This Week at Our House # 36

1. We had another busy week. It's hard not to be busy with this many kids, even when we have minimal outside the home activities. John took walks everyday this week. The weather has cooled down and being outside is very pleasant right now.
2. I spent the first part of the week trying to get things done for the house loan. On Wednesday, I took the kids to the beach because I had to drive down that way to get some paperwork to our realtor. Friday, I found out we would not be getting home insurance until the hurricane passed because insurance companies blocked our area out for no new insurance. I didn't know that happened. But today I got the message that we can get insurance now because the storm went west. We may still be able to close in September. We will see. On Sunday, we drove the 4 hours to visit my family. All of my siblings were visiting for my niece's baptism, so it was like a mini family reunion. We couldn't make it to the baptism, though, because Johnny had the ACT. But it was nice to see everyone. It has been between one and four years since I have seen most of them.
3. Ruth emails on Tuesday, so that is now my favorite day of the week. Ruth now has two MTC companions, Sister Neilson and Sister Carpenter. She said that she had fun racing the Elders to not be late to class. Ruth is obviously taking things very seriously. She always sends scriptures, and I know that she continues to study hard, just as she did all summer at home.
4. Kate flew out to Utah to help her grandma babysit 4 of her cousins. She has also been helping her grandpa build a new deck onto the back of their house. She has definitely been busy. Grandma is being very nice. She has taken her to the Temple 3 times in less than a week, gotten her In and Out Burger twice, and plenty of ice cream. Kate said that several of her little girl cousins have asked her when she is going to get a boyfriend. Kate has laughed about that. She has no intention to get any boyfriend ever, just a fiance after her mission. 
5. Johnny's foot is healing. He can walk around very normally with his shoe on now. Johnny took the ACT for the second time on Saturday. He hates all of the liberal propaganda included in the reading, english, and science sections of the test. I expect we will get his score in two more weeks.
6. Adam went to the Stake Youth Super Saturday on Harkers Isle.  They shelled freshly caught shrimp as a service project. He enjoyed that. Adam became the first in our family to try oyster on the half shell. Her liked it, but said it was a tad too salty. Adam really enjoyed all of the fisherman stuff they did. He now has 3 ideas for a career: eye doctor, farmer, or fisherman. Adam will never make a good sit at your computer all day guy.
7. Rachel misses Kate, so she started texting her. We've discovered that Rachel likes to text and could spend an hour sending messages if I let her. Rachel has now read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the New Testament all before the age of 12. She is now reading the Book of Mormon a second time.
8. I bought Anya a book, All of a Kind Family, that I loved reading when Ruth and Kate were babies. She is loving it. It's about a Jewish family in NYC with 5 girls. Anya and Rachel have been talking about which sister they are. It's cute to see them so interested in a book. Rachel gets it next and there are a total of 5 books. I love being able to hand down books I loved to my kids.
9. Joseph has learned to swim quite well. Last year, he wore a life jacket, this year he just swims and swims. He has now joined the older kids swimming in the ocean at the beach.
10. For the first time, I remembered to grab life jackets for the littler kids at the beach. Josh and Arwen enjoyed swimming a lot more because they felt safer. I enjoyed feeling less worried  about them because I felt safer. But I think it was only a feeling because they spent a lot more time in deeper water.
11. I was on a walk with John.  He had Arwen on his shoulders. She looked ahead and saw a weeping willow and said, "look Dad, that tree is sad." She doesn't even know it is called a weeping willow.
12. John was talking to Suzy about Jesus and showing her pictures. He put up a picture of Jesus dead in the tomb. She became very concerned and said, "oh, no he died." John explained the story. Then he pushed the back arrow on his laptop and the other pictures of Jesus came back on. Susan raised her hands in the air and proclaimed, "He came back!!"
13. Sam misses Kate. All summer he had 3 moms. Then Ruth left and he had two. Then Kate left and he is keeping a very careful watch of me. I cannot leave the room without him.

Pictures

My parents and siblings from left to right: Amy, me, mom, Monika, Amber, Lila, Seth, Dad in the back

Rachel and Sam with Aunt Marie

This is what the sky looked like for about an hour of our drive on Sunday. It was pretty surreal because there was such a perfectly straight line between the two colors in the sky.