We now have church at 11:00 and this past Sunday was the first time this year he made it home before 3:00. Middle of the day church is probably my least favorite. Mark often has meetings in the morning and then since church gets out earlier more people want to meet with him after church. When you finish church at 4:30 everyone is ready to go home and eat, not so with church ending at 2:00. Its also hard to find good times to do the things we want to do on Sundays. So we are still figuring things out. Over the past year Jared has become much more interested in paying tithing. He loves giving the envelope to Mark. Im not sure if he has ever given it to one of his counselors. He hasn't actually had any tithing he needed to pay since Christmas but is finding other ways to get to hand Mark an envelope. One Sunday we were looking at the tithing slip and he asked what the other categories were for so I explained each one and the past 3 times he has paid he has given to the humanitarian fund twice and mission fund once. I love this. We were talking about it this Sunday before Sacrament meeting started and I was sort of trying to see if he got anything out of it besides just getting to turn it into to Mark and he told me that he feels the spirit when he gives and it made me really happy for him. As predicted, Lydia has been the one who has taken this calling of Mark's the hardest. Well her or Mark? She is fine but she often talks about missing Mark and when we get to church always rushes in to find him in the halls or on the stand so she can give him some hugs and kisses. We are all fine. He is gone a good amount and there are many meetings and things he is tying to feel inspired to do but he is working hard and doing a great job. We sure appreciate him.
Last Fall we went to our first ever cub scout planning meeting. (Well Mark had been to many but I had not) At the meeting I volunteered to organize the Blue and Gold Banquet. Having never been to one before I tried to gauge the level of crazy this ward did. When you look online at LDS and non LDS troops you can see that this can be made into a really big thing. I talked to a few people at a committee meeting and started planning. The pack had picked a Western theme which is pretty easy and I found some cute ideas online.
For the evening we would do the awards and then there would be square dancing, making a stick horse, horse races and root beer floats. There were so many people there! Originally I planned to have everyone make their horse at the same time but there is no way that would have worked. So we had about 12 kids (out of 38) go make their horses and the rest came to learn some square dance moves. I had found 6 or so simple videos online and had the plan to hook it up to a TV and then do the dances. Sadly the TV had really low volume and it is a large room so you couldn't hear very well at all. So I watched the videos and called out the moves. Another sister and I had demonstrated them before we broke into groups. It was fun and chaotic. I didn't really get to square dance and was actually kind of disappointed. I took square dancing as a PE class in College and think its pretty fun. I wonder if I could round up a few families to have a square dancing party with? After awhile we switched groups but clearly there were more people coming from square dancing going to stick horses so it was crazy but worked out. There were 2 sisters there to help out and lots of parents who helped their kids too but it looked pretty wild. After they finished horses I had them all line up on one of the lines in the gym and we did horses races 6 kids at a time. It was cute and fun. Then we did root beer floats. It seemed like a really great turnout. Lots of people helped out the night of and before and there were no real injuries which is amazing considering we had large sticks and 17 scouts plus their families. As we drove home Mark got a text from the YM president who said that his son said in the car home that it was the best pack meeting ever! He has 2 older brothers so he has actually probably been to a few so it made me happy. (@Jessie: good old Eli!) I'm glad it all worked out and am happy its done.
These wanted posters were fun. I went and took pictures of the Scouts in a cowboy hat and bandana at two different meetings. Then I had the parents send me a "cowboy" name and the Den leaders choose some of the scout attributes to say what they were wanted for. Everyone seemed to really like them.
For Jared I did: Jared" Money Eyes" Spencer. His leaders said he was wanted for being obedient and kind.
I loved how these turned out.
I originally planned for 4 long tables but we ended up setting up 8 which was great but I should have planned for more cacti. Each table just had one instead of 2 but it didn't matter.
On Saturday we drove up to the DC temple for the last time for the foreseeable future. The temple is closing March 03rd and will be closed for the next 2 years or so. We knew it would be crazy busy but were glad we went. We did the same child care set up as last time. We dropped Jared and Lydia off with our friends the Leavitt's and then while we were in the session they drove them up with their kids. We met them in the visitor center after we finished and then they went in. While we were in the visitor center we ran into a friend of ours from Egypt (Perla). We knew Perla was living in DC and loved getting to chat for a bit. We also met a couple who drove up from North Carolina (Duke students) and the husband actually had been to and possibly lived in my hometown, Yuba City. (I wasn't sure if he did live there) We are really far from Northern Ca so its really fun when that happens especially so this time since he is a cousin to my best friends (Kim and Becca I met your cousin at the DC visitors center!) growing up, the Halls. He and his cousin (from YC who is younger than me) are currently students at Duke and we know people who just graduated from Duke (Nancy if you're reading it was Tod and Kaitlyn Hall but they said they were in a different ward it seemed). We talked about how much we both love Dames Chicken and Waffles and they said if we are ever there again we need to try out "The Parlor" for ice cream. So, small world it is always fun to have those things happen! Last month it was weirdly warm when we went to the temple so we played at the church up the street almost the whole time but that was not the case this time. We brought up board games and cards to play with them in the visitors center. We found a corner on the lower level so we would be out of the way and had a good time. All the kids were disappointed when Mark and Rebecca came out because there were having a good time which made us feel good. We are really grateful the Leavitts' were willing to switch with us. I think we did it 3 times? They are actually moving this summer and we will miss them. Its been nice to get to know them. I know of 3 strong families leaving our ward this summer so I hope some new families move in too. While we were in the visitors center there was a beautiful snow storm outside. The flakes were fluffy and coming down really well. It was so beautiful to watch. I'm really glad we could see it and really glad that it just melted as it fell. We of course stopped at Moo Thru on the way home. I knew of some other friends who were going into DC that day and we actually passed them on the drive home. We told them we were stopping for ice cream so they did too. There is no indoor eating there so we just did the drive thru but it was a much needed pick me up. Jared and Lydia were really on one for the ride home. Its already a long drive but add in the snow and kids being obnoxious and it felt even longer. Thank goodness for ice cream. We will miss the DC temple but are really looking forward to visiting other ones and taking Jared and Lydia to the open house when its time.
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