Homecoming week

The next week was homecoming, so Spirit Week! I was not on my A-game about pictures, but I got a few.

I think this was decades day? And it was reported to me that she kept the curlers in most of the day, so I was impressed.

Rhyme without reason, I think? That is a new one all the schools are doing and I think it's fun. 

I can't remember what their rhyme was though.

Beach vs. biker day. 

I was more than a little annoyed that Franke drew a bikini top on a fairly new white tshirt.

One day that week Alecia came over and we powerwashed our porch. 

Just getting our new business 2 Gals Power Washing set up. 😉 

I would actually love that - power washing is so fun.

And we rocked it, we only had to facetime Josh once. 🙃

Then, to the pleasure and astonishment of my whole family, Alecia put the Halloween lights on our tree. This job has historically gone terribly awry every year. The lights get tangled and slip down and patience is tested to the limit. But Alecia used some voodoo magic and made it look so easy and I was a support friend there for her. I haven't actually taken them off the tree yet, so I might be singing a different tune when that happens. 😆

Also that week I had a presidency meeting and went to my endocrinologist and met up with the 4 other stake RSP's planning our conference. We met at the Bethesda Marriott, so it was a good 2 hours away. It was so good to finally meet in person 2 of them, and to see the space we've been talking about. We sat and chatted about all the things after our tour and it has been so fun getting to know them. And one of out favorite little families!

Friday night was the big Homecoming game where the JV and Varsity cheerleaders came together.

The cheerleaders were awesome and the football players were... not. I hope at least they had fun? The varsity team finished their season 3-7 and after my one and only time watching them this season I was like, oh yeah, theres the Ltown football I remember. The JV team is really good though, so I have high hopes for next year!

The game was extra fun because we ran into Chelsea and I got to chat with her between cheering for the cheerleaders. Matt was there too. 💗

Conference weekend!

Best weekend of the year!!!

This was an exciting conference because President Nelson had passed away late on September 27th, the Saturday before. I had gone to Stake Council that Sunday morning and when I met Elizabeth in the bathroom, which we usually do, she told me he'd passed away. I guess I hadn't looked at any socials that morning, so it was a surprise. But 101 is a lot of years, and even though I'll miss his wisdom, I'm so excited for him to hopefully get some rest and see his wife and daughters and parents again. 

No sadness here.

We weren't sure what to expect, but the conference was presided over by the Quorum of the Twelve and nothing new was announced, not even any temples, so it was really business as usual. The young women did their conference socks again. I love anything that brings people together, so I'm into it.

Conference was amazing. Usually by Sunday afternoon I'm like, this was good and now its been 10 hours and I'm done, but this time I could have listened to another few sessions.

This guy did some between conference napping.

Adi did some practice embroidery. Her design was cute, but ended up being upside down. She didn't really care about it which is why she used her crab fest shirt, but it was kind of funny.

And finally, our sweet Ruby has such an attitude. I can't wait to see her again, I miss her so!
 

October!

The last day of September brought all the Tuesday things. 

After Frankie's cheer practice I dropped her at the Bashaws to help her clean and organize for a few hours.

And then, it was October! The prettiest month!

Adi has applied for her 2 colleges - BYU-I and North Texas University. 

I offered to pay for one more application but she didn't want to.

BYU is by far the more economical option, but she's fixin' to be 18 and she'll make the decision on her own.

After 16+ years in our White House on Pensive Street, this girls got drawer handles and cabinet knobs! 

We all love them so much! And we were very proud of Matt for getting them all so straight.

Frankie's got really good cheer coaches. They post a lot on social media and keep the girls good and busy.

Cuties!

 And finally, our diligent Adi. She's so responsible and manages all her senior things so well.

Veterans Day 2025

I woke up Monday with a hint of a sore throat and tickle in my nose. 

I almost didn't go to Inklings, but you can't stay home every time you have a slight runny nose and I wasn't sure it would turn into a cold. 

 So I went, but then all day I felt worse and worse.

Whoops. :(

I still did all the things at home, but was so happy to turn off my alarms and go to bed.

I wanted to adventure on Tuesday, but in the end I laid around all day sick.

This veteran had a good day though! In honor of Smilin' Jack, he went all around Southern Maryland collecting freebies. He brought home sandwiches and blizzards and chipotle and it was fun for all of us.

This was me half the day, just blending into the couch with my double sweatshirts and wool socks. 

A hot pack on my sinuses feels sooooo good, I heated that rice pack up so many times. Lots of hot gingerbread tea and emergenC and rest mingled in with a little bit of laundry. We also had a nice slightly longer family night because we had all day.

It was clean sheet day and after I made our bed and came out of the bathroom everything looked so pretty and neat with our little bedroom christmas tree. 

I love our bedroom, even though all those pillows can be a pain.

And because I felt gross and you have to shower on clean sheet night, I took a late shower and busted out Matt's towel warmer for its inaugural run. Warm shower + warm towel = heaven. This was a Lu gift to Matt a few years ago and it's pretty bomb.

Now it's Wednesday afternoon and I've spent all day in bed. I made myself stay in bed and it's been a lovely day. I've blogged a little, read a little, sudoku'd a little. Our little Henners is coming for the weekend and Mimi needs to be firing on all cylinders! Gotta get rid of this cold!

September 29th game

I missed only two of Frankies games and thankfully I've been able to go to all the rest.

JV is nice because we only had one away game and it was at Great Mills. Once she makes Varsity we'll be driving all over southern Maryland, just like the olds days. Except minus 3 little Rays in tow.

They do pushups every time the boys score, and this JV team is actually, surprisingly good! They only lost their first game, and that is the one I missed, so I've only seen them win.

Frankie is having a lot of fun cheering. It's tough sometimes and working with other people in her stunt group has been tricky, but learning to work with people is a good thing.
 
Love this cute girl!

They had cheered with a young cheer group that day, and they got a cute pic with Coach Katies daughter. I love that they love to take pictures! You should see them assemble for their shots - it's beautiful!

A weekend with no pictures

Somehow I took no pictures all weekend, not sure how. Matt was off that Friday, but no clue what we did. I'm sure it was exciting though.

That Saturday (9/27) Matt and I got up early and volunteered at the yard sale one more time. We set up before we "opened" and then helped people for an hour until our shift was over. We chatted with a lot of people from the community and they all seemed really grateful and happy.

Frankie had homecoming practice and that's all I know about that day.

Sunday was a busy one for me. We had Stake Council and then after visiting the Capitol ward and the branch, Steve, Josh, and I lead the branch in their temple and family history training. I love traveling around to the different units and counseling with them in their individual wards. It's been a sweet time to be with them.

My two new counselors were also sustained that day - Ginny and Brenda. We had planned to meet at the Calvert building for them to be set apart. I try to be at all the settings apart, and sometimes it doesn't work, but since I was already out and 3/4 of my presidency attend that building, this time it did.

We met at 3:30 and then after that had our first short presidency meeting. Serving with new people is always interesting, and it's been cool to see how women I didn't know before calling them have all fit together and we've been able to serve in joy and unity. The gospel and the Relief Society are such a blessing and it's such a gift to serve in this way. With my 2 new counselors that makes 7 counselors I've had, and Heather is my 3rd secretary. I truly feel so blessed.

I got home after Adi left for the senior fireside at the Calvert building. I think she rode up with Abby and Lily and they had a good time. Even though I still can't believe these babies are graduating!

The rest of that Thursday

September 25th

We left the museum to catch the bus back to our car, but then we started to smell the delicious smells of food trucks and restaurants so we decided to detour for lunch instead.

We walked a few blocks and found a cheesesteak restaurant and it smelled delicious, so when in Philadelphia, right? They only took cash, so we only got one, but that ended up being a blessing in disguise because it was huge and we shared it and were full.

We made our way back to a bus that took us to our car. 

We had one little snafu on the bus, but otherwise we were quite wise travelers.

Our last Philadelphia to do was to drive by the 6th Sense house.

We love M. Night Shyamalan movies, so this was super exciting.

Can you see Cole rounding the corner with his "friends?"

We had an easy drive home. I was not the most excited for this little getaway because a. i was tired of traveling b. I wasn't sure how the concert would go and standing for 5+ hours c. Sometimes you can have too much one-on-one time. I needn't have fretted though, it was all good. Delaney is easy to be around and we had a really great time. She even commented the other day that that was a really fun trip.

Our day wasn't over yet though! Because that night the 5 of us served together at the church sorting and organizing goods for our stakewide free garage sale. D finished ballet at 7:30 and unfortunately hadn't brought pants, but she rolled with it. Also that week Brother Hays asked if I could meet with President Boyd, and I try to make my schedule available anytime he is, so I zoomed in one of the classrooms and then helped. It's always sweet to serve together and turned out to be a great Day to Serve project.

 

The Museum of Illusion

We got up in just enough time for the breakfast part of our B&B. 

I've had my fair share of B&B brekkies, and unfortunately, this one was lame.

We had bought a walking ghost audio tour, but the app was buggy and even though I tried for over an hour and chatted with customer service, it never worked. So then we were left scrambling for something fun and inexpensive to do in Philadelphia. Delaney wanted to be back in time for dance, so we didn't have a ton of time. 

We settled for taking the city bus to the Museum of Illusion.

One of the things to do we'd read about was the giant clothespin so we were excited when we saw it on our bus ride.

Alli and Bubba took the kids to this museum in DC and D liked it enough to go again.

My lack of spatial intelligence struck again though, I had the hardest time figuring out how to make the pictures look real.

Delaney got some cool ones.

Half D, half me.

There were lots of helpful employees walking around and they helped us.

We also spent a ton of time trying to figure out their puzzles. I really wanted to figure out just one. 

We worked so long on a slide puzzle and finally asked one of the employees to show us which they did in about a minute and a half.

This tunnel made me so dizzy!

More employee help.

Cute ballerina.

They were setting up for Halloween, so it was like half and half.

This one stumped me. 😆

I can't even, I'm such an idiot! How do you take a cool picture??? 😂

Look at that lean though.

It's dark and hard to see, but thats a delaney face repeated over and over in between all those shapes.

We stayed for a few hours and though I wish we could have done the ghost walk this was a nice alternative.