Friday!!

Alyna and I just finished seminary and got all our manuals and scriptures and such cleaned off the dining room table. We use the table for seminary much more than eating, well I guess not if you take into the account that we almost always have hot chocolate and sometimes other goodies to snack on during the lesson. Today we also had apples, peanut butter and cheese.

Dennis has come down with a pretty serious cold this week and hasn't been feeling very good but hasn't let that stop him from working long hours. I tried to suggest that he try to come home early today and he said he would. He promised to leave work no later than 5:30. That wasn't my idea of early. Since it takes him about an hour to get home from work at that time of day, that will be good. We have a Young Women activity tonight (preparing for New Beginnings/Young Women in Excellence) and Alyna and I need to leave not much after 6:30.

I have been busy sewing all week and got Lisa's quilt top and back finished and Andrew's quilt top almost done. I'm very happy how they've turned out so far and it has been fun to think of the recipients as I've stitched each one. I'd put a picture in but I want to wait till they are all done.

I went to "coffee" Thursday morning. It was the first time since we got back that I got out of the house except once or twice to the grocery store and to church. It was a the home of one of Alyna's classmates, who is also new to the area and from the states. There were drinks other than coffee and lots of good foods. It was nice to be able to visit for a bit with some of Alyna's classmates mothers and share experiences. There were several from the states that had been there for 18 months to a couple of years and it was interesting to see how they had adjusted after being here for that length of time.

This week has been a stressful one for Alyna. She has been studying very diligently for her mid-terms (which are actually administered more like college finals exams.) It reminded me of all the hours all of her older siblings put into studying for their AP tests except for that the older kids all had friends to study with and sometimes I wondered if they were really getting much out of it because of all the laughing and talking. I wished Alyna could have had a good friend to study with!
Last night, Dennis and I went to the grocery store and to Media Mart (trying to find a new printer cartridge for our printer.) When we got home all was quiet so I went to see how the studying was going. This is what I found:

There's her books and bag of popcorn but where is Alyna?


Ah, taking a little unscheduled nap. She's obviously been studying and was even very organized in the process. Only three more such days to endure although she will probably also spend most of the weekend studying. Just can't wait to see what trying to get ready for finals in mid July will be like?

Tomorrow, if we are healthy enough, we are having the missionaries over for dinner. I found some inch wide-lasanga type noodles so I'll try and make a lasagna. I have to say - I really don't like to cook. It's a good thing I get pushed into it once in a while. We had some pretty interesting and simple meals this week. We've been on kind of a Mexican food theme this week and almost everything that didn't get eaten earlier in the week got thrown into what Dennis called - Cowboy Delight. It was actually pretty good, although Alyna won't try it.