Practice Bingo & Blog Books

We got some good snow yesterday and today. Yesterday Corey came home from work early so I could take his car to violin, and I was so glad, cause it was a crazy sliding mess on Wasatch and that would have been me in the van had I taken the van. It was bad everywhere. It took us 45 min to get to violin and before we came home, I went fresh market in Holladay and got several weeks worth of Pink Lady apples for myself. The stores have ALL been out of pink lady apples - Target, Smiths, and Walmart. I  decided we need to plant some pink lady apple trees for our future food security. I have been very sad for the past two weeks that they were all gone everywhere, but I found them by chance after violin last week at a store in Holladay. I got like 40 today, so now I'm ready for winter. More snow came last night and I shoveled the driveway this morning for my exercise. I took Lily to jazz band this morning and the freeway was at a standstill with traffic - a few drivers in little sedans that were slipping and sliding everywhere, and a bus had stalled or something. With the snow I didn't go climbing today, but I DID go yesterday in the morning with Corey. Corey and I both like taking Lily to jazz band now. Corey commented "We went from neither of us wanting to go, to both of us wanting to!" haha, hooray for Momentum, and yay that Abi stayed home sick yesterday and was able to babysit. So yesterday I did the pink V1 - and I did it twice! Once on my own and I was able to do it again with Corey watching. There are more to try next time, but I'm really proud of how good I did! My fingers, palms, and muscles are getting stronger and tougher. Climbing is definitely more fun than just lifting weights at the gym, and it's interesting too. 

A neighbor offered a few tickets to the Savior of the World play tonight and Corey took Lily, Natalie, and Owen, and they picked up Abi from GMS and went to go see it (Corey stayed in the lobby and worked). Owen seemed to feel like he had been tricked into going, cause it wasn't fun. "That was sooo boooring..." He's a good kid. For the Thanksgiving break, Owen's trumpet teacher had given him a "bingo" chart for his review songs. It was really cute and it helped him enjoy that part of practicing. He got bingo by playing his trumpet laying down...

and playing it in the bathroom... (this bingo practice chart doesn't work for piano players, ha)

He played a concert for his stuffed animals, played a song outside, played along with the cd, a few other squares were to play with pinky up, on the shortcut, as fast as possible, with pinky up, play as slow as possible, and stuff like that. Owen used his free space today too. It is cute. Owen is a good little trumpet student. The pocket trumpet is getting a bit small for him, so we'll probably get him a cornet trumpet soon. 

Another thing from yesterday - I was going to run errands, but had a change of plans when Mel told me there was a blog2print cyber Monday deal (promo code HOLIDAYSHOP gave 50% off!) So I worked on that until 2:00, then, since Abi was home, and I ran out quickly to find a new white tree. Abi insisted I go try to find a new one, since our old one has busted lights and the base is messed up too, has been for a few years. So I did that, went to Home Depot, then Lowe's, then Walmart, success at Walmart, yay. Back home I focused the rest of my time finishing the blog books and Abi got the tree up. The deal expired at midnight, but I finished books for Joseph, Melodie, and Ethan of their mission blogs, and I also got two for us of 2020-21 and 2021, I still probably have enough blogged to fill two more books, I could order (2021-2022 and 2022) but I'll do those later next time there is a 50% off deal. There will probably be one in January for the new year. But yeah, it was a little painful - cause Melodie's book, when I went to review it, EVERY EMOJI she used in any of her letters was a full size photo! So I had to delete her book, then go back to her blog and I went though every post to delete her emojis... I probably missed a few, but I called it good, then uploaded it again, and so I was able to do hers and Josephs and it was getting late, but I did Ethan's too - but I asked him for his opinion on a few things, like photo images and book cover color (I didn't ask J and M) and so he couldn't decide and at 11:30 pm I was done and said he better say what he wanted cause I had to finish up. I think they will look nice. I had planned to make those back in September, but I never did, so I wasn't sure I was going to do them for Christmas after all, but good job to the Blog2print advertising committee, you pulled me in with a deal I couldn't resist, and amazingly I got it all done and they should be here by Christmas. They were still pretty expensive, even with 50% off, so those will be their main gifts at Christmas, but it will be good. Good job me for my labor of love in putting those online. I mostly did the blogs so I could print a book for them. I'd like a book of my and Corey's mission letters, but sadly, those are all handwritten. They are in a filing cabinet downstairs at the moment, so I have a lot of work to do before I can print up books for us. Someday.