January

    

New Year's Day!  I got home from walking and started cleaning up Christmas.  In putting some things away I found an old purse and was cleaning it out.  There was this old JCPenny gift card.  

The receipt was barely readable, but if figured out I had made a purchase with the card in 2001 from the Cottonwood mall (that mall was torn down in 2008).  There was a balance of $3.67.  I called the redemption number to check if the balance was still on it.  Nope.  😅

               

After getting Christmas put away and cleaning a bathroom, Jacob wanted to play with Jaxon at his house or ours.  We called and they invited us over to play games while Jacob played with Jaxon.  We all wore masks and had a fun time.  We played Banana Grams.  

First day back at school on Monday, the 4th.  The week before Christmas break Jacob and a partner had an assignment due.  They had to do an annotated bibliography and the original submission was a low grade.

Jacob made changes and resubmitted to the teacher and his partner (we don't know if he and the partner got credit for the changes made).  

It was returned with a slightly higher grade, but he needed to work on it again.  So the last Friday of school, before the break, Jacob made more changes and resubmitted it to just the teacher.  

On the 4th it came back regraded.  I was notified by email and went in to look at the grade.  I laughed at the title Jacob gave the final submission!  "ugh.  I spent so long on this docx."  That is hilarious!

I have always walked in the morning, but with Covid I have walked much more with Marcia and Sherrie.  These trees are such a mess!  They drop berries, but usually, by this time of year, they are not on the sidewalk anymore due to snow.  They get shoveled off.  

Not true this year.  No snow, no shoveling so we tread lightly!

We try to do a family walk on Sunday afternoons.  Usually it is just me and Jason, but sometimes we can talk Jacob into it.  

Under my bathroom sink I have 3 products I use on my hair...de-tangler, mouse, and hair spray.  I am always careful to not pick up the hair spray when I want to comb out my wet hair with the de-tangler.  One Sunday morning I was in a hurry and sprayed my wet hair with hair spray!  Had to dunk my head in the shower again to wash it out.  This was after my makeup was on.  Worked, but what a pain!

Sunrise while taking Jacob to school

Janette is in the San Francisco/Oakland mission. They do temple ground tours via Zoom and one night gave the tour to the family. 

                                                                                                                 

Every year when the Young Women turn 14 they can begin ministering.  Most choose to be partners with their mom.   This year we had a large group of girls who wanted to minister which meant I had to break up their mom's former companionship and put that sister with someone else.  Not all those sisters fit together so I decided to call all the companionships and ask how it was going.  It took about 2 weeks to get a hold of them and I did speak with about 90% of them.  That enabled me to move people around more easily and it also recommitted some of them to ministering.  

After calling to check on the companionships I then texted every companionship (even if nothing had changed) their assignment.  It was a lot of work, but worth it.  

I really like my calling most of the time.  I love the women in our ward, and while I'm not buddies with anyone, I enjoy interacting with them.  Everyone has an interesting story and is trying their best (most of the time).  😊

Jacob waiting for me to pick him up after school.
Love how he rigs everything to carry!

We went geo cashing with Catheys.  

In my opinion it was nice to be out, but

geo cashing is just OK.  😏 Addie kept finding the geo cashes.  She was good.