Week in Review 10/30/16

Monday morning Tammy, Ashley, Robin and I decided to go to breakfast instead of lunch, so we headed to J&D's.  I had a waffle with strawberries and whipped cream.  It was really good! For some reason, I forgot to take pictures. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised to see that my front lawn was covered with turkeys and they were busily chomping away on the millions of box elder bugs that reside at my house!

I was so glad to see them because autumn always brings an infestation of box elder bugs.  It doesn't seem to matter how much we spray, swat, and vacuum the darn things, they are still EVERYWHERE!  I noticed a drastic reduction after the turkeys' visit - but within a couple of hours the pesky bugs were back!  It seems to be worse on sunny days because they seem to like the warmth of the south side of the house.

For some reason this week I have been feeling very nostalgic so I spent a lot of time watching home movies.  I have a real love-hate relationship with home movies.  I love watching them, the memories always make me smile.  But at the same time I miss those times and want to go back to experience them. So many things have changed over the years, and sometimes I just miss those times when I had cute little kiddos.  And, I have to say in my proud grandma voice that there never has been a child more precious than Kalel was as a toddler!  He is awesome now, but I love reliving the toddler years.  Fortunately we took a lot of videos of him (first grandchild, you know).

I get nostalgic quite often, and a few years ago I made a slide show of Christmas memories of my parents and siblings through the years.  Monday night we celebrated my dad's 83rd birthday and I took the video for the family to watch.  They enjoyed it so much that we actually watched it twice!  How grateful I am for the technology to capture memories.  It makes me treasure my family all the more.

We celebrated Dad's birthday a couple of days early because his birthday fell on the same day as the ward carnival.

Ash offered her house and Mark made pumpkin pie, Dad's favorite.  Mark placed all 83 candles right in the middle of the pie for dad to blow out!  I was afraid it would catch the whole house on fire, but dad blew them all out in one breath!

We got him another shirt with pictures of us girls on it.  We have given him several over the years and he wears them all of the time.  He is so proud of all of us!

Tuesday I drove to Salt Lake to teach the Fundamentals class for Lisa who had to attend a funeral.  It is different teaching a class where you don't know all of the students, but it is still great to teach!  

Wednesday night was our annual ward Chili cook off and Halloween carnival.  Ash, Tristan, Shandra, Jason, Kalel, and Rae all joined Kim and I for a fun night.  I was so excited that Kim took the night off work so he could go and he made chili too!  Jason remembered last year and this year he brought a muffin tin so that he sample all of the chilis.  

Rae and I started the evening off by getting our faces painted.  She was wearing a batman cape.  Kalel was dressed as his favorite Pokemon, Ash.  Tristan was dressed as a soldier.

The lovely ladies in the picture below are NOT TO BE TRUSTED!  Jodi talked me into going in the  spook alley at the carnival - but by the time I had rounded up Ashley to go with us, she had already gone through.  Ash ditched me, but I these girls asked me to join them.  Let me be clear - I absolutely FREAK OUT in spook alleys.  I hate people reaching out and touching me, and I also hate them jumping out at me.  I scream - I scream very loudly!  I expressed my concerns to these girls about going through this spook alley but they assured me that they would protect me.  Savannah was to stay right in front of me and Brooklyn said she would have my back.  LIARS!  Once inside Brooklyn and Karli dropped far behind and Savannah took off leaving me ALL ALONE!  I screamed several times as ghouls and goblins jumped out at me and grabbed my feet.  I raced to catch up to Savannah and hung on to her shirt for the last part of the torture chamber, screaming all of the while.  And what did these ladies have to say for themselves in response to their actions?  THEY LAUGHED!   Savannah said that she had never seen anything so funny in all of her life (I think she was referring to my cowardice).    It is a very good thing that I love these girls and that they are so cute that I just had to forgive them!

On Thursday our Layton med-surg class (there are only five of them) met me here in my fine city to give flu-shots to the clients and staff at Ashley's work.  I was so proud of my students.  They were very professional and did a great job!  After we finished we decided to stop at Maddox for lunch - YUMMY!  It was delicious - as usual.  It was the first time for most of the students to try out the food at Maddox, and they were not disappointed!

Nicci, Measha, Me, Rinda, Jana, Morgan

It is so nice having Cyn live close again.  She is literally just minutes from my work, so Friday afternoon we decided to go to lunch together.  We decided to go to Marie Callenders.  I haven't been to Marie Callenders forever.  In fact, I'll bet the last time was when I was in high school!  Anyway, lunch was great (although I felt it was a little expensive) and the company was marvelous.  I'm so lucky to have such great friends!

Saturday was another long but rewarding day at the University of Utah Maternal/Newborn floor with students.  

Since Kim was off  Sunday evening we had our annual pumpkin carving night.  He decided not to carve anything this year, just to help the rest of us.  I was disappointed that he didn't carve because his pumpkins are always such a work of art, but it was nice that he helped out with those of us who needed assistance.  Rae was so funny!  She was absolutely terrified of the slime and good inside the pumpkins and wouldn't come near it!  She wouldn't even touch a pumpkin seed until it was washed off!  Ash and Tristan joined us.  They, as well as Kalel, decided to forgo patterns and go for freestyle jack-o-lanterns.  Kalel decided right from the start to create a bandit pumpkin.  Once the cat pattern was applied and Kim started cutting Rae's pumpkin she decided that she liked carving and told Kim that he had to stay on his half so that she could carve her half.  We had a great time.  Sometimes I get frustrated at the mess and time, but I'm very glad that I put that all aside and totally enjoyed the evening.  

THIS WEEK I AM GRATEFUL FOR:
Family traditions