August 20 – 29

We enjoyed having Friday to relax and catch up on things like grocery shopping after our road trip. Mark was able to get some work done as well.

On Saturday the 21, my cousin, Sarah, got married! Sarah and I spent so much time together growing up and we were so excited for her and her fiancé Josh. My parents rode with us to the luncheon and sealing. The luncheon was so pretty! And the sealing was wonderful, in the beautiful Payson temple. Our niece helped check on Flynn since we were gone all day.

It was hard to go back to work after a nice long vacation, but also nice to get back into our routine. Mark is working hard on writing another chapter of his dissertation. He was invited to be a guest speaker for a field techniques class. He got to explain his research at the bird refuge. One of the professors said he is a natural at speaking! He also had another flight over Great Salt Lake.

I wanted to get Mark a back to school present for his last fall as a student! I have been saving up extra money I made this summer and found a great sale, so I was able to buy Mark an Apple Watch series 6! He thought we might get one for him on Black Friday because I love my watch so much. He had no idea I was hoping to get him one sooner. It is rare for Mark to show genuine excitement about gifts and he was thrilled when he opened the watch! It made me so happy to see him really excited. Now we can do activity challenges together too. We have one going right now and currently I’m in the lead. I hope I can keep it that way!!

I received news this week that China will no longer allow children to take classes during holidays or weekends. I haven’t been teaching weekends for a few months, but my classes for the rest of August were removed because the kids are on their summer holiday. I didn’t really mind having a few days to sleep past 5:00am.

It was nice to have my lessons cancel on Friday August 27 because it gave me more time to exercise and get ready for our niece, Katelyn’s, wedding! Mark and I were able to finish the last audio book from our trip while driving. We drove to my sister’s house in the morning and got Flynn all set up to stay there. The wedding was at 1:00 and we had a family luncheon after. It’s so crazy to think we have a niece married! It was really fun to see them so happy and excited. Katelyn borrowed my veil which was sweet.

We drove home Friday night and took advantage of our first Saturday home in three weeks to relax! We went to the farmer’s market and ran some errands in the morning, but spent the rest of the day at home! Mark played a computer game with his brothers and I read. We also watched some Paralympics which is amazing!