Sunday November 15, 2015

Dear Cassidy -
How are you? Can't wait to hear about your week again. Do the weeks seem to be going by fast for you? Time is a very weird thing for me. The weeks seem to go by pretty fast but time in general moves a lot slower for me since you left a year ago.

I LOVED your letter last week! The whole thing. I always love the whole thing though. But really, I loved hearing and seeing the blood sausage(!), hearing about your crazy dream (you definitely grew up in our old house), and hearing about Lucy and her hair color. I especially love that you got to go to a paint store! We'll have to do some sort of project when you get home. River is asking to paint her room the same blue color as your room already! Stake Conference sounded really fun too. And Frau Dhillon with the family history. All such good stuff! I loved seeing a picture of Aja. You're doing SUCH important work with that family! I love hearing about all the little miracles of the week. They truly are miracles. And we loved seeing a video of you! Although, you were NOT speaking German. So - we're requesting another one. In German!

Well - as for us. It was a pretty good week around here. I cooked dinner Monday - Friday with a good attitude so that's a good start. Here's a little run down...

Monday was a good, normal Monday (gym, laundry, clean bathrooms) until the kids came home from school. River has decided in this week's time that she's done with gymnastics. She's gone from loving it, to telling us it's boring now and she doesn't want to go anymore. I just paid for the month of November and told her she'd have to finish out the month. Thus ensued much whining and real tears. I had her call Dad to get his opinion. He came up with the idea that she didn't have to go this month if she'd like to pay us the $60 back. We pay $80 for the month but she did go the first week of Nov. So she agreed to it! Once that girl decides something there's no going back! So she's got almost $50 she's giving us and then forfeiting her allowance next month I guess. So that was an eventful afternoon.

Tuesday morning all of us (even Dad) had a dentist appointment. I'm not sure how much Dad liked going with the whole group of us since it made it take longer for him. But we got us all cleaned and nobody has any cavities, so yay! Do you miss going to the dentist? After I got everybody taken to school after the dentist Dad and I ran a small Christmas errand right by his work. That's a secret so you'll not know about that. I then went to the mall to try on a few dresses. Ended up not getting anything. Shopping is not very fun really. I stopped in at the fancy McDonalds (has he told you about this) by Dad's work to get a drink and low and behold, there was Dad's car. He was on his "drink break," so I sat and chatted with him. We're quite a pair.

Wednesday was a great day! I got to take River to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for her first time. It was so fun. She wanted to go by herself for her first time and she was hilarious. She was pretty nervous and the whole car ride as well as any time in the temple we could talk she just had question after question. Mostly she didn't want to do anything wrong and she was concerned I'd not be able to be with the every single step of the way. The people at the temple were so great with her though. They had me dress in a jumpsuit (or I could've worn my temple dress had I brought it) so I could go in the font area with her, etc. She did just great. We had about an hour's wait in the area where you could see other kids being baptized so that was good for her to be able to watch for a long time. Anyway, I think it was a great experience for her and she did just fine. Oh ya - I did say I cooked dinner every night, but Wednesday I had it all ready and Colten grilled and cooked our carrots for us. He had the whole thing ready when we got home from the temple!

Thursday I did the elliptical machine here at home before I went to do my work with the horses. While I was there it proved to be a difficult morning. I had trouble getting the baby colt to come out to the pasture, but finally got that done. And then right before I was leaving I was trying to shut one of the doors and it was stuck. I gave it a big shove and it shut, but I sort of fell into the door. I hit it with my hip and then my shoulder and I've a couple of days since then where I've been VERY stiff and sore! That afternoon Hadlie and went back to do the afternoon round and things went much better. She's really good with the horses. She doesn't get flustered usually and works hard down there. Its really turned out to be a good service that we can do for Nancy. She definitely needs the help and I'd rather do that work than a lot of other types of service. Its also been a good thing for Hadlie and me to do together. We always get along really well while we're down there.

Friday I went to the gym and then spent most of the rest of the day when kids were gone visiting teaching. I'm trying to have a better attitude about visiting teaching. It really only takes a few hours out of my whole month so it shouldn't be a big deal. Hadlie and her friend Sadie went to the pottery painting place here in town after school and spent several hours there. River had Ella come over to play for the evening and Colten went to a girl's birthday party that night. Its been fun to see him make some new friends this year. Much like you did your senior year. There are a couple of girls he's become friends with that are great planners and are on student council and always doing fun things. Its been good for him.

We also heard on Friday night that there were terrorist attacks in Paris. Are you aware of this? There were 5 (I think) gunmen/bombers that attacked places all around the city. About 150 died and as you can imagine France is now on very high alert. The ISIS terrorist group has taken credit for all this. One really bad thing I heard was that one of the gunmen was from Syria and was in Europe as a refugee. That is bad! Anyway - all missionaries are safe so that's good news.

Saturday morning Hadlie and I did our work at the horses. Dad was going to come with us but someone he home teaches needed some help. So he got Colten (who was excited to not have to get up for anything that day) up and they went to help. We ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A and Arby's (too many people to please) and then I took Hadlie, Kortney and Sadie to BYU. Earlier in the week we found out they were filming a Studio C sketch and needed a few hundred people to be "extra's." So we applied for Hadlie and the 2 friends to do it. At first they emailed and said we hadn't been chosen, but then on Friday they emailed again and they got to be in it! So they spent from 2pm - 9pm at the Smith Fieldhouse watching and being in the crowd for a new "Scott Sterling" (were you here when that first one came out?) sketch that will air in January. So that was very exciting!

After dropping them off Dad and I went and let the horses in and then River wanted to take her Penny board out one more time before winter is truly upon us. So I took her to the river trail and we had a good crisp Fall walk. And the light was perfect and I took an awesome picture which I will send to you.

Colten went to a "pre kick off to Christmas" party that night. Is that not hilarious? His friend Heather's sister had a party at a mansion in Provo. He wore a Christmas sweater and everything! They played ping pong and pool and HIDE AND SEEK in the giant house. For reals - he's having a fun year.

So today we have a normal Sunday. We'll have roast for dinner (you miss that, right?) and no cookies because last week Colten set our pizza stone on the hot stove and it broke in half! I've ordered another one but its not here yet.

Well - I think that's all for this week. I hope you had a great day at church today and that your week was good. When do they start setting up the Markt for Christmas?

I love you so much! Love - Mom