Weekend

In the same incomprehensible way that Mark takes PE classes when it isn't mandated, he chose to go camping with the scouts on Friday night.  It was the 12-13 year old boys who were going but the leader invited Mark and another boy Josh to join them and they went.

But it's January...and you have a bed here....

Didn't matter.  He wanted to go.  I had to make a concerted effort not to project my feelings of foreboding about the endeavor.

Coincidentally, Friday we got our first real snow of the season.

Mark said their tent collapsed three times during the night because of the snow (over a foot and it snowed the entire time).  He seemed to have fun though.  It was a Klondike campout and the boys participated in a sled race.  Mark and Josh were in the front, powering the sled for the littler boys.  This could be why they were invited....

As for Adam and me, we went to dinner in our kidless state on Friday night.  My favorite dates are dinners because I like to just sit across from Adam and talk about all the things.  And eat garlic rosemary fries.

Saturday afternoon Mark came home cold and tired and starving.

Adam made him a big bowl of chili and every little thing was all right.

It was a happy weekend because Adam and I had two dates.  We left Mark to hang out with Jack (our neighbor) and Adam and I had tickets for the Hale Theater on Saturday night.  We saw Dear Ruth which we loved.

Emma was working.  She is the patron saint of our going to the theater.  She gets us the tickets and chooses good seats and then directs us to the seats.  I love watching her work.  She is this serene center of helpful calm and competence.

When Emma saw Dear Ruth at the door meeting, which is where the ushers see the play for the first time, she noticed they pronounced New Haven wrong.  The actor put the emphasis on Haven when it should have been on New.  Emma mentioned it to her friend Rose.  Rose said, "You should tell my mom."

Rose's mom just so happened to be the producer of the show.  I noted with satisfaction that when we watched the show, New Haven was pronounced correctly.  It's where Emma Jayne was born.  She knows how to say it.

Sunday after church and visiting teaching and time spent on a futile search for holes in the Beckstead side of my family history (I want to find unfinished work and I can't and that should be a good thing but it still disappoints me), the kids came over.

They bring noise and laughter and we spend the time talking over each other and cracking each other up.  It's chaotic and fun and I need to plan simpler meals because being together is the thing.

After they left all was calm.  I pulled out my new little white noise machine that I'd ordered.  (Mark has one and I aspire to be like Mark in more ways.)  Mark's favorite sound is ocean waves so he pushed that button and read the scriptures to us with the background of ocean waves.

We were reading in Alma 31 and when Mark read in verse 3

Now the Zoramites had gathered themselves together in a land which they called Antionum, which was east of the land of Zarahemla, which lay nearly bordering upon the seashore...

He paused for effect so we could hear the waves crashing.