Our week in review

I don't usually blog at the week-ends and writing personal stuff on an open forum does not come easily to me but we have family out there that want to keep up with what we are doing. We stay "occupied" with various things and some weeks are more productive than others. Now that two of our girls are away from home we are not as "busy" as many families.
For our family week in review I plan on running from Saturday through Friday and picking out pieces from each day. Juliet's update will be kept separate.

Saturday 17th September
Kristina, Nikolas and I went to the Haywood Lane Building to participate in "Make a Pillow Day". I am one of the organizers of this on-going activity, along with Hiroe Reynolds. We had a nice turnout given all the other activities that were also happening. 114 post-op breast cancer pillows were completed and 33 others are ready to stuff. Kristina worked diligently at the stuffing station and Nikolas did whatever was asked of him (bless his wonderful heart.) He was "borrowed" to help clean the building, set up/tore down tables and chairs, cut up strips for ties, and cut out fabric squares.
While we were gone for the day John got busy at home. I had moved furniture around earlier in the week (we now have a dedicated guest room and a new sewing room) and he re-arranged the guest room to allow us to use the WII Fit and other games without running more cables through the garage. He also fixed the dryer.

Sunday 18th September
Sunday, 99.9% of the time is a church day for us. Our ward currently meets during the 1.00 p.m. 3 hour block and we have choir practice afterwards. The talks in Sacrament today were about choices made to become stay at home moms and how that impacts learning etc. At the end of Relief Society we were given "Daughters in My Kingdom - The History and Work of Relief Society". I'm looking forward to reading this.
A nice surprise at church today. 63 more pillows and 45 ready to be stuffed. Some of the ladies had taken fabric and stuffing home with them yesterday.

Monday 19th September
Monday thru Friday morning at 5.30 a.m. Kristina and Nikolas attend early morning Seminary and have just enough time at the end to catch the bus to school. Most high schools in our school district start at 7.05 and are done by 2.05. There's about 14 in our Seminary class now, which is wonderful given that 8 years ago there was a class of 1 (Juliet).
Monday morning means - Volleyball. It's been a while since I went and it was a lot of fun. I'm usually the oldest one in attendance. I'm fairly decent at the net but wimp out somewhat anywhere else on court. Some of the other ladies are amazing players.
After that I dropped off most of the pillows at the Vanderbilt Breast Cancer Clinic at 100 Oaks Mall, and spent some money at Michaels and the Scout Center.
During Family Home Evening (FHE) we read a story from the New Era "Racing For Two" (amazing), and helped Nikolas finish up another badge for Scouts. He just has two required ones left and then he can get going on his Eagle Scout project.

Tuesday 20th September
My calling at church is Family History Consultant. I work at the Franklin FHC and today I substituted for one of the other workers. Had a mini training/"gripe" session with our Director.
Kristina has voice lessons on Tuesdays after school. Her teacher has a concert coming up soon for her students so a lot of practice has been done for that. Kristina is now singing "God Bless America" instead of one of her "Princess" songs.
Hillwood HS hosted a 12th grade college fair this evening. We visited 5 colleges during the summer and Kristina was pleased to see some of the reps in attendance.
"Biggest Loser" started back up this evening and Kristina is a huge fan of the show. We taped it for her to watch once we got home.

Wednesday 21st September
Our dog, Lucy, is loving the cooler weather. We are back out walking most mornings and she has rediscovered her "inner puppy." We are blessed with lots of dogs in our neighborhood and town which also means there's an on leash and poop pick up ordinance in place. The local park is not too far from our house. It has a walking track that we like to visit every so often. Most of the time we stick to the streets in our sub-division.
I have wonderful Visiting Teachers from church. They came this morning and we got into a good discussion about scripture reading.
The principal at our high school is trying out a different way to bring parents into the building for PTSO meetings. We had a luncheon today to celebrate some of the "Write on Wednesday" student writers in the building. Culinary arts students cooked and served the food.

Thursday 22nd September
John and I went a Nashville Symphony concert this evening. First time we have heard the banjo used as a classical instrument.
The concert started with a beautiful version of Aaron Copeland's Suite from Appalachian Spring. Gorgeous. Then the main piece of the evening was Concerto for Banjo and Orchestra composed by Bela Fleck. World premier performance and broadcast over the internet. The middle movement was my favorite part. The concert wrapped up with Tchaikovsky's Symphony no.4 in F minor Op. 36. A lovely evening.
Funky goings on outside the Schermerhorn Concert Hall - hundreds and hundreds of very noisy birds in the surrounding trees.

Friday 23rd September
Some of the art and photography students at Hillwood went to the Appalachian Center for Art to do some classes. I went along as a chaperone and took the Itajime class with Kristina. We had a wonderful time and we each made three scarves of varying designs. The other classes were glass bead making and copper bracelets. Our wonderful teacher/bus driver got us through some lousy weather conditions and funky road conditions in the hilly "outback."
Our truck has come to a grinding halt and had to be towed home this evening.