The rage in suffragette

 Christian and Jeanne are in full moving mode. They’ve already got renters and Christian drive to NY to do some house hunting on Thursday. On his way he dropped off Dorothy and Maggie with Alexis and crew and all parties were excited. So this is how it started.

This is how it’s going:

It seems like maybe Carter is allergic! I say “seems like,” because they had a cat up until a few months ago, and also visited C&J many times and he never had problems. In a case of 1st grade schadenfreude, Emmett called, specifically to talk to Adi, who is also allergic to cats, to let her/us know “I thought Carter wasn’t allergic to anything, but now he’s allergic to cats!” Emmett is allergic to horses. 🤣 

Adi and I went to the dermatologist Friday morning and we were excited to wish them a happy national dermatologist day! They hadn’t known before, so we were sprinkling sunshine all around. 

A sister Delaney and I minister to needed help cleaning out her storage unit in Prince Frederick. She told me we would definitely need help because some of the bins were heavy. I shopped around for a priest or 2 to come (no school Friday - hooray!) and Chelsea said I could have all three of her boys. Imagine my surprise when we opened her storage and found like, 12 bins inside. 🙃

I felt a little bad about having the Dorns drive all the way out to help us, but since the complete excursion from driving to PF to unloading at her apartment took 2 hours, and we’re all just doing our best, I forgave myself. I’m good to me. 🤣 And proof of an empty and clean unit, just in case they try to pull anything on her. 🤷‍♀️

We’ve been all decked out for Easter and St. Patrick’s day for awhile now, and my bunny topiary’s came in last week. I love them! Then I was searching for a tool in the shed and found these cute buckets that I had been looking for. I put weight in the bottom and then wrapped the base in beach towels to secure them in the bucket. They had been blowing over in the wind on Friday because it was wild and gusty. 

The rest of Friday proceeded as normally scheduled. Delaney had dance and Adi had friends over and in an uncharacteristic move for me, I went to bed early. 

To add to our wild weather rollercoaster,  NOAA issued us a level 4/5 extreme risk for severe weather for Monday. My weather guys who don’t get hyperbolic(they’re not me) are saying this is a big deal and has the potential for tornados, damaging winds, lightning, and then some snow for good measure. Obviously, Matt is scheduled to fly in on Monday. 🙃

Saturday was an adventure day. To the girls delight we left the house at 7:45. First stop Amish made Coffee Run Donuts. Which is funny now that I think about it because there was no coffee, or even any other drink to speak of. 🤣 Anyway, we got in a long line to wait for our deliciousness. 

I was trying to covertly get a picture of them frying away back in their kitchen, not my wad of one dollar bills, but you know. We got 6 donuts, a pretzel, and a pretzel dog and all were delicious! Delaney didnt love her s’mores one, she thought it was too sweet, which it was very sweet, but still delish. 

Funny little donut shop in St. Mary’s County! We love new to us places.

This gal powered through a large pretzel, donut, and then at the point of this picture, her second donut. I was impressed. Notice the leaned back making room in the belly stance. 

Our next stop was Washington DC for a DC Suffrage Tour with Diana Smith who taught at our Women’s Conference. The 5 of us organizers had plans to meet up and since Adi loved her class, I brought the girls along. Poor Elizabeth went to the wrong reflecting pool and Trish’s brother came for an unexpected visit, so Chantelle and Rebecca and I caught up (and learned about cool Mormon suffragists!). 

I love spending time in DC. ❤️

The tour was really fabulous. We walked from the Capitol reflecting pool to the Capitol to the Supreme Court with a few more stops in between and she gave us questions to ponder before we left each stop and had us “vote” a few times to really make us think. She even brought us cookies. Gingerbread for those of us who would have stopped protesting and fighting for the right to vote during WW1, and sugar cookies for those that would have kept the pressure on. Neither is wrong, but with my military boys facing the very real possibility of leaving their families right now, I couldn’t choose against supporting the Red Cross, though Elizabeth and I talked about how we contain multitudes and could very much do both.

They continued on to a different museum, but the girls wanted to go to the Natural History, so after a few more minutes of catching up and hugs, I peeled off.  

Adi and I checked out the gems while the other girls checked out something else. Hope diamond love. 

We lightly perused, which is pretty much the way I like a museum. 

I did a terrible job taking pictures as I didn’t get any of the girls and I or anything else after this shot. 

We left DC and checked out Home Depot for a Frankie birthday gift, Goodwill where we managed to spend $60 but had the most fun, and finally 2 Caniac Combos to share at Raising Canes. We got home 10 hours after we left and it was truly such a wonderful day with my girlsies. 

Appreciating all the staff

 The night today was midnight last night  the morning was so beautiful, like sunshiney but also grey. And it was windy and cool, just a perfect morning  I loaded up my car and made it to school by 7:45 to meet my 2 helpers.

The teachers were like vultures, ready to pounce. Some days are like that and it doesn’t bother me at all. I love that they appreciate what we do. 

So cute, right?

My pot of gold table with hersheys gold nuggets and my failed rainbow cupcakes. I added so much powdered sugar to my frosting and it would not hold its shape and I was tired of mixing. And the rainbow I bought weren’t quite long enough. Good enough! And that there is my problem, I good enough a lot. 🤣

Juwana agreed to restock for me and bring my cupcake stands home and then that gem even took down the balloons and tablecloths. 

I spent over an hour on the phone when I got home. First making sure I understand our rental car insurance for Europe. ✅ Then to get Breezelines new internet deal. Our bill will go from $105 to $40 for the next *5* years. #worthit

It snowed all afternoon. So bananas. They were big fluffy snowflakes though, so we loved it. 

I made a few staff appreciation returns when I took D to dance and got some ideas for the girls graduation party. 

Frankie stayed after school for conditioning and then had a team dinner at Slice House. I went into the square but she wasn’t quite ready yet so I walked a little and then finished my walk when I got home and it was so pretty. Everything is so pretty lately. I ❤️ Spring. 

Matt made it safely to San Diego and the girls and I have a full weekend planned!

Rainbows everywhere

 First of all, Ruby deliciousness!

Yesterday I met up with 2 of my committee and we decorated for our Rainbow of Treat event happening today that, even though I emailed my staff liaison and had Delaney hang 2 flyers in the workroom for me, nobody but nobody knew about. It’s fine. 

And even though I stapled my finger and sort of tumbled off a tall chair (I was never gonna fall, just kind of stumbled) causing the old ladies in the staff room to freak out, it was worth it because of how cute it turned out! Here’s hoping my balloons stayed inflated!

I shopped again while D was at dance. I had my committee donate goodies and then tried to fill in the rest, but it was hard to visualize and make sure I’d have enough of each color. Did I go too crazy with purple? Maybe?

I sweat my bootie off all day yesterday too. It was *so* hot. I heard it got to 90° in the county and that’s just too much when it was below freezing last week and will snow today. March, you lioness. 

December 2nd

Rainbow Ellie Sparkles knows a good game when she sees one.

I had had this HP advent calendar in my Christmas stuff continually broke it out this year. It was cute. 

I was sick a lot of this day too. A lot of time in bed, some decorating, some turkey soup ala Matt, some unpacking. 

And hooray for being caught up! 🎉🎉🎉

Here’s to way more detail than necessary in my every day blogs again. 

November 30th-December 1st

 D and I didn’t feel well on Sunday, the 30th  I had already made plans to go to White Plains so I took a bunch of cough drops and made it happen and it was a really good visit/ministering day. Then that night we had our Area RSP’s meeting that I ran as the longest serving relief society President. I had a senior missionary come talk about some new programs and was able to share some wisdom won by experience and it was a really good meeting. 

Still didn’t feel great on Monday, just sonic coughing! I worked really hard before Thanksgiving to get lots of Christmas put up, but when Thanksgiving falls so late, it really feels like starting December behind.

That day was also the girls piano recital and Delaney made it there in the mix of time and with holey tights. And gross slides, obvi. 

We love Johnna so much! She’s the best!

After years and years of poster making, one of the Rays finally won! This sort of makes up for her playing one of my least favorite Christmas songs of all time - the Charlie Brown Christmas song. 

Frankie helped put up our adventure adventure calendar from Amy and we call that a beginning of December. 

With a funny memory for good measure. 🤣

Today was Aladdin

Since Matt is heading out of town and Tuesday is our only free night, we had our fancy Disney dinner tonight. This was my fav of the three we’ve had!

We had a Mezze Platter for our starter. 

Then the most delicious chicken shawarma and Mediterranean rice. 

Magic carpet hand pies for dessert. 

And The Blue Wish mocktail for our drink. Only i forgot the cotton candy. But I remembered the menu this time, so 🤷‍♀️.

I don’t even know if the girls had ever seen Aladdin and it’s been soooo long since I saw it. I am loving our phone free movie nights!

Even when they happen at 7:30 on Tuesday night because Frankie had a long and late field trip to Towson. 

Also, on Sunday before church Frankie and I went for a walk and 6 Blackhawk helicopters flew over us and kind of creeped us out. Everything feels pretty unstable right now with the US’ global standing. 

Today we had Inklings and then Alecia and I walked. I prepped for my staff appreciation event and made some trip planning progress. 

A very average Tuesday made a little more fun and fancy. ✅

November 28th-29th

 We took one picture on Black Friday  this was the Wicked 2 crew. Everyone else saw Zootopia 2. We ate leftovers and played games and packed and enjoyed our last day with the New Yorkers.

Anxious to not repeat the same traffic nightmare, we were up and at ‘em by 6 the next morning. Ehlyvia lives in Baltimore and it was enough on our way that she was able to cancel her train ticket and ride with us. 

First stop was tone the boys dreams come true and finally see The Statue of Liberty. 

It was sunny but so cold and windy!

We love an adventure. 

I  

Both cars stopped for brekkie and then I napped, we chatted, and we hit zero traffic. We dropped Ehlyvia off easily and gave hugs and promises to see her again soon and off to home we headed. 

We had pizza and a foreign yum box and finished the day with more games. 

We also cracked up at our grinch names. Usually those are really dumb but we thought these ones were so funny! For example, I’m a foul old crank and Lu was smelly psychotic abomination. Admittedly, it doesn’t sound as funny as I’m typing it, but it was funny then. 

We gave kisses and loves and that was a wrap on our 2025 thanksgiving season.