Back To Reality

Hello my dear!
I hope you have had a wonderful week full of success! I know you are so busy with your new duties, but I miss reading your email with all of the fun details. We saw the Church News come out with names of the new mission presidents. I wonder if you know anything about the people that will be replacing your current mission presidents. I could tell they have asian names, but that’s all I could tell! I hope everything is going well for you and your companion. And I hope his Dad is getting excellent medical care. Did your companion find some good cards to add to his gaming collection? Hopefully we will get to have a good chat tonight and hear all about how your seek went.

This is what we've been up to:

1. We had Monday off of school, and then Tuesday we all had to get back to reality. Honestly I think all of us were a bit relieved to get back to a sense of routine! Blake and Ethan got new class schedules for the second term. Michael’s classes began on Wednesday and I think he may be still trying to work out a few kinks in his schedule. He wants to take an outdoor camping class, but I’m not sure if he can get in. He is also taking another internship class and it sounds like it will be a good fit for his major. 


2. Aside from school, Michael has been adventuring. Last weekend he went with a group of friends and rented a yurt up in the mountains. They did backcountry skiing and it sounds like it was extremely strenuous. But he also said it was one of the coolest things he’s ever done, and the photos are just beautiful. This weekend Annie Allen invited Michael up to Driggs to ski with her family. It sounds like they got a ton of fresh snow and had really good time. BTW, the only reason I know he was in Idaho was because Dad told me. Michael isn’t always good about keeping me informed.

3.The kids are back to their busy schedules. Ethan and Blake are playing basketball. Tate is going to start going to a basketball skills practice. Ethan is working out at the high school with the footballers. Jett has started doing training at the gym with middle school track kids, and it looks pretty tough! Jett is rehearsing for the school play that’s coming up. Jett and Ethan started ski school on Friday and Tate is jealous. Despite all this, it seems like our schedule has slowed down a bit?

4. Jett got to go to mutual for the first time this week as a deacon! He also got to pass the sacrament today!

5. Tate got to go to the Jazz game with Dad on Thursday. Dad said Tate was so fun to go with because of his enthusiasm. 

6. Jett got to go with Dad to see the new hockey team play. They got really good seats and got to go early for dinner. Sounds like it was really fun.

7. My car was in the shop for a repair this week, so I drove Dad’s truck. Much to his dismay, he got stuck driving a loaner car from the dealership. My car just passed the 36,000 mile mark which means it's no longer under warranty, and therefore we are crossing our fingers there will be NO maintenance problems for a very long time! Of course I took Dad’s truck and then had to call my Dad to come bail me out and jump the battery when I got stranded in Farmington. Sigh. Being a car owner can be such a hassle. Good thing I have a Dad close by!

8. We had a meeting on Monday to discuss Blake’s test results from the aptitude test he took. We had Michael’s meeting the previous Thursday. They both had such interesting and different results, and I hope they both found it valuable. The meeting host told Michael that finance and law would be good fits for him professionally—but NOT accounting! Which is great considering how much he hated his accounting classes. She told him to stay away from STEM fields and was surprised he is not a performer because he scored so high on rhythm, pitch, and tone. But she also said those skills are very helpful in learning and speaking a new language, which might be why he’s had so much success with Chinese. For Blake she suggested STEM fields—which surprised him because he doesn’t have much interest or experience in science and technology. That may mean that he should try to take some different classes going in to college to sort of expand his horizons a bit. He can do math in his head super fast and remember numbers really easily. Has really good vocabulary and ability to learn new words, and really good spacial reasoning. Both Blake and Michael scored above average on almost all of the skills, so they both have really good options ahead of them.

9. I had a pretty boring week just trying to get the house organized and cleaned up after Christmas and houseguests. We took down all of the Christmas decorations yesterday much to Tate’s dismay. 

10. This week was the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter who was a man of good character who served others until the day he died. Also, there are major wildfires burning in California right now, and the photos are just apocalyptic.  Entire neighborhoods are burned to dust and tens of thousands of people are displaced from their homes, with no relief in sight. They are saying this may be the costliest natural disaster in US history. Also, TikTok is on the verge of being banned in the US, and some people are BIG MAD.

Well, that’s all for now. 

I love you and miss you!
















Mom

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