When work took over

Each year Chemical Engineering hosts Grad Recruiting Weekends.  The first weekend is combined with the whole engineering school.  The second week is just our department.  A few other departments have 2 weekends too and sometimes they overlap which is really complicated. January was a really busy month for our family and I thought once it was over life would settle down.  I was very wrong. At least for me it did not.

One of the responsibilities that I took over for Jennifer at work is grad recruiting.  This means I am in charge of contacting perspective students after they have been notified by faculty that they are accepted into the PhD program and arranging travel, hotels, food, coordinating with grad students in charge of activities and hosting, arranging schedules (this is the most complicated part) getting swag from UVA together and lots of other things I was not aware of.  It has been intense.  I have worked my normal 4 hours each day often staying closer to 1:30, so 5+ hours and then at least 3 times a week coming home and working for 3 or more hours after Jared and Lydia have gone to bed.  The last 2 weeks in particular have been more like 30+ hour weeks with some really late nights.  It has been quite the learning curve.  Part of it is just that this is my first time doing it and I also have to do all the tasks I normally do.  I am so looking forward to this week when it will be over.  I will send out schedules to recruits and students hosting tomorrow at work and then just have a few things to do. Even though next year will not be my first year it is still just going to be a work intensive time each year I am there.  I knew that Jennifer put it in a lot of extra hours last year doing it and it will always be like that for whoever is doing it.  The great thing is that I have lots of time built up for our upcoming trips which I can now start thinking about.

While work was busy we had a few other things happen.

1. We got a new roof.  I thought I took pictures of it but don't see them anywhere.  It looks very nice.  We are still waiting on the gutters but they finished the roof in one day.  For whatever reason Jared and Lydia were both sound asleep when the crew arrived and started working around 8:00 am on Saturday.  They were surprised to be woken up by people tearing off our old roof.  It was quite loud.

2.  We refinanced our home and got an improved rate which is great.  For the past 7 weeks I have been attending a self reliance finance class.  We meet from 3:30 - 5:30 each Sunday.  It's a big time commitment especially with how busy Mark is on Sundays but he really wanted me to take class so I am.  Therefore we are having a lot of conversations about budgets, and where to put money, and the best approach for us to get out of debt, all things I find pretty boring and frustrating but know are very important.  It has encouraged a lot of good conversations with Jared (not so much Lydia she is not interested which I totally get) and a lot more awareness and discussions between Mark and I which is really good.

3.  We went roller skating. For a physical goal Lydia wanted to learn to roller skate.  We made our plan and that involved finally taking them to Carver Rec Center downtown for their free roller skating.  They started out slow but quickly gained confidence and made great improvements by the end of the night.  They were sad to leave and can't wait to go again. We went with the Shaw's which made it even more fun until right near the end Sam had a hard fall and really hurt his arm.  We hope he has a quick recovery. We are committed to going back to Carver Rec Center March 13th and then once she has accomplished the goal we will celebrate with a trip to Funky's.  We got a pair of roller blades from Good Will at the beginning of the year and they have practiced at the church a few times with them which really helped.  I am so glad they are gaining confidence in this.  It meets a goal that I set for myself as well.  I needed to pass on my love of roller skating to my children. Or at least see them learn how to skate.
Such Focus!

4.  I've ran a lot.  My half marathon training schedule has me running three days a week.  I have been running 3 and 4 miles on 2 weekdays for quite awhile now and adding one mile to my weekend long runs each week.  This past Saturday I ran 9 miles.  It felt good.  I am building endurance and listening to lots of podcasts! I found a new route (Dickerson to Frays Mill) because I desperately wanted to avoid running on Berkmar the road of too many hills.  I also ran down Hydraulic from the Sams Club parking lot a few times which worked well but I needed to add distance so I had to find a new spot. Its nice and level and there are very few people out between 7:30 - 9:00 on a Saturday morning so that was good but I think I like this one closer to home more.  So its going really well!  I am terrified of injuring myself but will just keep running.

5. Mark and Jared are training for a 10K.  This was the day of their first mile. I think they will do great.

Unfortunately Mark had a bad fall yesterday and really twisted his ankle.  They went on a walk after church and he just slipped near the long bridge, which is just under a mile from our house.  The county finally came and added more gravel to our road, the pot holes were so bad and so there is a lot of loose gravel on the road.  He cut up his arm and hand and then had to somehow make it home up hill on his throbbing ankle.  I was t my self reliance class and was not around to help him. I was surprised he did not call me to come help.  We hope it heals quickly not only so he is not in pain but so they can stay on track with their training.

Valentines

We had fun celebrating Valentines Day.  I love our holiday traditions. We made valentines and mailboxes for school, went on a Hershey kiss hunt, made and ate heart shaped food and I gave Jared and Lydia some special mail a few times in the 2 weeks leading up the the 14th.  

Whales and a Narwhal.  

I was not very excited when Lydia said she wanted to make a narwhal box but it turned out great. 

It took him a really long time to find the Hershey Kiss here which was great because when we started the hunt he was very confident he would find them right away. She stared at this bookshelf for a good while before she found the Kiss.  (Its on the second shelf by the olive tree carving) She had pink kisses and he had red. 

Strawberry Fanta float and heart shaped pizza.  

For my co-workers and Lydia and Jared's teachers at school I made homemade strawberry jam and miniature loaves of bread. We wrote cute puns about those people being our "jam", it was fun. I wanted to do something different and think it worked great. 

The youth in our ward decided to do some service for ward members by offering to babysit kids from 6:00 - 8:00 Friday night.  It was a really nice thought and seemed to go really well. Mark sort of felt like he should stay at the church to offer support so we stayed there until about 7:00 and then hung out together at home, planning future dates until we picked Jared and Lydia up at 8:00. I think it was really nice of the youth and their leaders to set this up.  I think it would go over a little better if they did not do it on Valentines Day so then those leaders could go out as well. 

Sunday Sickness

Lydia and I both stayed home from church yesterday.  She has a cold that seems to be getting worse and I got hit with a horrible migrane.  I got up and felt fine but when I sat down to check my email my vision was a little blurry.  I finished up, not thinking too much about it and moved onto the piano but the notes looked way too blurry to play.  That should have been my first clue.  We sat down to have family home evening and I had a terrible piercing pain behind my left eye.  Then I started to feel nauseous.  Mark had invited his mom to join us via video call for FHE so I tried my hardest to participate but had very little success. Once he finished up I dragged myself to our bedroom and there I stayed for the next 4.5 hours.  Based on past experience I knew sleeping and throwing up were the only things that were going to help me feel better. Gross. Mark came to check on me before he left with Jared, bringing water and a throw up bowl.  He sent a few texts for me letting the other nursery leaders know I wouldn't be there and that I had found people to fill in.   He set Lydia up with a few church videos and some instructions and then was off.  I ended up throwing up twice which helped and then I slept.  Lydia did a good job entertaining herself.  She came to check on me once or twice and I remember looking at her and then my eyes closing and falling back to sleep.  I was so miserable.  I am so glad it passed in a few long awful hours and that I felt better by yesterday evening. We had Jared sit with the Shaws at church and they kindly brought him home.  I heard him come in around 2:35 but was not ready to get out of bed. Mark got home just before 3:00 which is earlier than the last few weeks which was good for Jared and Lydia.  I made it out to the front room around 3:30 (I skipped my Self Reliance Finance class, I was not ready for that) and then helped Lydia put her room back together after her hours of self entertainment.  Thank goodness she and Jared are old enough to largely take care of themselves in situations like this.

Some friends had invited us to come over for their annual Souper Bowl dinner and since Lydia seemed fine (no fever just a cough) and I was recovering pretty well we decided to go.  It is such a cute idea and it was nice to get out of the house.  We were really looking forward to it and are glad we could go. 

I am feeling much better today.  I had a hard time sleeping last night since I slept so much of the day but all migrane symptoms are gone. Thank goodness.  It was so torturous.  Lydia also had a hard time falling asleep last night (and tonight).  Her cough is definitely not helping.  She seemed to be feeling better but when she got home from school today she was in bad shape.  We offered to let her stay home this morning but she did not want to miss school so she went and it was not the best idea.  I think she will need to stay home tomorrow. We will see how she looks in the morning.

Annapolis Maryland

As Mark and Sue looked at flights for Sue's return trip to Utah things looked really bad for Friday and Saturday.  Atlanta had few seats open and long lists of people trying to fly standby.  Richmond and Dulles were not much better. In the end Baltimore ended up being the best option.  It had more seats and it was a direct flight to Salt Lake City.  Friday night the Saturday flight looked good but when we checked Saturday morning the list had grown much longer.  It was decided we would drive over to Baltimore and see if she could get on Saturday but if not she would stay in a hotel Saturday night and take the same flight on Sunday.  That flight had 60 open seats!

We took our time leaving Saturday.  I needed to get a 6 mile run in and since the weather wasn't great there were not a whole lot of things we wanted to hurry to do in Maryland. We thought about going to a museum or the National Aquarium but in the end we spent the afternoon in Annapolis, which sounded the most fun to me.  It is a really cute quaint town.  It has a fun history with the Navy since the Naval Academy is there and the harbor is really nice.  We walked around the historic downtown checking out the cute, over priced shops and stopped for some fresh clam chowder for Jared, Mark and Sue.  Lydia and I were not inclined to have any and stopped to eat somewhere else.  Even though it was only about 45 degrees out the sun was shining and there were tons of people out.  We stopped by the harbor and watched the sailboats out in the water and enjoyed some delicious ice cream.  We dropped Sue off at her hotel around 3:30 and started the drive home.  It was a long drive but we really enjoyed visiting a new place.  There are so many fun places within 3 hours of Charlottesville, I feel we have barely scratched the surface.  As we were driving Mark and I made a list of places we want to visit that are close to that distance.  I am feeling a bit of a need to visit more "local" places.  We have yet to take Jared and Lydia to Wiliamsburg to experience Colonial Willimasburg and we want to make it up to Gettysburg too, which is only 3.5 hours away.

Bless her heart, Lydia could not keep her eyes open in a picture. 

On the way home we stopped for ice cream at Moo-Thru.  Yes, ice cream twice in one day.  We got Jared and Lydia's report cards Friday and they both did awesome so it was fun to acknowledge their hard work and great attitudes.

We are so glad that Sue and my Mom were able to visit us.  It was so nice having them here.  Sue and my Mom get along really well and they had fun shopping and going to lunch together while we were at work and Jared and Lydia were at school.  It was sort of like a girls trip for them which I loved.  Mark would drop me off at the bus so they could use my car and use it they did. It was good for both of them to get away from home and their routines for awhile. Sue gave Jared and Lydia some intense piano lessons and even paid them for their efforts so they were excited to do the work.  She and Lydia did a great lesson for Come Follow Me, which involved building an impressive tent in the basement.  It was nice to have them here for these everyday things and hear their stories and just enjoy being together. Sue, my Mom and I went to lunch Wednesday before my Mom left and then Mark, Sue and myself went to lunch Friday.  It was great Mark could join us. Mark and I felt bad that he was gone quite a few evening with Airport work or church things.  It was just great having them here and we are thankful for these memories.

Lunch after Lydia's Baptism