Virginia Sempervirens: July 26, 2009

July 26, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

This has been a quiet week. B-man is starting to get tired of being cooped up, so we have tried to get out a little more. I didn’t have a stroller until this week. My friend gave me one that she was getting rid of, and we have used it several times already. J loves being outside (or at least he doesn’t hate it) and B-man has been happy to go on scooter rides again. Monday night for FHE we played croquet. B-man had been begging to play for several days. We set up a miniature course in our back yard. M impressed us all and won easily. M then left to go to an HOA meeting for our community. Earlier in the evening we had been outside. We noticed that all of our neighbors were doing yard work, and a lot of it! We felt the pressure so we sat out there and visited with our neighbors while we all worked on our front yards. We have a new on-site manager that is much stricter about the rules. We really appreciate it, and our neighbors do too, but they were also complaining a little about the warning letters that they had received.

Tuesday and Wednesday nothing extraordinary happened. M went home teaching with someone that needed a companion on Tuesday night.

Thursday M did a bunch of driving. We have been looking for a new car for a while knowing that our Prizm could die at any moment. M found a car that he was interested in this week. Thursday he drove to pick up the car after work and drove it to a mechanic that we trust to have it looked at. After the mechanic looked at the car he then drove back and dropped off the car. Each leg of the trip was at least half an hour. It was a lot of back and forth before getting home. He liked the car, and it got a great report from the mechanic, so M worked out a price and time with the seller to purchase the car! It’s never fun to spend a bunch of money, but it’s nice to feel like you are getting a great deal. Thursday was a tough day for me. J was very fussy in the afternoon, and we were missing M a lot! Once he got home Q and I went to a Relief Society social. They had a barbecue and some games set up in the yard of the home where it was held. I was so tired that we didn’t stay very long. Just long enough to shake off the stress of the day and get some food to eat.

Friday after work M ran some friends to the airport. We had a friend over who was alone because his family was out of town for dinner. After dinner I went to a baby shower for a woman in our ward. M was nice and took J two nights in a row so that I could get away for a while.

Saturday was a great day. We woke up and got going early. We hit a few garage sales, but had a lot of success at them. Then we drove to go pick up the car. B-man was very interested in the whole process so he stuck close to M for most of the time while they were working on papers. J and I mostly sat, or paced around and waited. After a little over an hour we were finally done with everything and able to go home. Once home we all headed over to our community pool for a pool party. We had a great time. J and I didn’t get into the water, but B-man and M had a great time. Of course B-man made friends with the two scariest adults at the pool. He is not intimidated by anything! Although the fellows looked scary they were actually very nice and patient with B-man. We were all very full from the pool party, so we didn’t have much of an organized dinner. We did make our first bruschetta of the season. I am always happy when I can do that. The tomatoes weren’t from my garden yet, but the basil was. That night M gave Q a lesson on driving a stick shift car. Apparently she did great!

Today we have returned to a normal routine. We all went to church, I taught the Beehives, and we came home and had dinner. It was great to be back in church and to be able to teach the girls in my class. I didn’t realize how much I had missed them!