Catching Up on the Last Few Months...

 It's October already. It's October of one of the strangest years I've ever experienced. I realize I've gotten behind on my blogging this year, so here are some highlights of what has happened since our Yellowstone vacation in July:

Last half of July: 

• a few meetings, a dentist appointment, an orthodontist appointment. Not much really happened as most of stuck around pretty close to home.

August:  

• Josh got a job at the Mile High Flea Market, working in concessions. The flea market is only open on weekends, so he has been working on Saturdays and Sundays. Luckily with home church and meeting at 9am when we do meet at the church, he has been able to attend sacrament meetings either before or after work. He works at "Delectables", a place that sells ice cream, tornado potatoes (like a cross between curly fries and potato chips) and funnel cakes among other things.
  
  One Saturday, the rest of us went to the flea market to see what it was like. It's kind of a cross between a giant garage sale, a farmers market and a shopping mall. There is also an amusement park section, but that was closed due to the COVID 19 thing. We wandered around to see what all was there. We got ice cream and a funnel cake at Delectables. Hannah bought some new shoes. I bought some strange fruit that we found out later is called rambutan.
  
  
• School started for the boys. John began attending Colorado School of Mines. Some of his classes are online while others are in person. Because of Covid, he hasn't been required to live on campus, so he is living at home and commuting the 1/2 hour drive to Golden each day he has in person classes.
  
  Josh began his senior year and Peter began his sophomore year of high school online. 
  
  
• Hannah travelled to Recife, Brazil to spend some time with Moroni Torres, a young man she met while serving her mission in Brazil. He was released from his mission a couple months after Hannah returned home, and while the two were already communicating daily online, they wanted to spend some time together in person now that they were no longer missionaries.

September:

• I started teaching seminary! I teach an in-person class for 28 sophomores and juniors at the stake center at 6:30am four days a week. We meet in the gym where the students' chairs can be spaced 6 feet apart, and we all wear masks, except for me when I'm teaching. On Wednesdays, the students are supposed to do seminary online, so I get to sleep in a bit that day. The subject this semester is the last half of the Book of Mormon, and I'm really enjoying teaching and getting to know my students.
  
  
• Hannah managed to return home from Brazil in spite of a nightmare of cancelled flights and changing itineraries. Thankfully, Moroni stuck with her until he could watch her board a homeward bound plane. I picked her up from the airport late Friday morning, and that same evening, Hannah, Steven and I set off to drive her to school at BYU-I in Rexburg, Idaho. 
  
  
• We arrived in Rexburg on Saturday and unloaded Hannah's things at her new home in Rexburg. She and two international roommates (One is from Mexico and the other from Chile) share the upstairs portion of a small house on the east side of campus. After doing some grocery shopping and grabbing some lunch, we hugged Hannah goodbye and Steven and I set off on the return trip home.
  
  
• Two days after our return from Idaho, I boarded a plane to fly to Salt Lake to spend a few days with my mom and sisters in Sandy, Utah. We had a blast just talking, hiking, playing games, eating and laughing together. 
  
  
• Peter got a part (well, parts, plural, since there are a lot of short scenes) in the high school's fall play, "The History of Dating." The performance will be sometime in early December, although whether the audience will get to watch in person or electronically is still to be determined.
  
  
• Steven, after many frustrations at work, decided that the place where he has been working since March wasn't allowing him to fulfill his potential, and so left there to begin a quest to find a new job that would better fit his talents and skills.
  
  
• Josh and Peter began attending high school in person two days a week. The other three days are still online: one day they have Zoom type classes at certain times, and the other two days they are just given assignments to complete at some time during the course of the day. 

October

• Our dishwasher fizzled, losing its electrical power. After several days of handwashing dishes and a battle to move the dishwasher from its haven under the kitchen counter, we discovered that the place where the house's aluminum wiring was connected to the copper wiring of the dishwasher had melted or blown up or something equally devastating. After much frustration and conversations with friends, neighbors and a couple friendly Lowe's workers, Steven was finally able to install an electrical outlet behind the dishwasher and add a plug to the dishwasher itself (so it didn't need to be hardwired in) and replace a connection for the water hose, thus rendering the dishwasher usable again.  (My hero!)
  
  
• Today, Steven was sustained and set apart as the second counsellor in our ward's bishopric. His dad drove out from California this weekend so he could be here to ordain Steven a high priest. I'm grateful for his worthiness and his willingness to serve wherever the Lord has need of him.