Early in November, John joined his scout troop in "Scouting for Food." In this activity, the boys distribute shopping bags throughout the neighborhood (the easy part), and then come back a week later to pick up the groceries that people have donated (the tough part, because the bags are so heavy!), and deliver them to a local food bank. We are grateful that John is developing such a great habit of service in his community.
Margie attended a couple interesting seminars this month. The first was a presentation and luncheon at Fox Hill Luxury Retirement Center. She was by far the youngest in attendance, but it was good to start getting a grasp on options for our aging parents, as well as ourselves in the not too distant future. The second was a presentation on wealth planning. I guess this means that Margie is actually an adult now, which she still sometimes finds hard to believe!
On November 5, Lyn took part in Young Women in Excellence, which is a formal evening celebrating the achievements of our young ladies at church. Lyn's entry for the "Faith" value (one of eight values that they work on throughout the year) was a short story titled, The 10 Minutes in the Cabin.
The next day, Margie signed the contract for the new front walkway. Woo hoo! They were supposed to start before Thanksgiving, but didn't do so until the beginning of December. More on that, as well as pictures, next month. That night there was an AVID family night. This is the organization and student success program that John participates in at school. Parents had a chance to get a taste of what their school day is like, including taking notes in a specific way, asking questions, thinking about a problem, and presenting findings. Unfortunately, John was sick, so Dan and Margie had to go without him. Still, it was fun and we learned a lot!
On November 7, Lyn attended the 16th birthday party for a boy from church. They had dancing and a live band at their house. Wow. I guess Lyn is officially a teenager now!
The next day, Dan and Margie hosted the "Tech Saturday" luncheon for the cast and crew of Anne of Green Gables. When Margie signed up, she thought it would be similar to LTA and that she would be buying and cooking all the food. Instead, she just planned the menu and they received parent donations. Easy peasy. That night we all attended a friend's Pie Party. This is similar to the party we host in March, where everyone brings a pie to share (Margie brought a pumpkin-brownie pie), but it doesn't have the math component (you know, "pi") like ours does. Still, it was a lot of fun!
The next week, Margie spent every day at the high school supervising lunch time ticket sales for Anne of Green Gables. It was a pretty slow week, since most just buy at the door. Having the booth there primarily serves as just advertising. Margie got a lot of knitting done that week!
Also that week, Margie attended a women's "Service Auction" at church. This is just for fun, and didn't involve real money, as our church frowns on fundraising events. The women earned dollars by taking a survey and counting up how many good deed-type things they had done in the last month or year, then "spent" that that money on items everyone had donated. Some of the items were goods, such as knit hats or a cake, and some of them were services, such as a haircut or massage. Margie donated couponing lessons as was delighted that there were a few people who were interested in learning this skill!
On November 13, we had a sit down meeting with the contractor we had selected for our remodel. It had been nearly a year since Margie first contacted them about the job, and she was beyond frustrated with the lack of movement, or even communication, about getting started. She didn't know whether to cry, scream, or punch someone! The contractor was super nice and apologetic. He had been dealing with another client that was demanding more of his time than he would like. He offered us a discount and promised to come back the following week, which he did, to poke holes in some of the walls so that he could better estimate and plan the kitchen portion of the project. We were hopeful that things would finally, actually get started.
That night was Anne of Green Gables opening night, but Dan and Margie didn't attend, because John was running sound at his school for Broadway Desserts, a music department fundraiser. He is really enjoying theatre tech work!
The next night, Margie attended a local high school production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The kids did a really great job in this "reverse cast" production--the traditional male leads were played by girls, and the traditional female leads were played by boys.
On November 15, two shows closed: Lyn's production of Anne of Green Gables at the high school, and Dan's production of Rocky Horror Show at LTA. We finally got to see Lyn's show, and the kids did a great job. Afterwards, Dan headed over to his closing night party.
The following week, Lyn auditioned for the One Acts--eight shows over two nights, all student directed. She got called back, which was exciting, but did not get cast. She was hoping to again work backstage, but it's such a barebones production that they really didn't need her. Boo!
Also that week, Margie again got to substitute teach seminary, the before-school religious education class Lyn attends. She brought in her most prized possession (a soccer ball--ask her the story sometime!) and talked about how the value of things in life is often based more on where it came from than the thing itself. This related to the direction and revelation the early saints received from God via the Prophet Joseph Smith. The value we place on this direction is not because of what they were told to do, but where it came from.
John had a lot of fun this week as he went on an AVID field trip to Northern Virginia Community College and got really excited about attending college (yay!). He also attended Tiger Night, which is a kids-only evening of fun and games at the Middle School. And a couple of days later he enjoyed playing games with his AVID Mentor on Mentor Day.
This year, we had a quiet Thanksgiving at Dan's sister, Debbie, and her husband Doug's house, as other family were out of town. Still, we had fun eating all the traditional goodies, expressing gratitude for all the amazing things (and people) in our lives, and playing a fierce game of girls against boys charades.
The month wrapped up with John participating in another boy's Boy Scout Eagle project, doing some landscaping at the local Chamber of Commerce. How nice that John was able to book end the month with service.
And that's it for November!
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