back!  My weekly weigh-in was not great this week, I gained a pound and a half.  I lost my stride at the end of January and have had a heck of a time finding it again and this coming week is probably not going to be any better...ugh!  I'm praying to find my healthy groove again.  In the mean time, I'm going to share it with you anyway because accountability is a good thing.

Phil had a mandatory captain's meeting on Tuesday morning, so he didn't get home from work until after noon, but Jude was a good sport and didn't interrupt my work meetings too much!  I spent the first part of the week cleaning and getting ready to leave on our trip with Felicity's choir class for rodeo break.  

Phil and I are going to perform in a brass quartet for the Light of Christ event that our church building will be hosting in April.  We already have a talented trombonist who will be performing with us, so I transposed a second trumpet part into a part I could play on the baritone and will just leave my trombone in the closet for this one.  On Tuesday afternoon he and I practiced together, it's going to take some work to get back to performance ready quality, but I think we can pull it off.  I don't know that I've played in front of an audience since college.

On Wednesday we had some weird weather.  It was cold and rainy and in the evening it started to snow at the ranch.  Phil's mom came over in the early evening after Helen and Arlo had left for the long weekend to visit their dad.  We took her to dinner and then went over Jude's schedule since she was going to be staying with him for a couple of days.  We put Jude to bed and Phil and Felicity and I finished packing and then headed to the school in the sleet a little before ten.  

Several months ago when Felicity brought home information about her choir trip to Disneyland, Phil and I jumped at the opportunity to chaperone.  I was tickled that we got to go.  We arrived at the school and met the group of kids we were going to chaperone and shared contact information with them and then loaded the tour bus.  The bus drove through the night and most everyone slept, I have a hard time sleeping while someone drives, so I didn't get much rest.  We arrived in Anaheim around 7AM, had a quick breakfast, and then headed to California Adventure.  

Phil and I had a great time.  We went ahead and got the Genie+ service which is Disneyland's new paid substitution for what used to be "fast passes".  It was $20 extra each, but we were able to get "Lightning Lane" passes every couple of hours for the big rides.  The only rides that weren't included in the lightning lanes was Radiator Springs Racers and the brand new Spiderman Web Slinger ride on the Avenger's Campus.  We paid extra for the fast lane entrance for those two rides too.  Just so you know, in my opinion, the Web Slinger ride was not worth the extra money or the wait if we had chose to do stand by.  It was kind of lame actually, I was really disappointed.  We didn't end up waiting in line for more than 15 minutes for anything which was really nice.  It meant we got to ride everything we wanted to at least once and some things twice and we did some shopping and some snacking inbetween too.  It was the perfect day!  I try to ride something new every time I go to the parks, so I agreed to ride the Mickey Ferris wheel.  It should probably be renamed "Mickey's Wheel of Terror".  We didn't just ride it with a stationary seat, but the ones that rock when the dumb thing moves.  I was terrified.  I was white-knuckled, eyes closed, the whole time.  I just about cried when we got to the bottom and they said we were going around for a second time. I can say I rode it now and won't ever do it again!

We both had great groups of kids that were super responsible in checking in at the right time.  Felicity was a little frustrated that her group didn't really want to ride rides and that they had to wait in long lines too (she's used to going with me who works the system so I don't have to wait in exorbitant lines).  The kids did a workshop in the morning and then performed for folks in the park.  It was a lot of fun. 

We checked into the hotel after ten when the park closed.  Phil and I got to share a nice room and I slept REALLY well!  That first day I walked over thirteen miles and took more than 25,000 steps.  

On Friday morning after a good nights sleep and a continental breakfast at the hotel we walked to Disneyland and spent the day there.  When we got into the park we went to the Galaxy's Edge area first, the new Star Wars land.  We waited in line to ride the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run first.  There was practically no wait.  It was a pretty cool virtual reality ride that was interactive.  Felicity and three of her friends road with us in the six person crew.  It was fun.  When we were done, Phil and I had a fast pass for the other new Star Wars ride, Rise of the Resistance.  Oh, my gosh, it was awesome!  I didn't know what to expect at all, but it was amazing.  We had so much stinking fun.  If you have to wait in line for it, it is worth the wait, in fact at the end of the night we went back right before the fireworks at 9PM and waited 40 minutes in the standby line to ride it again.  Ride it the next time you're at Disneyland.  So much fun.

Phil and I roamed Disneyland for the rest of the day.  Felicity and the rest of the choir had a music clinic and got to learn some new music and performed "This is Halloween" from the Nightmare Before Christmas and "How Far I'll Go" from Moana.  She said it was amazing, she couldn't stop talking about how much she learned and enjoyed performing.  They recorded the kids singing and then synced it with the movie and played it back over the visual.  In the late afternoon we, Phil and I, had reservations to eat at the River Belle Terrace where I've never eaten before and it was really good.  Felicity joined us after lunch as she was wanting to ride some of the rides that her friends weren't interested in.  We were able to work it out that we got to ride everything that she wanted to ride.  We didn't meet the rest of the group until midnight.  

I made sure to pick up a souvenir, a treat for Helen and Arlo, and our traditional last night caramel apple.  It was so much fun.  It was such a neat experience to enjoy the Disneyland parks as adults without the kids.  We will definitely have to consider doing it again next time!

On Saturday morning we drove to Newport Beach and the kids got to enjoy the beach and shopping for a few hours.  Some of them even got in the water, it was cold outside with my sweater on, I wouldn't have dreamed of getting in the freezing water!  Phil and Felicity and I hung out on the pier and enjoyed lunch at a little diner at the end of the pier.  

We drove home around one o'clock and didn't get back to the school till midnight.  I was tired and my feet hurt, I walked 32,000 steps on Friday, but we had fun. We got home where we relieved my mom who had been watching Jude since Friday morning.  

I am not ashamed to say that we slept in and enjoyed church via Zoom.  

In the afternoon we went to our friend's house where we picked up our new chicks.  It just so happened that the chicks I ordered at the end of last year hatched and were shipped while we were gone.  My friend Melissa picked them up from the post office and took care of them for me until we could pick them up.  I was SO grateful for her help!  We got Helen and Arlo home in the evening and enjoyed time together before  a new week is upon us again.  It was such a great rodeo break! 

20 February 2022

I am tired...sometimes I feel like I need a weekend after my weekend!  Happy Valentine's Day.  On Monday Phil took Jude to his music class and when he came home he had brought the kids each a card and candy.  He is so sweet.  I told him this year I didn't really need or want anything for Valentine's Day, but he brought me home lunch and a really cute card anyway.  I worked on Monday and had a few meetings.  I met with a group that was in need of a tool administrator for their application and it seemed like something I would be a good fit for.  If you recall from last week, I was told that I needed to find 20 hours of tasking at work.  While this job seemed like something I could do, they really wanted someone full-time and who wouldn't mind several hours a week onsite.  My current boss wants me to save twenty hours a week for her projects, so it wasn't going to be ideal even though they said they could work around that.  After going over several potential opportunities I talked with my supervisor and asked if transitioning to part time work was a possibility.  She said that it absolutely was and that I could continue to support the role I'm currently doing as my only responsibility in that scenario.  Phil and I prayed about it and decided that that was the course of action we wanted to take.  So late this week I filed paperwork with HR to reduce my hours to twenty a week starting in March.  Once approved I'll be working Tuesday-Thursday from 7AM-2PM 100% remote from home.  I had never intended to keep working after Jude was born, but it worked out for me to keep it up for the last year and it has been a huge blessing to our family as we've been able to go on a neat vacation and work several projects and improvements around the ranch.   Now I'm happy to be transitioning to only part time, I hope it will help me to have a better work-life balance.

Phil worked at Pima on Tuesday.  My day was pretty normal with working and hanging out with Jude.  While I was working Jude started laughing hysterically behind me.  I turned around to find that he had grabbed a fabric measure tape from my desk and in the process of running around with it in the kitchen had caught the attention of the cat who was now pouncing on it and trying to catch it.  Jude thought this was hilarious.  He played with the cat and tape measure for at least ten minutes.  The girls had activities in the evening and Phil had a missionary coordination meeting and I had a presidency meeting so we were all headed in different directions. 

   

 Please try to ignore the mess in my kitchen/dining room...Jude also entertains himself by spreading dishes and laundry about while I'm working.

On Thursday I had two church meetings scheduled for the same time.  I dressed for the casual meeting, wearing jeans and tee shirt, but on the way felt like I needed to attend the other meeting.  So I headed to our Stake offices in Tucson and sat in on the welfare training hosted by the Stake Presidency.  I was the only person in jeans...oh well, my intentions were good!  Before leaving town, I stopped at the movie theater and bought myself some popcorn to eat on the way home.  It must have been kind of a stressful couple of days because I just wanted some junk food.  That being said, my weigh-in this week was ok, I lost 1/2 a pound.  It's slow going and will keep being slow if I stop for popcorn when I'm stressed! 

 

On Friday I had to work, but took a break mid-day to take my neighbor grocery shopping.  When I was done there I stopped at our friend's office and picked up their little dog Annie who we are going to be watching for the weekend.  Jude was pretty excited to see the doggie when I got home, she's just his size.  Phil worked at Pima teaching in the afternoon.  Helen and Arlo went to visit their dad in the evening and Phil and Felicity and I stayed in.  

I spent Saturday cleaning and getting caught up on chores.  In the afternoon I went over to the fair grounds where they were having Vail Pride Day.  I had volunteered to help at the JustServe.org booth.  There was a pretty good turn out for Vail Pride Day considering it was canceled last year and this year they didn't have the kids perform with the various school choirs, bands, and orchestras.  I got home around 4:30 and the Young Single Adult representatives showed up to set up for a YSA activity at the ranch.  They had needed a location for their February activity and I volunteered our place for a bonfire.  They had a few YSAs show up, it looked like they had a fun event.  The goats enjoyed it too as several of the young people got in the pen and hand-fed them pellets throughout the night.  

Felicity wanted to go to a church dance in Tucson at 8:00 Saturday night, so I drove her and a friend to the Tucson Stake Center and by the time I got home I had to turn around and go back pretty much immediately to pick them up at 10:30.  They had a fun time so it was worth the back and forth with a sleeping baby in tow.  Phil came home from work on Sunday morning in time for us to head to church.  When we were done with our ward's meetings, I waited at the church building for the next congregation who was having their ward conference.  Phil took Felicity and Jude home and then had an appointment to take the sacrament to a family and do some ministering.  

Our Relief Society presidency sat through the Cienega ward's sacrament meeting and then attended their Relief Society where the Stake President spoke and then we, as a presidency did the lesson.  For this conference I was just assigned to share my testimony of ministering, a short 2-3 minutes.  So when it was my turn I stood up and walked to the front of the room.  Usually they have a large table in the front of the room with a removable podium set up and you stand behind that to speak.  Well they didn't set up the podium and one of the speakers earlier had pushed the table up against the wall which meant you could either stand to the side of it or in front of it.  I have this habit when I'm teaching if I don't have somewhere to lean of sitting on the table.  I taught primary for years and always just climbed on to the table to teach.  It's probably a little over-casual, but I'm kind of over casual...I was wearing my cowboy boots under my skirt after all (although in my defense they were my dressy boots).  Anyway, I pull myself up onto the table and I'm speaking earnestly; I hadn't prepared something in advance because I usually shoot from the hip when its my testimony.  Half a minute in and this lady in the middle of the room speaks up and says "sister, I'm sorry, but that table is not going to hold your weight".  I sputter to a halt in the middle of what I'm saying and quickly come up with a clever retort, because that's one of my self-defense mechanisms, something like "I don't quite know how to take that..." which garners some welcomed laughter.  I slide off of the table and having lost my train of thought continue with some rambling something about ministering and then sheepishly retreat back to my seat.  Now firstly, I don't think the comment came from a place of spite, I think she honestly was worried the table would buckle and I would fall, or perhaps it was her passive aggressive way of saying she didn't appreciate my casual approach to my assignment, I don't know, either way I can't be too offended because I don't think offense was intended.  Secondly, she doesn't know that I've taught in that room and probably sat on that table a dozen times and didn't have any fear it wouldn't hold me.  Lastly, she has no way of knowing that I've been working hard on my weight for the last four months and am still a little (a lot) self-conscience about it so my pride was a little hurt.  Listen, I'm mentioning it not to shame anyone, but because it was kind of a funny and embarrassing experience and I want to look back and laugh about it someday; laugh about how my first "official" experience speaking in front of the sisters in our stake threw me for a loop!

After Relief Society was over I attended our committee meeting for the Light of Christ event, planning is coming well, I may even get to perform in a brass quartet myself!  When we were done Phil and I stopped at a friend's house for a ministering visit and then to Tucson to pick up the kids from their dad.  It was a long day and I was grateful to be home again when we were done.  We had fasted on Sunday for a family member so it was nice to sit down together and break our fast at dinner.  We have an exciting week ahead of us as Felicity, Phil, and I will be headed to Anaheim for Rodeo Weekend! 

13 February 2022

What a week!  On Monday Phil was teaching at Pima and Jude and I went to his music class.  In the evening we took the kids over to my parent's house with some cupcakes to celebrate my Dad's birthday.  Jude especially enjoyed himself; Nana spoon-fed him a cupcake and he had chocolate everywhere, mostly on her.  We counted that as our Family Home Evening for the week.

On Tuesday Phil was back at the fire station and the kids and I managed to have a pretty full evening.  Arlo had activity days at the church and the girls went to mutual.  Earlier in the day I was surprised during a routine tag up meeting at work with my supervisor and her boss, they need to reassign 20 hours of my time to program funding.  It's stressful because usually when they make a decision like that its a mad scramble to find me a project to work on and fitting my schedule and skillset is secondary to there being a viable charge number.  Ugh!  I had some interviews with potential work assignments the rest of the week, some of them requiring me to go back onto the plant site to work.  I think that Phil and I are going to pray about our options, maybe this is my opportunity to scale back working full time.  I just don't know, we're going to have to fast and pray about it.

I met Leona at Weight Watchers in Tucson on Wednesday morning for a weekly weigh in and workshop.  I was happy that I had a good loss this week and after the meeting she and I took a walk around Reid Park.  I feel like I'm regaining some control and was happy with my sixteen week update.  Sometimes its frustrating that its coming off so slowly and that I don't feel a big difference, but I know I'm heading in the right direction and taking better care of myself, I just have to be patient.  Arlo had piano in the evening and Phil took him while I held down the fort at home.

On Thursday morning I had made arrangements for my mom to watch Jude while I went into town for a hair appointment at the salon.  I took care of my morning meetings, dropped Jude off and got to my appointment (45 minutes from home) right on time only to find that my appointment was actually on Friday.  I was so frustrated!  I stopped at Hobby Lobby and picked up lunch on my way to pick up Jude.  Jude and Nana had a good time, so I guess it wasn't a total waste.  I took the kids to the movies after school since they had a half day and we had a great time.  We saw Spiderman again, or that is to say again for the girls and I, Arlo hadn't seen it yet.

Friday was my day off and I left Jude with Phil when he got home from work and went to my real appointment at the salon.  I enjoyed some "self-care" time at the salon while Phil attended a funeral for a retired fire captain he had worked with when he first started his career in the fire service.  When I got home I took the neighbors grocery shopping.  It was a busy afternoon with a lot of people going a lot of different directions.  Helen and Arlo had a half day at school and Felicity went to Flagstaff with her choir for a competition.

 Friday evening Helen babysat for us and Phil and I went on date.  We went to Andrada High school and played tennis on the courts.  We had a blast.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it came back to me, it's been a long time since I've played a competitive game of tennis.  I only lost to Phil 2-10, although we went to deuce several times.  When we were done we went and had dinner at MOD Pizza which was fun.  I sure do love him. 

Phil had the last shift of his tour on Saturday, so it was just me and the kiddos.  I spent the day cleaning and making Valentines for my friends and for Arlo to take to class on Monday.  

Felicity spent the day at her choir competition.  In the evening Helen went to a birthday party and then to her first church dance.  She said she had a great time and even got asked to dance.  I picked Felicity up from the school around 10:30. 

I got up early on Sunday before everyone else and wrote a talk to give at church and then got everyone ready for church.  Phil got home in time to help and then we headed out to the door.  I gave a fifteen or so minute talk about the Holy Ghost during Sacrament meeting and it went fairly well I think.  I felt a little rushed, but it was ok.  When we got home from church Arlo and Dad played with Arlo's electrical circuit building kit for an hour or more.  We went over to my parent's house in the evening and had dinner, watch the game, and spent time with them.  It was a nice end to another busy week. 

 

06 February 2022

 It was chilly this week, I was surprised that winter decided to come after all.  Luckily everything at the ranch ran smoothly despite dipping down below freezing a few nights.  On Monday Jude and I went to our Mommy and Me music class.  Jude had a great time and took a great nap when we got home!  Here he is dancing to "March of the Toreadors" from Carmen by Bizet.

In the afternoon I met my friends Allison and Millissa for lunch at Coronado's to celebrate Millissa's birthday.  Jude tagged along and enjoyed eating out in the sun.  It was a great time.  I had my weigh in this week on Monday as well, although I did it BEFORE Mexican food at lunch!  I was up two pounds.  It wasn't a surprise as I really struggled last week.  It is amazing to me that all it takes is a little diversion from what I'm supposed to be doing (i.e. the chocolate cake I ate after Jude's birthday) to throw me off and into a cycle of several weeks of gain/loss yo-yo madness.  That is truly the difference between a weight problem and a food addiction.  It's frustrating, but I'm not giving up.  I'm going to recommit this week and head back in the right direction again.  Thanks for helping to keep me accountable!

Phil worked at the fire station on Tuesday and my major goal for the day was to file our tax return.  Well it did not go as well as I hoped, at all, in fact it was terrible.  Phil changed his W4 last year to reflect the correct number of dependents and to make sure they were taking enough out since last year we owed $2500.  However, instead of making it tip the balance in our direction, it caused some chain of events whereby they weren't taking hardly anything out of his paycheck for federal taxes and we didn't notice!  Argh!  Not only do we owe the IRS a lot of money (we're talking over $10k) they slapped us with a penalty for not having enough taken out.  Its frustrating.  The government knows what you should pay them and yet every year we play this little game where we as the tax payer try to guess what we owe them (also known as filing a tax return) and they penalize us if we don't guess correctly.  Oh well, I'm grateful we have a savings, it is just going to delay some of our spring projects for awhile.  

On Wednesday morning I met my friend Leona for an in-person Weight Watcher meeting.  In my efforts to recommit I thought I could use the accountability of a live meeting.  We were probably the youngest people in the room and that's saying something as we approach middle age.  I enjoyed the workshop and walked away with a resolve to have a better week.  I enjoy getting to spend time with Leona too, so that makes it even better.  I had a Relief Society meeting in the evening and another Stake meeting on Thursday night.  I I don't know that I "do" a whole lot in my calling right now, but I sure attend a lot of meetings!

Arlo and I worked on his science fair project on Thursday.  I love to do things last minute.  I'm not being sarcastic either, I really do prefer to do things at the eleventh hour.  I usually write a church talk the morning of, I always worked on my school papers and assignments the night before, I just do my best work under a little pressure.  I also love science fair projects...let me say that again, I LOVE THE SCIENCE FAIR.  So I seriously hate that the school requires that we turn in parts of the experiment a little bit at a time over a few months.  I understand that their intent is to help parents not procrastinate, but it drives me nuts, it kills my last minute vibe.  Anyway, we worked on getting the rest of his pictures and data and then putting his project together.  Ok, next rant.  I HATE that they've moved to digital experiment displays.  I love doing the display, it leverages both my love of science and creativity.  Anyway, this year instead of a proper tri-fold display, they asked us to create a slide show.  Well, I'm pretty good at that too.  So I pulled the template out of Google Slides and into PowerPoint, where I'm more comfortable working and he and I put all his information in, added pictures, and included some fun graphics to make it more unique.    

I worked on Friday and so Phil helped me by taking the kids to their dentist appointment.  It went well and we didn't have any cavities to deal with.  He also took Arlo for a much needed haircut.  I took the neighbors grocery shopping in the afternoon and then I sat down to submit Arlo's experiment.  When I re-uploaded it from PowerPoint, Google Slides didn't keep any of my formatting so it was a horrible mess.  Everything was misaligned and over/under sized, the fonts weren't right, it was a disaster.  I tried for a long time to find a work around, but Google Slides and PowerPoint just don't play nice together.  So I worked as quickly as I could to reformat everything in Google and after an extra hour and a half of work was able to get it resubmitted.  It was a little stressful, and entirely my fault.  I hope that he does well at the fair this year.

We worked in the yard doing some clean up on Saturday morning, there's always an endless number of chores.  Running a ranch, even a little one like ours is a pretty full job.  In the afternoon Phil and I drove down to the UA campus.  He had picked up an extra pair of tickets to see Wicked.  If you recall, last week I had to stay home with the baby while Phil took the girls to see it.  He didn't want me to miss out so he got tickets from a friend and we went Saturday afternoon.  I'm really glad we did because it was excellent.  We turned it into a proper date by getting an early dinner when we were done.  

After dinner we drove back to Corona and attended our ward's Valentine's Day party.  We had a lot of fun.  We skipped the finger foods since we were pretty full from our dinner, but enjoyed good company.  Part of the evening included a dancing lesson and Phil and I learned to Waltz, which was a lot of fun(ny).  After that Phil and I participated in a newlywed game with four other couples.  We won, it was great.  

We enjoyed church together on Sunday.  Phil and I waited around after our meetings for a temple recommend renewal interview and then we went home for lunch.  I went back to church after an hour or so for our Light of Christ committee meeting.  When I got home we went to pick up Helen and Arlo from their visit with their dad and we stopped over at my parent's house to see them.  It wasn't until we were leaving that I remember (or my mom mentioned) that it was my dad's birthday.  Ugh, I felt terrible, we'll have to make it up tomorrow by taking cupcakes over for FHE.  It was a busy week!