Monday [5/24]: I was up early again today but didn’t mind since it gave me time with my Mom and she and Val headed out. It’s always sad to say good-bye but since we’ll see them in August at the reunion it made it much easier.
We spent the morning getting the house in order. Abigail moved into the room where she will do home MTC and we moved the desk in there for her to get organized. She took care of some returns this morning and then had lunch with Sister Miller and her son Jaden and then hung out with a couple friends in the afternoon – getting home with just enough time to eat dinner and change into church clothes to head to the stake center to be set apart as a missionary. Leave it to Abigail to squeeze every last minute out of her last day of civilian life – ha!
I wish I could say that getting the stake center was stress-free and peaceful but several of my family members like to wait until the last minute to get ready and then regularly miss my time of “we need to be out the door by…” Abigail was our DJ and played from her regular apple music until we got off the freeway and then she switched to church music – leave it to Abigail to squeeze in just a little more tunes before mission life – ha!
President Jarman asked each of us to share some words of wisdom or a scripture with Abigail and most of our responses were pretty weak. Jason said, “Good Luck”. Katie didn’t have anything to say. Drew shared what he will NOT miss about Abigail – something about having to share food with her. {insert all the eye rolling and embarrassing emojis in existence} I was caught off guard as well and I’m sure we looked like the least prepared family to provide a supportive environment to a new missionary. Despite our weaknesses, President Jarman set Abigail apart as a missionary. It was a great blessing. To be honest it didn’t feel any different walking out of the church then it did entering. I know we’ll adjust and that our family life will look different moving forward, but tonight felt quite normal and perhaps that’s not a bad thing. Abigail spent a little time laying with Drew after he’d gone to bed and then FAJ and I played Qwixx before calling it a night. Strange to have her go to bed by 10:30pm. Perhaps I’ll start to get to bed a little earlier myself – ha!
Tuesday [5/25]: What a day! I went on a long walk this morning to get some exercise as well as catch up on a bunch of Marco Polos from last week. After I showered Abigail and I headed out to run a bunch of errands: Deseret Book, Café Rio, Fred Meyer, Krispy Kreme, Michaels and Costco. Abigail’s missionary badge sure did attract some attention. A lady at Cafe Rio asked Abigail where she was serving and chatted with us while we waited in line to order. As we were finishing eating there was a massive influx of missionaries arriving. Abigail had met a couple of the sister missionaries before so she chatted with them a bit. I know we both felt a little self-conscious walking around all the stores and noticing people noticing us. Our new norm I suppose.
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| Abigail wasn’t cooperative of my wanting a picture of my free donut with my missionary |
I only had enough time back home to unload groceries before heading to Carly’s tennis game at the high school. It was the fastest game I’ve ever attended since Carly didn’t win a single game. She was playing second singles today so the competition was fierce. Her teammate playing first singles didn’t win a game either. Carly was glad for the quick match because she had plans tonight to throw a good-bye party for a friend moving out of state.
I thought it was funny that Drew was sitting on the couch reading books with a mask on. We must have just gotten back from the library and it didn’t feel the need to take it off – I never would’ve thought masks would be so much a part of our lives.
I tried to be productive after dinner, but it was a long day and I was tired. Tomorrow is packed as well. I’m getting my second covid shot tomorrow after tennis lessons and before my two tennis matches – hoping I don’t have any side effects at least until tomorrow night and I’m blocking out Thursday just in case my vaccination takes me completely out.
Wednesday [5/26]: Abigail didn’t start classes today until 11am so she and Justin played tennis this morning for her exercise. I passed only because I already had tennis lessons today as well as both a singles and doubles match this evening. Carly passed on tennis lessons today because she had match so it was just Jason and me. It was a great lesson for me. Dusko gave me some tips about serving without leaning forward as well as properly shifting my weight from my back foot to my front. Tiny little adjustments but they really did make a big difference. Jason sat out about 30 minutes of our lesson because he was feeling light headed so I got a lot of personal attention which was fun.
Jason had to join me afterward to drive to Redmond to get my second covid shot. Once again the process was super well organized and very easy. I wanted to eat a good dinner before my matches so I cooked up the taquitos I had in the freezer and made some Mexican rice and guacamole. It was delish.
Since Justin’s working with the youth he took JKD to the church with him. KD had a primary activity on manners but there was enough adults leaders there that they didn’t need my help.
I was really hoping to play well tonight especially after my great lesson. I didn’t necessarily play poorly but I could’ve done better. My first match was singles against the neighborhood friend that invited me to join the league. I knew she was better than me but I thought I’d put up a better fight. She won 6-1. My second match was doubles and I played with the same partner I’ve already played with in 3 matches that we lost. She’s not necessarily very strong but turns out our opponents were worse. One seemed to be really new to the sport so we won easily and I even tried to dial down my hits. We easily won 6-1 – I have no clue how they won a match at all. Honestly though the second game was really quite fun, perhaps because the stress of winning wasn’t there and also it was a much slower paced game, but also because I was able to help the newbie have a good experience. She really enjoyed the game and that may not have happened if I was trying to clobber them.
My vaccination thankfully didn’t bother while I played. I had heard to drink a Gatorade after the shot and do keep my arm active which I did. I also did a little weight workout before showering. By the time I headed to bed the injection site was starting to feel sore, but not too bad. We’ll see what tomorrow brings…
Thursday [5/27]: I slept great last night which was a surprised. My arm hurt so much less this time around and I woke up feeling good. I was a little sore, but I can’t be sure that is from the shot instead of my weight workout last night. By noon I started to get really tired though and had a decent headache. I took it easy for the most part – I even tried to take a nap, but I should’ve known I’m not much of a napper. I’m grateful that my side effects were minor and that I was able to take it easy today. Justin and I threw together a salad bar for dinner and then I spent some time tonight getting a bunch of paperwork in order to get notarized tomorrow for Carly’s trip to Africa.
Friday [5/28]: Up early today. Actually I’ve been up before 8am lately anyhow, but this morning I needed to get up as we were watching the two neighbor kids from 8am until they head off to school at 1pm. KD loved having them here, but man the volume level in the house sure did increase.
I got distracted putting together a reel for HHH – my friend told me they are an Instagram must and it was actually fun to put together but for some reason my hashtags didn’t link up like they should so in the end it wasn’t very productive.
Thanks to T-Mobile Tuesdays, Justin and I had movie tickets tonight at 6:30pm to see Quiet Place 2. We ate a BOGO free meal at Coco Café beforehand and then enjoyed the show. The movie was good. Very suspenseful. I don’t typically like scary movies, but I was able to handle this one with lots of gripping of Justin’s hands.
Saturday [5/29]: The beautiful PNW weather has returned I was looking forward to playing tennis this morning. Jason decided to join Justin and me and we played for over an hour. It wasn’t the best practice for me for some reason, but I’m hopeful that any practice is helpful at this point.
We cleaned up and then took KD with us to Red Robin to redeem Drew’s free birthday meal. I’m over Red Robin. There fries are great, but I can get a better chicken sandwich right here in Snoqualmie on a BOGO free deal. We also weren’t able to combine Drew’s free meal with a BOGO half off deal we had so that tainted the experience for us adults. The kids loved it and Drew was thrilled that they gave him a free ice-cream sundae.
We popped into Old Navy afterward to take advantage of their annual $1 flip flop sale. Katie and Carly have outgrown women’s sizes and Jason barely fits into the largest men’s size so it won’t be long before we need to move beyond $1 flip flops. I however got four new pairs so that feels nice.
We didn’t have any plans for tonight. Justin knew that I’ve been thinking about the Kentucky Butter Cake cookie Crumbl introduced this week so he encouraged me to make it happen tonight before it leaves the menu. To justify the trip we would also pick up some bark for the yard at Home Depot. We were able to convince Abigail to join us by bribing her with dinner at Chick-fil-A. The outing was well worth it – the butter cookie is one of my new all-time favorites. It was so buttery delicious I wanted to just set the cookie on my lips and let is slowly seep into my system. So, so yummy!
Sunday [5/30]: Being the fifth Sunday of the month we didn’t have any morning meetings today. KD caught the Lego bug and decided they wanted to put together some sets today. Fun to see some Legos back in our life, but the break was nice after our 2020 undertaking.
Sacrament was really great. The speakers spoke about unity as a ward which wouldn’t necessarily sound fantastic but Bishop Hammer shared some inspiring thoughts that made me feel ramped up for what is to come with resuming interactions with members of our ward again. He also shared, again, how impressed he was with Drew’s baptism interview in that Drew wanted to meet with bishop alone and that Drew has been the only kiddo able to tell him the promises we make at baptism K.A.T. Bishop also pointed Abigail out as a missionary and shared how she has forgotten herself and is serving the Lord and his people as we all should. I felt the spirit and was grateful for his message.
Our kitchen got to hopping when we got home. Justin started preparing lunch, Abigail started making Oreo cookie balls and Jason made a batch of muddy buddies. We were hoping Carly would make some pretzel bites but she denied us. Abigail’s only day without online classes is Sunday so she was free all day. We played a long Settlers game with FHAJK and then a HCJKD played a game of Quirkle before KD went to bed. Jason and I watched the first half of Hamilton tonight while FA studied Spanish and Carly worked on homework.
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