Meeting Friends at Apollo Park

 I'm sorry that I haven't been writing every day.  I have been struggling staying in the routine of many things since Jon's parents have been living here.  They have been here for about a month, they will probably be here for another month, I assume.  They have been so helpful and it has been really nice having them here.  I am excited, however, to get back to normal life again.

A counselor from AVC emailed me yesterday and got me thinking about nursing school again.  I hope that it works out for me.  It really is something that I want to do.  I might just have to wait for a while until I get started.  But I consider myself a very healthy person and I still feel young...I think I could make it happen, even if I was one of the "older" students.  Who knows.  Maybe I shouldn't put the nursing school dream completely on the shelf...I think that I should keep it within reaching distance.

We have been keeping busy doing the same old things.  Work, school, breakfast, lunch, dinner, morning workouts, yoga, kids yoga, Apollo Park trips with the kids, making pumpkin bread, occasional discussions with the missionaries, Come Follow Me lessons, board games, cleaning, reading books, watching movies, and sleeping.  I honestly don't have one thing to complain about.  I feel very, very blessed.

Poor Nana (Grandma Duncan).  I pray for her every day.  I think about her often.  She is one of the most amazing people in the world.  A few weeks ago she slammed her finger into a door.  It smashed the nail and the doctors had to remove the nail.  She is on antibiotics and has to go back to the hospital every few days to make sure it is doing well and isn't infected.  Poor Nana.  I feel like she has experienced so many hardships this past year.  I wish that I lived closer so that I could be there with her.  With the Pandemic, the borders are closed, so I wouldn't be able to visit her anyway.  I am so incredibly grateful that our family was able to make the trip to Canada last year, before all of the craziness started.

I miss church.  I will not take it for granted again.  I will not take it for granted the opportunity that we had to meet with those of the same faith and discuss the principals of the gospel.  I miss it so much.

We met Mason's friend, Max, and Caitlyn's friend, Charlotte (and their Grandma, Cathy) at Apollo Park today.  It was SO nice for the kids to spend some time with their friends from school.  And I loved talking to Cathy again.  I talked to her every day when we picked up the kids from school (she often picked up her grand kids), and we even met up at a pumpkin patch once and we went to their house for a play date another time.  She is just an easy person to talk to and I truly enjoy talking to her.  Jon always says that I get along with "old ladies" better than people my own age...and I think he's right.  I genuinely enjoy talking to older women.  I find them very wise and I love learning from them.

Jon jokes that he goes to bed at night sleeping next to me and wakes up in the morning sleeping next to William.  This is a true story 99.9% of the time.  Our little William still thinks he's a baby and he still needs Mom at night.  I don't mind it.  I know that, all too soon, he will not want to have anything to do with me and I want to enjoy it while I still can.  Mason asked me to cuddle him today and, of course, I dropped everything so that I could cuddle him.  There are definitely not many more days where Mason will want to cuddle with me.  Oh, being a Mom is the absolute best thing in the whole entire world and I feel so blessed to have such an opportunity in this life.  So many women are not given the opportunity to bear children in this lifetime.  My heart aches for them.  I feel like being a mother is one of the main reasons that I came to this Earth.  I sure hope that I'm not failing at my one job.