25 February 2024

What a fun week!  Phil was home on Monday and so he and Jude enjoyed music class in the morning.  It was nice to have a quiet morning while I was working.  My new program has some big deliverables coming up in the next couple of weeks, so things are very busy at work and its hard to stay heads down when Jude is home.  We went to Arlo's wrestling match on Monday evening and enjoyed watching the matches.  Arlo had one towards the end of the afternoon and it was painful to watch. The kid he wrestled was about his size, which was nice as he's been wrestling with mostly eighth graders, but he was aggressive and he manhandled Arlo. He took him down, had him broken down, and on his back pretty quickly; Arlo's face said "what the heck just happened".  I don't know if we'll ever be able to teach Arlo to be aggressive, its just not in his nature.  When he was little, one of his preschool teachers referred to him as Ferdinand.  Just like the big bull in the children's story Arlo was always bigger than the other children, but also so very gentle.  I will say, however, that when he popped up from the mat he had a big smile on his face.  He's still having fun and for that I'm grateful.

Helen had technical rehearsals Monday and Tuesday night which meant she got home late.  I'm excited to see her show at the end of the next week.  The intermediate drama class is performing "Folk Tales for Fun" and Helen has three different roles and has been working hard.  Phil was at work Tuesday evening so I relied heavily on Felicity to get her and Arlo to mutual and to get Helen home after rehearsal.

Phil was excited to go to wrestling practice in the afternoon on Wednesday.  He said there were maybe five people there coaching and he enjoyed working with some of the boys.  I was happy to wrap up work after which I finished up some laundry I had remaining, did some cleaning, and did a little last minute grocery shopping before Felicity, Phil, and I packed to leave for our choir trip to Disneyland.  Phil and I volunteered to chaperone the choir trip again this year and were delighted that we were going to get to go.  We paid Helen to babysit Jude for the long weekend and Arlo went to visit his dad in Tucson.  We left from the school around 11PM with 50 kids and three other chaperones.  I have a hard time sleeping when someone else drives, but I did my best as we drove through the night.  Phil seemed to sleep pretty well though.

We got to Anaheim early Thursday morning and after dropping off our luggage walked to the parks.  The kids had a concert in California Adventure so we went there first.  We managed to ride Radiator Springs Racers before heading over to the stage where we listened to both the advanced and show choirs sing.  After their show Phil and I stayed in California Adventure until it closed at 10.  

We enjoyed riding rides, having snacks, and window shopping.  It is so much fun to go to Disneyland as just a couple of adults.  The kids we were chaperoning checked in with us every three hours and they had so much fun too.  In the late afternoon we had a reservation to eat at the Lamplight Lounge on Pixar Pier.  We were seated right away, but we were inside which was too bad because they had tables outside overlooking the water.  Dinner was wonderful (not as good as the Blue Bayou, but still delicious)! 

We try to eat at a new restaurant and ride a new ride every time we go.  The Lamplight was our new restaurant and I braved the Silly Symphony Swings as our new ride.  I can't believe I did that!  I'm afraid of heights and I get motion sick on rides that just spin in circles which pretty much sums up this ride nicely.  Firstly, its not as high as it looks from other areas in the park, you have to climb up a flight of stairs to get to the platform and it spins out pretty far so while I got a little dizzy, it didn't make me sick.  We sat in a tandem swing and I made Phil reassure me a few times it was going to hold our collective weight on those little cables!  It was scary and fun.  Unlike Mickey's Wheel of Death which was my new ride two years ago...that one was just scary, not fun.

We face-timed with Helen and Jude in the evening and Jude had a pouty sad face the whole time and refused to talk to us.  I felt a little bad, we were trying to show him all the cool things we were seeing, including his current favorite, Spiderman and he was not interested in engaging.  Helen said he'd been really good all day and she didn't have any problems, but he was sad we were somewhere else without him.

After DCA closed we walked over to Disneyland and rode Big Thunder Mountain, The Jungle Cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean before they closed at midnight and we walked with the kids back to the hotel.  We walked more than 30,000 steps Thursday and we slept really well that night.  We spent our second day at Disneyland.  We rode almost everything and had some tasty snacks and enjoyed the parade.  We had a great time.  In the afternoon we met up with our friends for lunch, we ate at the Bengal Barbeque in Adventureland which was another first, and it was delicious!  We also enjoyed paddling around Tom Sawyer island in canoes which was another first; I'm fairly confident that Phil and I were the only ones effectively paddling.  It was fun!

We had dinner at Pizza Planet, yet another first, and took our food out to the patio outside of Nemo's Submarine ride to watch the fireworks in Tomorrowland.  We were really disappointed, they've replaced 2/3 of the fireworks with a light projection show on the front of Sleeping Beauty's castles.  While we normally can enjoy the fireworks on the other side of the Matterhorn and not have to be with the crowd on Main Street we couldn't this time because most of the show was out of site instead of in the sky.  Oh, well, lesson learned.  We picked up some souvenirs: a new Christmas ornament, some Mickey ears for Helen, a Spiderman toy for Jude, and a little Yoda that rides on your shoulder for Arlo.  Then we picked up our traditional last night caramel apple and headed out of the park just before midnight.  We had so much fun.  

We slept in a bit on Saturday before taking the kiddos to Long Beach where some of them played in the freezing water and others did some shopping.  Phil and I walked out on the pier and sat and watched the fisherman catch mackerel and then had lunch at Ruby's at the end of the pier.  The drive home was LONG, we didn't get back to Vail until 11PM.

Phil had PTO on Sunday since we didn't' know how tired we would be and I'm glad he did; we were tired and I always like to have him home.  We enjoyed church and took a good nap after!  We picked up Arlo in the evening and now that we're all home again we are ready for another week. 

I can't believe that there's only a couple of weeks before spring break, this year is quickly winding down.  We had a good conversation with Felicity about her plans for next year Sunday evening; because she was waiting to hear back from BYU before making any decisions we have been in a holding pattern on accepting admittance and making plans.  We've been applying for scholarships left and right but at this point she needs to decide what she wants to do.  As of our last conversation she's between NAU, UA, and EAC.  I told her to continue to pray about it and that we'd fast as a family next Sunday and then she needed to make a decision so we could move forward by the end of the month.

Oh!  I almost forgot.  This week was my 24 week weigh in.  I'm excited to see the scale continue to drop.  I'm officially down 90 pounds.  I still have 60 pounds to go, so I have to keep working hard to get to goal, but I feel really good about the progress I've already made. 

18 February 2024

We had some germs floating around our house this week which wasn't fun, but Phil started his four day on Monday, and that was fun.  I was grateful to have him home for much of the week.  Unfortunately the overtime at work has dried up a bit and he hasn't had as much of an opportunity to work OT; it puts a little kink in our retirement plan, but we're hopeful things will pick up again once Green Valley officially takes over all of Sahuarita in July.  Arlo was home with a cold on Monday so he helped a little bit with Jude while Phil worked on tearing out the drywall in our closet and bleaching the carpet.  You may recall that our hot water heater leaked and created a horrid stench and mold in our closet and the opposite wall in the living room.  Well our lovely insurance company denied the claim saying that they didn't cover slow leaks, only quick, catastrophic water events.  I'm so glad I have paid them so much money over the years for them not to help us at all.  This meant that we have to figure out the repairs ourselves.  Phil did a great job scrubbing and removing drywall.  It no longer smells like cat pee in my closet and living room, so even though I'm irritated at the insurance company, I'm a much happier girl.  The leak that was discovered under the dishwasher in the kitchen which has warped our kitchen floor was also not covered, so that's just going to have to stay as is for now.  We'll just have to save our pennies so we can eventually fix the subfloor and replace the flooring throughout our house.  Although, if we're smart that won't be until Jude is old enough not to trash everything!

Jude also had music class with Daddy on Monday which I heard he enjoyed.  I worked on finishing up a baby-sized quilt top in the evening.  I made a quilt a few weeks ago I wasn't too crazy about, so I used the left over fabric to make this top and I'm not crazy about it either.  Oh, well.  Helen stayed late at school (like super late) with technical rehearsals for her upcoming drama performance Monday-Wednesday.  Felicity was a big help in shuttling her around for us.

Arlo went back to school on Tuesday, but then Felicity was home with a soar throat.  Phil continued to work around the house while I worked.  Jude got to go get an ice cream with Daddy mid day to treat him for going in the potty.  Its a token in the right direction I guess!

In the afternoon we took the boys for a much needed haircut.  $40!  That's how much with tip it costs for two kids hair cuts at Great Clips...maybe I should learn how to cut hair.

Since we're saving for some "around the house" projects we decided to skip Valentine's Day this year.  I love him, he loves me, we're good.  Felicity got to pick up her cap and gown from school, so the whole graduation thing is getting a little more real.  Phil got to go to Arlo's wrestling match with me on Wednesday afternoon.  Initially Arlo didn't have a match as the other team didn't have as many boys, but because he hung out till the end, the coach found an exhibition match for him.  Unfortunately he got pinned pretty quickly.  Phil did seem to enjoy watching the match and talked to the coach after about coming in on his days off to help coach and Arlo's coach seemed amiable to the idea so in the evening Phil updated his volunteer application with the school.

Most of the pictures my girls take are of each other's foreheads...I don't get it, but look how they did me dirty!

On Thursday morning Phil went into town to donate blood.  In the evening Phil had a stake missionary coordination meeting at the stake offices and I needed to have a recommend interview, so we dropped Arlo off at Desert Sky middle school for an extra band practice, we drove to the stake offices in Tucson and I had my interview.  I then went back to pick up Arlo, then back again to pick up Phil, and then we stopped for dinner on the way home. Sometimes these little excursions that are inconvenient allow us to hang out together in the car on the way somewhere and are the closest thing we get to a date night.

Friday was a half day for everyone and Helen brought her friend Bodie home to hang out and watch a movie after school.  He stayed for dinner and then Felicity drove him home and herself and Helen over to my Mom's so they could spend the night and work at the estate sale on Saturday morning.  While Felicity was out and about she got an email from BYU admissions and was disappointed that they did not offer her admission.  She shook it off fairly well and we'll sit and discuss her other options next week.  I'm proud of her for applying, she's had some heavy rejections this year, but that's part of life sometimes.  Since Phil was working Friday night I had the evening to work on another quilt.  I used the same pattern (different fabrics) for both quilts this week, so I worked on them at the same time.  this made things easier and I finished the top for the baby one on Monday and I finished up the lap quilt on Friday.  I'm pretty happy with it.  I now have four or five ready to be quilted.

The girls worked with my Mom on Saturday, Felicity wanting to earn a little extra spending money for her upcoming choir trip to Disneyland.  Phil came home in the morning and he and Jude and Arlo and I drove to the fair grounds for Vail Pride day.  Arlo performed at 9:30 in a combined junior high band and then we jumped in the bouncy houses, looked around a bit, and played with some STEM toys before Jude became cranky and it was time to go.  In the afternoon I did our grocery shopping along with our neighbor's shopping and then we had a quiet night in.  The girls went to the movies together after work.  Sunday was nice with all the kids home.  We missed Phil, but enjoyed our church meetings.  We're looking forward to a short upcoming week with Rodeo break at the end!

11 February 2024

 Hey, look at me updating my blog at the end of the week like I should!  We had some crazy weather this week.  It was sunny, windy, cold, rainy, and even snowy.  On Monday Phil was home and was able to take Jude to music class, which he loved.  Phil said he was actually pretty well behaved; even though we can't always take Jude because of work, its still worth it because he has so much fun.  Arlo had tutoring and Felicity had after school pep band.  I was grateful that Phil was home to help me juggle the chaos!

The girls had a half day on Wednesday which was super convenient because Arlo had a wrestling match at Old Vail Middle School in the afternoon.  The girls got home and when I could get away from work I left Jude with them and headed to the match.  It was rainy and cold.  I made it just in time, I walked into the gym minutes before it was his turn to wrestle.  

They started with the B team and Arlo wrestled the same kid he did last week.  A large 8th grader who's reach was twice Arlo's, but I will tell you he fought and fought hard.  He went all three periods and only got pinned in the last 30 seconds of the third period.  Listen, he was going to lose by points even if he didn't get pinned, but he never gave up, fighting off his back most of the match. When it was over, he jumped up after being pinned shook his opponent's hand and their coach's hand and practically skipped off the mat with a smile on his face.  I love that he's having fun even if he's not winning.  Felicity had to go back to the school in the evening for a late musical rehearsal.  

Arlo stayed home from school with a cold on Thursday so he helped me with Jude since Phil was at work in the morning for the bulk of my meetings.  I got my quilt back in the mail in the afternoon and set straight away to getting the binding on it.  I am very happy with how it turned out and am excited to get it wrapped up and ready to gift next month.  I'm sad that my friend wasn't able to quilt it for me, but Andi who I found on Etsy.com did a great job.

I also finished my baby quilt this week.  I fell in love with the fabric collection Wild Rose by Riley Blake so I was excited to use the collection to make a very simple baby quilt for a friend of Phil's.  I quilted it myself and I am mostly happy with how it turned out.  The quilting isn't as smooth as I would have liked and there is something wrong with the tension on my bottom bobbin, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it.  After I finished up the quilting I got the binding done and wrapped it up ready to ship.

Glorious day, I had Friday off.  I got up early and met Leona at Reid Park to walk around the track.  Jude went with me and was really good, he even fell asleep the last mile.  When we were done I stopped by the optimist's office and picked up my new glasses, yay!  Jude and I got lunch on the way home and picked up Arlo from the bus stop around noon since he had a half day.  Helen came home on the bus and she and Arlo went to visit their dad for the weekend. Felicity's choir left on Friday afternoon for the Jazz Madrigal Festival at NAU.  I prayed that she packed warm clothes because it was freezing down here Friday night, I know it was cold in Flagstaff.  

Because it was so cold on Friday night, I brought Maggie inside.  She has arthritis from valley fever and the cold makes it worse.  She and Charlie cuddled up under my sewing table while I worked, they were pretty cute.  I'm glad I brought Maggie in because not only was it cold, but it rained most of the night too.  Phil got home from work Saturday morning and the rain turned to snow.  I was convinced it wouldn't stick because the ground was so wet, but eventually enough of it piled up.  Its always magical when the ranch gets snow.  

In the afternoon Phil and I had tickets to see "Chicago" at Centennial Hall as part of the Broadway in Tucson series.  We had bought an extra ticket assuming Felicity would go with us, but since she was in Flagstaff for Jazz Mad and Helen was visiting her dad the extra ticket went unused.  We had a babysitter stay with Jude and we had a great time.  The show was pretty good, we enjoyed it and stopped for a quick dinner on the way home.  What a great date!  Our evening was a low-key night in since it was so stinkin' cold.  Felicity didn't get home until almost midnight, but the show choir did well at the competition, both the choirs received Superior ratings.

Phil had the last shift of his tour on Sunday and so Felicity and I went separate ways.  I took Jude with me to the Colossal Cave ward for their ward conference and she attended in our home ward.  I dropped Jude off in the nursery 2nd hour while I was in Relief Society, he did great and when I went to pick him up they were playing with bubbles, which is his favorite part of nursery in our ward.  After I got home I worked on creating a website for our annual Light of Christ event, this was a first for me; it was slow going but I have a good start.  In the evening I went to the fire station to have dinner and watch the super bowl game with Phil and his crew.  Felicity wasn't interested in going so she stayed with Jude and picked up Helen and Arlo for me in the evening.  I enjoyed spending time with Phil and put several new rows in the Christmas blanket I'm crocheting.  I enjoyed the game.  I like to watch football, but usually the Super Bowl is only NFL game I watch all year.    I'm looking forward to a good week ahead.  Monday starts Phil's four days off, so I'm excited to have him home for a few days. 

04 February 2024

 February is here after what seemed like a really long January.  I am starting to settle into work a little more now that I have my bearings on my new program.  The kids went so many different directions this week.  I think Felicity did three basketball games in addition to musical practice after school.  We also had some bad luck.  At the end of last week/beginning of this week we started smelling a foul odor in the house, particularly in our bedroom closet.  To me it smelled like cat pee and we figured maybe the cat peed outside of his box last week when we let the dog inside to sleep due to the cold and rain (she has arthritis from valley fever and the cold exasperates it).  I couldn't find a particular spot to clean though.  Finally we found that the carpet was wet and stinky in the living room in the south west corner.  We hit it with the carpet cleaner several times though it didn't help much.  We thought maybe that would help in our closet too since it was on the other side of the wall.  It didn't.  We started to pull everything out of the closet looking for this mysterious cat pee spot only to find wet carpet under a stack of totes and mold on the wall. The smell wasn't cat pee at all, it was mold/mildew on the wall and in the carpet.  The hot water heater has been leaking and we didn't know it.  It affected two walls in our closet and the living room wall.  Ahh!  That kicked off a few calls to our insurance company.

I had all our tax documents by Monday so I took an hour or so and filed our taxes.  I was very relieved to find that we're getting a refund.  Ever since our tax mishap a couple of years ago I'm terrified of filing taxes.  Our savings still hasn't fully recovered from that!

Arlo had his second wrestling match on Wednesday and unfortunately Phil was working this week too and missed it.  I dropped Jude off with Nana and went to the match at Corona.  Nana took Jude to the park at Sycamore and then they walked home.  He had a blast.  Arlo didn't wrestle until almost last. Again, just like last week they didn't have enough kids for a match for everyone so he wrestled with a much taller 8th grader who had wrestled earlier and pinned him pretty quickly.  He kept a great attitude though and fought the whole time.  I was proud of him.  Felicity had a pep band gig and didn't get home until late.

With Phil at work I was able to make progress on a couple of quilts in the evening.  My lovely friend Tricia who usually quilts my projects for me is out of town indefinitely and I had two quilts that I needed to have quilted soon because they are gifts.  One of them I sent to a lady on Etsy to quilt and the other is a baby blanket, so I tried my hand at quilting it myself.  I used a stencil to mark out the pattern I wanted, and used my darning foot without my feed dogs and away I went.  It's not perfect, there's something wrong with my bottom tension that I can't seem to figure out, but I got the job done.  I'll have to include a picture when I get it bound and ready to gift.  I also finished a Christmas wall-hanger quilt this week.  Its so cute!  I think I'm going to hang it off my Amish quilt shelf during the holidays later this year.  Again I'm going to have to find someone to quilt it or quilt it myself before then.  

Friday was pretty stressful, I had to work and I had quite a few meetings, Phil was working, and we had an insurance adjuster and a plumber come out the house.  The insurance adjuster showed up first and took pictures and measurements.  I also showed him where we had water damage in the kitchen as well; in fact its causing the floor to give in a couple of spots.  We had Cienega Plumbing come out and install a new hot water heater and they did a fantastic job.  They also assessed the plumbing in the kitchen.  We figured out that it was the dishwasher that had been leaking (we suspected this and stopped using it months ago) in the kitchen.  The insurance company is going to send out another leak detection company to make sure all the work done has stopped the leaks before we can figure out what our coverage will take care of before we have a demolition crew come and tear up flooring, subfloor, and walls with rot/mold.  What a pain!  We're praying the insurance takes care of us like they should.

Jude has been quite a terror lately.  We have to lock him in his room at night otherwise he'd roam and even potentially go outside while we are sleeping.  What happens is he yells for someone to let him out in the morning, and usually its EARLY.  Friday morning before he went to work Phil opened the door to let Jude out of his room which started a huge tantrum.  Jude didn't want Dad to open the door, he wanted Mama and made sure that Dad knew that.  He slammed his door and demanded that Mama come get him up.  I reluctantly crawled out of bed to open his already unlocked door.  When I did I said "good morning Jude" to which he started to cry and scream "not good morning, Merry Christmas, say Merry Christmas Jude".  He closed the door again.  I rolled my eyes, opened the door, and said "Merry Christmas Jude" he replied "Merry Christmas Mom" and was happy as a lark until the next thing made him angry, which honestly was probably 5 minutes later.  He's been rough!

Dad and Arlo had a little one on one coaching session on Saturday afternoon.  Dad went over the video of Arlo's wrestling match earlier this week and gave Arlo some pointers.  Unfortunately as soon as Dad and Arlo got down on the floor to practice what he was teaching, Jude had to join in too so I don't know how effective it was.

We were able to get a few projects done this weekend since Phil was home.  We fixed some irrigation in the front yard and took the Christmas lights off the house...yes, we still had our Christmas lights up although I stopped turning them on the first week of January!  I didn't have to be anywhere on Sunday so we had a leisurely morning and enjoyed church, I even think I even got a nap in the afternoon..

28 January 2024

 Arlo had his first wrestling match on Monday.  I got stuck in a work meeting so I was late getting there, but it didn't matter because Arlo didn't wrestle until almost 7PM!  The other team didn't have wrestlers for the kiddos at the bottom of the roster, so they rotated some of the kids that had already wrestled in.  Arlo did great.  He went in and gave it his all and a lot of the problems he had were just inexperience.  He didn't get pinned, but lost by points.  He got off the mat with a huge smile on his face proud of himself.  We stopped and picked up dinner on our way home as a treat.

We've been making some attempts at socializing Jude to the idea of going to the bathroom on the toilet.  He's resistant for the most part, although we were able to get him to poop this week and as promised, Dad took him out for an ice cream cone.  

The kids had a half day on Wednesday so it was nice to have them home early.  Phil was working and their help with Jude while I worked was appreciated.  Work is going alright.  If you recall, I started a new program at the beginning of the year.  My boss is a bit of a micro-manager which is challenging and everyone seems to be running around with their heads on fire, but other than that I'm learning the ropes.  I do spend most of my day in meetings which is a little mentally taxing.

On Thursday when Dad got home he took Jude out on the tractor to do some blading around the property.  The rain over the weekend made the ground nice and soft and perfect for removing some weeks.  Jude loves to be on the tractor with Daddy.  

Friday I had an appointment at the optometrist first thing in the morning.  There was a little bit of a change to my prescription and I had to buy new frames because Jude recently broke my favorite frames. I stopped and picked up a new pair of sneakers on my way home.  I've been trying to run in the afternoon and was in need of some new shoes.  After the shoe store I went and did our neighbor's grocery shopping.  In the evening I met Millissa and Allison for dinner at El Coronado to celebrate Millissa's birthday.  I also had my 20 week weigh in, I'm down 81 pounds and have dropped several pants sizes.  Still going strong.

Arlo and Helen went to visit their dad for the weekend, but Felicity was home on Saturday morning and so she watched Jude while Phil and I went to the temple.  We were there for a few hours and then stopped for lunch on our way home.  Helen was going to Winter Formal in the evening and so Felicity went to help her get ready.  Felicity was supposed to go too, but her date had to work and so she opted not to go.  I wish she had gone anyway, but she doesn't listen to me.  I heard it was a good time.

On Sunday I was in the Mount Fagan ward for their ward conference.  I sat in on Relief Society and we visited with their presidency after.  Because our ward is meeting last this year I was able to get to Sacrament meeting with my family after. 

21 January 2024

Well, so much for a more quiet schedule.  The third quarter and its activities are in full swing.  Arlo made the wrestling team, although he's at the bottom of the roster and his matches won't count towards the school's total when they meet with other schools.  I told him that was OK, that its a new sport for him and he's still learning.  Felicity had pep band games several nights this week on top of musical practice.  The nice thing is Helen's bus and the middle school activity bus come about the same time so I'm able to grad both Helen and Arlo at the same time.

I finished up my quilt top on Monday evening.  I'm mostly happy with how it turned out.  The girls had an orthodontist appointment on Tuesday and much to Felicity's glee, her braces will be coming off at her next visit. This meant that I could schedule Felicity's senior pictures.  I'm still a little in disbelief this is happening in a few months.  Helen had a dentist appointment in addition to the orthodontist on Thursday and everything looked good.  In the evening I had a Stake Temple and Family History meeting in Tucson and Phil came with me so that he could have a temple recommend interview.  We are counting that as date night this week.

Friday evening Phil and I attended Helen's induction into the International Thespian Society  They had a little ceremony, some performances, and she's now an official member.  She's hoping to make it into advanced theater next year and this is a pre-requisite.  I'm glad that she has some activities that she enjoys that are different than Felicity's.

Phil had to work on Saturday and had an interesting call overnight, someone drove into the side of a house in a residential neighborhood, his job is rarely boring.

Felicity was invited to a birthday party Saturday evening that had a fun theme.  It was for one of her show choir friends.  They were supposed to dress up as their favorite musical theater character and be prepared to sing karaoke.  She wanted to go as Sandy from Grease but not having a poodle skirt, went for the greaser version.  She spent quite a long time getting her hair big.  It was cute and she had a fun time.

We got some good rain this weekend which was really nice.  On Sunday I needed to be in the Vail ward for ward conference.  I gave the Relief Society lesson and I felt like it went OK.  I talked about unity in our Relief Societies and our need for other women in our lives.  I based much of what I talked about on Sharon Eubank's talk "By Union of Feeling We Obtain Power with God".  When I was done in the Vail ward I was able to get back to our building in time to attend Sacrament Meeting with my family in our ward.  Jude really enjoyed the rain, here's what he did as soon as he escaped his car seat:

14 January 2024

I love that my calendar hasn't been inundated with activities just yet, but it is starting to pick up.  Felicity auditioned for the school musical in December and while she didn't get the role that she wanted she did get a musically challenging role.  She was also cast as the female lead's understudy and another character's understudy.  They're going to be performing "Once Upon a Mattress" in April.  She's been staying after school each day to practice.  She's a little salty about learning three people's lines, blocking, music, and dance with no guarantee she'll get to perform anything other than the one scene her actual character is in.  It would be nice if they had an understudy night so she'd get to play the lead for at least one show.  

On Monday I went to the middle school for a parent meeting for Q3 sports.  Arlo has decided to try wrestling.  If you know my sweet husband, you know that wrestling is his sport, so he's excited Arlo is going to give it a try.  Unfortunately I didn't actually get to attend the meeting because Arlo forgot he had tutoring after school and got on the bus to go home.  I had to drive all the way home, get him off the bus, and drive him to tutoring, thus missing the parent meeting.  Schedules and remembering where he's supposed to be is not Arlo's strong suit.  He started wrestling try-outs on Tuesday.

Jude continues to make working from home interesting, and by interesting I mean stressful.  He's pushing chairs up to everything and trying to microwave his own hotdogs and get himself drinks these days.  This week I turned around at my desk and caught him trying to get a drink from the sink sprayer. 

 The middle school had their Q2 awards assembly on Wednesday and since I couldn't be there my friend Hilary, Arlo's reading/writing tutor, snapped a picture of him getting his honor roll award.  I'm so proud of how far Arlo has come as he's learning new techniques for performing with his learning disabilities.  I can not say enough good things about Saguaro Literacy Solutions.  

Phil was back at work on Thursday and even had a house fire.  He actually doesn't get to fight as many fires as you might expect and its even more rare for him to go into the interior of a house fire so I was surprised when he came home smelling like smoke!  Luckily the home owners weren't home at the time and nobody was hurt, although he said it was pretty darn hot on the inside of the house.

We had a little bit of a scare on Thursday evening.  Felicity let me know at 6:15 PM that she'd gotten an email from BYU that they had her admission application, but that her ecclesiastical endorsement hadn't been completed.  She didn't need to do anything further with her application, but she had to have her endorsement completed before Monday to receive an admission decision.  It also said that the endorsement was pending submission with the stake presidency.  Ahh!  I had no idea she needed an interview with the Bishop and the Stake Presidency.  We were under the impression in September when she submitted her application that she only needed to meet with the Bishop.  I knew that the Stake was starting ward conferences this weekend and it might be tricky to get an appointment for an interview, but I also remembered that someone would be at the Los Reales building until 7.  I told her to throw on a dress and get in the truck, that building is 40ish minutes from our house.  Lets just say I'm glad that I didn't have to have an interview because I may have broken several laws to get her to the Los Reales building by 7PM.  Luckily a member of our stake presidency was still there and happily did her interview and submitted the completion through the church education system.  She got an email the following day that she'd been accepted to BYU-Idaho.  So far she's been accepted to and gotten some form of tuition scholarship from the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, Grand Canyon University, Arizona State University (over my dead body), and Brigham Young University Idaho.  We won't hear back from BYU Provo until mid February.  Phew!  Glad she read that email and followed up with me.

I was off on Friday and went to get my hair done.  All the girls at the salon said how much they enjoyed having Felicity around last week for her senior exit project.  I did some chores and grocery shopping when I got home.  We are still shopping for our neighbor weekly and I don't foresee that ever changing at this point.

Phil worked on Saturday and I worked on chores and the piles of laundry that appear after a week.  While changing a load I found what no mother wants to find in the wash...a diaper.  Ugh!  Its the worse!  Jude must have put a diaper in his hamper and it when through the wash, what a mess.  To make matters worse, the next load I did didn't drain.  I unplugged the filter and diaper sludge, the fur from some unknown hot pink stuffy, and gallons of water emptied out onto my laundry room floor.  I cleaned it up and then took the washer apart to figure out what was going on, it still wasn't draining after I cleared the clog.  I diagnosed a burned out pump motor.  All the gel material from the diaper and the fur must have clogged the line and the motor burned out trying to pull suction against the resistance.  I ordered a new part on Amazon, but no more laundry for the night.  Drat, I guess I'll just have to go sit at my sewing machine.  By the time I went to bed Saturday night the house minus the laundry was clean and I was almost done with my latest quilt.

Phil came home from work Sunday morning, but I was stuck in bed with a terrible migraine.  I was supposed to teach a Relief Society lesson in the Valencia ward, but I couldn't even stand to have the lights on in the bedroom.  I slept most of the morning while Phil took the kiddos to church.  I was feeling a little better in the afternoon which was good because I forgot that we had signed up to feed the missionaries.  They came over about six and we had a nice visit.  Jude put on quite the toddler show and tired himself out; he passed out (with his fork in his hand) before he even finished dinner.  After the missionaries left Phil replaced the pump motor on the washing machine and it sprung back to life and I was able to finish up the wash for the week.