Elder Gutknecht said "Hi!"

Elder Gutknecht sent me a post card, and yep, here I am just marching along on the Corpse Bride Marathon.  It should time out where I'm done by the end of the month - it's been a great little theme to exercise to this season.

So a pretty awesome thing happened this week, and that was the fact that Nana and Ye-Ye got a new car.  They do a lot of traveling, especially lately, and that being said, the old car they had was getting a lot of milage.  It was offered to Aunt Shain first, but she didn't need it, and so we now have a new car in our driveway.  We'll have to get the insurance and registration and so on, but this will be a good car for Mom for trips here or there, and a good car for Maddie too.  We'll share some pictures in a bit.  At the moment, it's sitting in our driveway, getting a good rest from all the cross-country travel.

We were doing some prep today for the party tomorrow.  That meant painting on that back deck, and the weather was just perfect to be outside for this sort of thing.  Mom has been cooking too, getting a lot of that ready for tomorrow, especially that delicious chili that she makes.  Oh my goodness I can't wait for that chili.  It's been too long, chili.  I miss you!

So I've been wrestling with what to do for Sunday's skit, and my thoughts have been everywhere.  But lo!  When I was in the shower the idea came to me.  Given that the skit is about prayer, and it's taking place on a day where kids are showing what they can do with scripture memorization, I wrote the lyrics to this country song called "Never Stop Praying."  We've been in Tennessee all week, so of course it's a country song.  I think it'll be a lot of fun, especially with Dawn and Emma there to help teach us some line dancing moves!

Tonight I set the fire pit up outside on the back deck, because it's so nice and chilly, and just a perfect sort of night to sit around the fire.  Mom and I have a routine with various daily puzzles like a mini-crossword puzzle, a game called Strands, this challenging one called "Connections," and yes, we're all still doing that game Wordle.  These don't take long, and they sort of challenge the brain.  Fun!

While we were sitting out there, we could hear the football game from Half Mile Stadium.  We could hear the announcer, the brass sections, and of course the dress all the way through.  It wasn't crystal clear, but pretty fun to hear on a brisk Friday night.  

It was a quiet day.  We read from "Jingo" some tonight, and we're on some medication tonight - sore throats, coughing and so on.  Not too bad, but we'll getting some rest tonight.  We said our prayers, and got to sleep pretty quickly.  Vacation this week was hard work!