October Begins

We have continued to enjoy beautiful fall weather this past week, as well as more rain. The kids are off track and enjoying the break. Amazingly, I have still managed to finish my work every day this past week. To add to my list of accomplishments, I finished the last Harry Potter yesterday afternoon. I was actually getting quite frustrated with myself last week, as I was having a hard time working, wanting to read the rest of the book. Finally, Andrew took the book from me on Friday afternoon and hid it until I got my work caught up. Sure I could have easily tortured it out of him, but I knew I needed to get my work done First, so I actually appreciated him stepping in.

It was an awesome experience being in the Conference Center for the General Relief Society meeting last weekend. We were able to sit in the lower bowl and it was just amazing to be so close to the prophet and our other church leaders. I think President Hinkley looks even smaller in person :-) The meeting was a little shorter than usual and afterwards we enjoyed a delicious meal at the Garden Restaurant on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Also eating there was a large group that included Russell M. Nelson and Sheri Dew.

We celebrated Kelsi's and Ryan's birthdays the following day with dinner at our place. It is somewhat stressful hosting these get-togethers, but it's nice to have the house cleaned up in preparation. Since we had not had a chance to get Ryan anything for his birthday on the actual day, we gave him a gift on this occasion. He was actually glad to get a present of about 9 new shirts, of various color and style, as he has turned most of his previously nice shirts into work shirts and has not had anything nice for a while.

The kids had their annual sleepover at Emily & Nate's place this past Friday. I think Em & Nate are awesome for hosting all the cousins every year! They had a fun time visiting with cousins and making paper mache pinatas. Of course, they didn't get enough sleep, so I had 4 cranky kids when I got there to pick them up, but all in all it was a fun time. Ryan and I enjoyed our evening with just Adalyn. We went to dinner and then picked up a couple of pies from Marie Callender's (October is Pie Month!) We took the pies and headed up to visit with JennyLyn for awhile, since Brent was busy at the Playhouse. The pies were yummy, especially for breakfast Sunday morning!

We listened and watched General Conference on Saturday and Sunday, there were a lot of good messages given. I will definitely need to read many again when we get our November Ensign, as interruptions/distractions were many through the four sessions. Saturday evening we went to Mary & Frank's house for dinner and visiting, while the boys went to the Priesthood session.
I managed to get to bed early last night, so I am up early this morning getting work done. Ryan has left to work and Andrew had to leave early this morning to help the Scouts put up flags for the Columbus Day holiday. Other than that, Austyn is the only one awake, so I better get back to work while I still have a chance. So far it doesn't look like we have too much going on this week, so that will be a nice break. I'll try to write again soon! Thanks for reading! Julie :-)