Friday thoughts

The sun came out today.  Did you hear me? THE SUN IS OUT TODAY!! It has been a brutal winter. Snowy and icy weather gave way to nonstop rain. We are on tap for the 2nd rainiest year in recorded history. We are something that 15 inches above normal for rainfall. It is feeling oppressive, and I am actually quite acclimated to the weather here. But, when the sun does come out, we are all so incredibly grateful and happy!

The sun was NOT out yesterday for Joseph's first track meet. We all stood in the pouring deluge and got completely soaked. Dan and I didn't even bring umbrellas. Around here, only wimps use umbrellas. But I would have liked to have been a wimp yesterday! A half hour into the 2 1/2 hour track meet my fingers were all white and it took me until this morning to warm up. Joseph, on the other hand, claims that he wasn't really all that cold even though he was just wearing the school-issued shorts and jersey uniform. That has to be male bravado, because it was chilly. Joseph's events were long jump, high jump, and shotput. I taped a lot of his jumps, but missed recording his very best high jump. Believe me when I tell you that his form was spot on and he looked great!

This weekend I get to battle a particularly nasty weed called horsetail, which has taken over my pathetic little garden. And this is the year I had planned to give vegetable gardening in the NW one more try. I probably made the weed issue much worse by all the tilling I did last fall, trying to improve the soil. I have been reading up on this weed, and apparently prevailing wisdom is that it has existed since the days of the dinosaur. It thrives in any condition, including anaerobic and poor soils. And it's almost impossible to kill. I do not think I have the patience to administer roundup via paintbrush to every single pathetic stalk of the weed in my garden, but if I don't then it will likely take over all the available dirt in our yard. 

It's a weekend of meetings. We have stake conference, so in a few hours Dan will get off early and we will attend stake temple day. Tomorrow Dan has a priesthood leadership meeting and we have an adult session in the evening, and Sunday is stake conference. Sunday I also have a scout meeting and an Activity Day Camp meeting. So much for day of rest, right? Aubrey made that comment last week, after she had BYC in the morning (she is Laurel president) followed by church and then a YW song practice she was in charge of. She said that it's hard to have time to do Sunday-ish things like read scriptures when she needed to rush from one things to another. Yep. That's the way it goes! Strangely enough, SLC scheduled a special stake conference for our stake the very next Sunday, with a general authority in attendance. So we will have two stake conferences in a row.  I have had a bit of a respite from big Sunday stake primary duties (namely ward conferences), but those duties pick up again in earnest the end of May.

I'm really looking forward to a trip I'm taking with my two girls in May. We are going back to Boston! This time we are hoping for flowers, blossoming trees, swan boats, and absolutely no snowstorm.

Aubrey decided recently to re-start piano lessons. She took lessons from kindergarten to 8th grade, but then stopped to focus more on theater. This last school year she chose to back off on some things which were consuming her time. Doing this seems to have been a great decisions for her to make. She has re-discovered how much she loves to learn, and seeks out learning opportunities. She is making lists of things she wants to know before going to college in a year. And she has decided she wants to get better at the piano before leaving home for school. She also is going to start art lessons again this summer.