Despite staying up late on our Rodeo Houston/concert night, everyone was up and ready and looking beautiful/handsome the next morning in time for 9 a.m. church.
Having the early church schedule leaves a lot of time for other activities throughout the day. Like, say, working on personal progress. Both Natalie and Laurie are working to earn their YW recognition award, so they recruited me to help them with one of their goals.
Glen was helping Laurie with family history.
Natalie was a nice big sister as she helped Luke with his homework. I got a chance to help him with his homework as well.
Monday morning Glen flew back to Minnesota, Jacob went to work, the big kids went off to school and that left these two little ones home with Laurie and me.
After school, some of us went out to dinner and to see a movie.
One day while Logan was at preschool, Claire, Laurie and I went to Costco. I was surprised to see a mounted policewoman patrolling the parking lot. Laurie said it is a regular sight for her and she will also see mounted police at the mall.
Logan and Claire had a fun time jumping around on the trampoline.
Look at this little cutie eating a little cutie.
Speaking of cuties--this cutie Laurie planned the cutest Relief Society activity and invited me to go with her. It was in honor of the Relief Society's birthday. Laurie decided to throw a good, old-fashioned birthday party complete with balloons, party hats, party games and gifts.
My good friend Rebecca Billat, who is also Laurie's Relief Society President, has been so happy to have Laurie doing such a great job in her calling. Rebecca gave a very memorable, short talk at the beginning of the evening. Then it was fun and games after that (not that Rebecca's talk wasn't fun...I loved it!!).
If the party hats hadn't already gotten us in the party spirit, playing musical chairs certainly did.
Here is Laurie trying her hand at pinning the tail on the donkey.
Ooops! She was a little off the mark (as were most of us).
Rebecca had the strong arm to bring the pinata down so the women could collect the candy.
We all gathered in a circle for the "my favorite things" under $5 gift exchange, or gift stealing or whatever you call it. First person opens a gift. Second person can either open another gift or steal the opened gift. Third person can open a gift or steal one of the opened gifts. And on it goes.
It was fun hearing why each woman picked the gift she picked. Laurie felt like she should take three extra gifts just in case someone showed up without a gift and they could participate. Turns out there were exactly three women who came without a gift. Way to act on your prompting, Laurie!!
There was a low spot in the week. It was when little Claire said her tummy hurt and late in the evening she threw up all over Laurie. Poor girls. Both of them. Nobody likes to vomit. And nobody likes to be barfed upon.
Claire had a couple of very grumpy days because of not feeling well. This particular day, I said, "I love Claire!" With this scowl on her face, she immediately answered back, "I love GRANDPA!!"
Looks like Natalie enjoyed a few minutes with my phone camera...
Once Claire perked up again, Laurie and I took her to the mall. She enjoyed the merry-go-round.
Since it was my last night in town, we decided to go to Outback for dinner as our last hurrah together. Luke, Claire and Logan were so good coloring together while we waited to get our food.
Natalie and Emma were teaching me the finer points of posing for selfies.
Natalie and Luke were showing me their unique skill of being able to fold their tongues in thirds. I have honestly never seen anybody do that before and here two of our grandchildren can do it.
Everyone enjoyed the food.
That night Claire let me hold her while Luke read us all a bedtime story. She always instantly bonds to Glen and loves to sit on his lap and have him hold her. As for me--it took a whole week for her to get friendly with me. Oh well, better late than never...
It all worked out perfectly for Glen and me to hook back up at the Salt Lake Airport. He was on a work call the whole way home in the taxi. I decided to tune him out by listening to my book.
Once back home, we found a pile of mail waiting for us. When Glen is gone for two weeks and a weekend in between, there's a lot of catching up to do when he gets home.
Speaking of this guy--he's had a rough go of trying to recover from his shoulder surgery. Still in so much pain 4 months post-op, he went back to see the surgeon to try and figure out what to do about the situation.
He got a cortisone shot and it has done nothing to alleviate the pain. The doctor told him to rest from all his physical therapy and see if that will help clear up the inflammation going on inside there. A week later now, he is noticing he can't lift his arm even shoulder high before the pain hits him. He is regressing and it is very worrisome. Today he called the doctor again to see about getting another MRI.
It is looking more and more like he's going to have to have another surgery, this time a total rotator cuff repair. UGHHHHHH!!! He does't have time for another surgery!!!
I guess we'll see what the MRI shows and go from there.
