The main events in November dealt with the fact that Alex completed his 2 year mission for our Church. Glen and I went and picked him up in Salt Lake and did a quick, mini tour of his mission.
The night we picked him up, we made a few visits in Salt Lake and spent the night with Jerome, a man who had worked with Alex and the missionaries. The next day we traveled to Rock Springs, Wyoming to do some more visiting. That evening, we traveled back to the Salt Lake area, spent the night at Jacob's, played games (I really liked Space Base), and headed home on Friday. Alex (and Eric) spoke in church that Sunday.
Glen, Eric, Alex, and I traveled to Mesa to visit Andrew, Heather, Henry, and Joy that week. Our visit included, as expected, lots of game playing and celebrating Eric and Joy's birthdays, but we also got to attend martial arts class with Henry and go through the Mesa Arizona Temple open house, one of which was really fun and the other of which was very cool. The Church had just finished a major renovation of the Mesa Temple and had an open house before it gets rededicated this next Sunday (12-12-21)
For Thanksgiving, the 4 of us went across the street to Alan and Debbie's house and had a wonderful afternoon there. (I believe I have a picture of this on some device. I will have to find it and add it to the post later)
Got our trees up and decorated. Made my Christmas cards. Life is good.
going out on visits in Salt Lake
thought it was going to snow on us in Rock Springs, but it didn't
the tradition continues with the styrofoam cup welcome home sign
Eric (30) blowing out his candle with his hands
Joy (4) enjoying her cake
we attended Henry's martial arts class workout to "earn our turkey"
Ex Libris with Eric, Andrew, Heather, and Alex (I love this game)
stopping for a burger at Middlegate on our way home from Mesa
Eric, Glen, and I really enjoyed General Conference at the beginning of the month. We collected everyone's words for our tradition of eating a candy for each time our chosen words were said. Only this time, we were trying to be a bit healthier, so besides whoppers, skittles, and almond M&Ms, I also had fresh blueberries and pistachios. Turns out Glen started a no-sugar challenge for himself, so that worked out really well.
Our words this time around: Glen-sacrifice, Beth-focus, Andrew-quail, Heather-goal(s), Henry-Henry (ha! with President Henry B. Eyring there, he was sure to have his word chosen several times), Joy-Jesus (which was said so many times, we only took a treat for every 5 references), Eric-UFO, Ryan-listen, Angeles-balcony, Hannah-brother (because she misses Alex), Kaellen-care, Alex-remember, and Alex's companion Elder Rosengren-boat. As you can guess, some of the chosen words weren't referenced. But it's all in good fun, and it really helps me pay close attention. And, as always, Conference was amazingly awesome!
Alex turned 21 on the 10th. We pick him up from his mission on November 10th!
Alex on a P-day hike at the end of September
Glen and I started facilitating a emotional resilience group at church. The class runs for 10 weeks. I'm really loving it. The manual is online. Check it out!
I moved to Scituate, Massachusetts at the end of 4th grade. I met Deb in 5th grade. We became best friends when we had to work on a project together in 6th grade. I moved to Louisiana the summer after 7th grade. That summer, in 1975, Deb came to visit me. The next summer, in 1976, I went to visit her. (it was awesome being in Massachusetts for the 4th of July that year, celebrating our country's 200th birthday, by the way).
That was the last time we had seen each other. We wrote letters for years, and then lost contact for about 22 years. I had tried to find her from time to time and finally managed to do so at the beginning of this year. She flew out to see me this month.
We had a wonderful week together. My book club met the week she was here, so we went together (The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle). She also stamps, so we did a bit of that, and she joined me for a night with my stamping group. And geocaching is a new hobby of hers, so we did a bit of that. And we ate out. And we talked. And we just relaxed. It was great.
I am on the left under the globe, Debbie is on the bottom row, 3rd from the right
Deb and Beth, 10-22-2021
this geocaching gem was less than a mile from my house
It was Homecoming week the week that Deb was here. Glen dressed up every day, but I only got this one photo. Can you guess what the theme for the day was?
Halloween 2021--Eric as Van Gogh. I am justifying my having bought Remi, the shoulder pet (from the movie Ratatouille), when I was at Disneyland and I was dressed up as a cook for the church Trunk or Treat.
And here's a photo of Joy holding the Halloween card I made for her and Henry.
kitchen floor--a few months ago when the kitchen floor began to sag, we discovered a small leak under our kitchen sink. A huge portion of the subfloor needed replacing. Luckily we were able to get a vinyl pattern that was extremely similar to our old one...just a little more brown to go with the gray swirl than it had previously. So glad the job finally was taken care of.
new games: Point Salad and Letter Jam--Andrew had rated some games in a recent blog post (https://agamedesignersblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/cosmere-and-andrew-reviews-some-games.html) and Eric went out and bought 2 of the games. We really like them. Point Salad is very easy to play. Letter Jam in kind of like a cooperative MasterMind game using words--not as easy to play as Point Salad. Our first game of Letter Jam was painful, but it didn't take us too long to get the hang of it.
Andrew's review of Letter Jam: Letter Jam is a game which in my opinion logically shouldn't work yet somehow does. And I loved it. The main idea is the cards all have a letter on them. You can see everyone else's card, but not yours. It's co-op, so you are trying to give them clues so they know what their letter is and they are doing the same to you. How it works is you spell words with those letters, laying down number chips. So if I see an L, a T, an E, and an R, I can put the 1 chip in front of the L, the 2 chip in front of the E, the 3 and 4 chips in front of the T, the 5 chip in front of the E, and the 6 chip in front of the R. So the player with the T is like, huh, the word is LE**ER, is it lesser? letter? And the other players are doing so as well, narrowing down what their letter is. (9/10)
Andrew's review of Point Salad: Point Salad is a fast card game where every card has one of six types of veggies on the front, and on the back of every card is a completely unique scoring condition. On the table are six cards veggie side up and three scoring condition side up. Turns are fast: either grab two veggie cards or one scoring card. If you grab veggies, the card with the scoring on them get flipped to their veggie side to take their place. I enjoyed this one a lot. The game is fast, fun, with lots of options, cool scoring conditions, and clever plays. I highly recommend this one. (9/10)
Glen's new calling...isn't too much different from his previous. He was 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum Presidency, and when the EQ Presidency was reorganized, he was called to be the first counselor to a new President. He'll have the same tasks as before, but if the President can't come to our Ward Council meetings on Sundays, Glen will get to go with me (which he did a few Sundays ago).
My trip to California--I got to go to Disneyland and California Adventure Disney with my friends! We had such a wonderful time just visiting, eating, and riding the rides (loved Guardians of the Galaxy, Rise of the Resistance, and a bunch of other rides as well as the interactive Turtle Talk show, and if I ever go back to Disneyland, I plan to never go on the Matterhorn ever again).
I love Merry-Go-Rounds!
The Turtle Talk show was AMAZING (how'd they do it?)
August started off with Eric, Glen, and me traveling a very smoky road to Oregon to my mom's, where Glen and Eric got to meet Kyle's wife, Melissa, as Kyle and Melissa were on the end of their week long visit to mom. It's always so good to see them as it doesn't seem to happen as often as I'd like.
(smoky road to Oregon)
I had 2 days at home, and then I headed off to meet up with Deni so we could attend BYU Education Week.
One of the series of classes that I attended was written up in The Church News--Strengthening one’s foundation through diet, exercise and sleep. I really liked the classes and the speaker, Dr. Matthew Morgan:
So, things that I have already incorporated into my life from the lectures I heard (and most coming from Dr. Morgan's 8 classes that I attended):
I now sleep with socks on to keep my feet warm. I don't have "screen time" for an hour preceding bedtime.
I use low light in the evening.
I am better about going to bed about the same time every night.
I focus on my breathing (eliminating other thoughts) and this really helps me to get to sleep faster.
I have been riding my bike 2 miles 3 days a week kind of at a leisurely pace (concern for my knee acting up is part of the reason), but now I sort of do some HIIT (high intensity interval training) where I pedal hard for about 50 seconds and then go easy for 10-20 seconds. On the way home, however, it's more like 20-30 seconds high intensity to 20-30 seconds recovery.
I am listening to more uplifting music first thing in the morning (especially David Archuleta singing "Glorious"). I had done that before after attending Dr. Morgan's classes in past Ed Weeks, but had gotten out of the habit.
I am spending hardly anytime on my main social media source facebook (though I sort of started that before Ed Week, but now it's even less time--I aim for less than 15 minutes/day).
I have found some new educational podcasts to listen to (though for some, I'm only interested in a few podcasts and won't listen to others) and have added them to my spotify account:
Radical Personal Finance
You Need a Budget
Hardcore History
50 Things that Made the Modern Economy (hate the title, but it has some great topics)
Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, M.D.
Money for the Rest of Us
Some other podcasts that were already on my spotify account that I enjoy:
Hidden Brain
The Missing Chapters: History's Forgotten Stories
Sawbones
And I signed up to take free classes at Coursera.org. I've already done their Understanding Obesity class and have now started their beginning Chinese class. The classes are free unless you want credit for it and then there's a charge.
And the big "find" is Google Keep (keep.google.com) where you can make lists and get reminders and such. No more little pieces of paper floating all over my house. That looks like it will be really helpful to me.
While I was in Utah, Glen went back to school, attending teacher trainings. They had called him a week or so before school started to ask if he could teach one extra class--so he has 3 US History classes and 1 world history class on his schedule this year. The first day of school was after I was home.
After I got home we attended the "all class reunion" that they have every year here. It's really a great idea.
thought we were done taking "the first day of school" photos
July was a wonderful month. Full of games, heat (Glen had to put in a new swamp cooler pump during the big heat wave...so glad he's so handy), regular activities, irregular activities (like our 4th of July party we had on July 5th), and 2 birthdays. Happy Birthday Kaellen and Heather!
Another "handy-man" thing that Glen did was put in a 30" extension mirror in the bathroom--perfect for me to see the back of my head while I'm fixing my hair. I've been wanting one for a long time. So glad I finally ordered one.
He's also had to spend time dealing with blocked lines to our dishwasher and has been working on scrapbooking his years teaching theatre.
Glen got a call asking if he would consider teaching theatre 1/2 days at the high school as a "critical needs" teacher. He said yes, then a week or so later he was told that they actually found someone to fill the position, so he was no longer needed. Less than 24 hours later, Glen received a phone call stating that they needed a 1/2 day Social Studies teacher and was he interested. He said yes.
Pending school board approval and assuming they don't find someone else to fill the spot (ha ha), he'll teach 1 block of World History and 2 of US History. It's really perfect. He would teach 1/2 days on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, then teach all day on Thursdays and have Fridays off. He would be able to sub during his prep (1st block), in the afternoons, and on Fridays as well. I am also planning on subbing.
Just learned Glen in in the IMDb, if you know what that is, because he helped someone looking for an actor for a project they were working on, so he was an assistant casting director:
Glen, Eric, and I traveled to Mesa at the beginning of June to visit Andrew's family. We stopped in Vegas both ways and stayed at my sister's. It was such a wonderful trip--easy traveling and it was SO good to see everyone.
In Mesa, we took Henry and Joy to a children's museum called the i.d.e.a. museum. That was really fun. Glen and I also took the kids to a park, plus we also got to share a family dinner with Heather's family.
It was Dad P's 89th birthday while we were in Mesa, so we celebrated with him (and many other family members) via Zoom. Happy Birthday, Dad! June is also when my brother Kyle and my brother-in-law Pat have birthdays. So, Happy Birthday, Kyle! Happy Birthday to you, too, Pat!
We also played a ton of games while we were in Mesa, one of which is a new one Andrew has created--Chief Judge of Zarahemla. It's really a great game--the object of the game is to get more votes for your candidate for Chief Judge than your opponents.
We also loved playing Century Golem Edition and Sagrada so much that when we got home, we bought ourselves the games. We would have also bought another game that I really enjoyed playing -- Ex Libris-- but it is out of print and therefore very expensive, but it's a really fun game.
On the way back to Denise's, Eric treated Glen and me (and himself) to a visit to the Meow Woof Omega Mart. He had been to the one in New Mexico before. It's a very unusual place. I didn't really like it at first, but then we found some things that I thought were fun and I warmed up to it. It was mostly visual but there were also some hands-on activities (which is the part where I started to like it a bit).
I had an appointment to see a dermatologist because I had a growth on the side of my nose that was quickly growing and it was in an annoying spot. It wasn't cancerous, but he also found some precancerous patches on the end of my nose. He froze them all off, so I'm good to go. I just feel blessed that I had the fast non-cancerous growth so that the precancerous ones could be caught early in the "pre" stage.
Grandpa reading to Henry and Joy
Heather and I got to play a duet--I'm not a good sight reader, but it was fun!
Joy helping grandpa to shave
Beth, Eric, Glen, Joy, Andrew, and Heather playing Gugong
Chief Judge of Zarahemla game board
Eric, Glen, Andrew, and Heather playing Chief Judge
Joy playing at the graffiti exhibit at the i.d.e.a museum
grandpa and Henry making masks
Heather, Henry, Joy, and grandpa having fun with the green screen
