More fun and Happy Birthday Brandon!

 

And our 1st visitor to the library was a squirrel!!!

This week was a blur of work and fun!

 Bob and Brandon worked from home during the day.  I went to work but hit way past my exhaustion point since we couldn't have anyone into the building to help :( But coming home to these 2 cuties made all the difference in the world!

The answer is...now we have a "NEW" normal

Alayna came to visit for a few weeks too before school started for her at BYUI. We were able to celebrate her 18th birthday with her with the traditional dinner from Olive Garden and a Zookie for dessert!  We now have all adult children That's weird. Happy 18th Birthday, Alayna!

Kayla, Brandon, Ellie, and Rylan came to visit!

Is there a normal anymore?!

 This year- Again, I have no words.  I am not sure we will ever be back to normal.  It was weird going into stores wearing a mask to get ice. But for now...

1. All of our schools were damaged. We lost part of the roof to our new school.  The damage is so bad in our community that they delayed the start of school for 3 weeks.  I go back August 31.  The kids start Sept 14. I don't know if I will have my books. It  is full of uncertainty so I am learning the value of being flexible and open to changes.

2.  Tyler spent this crazy time with us.  He lost his food too and his area was demolished!  Although his apartment sustained no damage.  He has been off work the past 2 weeks since his work place was pretty damaged.  He goes back tomorrow.

3.  Bob had to go into work a few days because we didn't have power or internet for him to connect here.  He has been extremely busy with projects so has been putting in extra hours on the weekends as well.  He hurt his back in our clean up.  Those pine trees were so heavy. So he is doing some recouping from that as well.

4. Alayna arrived this week and we are so thrilled to have her home for a bit before fall semester!  She is scheduled for all her fall classes and I think she is pretty excited about another new awesome experience coming up!  She turns 18 this week and we are happy to have her here to celebrate!

5. #2020 sucks- Marisa and Anthony were supposed to move into their new home on Thursday- they just had the walk through and everything was looking great!  Then they got word that their home flooded and now lots of work has to be done :( They are devastated and I don't blame them.  They have been so excited to have a place of their own!

6. Kayla and Brandon are coming this Saturday and we are so excited!  Brandon is going to help us figure out how to fix and put up the gates and fences.  It is gving us a good excuse to fix up the playground after the storm too.  Brandon will have his birthday while they are here so we are excited about that too

7. The Harts are coming in September too- we LOVE having family come but sad that they were going to help us harvest all the apples and now there are literally only 10 apples on the tree :( But we will have everyone here for Labor Day and I am so thrilled to have family here.  It's been a tough year!

8. I got new glasses! Doctor said my eyes improved so my other glasses were too strong causing me the constant headaches.

9. I love getting pics of everyone, especially the grandbabies.  I love when Ellie calls and we get to chat.  This week she really cracked me up when she was running around laughing hard with this filter on:

 

10. My AHA moment:

Obviously we spent a lot of time in the darkness these past few weeks.  Those 8 days of minimal light at night was rough.  Our candles and flashlights were tiny flickering lights. The day before we got power back, I was doing my scripture/conference study and the next talk was "Christ: The light that shines in the darkness". Whoa!  As I read, several things stood out to me this time BECAUSE we had spent 8 days in the dark.

Satan tries to "dim our light, short-circuit the connection, cut off the power supply, leaving us alone in the dark." "Seeing darkness where I expected light reminded me that one of the fundamental needs we have in order to grow is to stay connected to our source of light-Jesus Christ. He is the source  of our power, the light and life of the world. Without a strong connection to him, we begin to spiritually die."

"Take a few more steps on the covenant path, even if it's too dark to see very far. The lights will come back on."

I truly believe as we work hard to do what we can to stay on that covenant path we will see more/experience more things like this as we grow and learn.