Happenings 2/18/08 - 2/24/08

We had a busy week. Monday was a regular day for us except that we didn't get any mail. J.J. and I both went to work and Sarah stayed with the girls, as she did on Wednesday as well. Wednesday she took them to the library for storytime, which went well, so that was nice. That was one drawback of J.J. going back to work -- not being able to go to storytime with the girls. (I am really missing storytime. I think I liked it as much as the girls do. I am having library withdrawls. I love the library.)Things are pretty busy for me as many things are happening at once -- choosing textbooks, preparing for the conference at the beginning of April, grading papers, and doing my own writing.

Tuesday evening J.J. met the missionaries at the home of a sister investigator to help them with the stop smoking lesson, so I was home with the girls. Wednesday evening J.J. had meetings at the church, so it was girls and me at home that night as well. Thursday evening J.J. had her monthly meeting with our bishop, so I went along to be in the building and played with the girls in the gym while they had their meeting. (Not a very relaxing week at home, but things went pretty well at all my meetings. I'm just not a meeting kind of gal.)

The weather here has been cold, and we had a storm come through on Thursday that was much less than expected. I had a student on Tuesday tell me that if it was icy or snowy on Thursday, she wouldn't be in class. I thought that was kind of ridiculous to plan that far ahead. Well, the "winter storm watch" came on Wednesday (actually the news on Tuesday night was predicting a winter storm watch to occur between 12 am on Thursday to 6 am on Thursday. I had to laugh that on Tuesday they were saying this, even giving times and everything. People here are pretty funny about weather. except tornadoes, which freak me out.) and on Thursday, even though it wasn't even slick out, about 1/3 of my morning class didn't show. Some of them are from towns north of here, which I guess did get somewhat worse weather, but still, people around here are kind of wimpy when it comes to weather. The forecast was for a quarter inch of ice, but we didn't get anything besides rain. (Paul is telling little white lies again. It was slick out in the morning. I went to the gym at 6:45 and slid through one stop sign - luckily no traffic. And when I went to walk into the gym, I had to "skate" on my tennies into the building because the road and sidewalk were pretty slick. But by the time I came out an hour late, it was pretty well melted.) Apparently the grocery stores were crowded on Wednesday because of everyone was freaking out (they all go out to buy milk and bread???). We might just be lucky so far, but none of the weather scares have even momentarily cut off the power at our house, and we might be just far enough south to avoid the bad ice storms.

Friday J.J. and Claire went to Messy Art while I stayed home with Rachel, and while I was here two boys from the ward came over while their mom had a doctor's appointment. J.J. got back at 10:30 or so, (the boys had been over the day before too. Luckily they are nice boys and Claire loves to play with them. Actually all three of her boys came on Thursday because school was cancelled, so her oldest didn't have school and he came to play. They do a good job minding though, when they leave, it looks like tornadoes have been through the inside of our house.) and then I went into the office and did some work until 3:00, when I came home and J.J. went visiting teaching (I've never been a great VT, but I have a partner now that keeps me on top of things. She calls me all the time to find out when we are going. It's great.) Later that evening we dropped our girls off at the Bakes' home -- we trade off babysitting occasionally -- and we went to dinner at a local diner place that has good food for cheap and is always crowded for lunch. It was very good. We had caramel pie for dessert, and it was just graham cracker crust filled with caramel and topped with a dollop of whip cream. It was the most caramel we had ever had in one sitting, but it was great. After dinner we hung some pictures in my office on campus so that my walls aren't bare anymore, then picked up the girls, visited with the Bakes, and then went home.

Saturday J.J. and Claire went to Music class while Rachel and I stayed home, and then I went into work for a couple of hours around noon and then went running at the gym to work off the caramel pie from the night before. Later that evening, I took Claire and her friend Katie to the Murray State basketball game against Indiana State -- ESPN Bracketbuster game -- and we stayed until about midway through the second half. Taking Katie is nice because they can play together and I can watch more of the game. MSU was up 27-10 right of the bat, but ended up losing by 17.

We hope all of you are doing well, and we love you!