Two naps again
Friday morning started very early for Dee, with an 8:30am dentist visit across town. Following the suggestions from Google Maps, she left at 7:30am to take the bus, which got her there by 9am with all the traffic. Usually Google is better than that! The dentist was busy and didn't really have time to fit her in at that point, so they just rescheduled. Dee writes: I was fine with it, but they were apologetic and offered me a coffee (no thanks) and a pastry (yes!) that they had from the dentist's birthday the day before. On her way out the door, Anna the dental tech mentioned the nice open market around the corner, so Dee got to do some fun shopping for a while before heading directly to the Institute. My wife loves a bargain, and she found some very good deals for herself!
Meanwhile, I stayed home for the morning, with a short trip to Conad to buy a few items of produce, including a big bag of oranges for the dinner that evening. I climbed the stairs a couple of times, which I hadn't done in awhile with my cold, but then by mid-morning I was really tired and took a nap. We live in amazing times: I used the Amazon Echo in our bedroom to provide background noise ("Alexa, play brown noise") and to set an alarm to wake me up. When I got to the Institute, I was still zonked, so after a bit of lunch and lesson prep, I took a second nap for over an hour, this one a very deep sleep that really helped. This cold has gone on long enough, and I am tired of being tired.
There was a nice turnout for Seminary class: seven kids, though not quite as large as some weeks. I taught a little lesson on some interesting facts discovered refuting certain criticisms of the Book of Mormon over the years, and then we played doctrinal mastery bingo, which the kids really like. Several of them know their scriptures quite well now. Dee made candy crack for them: saltine crackers, covered with butter and sugar and then baked. It was very well received.
As usual on Fridays, Dee spent the entire afternoon and evening preparing for dinner for over twenty people. At Matteo's request (he leaves on his mission Tuesday, so this was his "last supper"), we had sausage, pancakes, and oranges. My wife found an incredible recipe that makes very fluffy pancakes (it includes vinegar!) The kids could put maple syrup, Nutella, and/or whipped cream on their pancakes, and they used every possible combination. She had 70 sausage links pre-cooked and kept warm in the crockpot, and an oven full of fresh pancakes with more coming off the griddle as people ate. we had more than 100 pancakes for the twenty-two people The electric griddle is perfect for the pancakes, making eight at a time. She had many volunteers helping in the kitchen.
The classroom was packed, standing room only at the end. We finished the book of Ether, chapters 6-15, with most of the time spent on chapter 12. There was good discussion and reasonable reverence. We had six nonmembers present during the evening, four in my class and two helping in the kitchen. It was an awesome evening, the biggest crowd in a while. The place was full to bursting, and the energy was palpable.
Here is a final photo of us with Matteo, who will spend two years in Calgary, Canada. He is a wonderful kid.
My class ended a bit early, so we actually got home by about 10pm, which is earlier than usual for a Friday night. It will be nice to have some down time at home Saturday, with a lot of stuff to prepare for Sunday.
