A Lot Going On

Hello dear missionaries! It was a pleasure to talk to you both tonight and hear about your weeks. You both always have something super interesting to share. 

Ty I’m interested to hear how things go with this new friend from Pakistan. I’m tempted to go internet sleuthing to figure out who he is! I hope you find something cool for yourself at the Nike store today. Those videos of the guy catching snakes and lizards are wild! He’s the friend you baptized two weeks ago? He looks like he has a life full of adventure!

Blake, thanks for sending a letter. I love hearing about the details of your time in Cambodia, and you send really great spiritual thoughts. Keep looking for God’s blessings in your life, and you will always find them. Glad you got to go out and do some service. Isn’t it cool to see how other people work and live? Who knew rice had to be raked out in the heat like that? Your haircut is fine! Don’t let it ruin your day! 

Well we had another busy, busy week. This is what we were up to:

1. The BEST news this week is that Ethan made the FHS basketball team! He’s been working really hard and went into the tryouts with confidence. But they brought up 5 ninth graders and made some tough cuts—including Ethan’s buddies Emerson and Stockton. The sophomores are all really small, so Ethan will be playing the 4. (Look at me talking about basketball as if I understand positions!) He’s going to have to earn all of his floor time, but we are really excited for the season to begin. He’s got his first game on Thursday. 
2. Dad got Jazz tickets on Tuesday night that included dinner. He took Ethan, Jett and Michael and they had a great time. Dad says those tickets are the best perk about his job! Tate got to hang out with me and go to the Relief Society “Friendsgiving” dinner. I don’t mean to brag, but our family’s Thanksgiving recipes are better than other people’s Thanksgiving recipes. While I was at RS and the boys were at the Jazz game, the rest of the planet was outside photographing a solar storm that created a stunning light show in the sky when viewed from a camera lens. I’ll send you a few pictures that people sent me. I have major FOMO about this!
3. Jett’s football season is officially over and he got to go to a super fun end-of-season team party. They rented video game trucks! Jett also finally had his birthday party with friends. I did my best to postpone the party until the next of forever, but it finally caught up with me. He initially wanted to invite 18 kids (yiiiikes), but we scratched off a couple of names and had a few who couldn’t come, so we had 12 kids total. We played minute-to-win-it games, dodge ball, and capture the flag. The noise level was 10++ the entire night. It was wild. We also had a kid throw up, but A++ to him because he made it to the bathroom and did not leave a mess thank goodness. Trek on the other hand manage to completely grind his brownie into the carpet. Honestly I don’t know how me managed to make such a mess. Dad was out of town that evening, so I was on my own for the party. But I survived and then collapsed into bed with exhaustion. It’s kinda crazy how stressful it is to me to host a birthday party. I should have just sent them in the backyard with pizza and soda and told them to entertain themselves!
4. Dad was invited by Dave Warby to go to St. George for the weekend to golf with some friends. There was one time when dad went on a trip with just his dad and brothers, and maybe a time or two for work. But other than that I think this is the only time he’s ever gone out of town with friends. I think he enjoyed it! Sounds like the course was really fun. Tate is super attached to dad right now and was not happy he was leaving. He came home straight from school on Friday to call dad and tell him he missed him. 💛 So cute. We missed Dad for a few days, but I’m glad he could get away and have some fun with his friends. 
5. Jett’s new Apple Watch has been such a pain to set up. The thing he wanted most for his birthday was to be able to listen to his own music. I thought the watch would be great because he could stream music from it. My watch has Spotify on it. But for some stupid reason you can’t download Spotify to your watch unless you have your own cell phone. So we got an Apple Music subscription and now Jett can finally have is own music—I can delete his songs from my Spotify! I can’t believe how ridiculously hard and time consuming it was to get his watch set up.apple can be such a pain sometimes!
6. Ethan went to the Harvest dance last night with Sage. She was super cute when she picked him up. Her dad drove as the chaperone. They dressed up as pirates and had a murder mystery dinner that was fun. Ethan spends a lot of time chatting with Sage. He’s really enjoying the new friends he’s made in high school. 
7. I had a fun a social week. Went to the RS dinner and a baby shower for Callie London (can’t remember her married name). I attended a PTA conference on Tuesday—went to a class taught by a guy whose formal job title is “Parent Advocate” for the Jordan school district. His full-time job is to basically customer service for the school district. He takes phone calls from parents and tries to help them resolve problems. I don’t think I could ever do that job. Some school situations are so complex with bullying, threats, truancy, etc. But also, some parents are just crazy. He said he spent 45 minutes talking to someone the other day who was complaining that his kids’ teacher wears too much makeup and it’s distracting. lol. Get a life people! I also got to go to book club. I go to a bookclub with some of my friends from the old neighborhood, and this year we read a 4-book series that we just finished this week. The books were long and it was a big time commitment, but I feel really accomplished now! And there’s a part of me that wants to go back to the beginning and read them all over again. Just not right now! I also got to go see my friend’s daughter perform in the Davis High School musical production of Catch Me if You Can. It was really, really good. Whew. No wonder I’m tired!
8. Also this week I went to see a foot doctor about a toe that has been bothering me. I have never had a doctor’s appointment quite like this. Dr Oaks came into the room and explained that he would be dictating to his computer some medical gibberish, and then he would explain it all to me in words I could understand. He looked at my foot and at an x-ray and then spoke to his computer at 10x speed for about 5 minutes. Honestly it was impressive to see. He explained to me that I basically have a foot deformation that causes misalignment all the way up from my feet through my knees, hips, and back. And that I definitely need custom orthotics or I will regret it later in life. Awesome. I’m officially custom-orthotics -years old. Or maybe I’m just a hypochondriac? Maybe both. 
9. Nana and grandpa are on a trip to Japan. I’m so jealous and wish I had tagged along!
10. News update. The politicians in Washington DC voted this week to end the longest federal government shutdown in history. <insert slow clap>. Did they accomplish anything other than infuriating voters? Doesn’t seem so. Locally, Judge Gibson threw out the redistricting map the Utah Legislature passed. She basically said they cheated when they drew the map, and so she selected a different map. The new map creates a district centered in Salt Lake that favors democrats, and lawmakers are BIG MAD. They are threatening to impeach the judge and also the lieutenant governor. And of course they are going to challenge this ruling all the way up to the Supreme Court if they can. The possibility of this district swinging from Republican to Democrat has major implications nationally because the Republicans have such a small majority margin in the House. So losing even one vote could swing the balance of power. Which means there is going to be a lot of money and attention pouring into the upcoming election (and lawsuits) in Utah. Ah. Fascinating!

Ok, that’s all I’ve got!

Love you!

Xoxo, mom