Grad 2020

Today was supposed to be Peirce's graduation ceremony. It is pretty crappy that there will be no ceremony nor other celebrations. We had our own small celebration tonight at dinner!

These napkins seemed appropriate....kind of a crappy way to end school. LOL

Banner! I love banners.

 I made little caps from mini peanut butter cups and squares of chocolate. Sometimes my ability to break the squares straight wasn't too good. There may or may not have been a lot of chocolate eating during this project!

Thoughtful Peirce

Peirce the Curling Club Pied Piper

Dapper Peirce

Stare down the opponent!

I love love love his grad photos!

May Long Weekend

We have been quarantining for about 8 weeks now. Every time the weekend rolls around, someone says, "What are we going to do this weekend?" It's getting kind of monotonous because we pretty much stick to our normal routine: a movie or two and maybe a game, if we can talk Allen into it (he's not a huge fan of games).

This weekend we decided to head out to Kanaskis! It was a great day.

At a few stops, Frank had to wait inside the car. He sure keeps an eye on everyone! 

Beautiful!

At this stop, Chico didn't really want to walk up the waterfall with everyone. I didn't have the right shoes on either so I stayed in the car with Chico. We happened to be at a University of Calgary station. Imagine having that be your part of your project where you had to stay out in Kanaskis to do your studies. Not a bad life!

We saw gophers, deer, mountain goats and even a black bear!!

On the way home, Peirce did a little geocaching....his furthest geocache discovery yet!

On the way home, even the dogs were tired!

On Monday, Jill and Peirce went out to Kananaskis again and hiked with some friends. 

When they got home, Jill planted some flowers. Can't wait to see them grow! This week we are going to have lots of rain so it shouldn't take too long.

Mourning With Those That Mourn, Comforting Those In Need of Comfort

This week in Come Follow Me we are in Mosiah 18. Tonight we had a hands-on activity. LOL (I think teaching strategy planning is taking over my life) 

Our friends, the Payne's lost their dog, Meira. We took them a little aloe vera plant I had re-potted with a message that it will help them with their healing. I think they were surprised and we had a great visit. We sure love them. 

After that Jill and Peirce went to YSA FHE and Allen and I took another plant over to Becky for her birthday. We had another doorstep visit. We sure love those guys too. 

We are blessed. Actually, we are doubly blessed. Jill and Peirce both had to get tested for covid-19. Jill got sent home from work one day last week because she had a sniffle. They are overly cautious, and rightly so. She got word yesterday that she was negative. Peirce was also feeling sick so he got tested on Sunday and heard today. Phew! Negative!

This was Jill's first order of biz when she was sent home. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Years ago, when I started a streak of walking every day, I did it because it seemed like if I missed a day, suddenly one day missed turned into 7 or 10 or more. It seems like it's the same with blogging. It's been 8 days since I've blogged. I'm going to get back to working on a streak.

Today was Mother's Day and it was a great day. It was an unusual Mother's Day because we had nowhere we could go thanks to the pandemic - but that was okay. I talked to my mom in the morning and had a great visit. The rest of the day was great too. 

I know that a lot of people have trouble with Mother's Day. They don't like the "pedestal-ing". They feel inadequate. I've never really felt upset by people talking about how perfect their mothers are or were. I guess I really don't believe that they were that perfect and maybe it's also because I'm okay with my imperfections. Perhaps it was because I never felt like my mother felt that way. She just seemed to enjoy the day. It wasn't until I became an adult and realized some of the women around me truly hated Mother's Day. Don't get me wrong. I had those awkward years where I felt like a fraud taking the the flower or the chocolate at church when I wasn't a mother. There is some kind of strange idea at church that all women are mothers. They're not and the push we have to seem to try to believe that is weird. All that being said, I love my children's and husband's efforts to make it a lovely day for me. Their efforts are appreciated. 

This morning I woke up to a gift bag of fun beauty products from Allen, which was quickly followed by a "Welcome to Mom Spa" from Jill. She brushed my hair, massaged my scalp, gave me a pedicure and a back massage while the boys made breakfast. What a breakfast it was! Scrambled eggs, granola, yogurt and apple turnovers. Yum! 

Allen made an amazing lunch of French Onion soup and garlic toast. Yum!! I spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. Peirce got me some new oven mitts. He's been disturbed lately by my ability to burn my inner arms as I take things out of the oven. Really, it isn't the oven mitts fault, but I appreciate his concern!

Tonight we had a French style dinner. I'm starting to really enjoy this Sunday tradition. Really, it isn't that different than a regular dinner, we just do it in courses. I like having a salad course first. We all eat many more vegetables as a result. And of course, my favorite is always the cheese course. I love cheese!

We had a "Zoom Devotional" tonight with Elder Evanson where he talked about motherhood. He tied it in with the nature of God and how mothers give us physical birth so that we can one day return to God and God gives us spiritual birth. We can't get back without both.

Oh Jill

One thing I admire about Jill is she always sees the bright side of things. She is hard working and fun and sees the best in people. Her Facebook post yesterday made me smile.

It says:

When I was in France, one of my favourite traditions that I learned about was May 1st. Everyone gives everybody these cute little lily of the valley flowers! I can’t really celebrate, but here’s Frank.

— at 

Centre d’accueil des visiteurs du temple de Paris

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