Highlights:
Spiritual
Sunday turned out to be a lovely day. I picked up Alice and ended up sitting with her in church, so our row was available to others. After I closed my fast and did some indexing, I turned on Music and The Spoken Word, which shared a previously broadcast Christmas presentation that was beautiful. After, we watched The Millenial Choir and Orchestra perform a flawless and perfectly put together Christmas concert from Utah, California, Idaho and Arizona. This was no awkward ZOOM meeting but a perfectly mixed and performed choir from youth to old, and an orchestra that the music was stunning and inspiring. We then watched the First Presidency Christmas broadcast, which continued the lovely spirit present here.
It was announced on Monday that temples would begin to open for work for the dead in various locations. Much instruction was given on what changes there would be and what would be required. I felt inspired that the more temples would open, the more Satan's power would decrease.
I completed reading the December Ensign and completed my third time through listening to General Conference talks and now have begun my fourth time through. Reading included the readings for Come Follow Me in Moroni as well as other reading in the Book of Mormon.
I have indexed 18968 records and reviewed 123,341 records so far this year.
Family
The Wilkins Family
Stuart, their Elf Friend, returned to their home this week. It made for a better week since Josh and Sam had cold symptoms and thus stayed home for remote learning. No soccer practice or games either. Josh had a pretty good birthday with all his favorites, though they could not do any activities they normally do because of increased COVID restrictions. Allison did some Young Women visits last Sunday and took the girls a special treat. Adam went to the mall with some friends on Saturday and worked out at the gym. Grace is planning a Favorite Things party with her friends. She is doing well in algebra, and since her grades and attendance is good in all her classes, she will not have to take any semester finals. While work went well for both Allison and Mike, they did have some challenges. They lost a tire while getting some birthday doughnuts for Josh. They also lost their dryer and had to replace it with another new one. She did have some problems with her online writing job but was able to work that out. They are staying pretty healthy and are enjoying their lovely home and time together.
The Ethan Rice Family
Dad spent part of the week with this family. Activities included hanging Christmas lights, yummy meals, playing with WAde and Kaylee, trips to the park and lots of fun times.
The Doran Rice Family
Doran and Amber and the kids had a good week. Doran traveled a lot around the state. He enjoyed his work party on Friday and then went out with Amber on Friday night to a party at a friend's house.
Morgan
No news from Morgan this week.
Kayty
Kayty worked a lot of overtime, and in between, created ornaments for her Chicago Blackhawks Hockey team tree.
The Nathan Rice Family
Nathan, Jessica and the girls had a good week. Nathan spent quite a bit of time creating this from scratch for a contest at work. It turned out magnificently!
Jessica had a craft creating day with some friends and got some of her extra craft supplies put to good use. Nathan continues to work on their car and their garden. We went over Saturday morning to see the gingerbread house. It is more beautiful than the picture shows...and it's huge! And Nathan has his yard all decorated with lights, their tree looks awesome! The girls came by for a few minutes on Saturday night to play while Nathan and Jessica ran some errands and we watched part of Santa Paws and snuggled under blankets. So fun!
Dad's Garden
We have harvested radishes, beets, turnips, snow peas and chard. We made his first garden salad strictly from the garden. I kept his new seedlings for tomatoes alive while he was away. The six tomato plants he planted weeks ago are now blooming. He started a new garden in the old chicken pen area.
Other highlights
I enjoyed days of no cooking while Dad was away.
We got rain on Thursday...first time in months!!!
