October is off to a good start

Hello October! At the beginning of the school year I said if we can make it through September and October, we'll be good and here we are, half-way through! 

Every morning I drive the kids to seminary (or I go a bit later and pick up Curtis to take him to his bus stop) so we are full into the early morning thing. Mondays I do laundry and fill out all the forms and check my email to make sure I haven't missed a permission slip or something. It is my administrative/laundry day and then I take Lily to dance and teach piano lessons. We've been able to stick with Monday nights for family night, which is awesome. Tuesdays are a bit more flexible and last week I spent all morning cleaning out my second closet that we use for storage. It was fun to go through my BYU notebooks and look at letters Josh wrote me and look at my high school year books and read through AP English papers I wrote and newspaper articles.  I also organized all the stuff I keep for the kids like art work and report cards and such. I also took Brandon to baseball and took the girls home from dance and then went to Curtis's baseball game. It is fun to watch him play and he did pretty well. 

Wednesdays I go to the gym and talk to Leisa and go grocery shopping. Brandon started the trombone and he loves it so much; it is adorable. Wednesday is band day and so his favorite day of the week. This past Wednesday was a very special day. It was the 25th anniversary of when Josh was baptized so I made him his favorite dinner and got him a tie. This year's tie I got to remind us of our trip to Costa Rica. We had a short time for dinner between all the activities so we had dinner and talked about his baptismal day and then when everyone got back from church activities I had apple crisp waiting for them and I gave Josh his tie. It was such a special day and it is important to me to celebrate the miracle that is Josh's conversion. I am living my dream come true and I am so grateful. 

Thursday was also amazing. For my birthday a year ago I told Josh all I wanted was a day at the temple. I wanted to be able to go and not have to rush home to pick up the girls or be here for Brandon but just to be able to stay at the temple for as long as I wanted. Well, here we are 16 months later and it finally happened. For my birthday this year, Michelle gave me a cute dress and promised me dinner after our temple day so on Thursday I was able to enjoy Josh's gift and Michelle's and it made for an awesome day. Michelle and I did the 11am and 1pm endowment sessions and then a 3pm initiatory session. It was so wonderful and I probably could have done another session but we didn't want to get home too late so we went and got dinner at Cheesecake Factory where we stuffed ourselves and then we drove home, talking all the way. It was so lovely to just sit in the celestial room for awhile, praying and thinking and talking with Michelle about eternal things. We chatted with Marlene in the office and did more initiatories than usual and it was all so wonderful. It was such an uplifting day and I loved it all. 

 

Friday was our ward bonfire so I went to spin and then spent the morning going around to different grocery stores getting doughnuts and cider. I was pretty tired from a busy week so I didn't get much else done but I did take the girls to dance and then pick up Curtis from cross country and I dropped him off at his baseball game and then I made dinner, picked up the girls and we drove straight to the bonfire while they ate their dinner in the car. I was disappointed Josh couldn't be there and neither could Michelle but we had a great turn out and I think everyone had fun. Last week I had decided to get glow sticks for the kids to play with and that turned out well; the kids were all running around like crazy with their glow sticks and parents just sat around the fire and talked and I got the perfect number of doughnuts so all in all, a great success of an evening. Now I can totally turn my attention to our Halloween party that is in less than two weeks. I have been thinking and planning a lot already but now it is go time. I love my calling and enjoy the planning but I do always hit a point where I am just ready for it to be over so I can stop worrying about how it will go and if people will like it and wondering if I have thought everything through. I have been doing this for a year now and I think all of our activities have been successful in some way and now I get to figure out next year.

This weekend was General Conference and it was wonderful. So many of the things Michelle and I had talked about on Thursday were mentioned or a whole talk was given on the topic. It was amazing! Brandon had a baseball game and Lily had dance Saturday morning but we were all home in time to watch all the sessions of conference together and that was the best. It was relaxing and spiritually uplifting and instructive and great family time all at once. Yesterday in between sessions Josh and the kids made doughnuts and that was fun and delicious. It was so great having Josh around all day and having him be so relaxed with no church responsibilities.