Jensen Update Sun, Jan 1, 2017, 9:43 PM
We had a fun week! Tuesday morning I did an exercise swim with mom. Alicia took their kids and Janelle, Jaiden, and Jenna to see the new Disney movie, Moana. They enjoyed it! Tuesday night we all went out to eat at Red Robin with Grandma and Grandpa Westra (thank you!!) and Shane and Alicia's family and Derek and Danielle's family. The other families couldn't come. Jared spent the day with his friend, AJ Soderquist. He picked him up in the morning and they went to a trampoline place called airborne and then hung out at his house.
Janika started coming down with a cold. She had a date tonight with someone from her mission -- Erik Rasmussen. She said that she barely had a conversation with him on their mission, but said that they had a fun time. They went to temple square and then out for hot chocolate. She said that it was fun. The rest of us watched a Christmas movie at Grandma's.
Wednesday Rick, Jared, Janelle, and Josh headed for home so that Rick and Jared could get back to work on Thursday. Janika, Jaiden and Jenna and I went to the Lehi Legacy Center to take the kids swimming. We met Derek and Ani and Layla there. The layout is almost identical to the recreational center we have in Washington City. Janika didn't swim but just watched and studied her Spanish Book of Mormon. The kids had a great time. After swimming with the kids for a while Jenna decided to change her clothes and hang out with Janika and so I was able to go to the lap pool and swim laps for 35 minutes.
Tonight was busy taking down Christmas decorations at Mom and Dad's. Janika had a blind date -- someone from her friend, Kiara's mission. It was pretty much a repeat of her last night's date -- temple square and hot chocolate! Her cold was a little worse though and she enjoyed last night's date more than this one.
Thursday the kids and I packed up and headed back to St. George. It was fun to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's for several days with Shane and Alicia's family! At home the kids couldn't wait to call their friends and soon all of the neighbor kids were over. Rick went to work today and also accepted two interpreting jobs today. Jared worked tonight.
We were really sad to see that VidAngel is being forced to close due to the lawsuits against them. We really loved being able to watch filtered movies!! It is just sad that we don't have the right to watch movies in a way we are comfortable with. Of course we can choose not to watch them at all, but Vidangel really expanded out viewing choices and now we are really limited trying to find movies with no inappropriate content.
Rick found a good deal on a car (an Infinity) that he thought would work for Janika. They had just gotten it and it was in their shop and so he couldn't test drive it yet, but they got his information and said he could test drive it the next morning. He came home and did a bunch of research on that particular car. Then Friday morning the Honda dealership called and said that someone else came in last night and purchased the car -- without test driving it first. He was frustrated and felt like they sold it right from under him.
We called Scott for tax advice. We have always gotten tax refunds in the past, but with the extra money that Rick and I made from interpreting this past year, we will owe about $4000.00 in taxes. Rick had arranged to have more taken out of his checks this past year in anticipation of this, but it wasn't enough. So that is stressful, because even though we had budgeted for pretty much everything else, we hadn't budgeted for that.
I was feeling a little under the weather today. Janika cooked some freezer meals and made two casseroles for dinner -- one gluten free and one not. They were really good! Her friends, Tori and Emme came over to practice their musical number for Sunday. Shane and Alicia arrived with their family around 7:30 or so. The cousins were excited to have more playtime together. They made up beds on the floor of the basement for all of the cousins to sleep and Shane and Alicia slept in Janelle's room.
Saturday Rick went to interpret for a sealing at the temple and then met Shane and the girls to do baptisms. They said that it was really crowded and they had to wait an hour to do them. Meanwhile Janika had wanted me to go with her to do initiatory and so we went at the same time, but they said they weren't taking any more people to do initiatory that day and so we decided to wait for the next endowment session instead -- which didn't start for another half hour. It was the third new movie -- the one Derek was talking about with the bald Satan and the blonde Eve. I think I have only seen that movie once before and it was a while ago and so it was nice to have something different. We didn't get home until 2:00 and so it ended up taking most of the day.
Tonight we had shish-kabobs for dinner with chicken, peppers, onions, and zucchini. They were really good! Then we started preparing food for our annual New Year's Eve party. The kids still invited friends over even though their cousins were here. They played games and we had our traditional dance party! We fixed cocktail sausages and chips and salsa and guacamole, and a cheese ball (I liked this recipe better than the one Janika made at Mom's -- it had one ranch packet mix instead of two and added grated cheddar cheese. Recipe: 2 packages of cream cheese, 2 cups grated cheddar cheese, one ranch packet mix, and green onions. The friends brought treats to share -- including gluten free chex muddy buddies!
Rick made his "special drink" and we counted down to new years. Josh wasn't feeling well and fell asleep on the couch before midnight. Jenna went to bed (against her will) around 11:15 p.m. and the other kids made it to midnight and then Rick brought the friends home. We were tired!!
Sunday -- we were glad that we had 1:00 church after our late night. Janika and her two friends sang a beautiful arrangement of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" and "If You Could Hie to Kolob" only Janika changed the words on "If You Could Hie to Kolob" to "Oh How Lovely Was the Morning." It was really beautiful!! Our neighbor, Tabby Phillips, just returned home from her mission and it was her homecoming today and so the musical number was perfect -- especially since the girls are friends with Tabby.
Primary went quite smoothly considering it was the first Sunday with the new classes and teachers. I taught Sharing Time and it went well. We started up a new CTR Challenge with the kids. Janika had been asked to teach the combined Young Women today. She said it went really well. Janika said, "I think I know one of the reasons I haven't gotten dates here." She said that the Young Women's president had been busy lining up dates for one of the other girls (home from college for the break) but said that she knew that Janika had a "significant other." Janika quickly clarified that she didn't and that she was "very single" and so the leaders suddenly started suggesting people she could date! Later this afternoon Janika received a text from the Young Women's President's son asking her on a date for tomorrow!
Janika's mission president told her that she isn't allowed to accept dates through text and she is trying to follow his advice and so she texted back and said that he would need to call her! This is the third guy this has happened with so far. So he called her and they are going to lunch tomorrow. She hasn't met him before, but it is an awesome family!!
Rick started coming down with a cold and left church early. We had a wonderful dinner of barbecued salmon, strawberry spinach salad, shrimp (for those who like it -- I don't!), vegies, cocktail sausages, and rice. Yum! Our kids will be sad to have the Westra's leave tomorrow!! They have had loads of fun together!!
Tuesday we will be bringing Janika back to Snow. I am nervous because I checked her records on her Snow College website today and there seems to be a discrepancy concerning her scholarship. It shows her accepting and receiving the award the year she was there -- and then accepting the award for the next year. But since she was going on a mission she deferred the admission and scholarship for that year. But the website shows the money for the year she was gone as being unused and shows no money there for this semester. Hopefully it is just a clerical error and just needs to be transferred over, but it also looks like there may have been another scholarship renewal form that was supposed to be filled out. One place on the website says that scholarships need to be renewed each year before March 1st for the following year, but another place says it is an automatic renewal depending on the scholarship as long as grades are above 3.7 (which hers are) and we are almost positive that her scholarship is the top one (the one that is automatically renewed).
I spent hours searching information on their website and looking for the original scholarship contract and can't find it anywhere. I have a binder where I keep all of her college information, but it only has a copy of the scholarship certificate in it -- not the original letter with the information and contract on it. I can't find it anywhere. It had been sent to her through e-mail but she must not have printed out a copy. We scoured her e-mail over and over looking for the original letter and it is nowhere to be found. Snow is closed tomorrow and then Tuesday is when we go up to drop her off, so pray for us that we can get it all sorted out!
Wendy
No comments:
Post a Comment