August "Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That"

Hi Guys!!!!  How are you?  Hope you are having an amazing week.  I am trying to find the positive in the week after hearing about the devastation that has taken place in the Redwood Forrest. I grew up in California for the first 10 years of my life, and I remember my parents taking me to the Redwoods when I was about 7!  My parents loved to hike and camp, so we were always trekking off to somewhere.  Yosemite was one of their favorite places to go.  I  fortunate to be able to the children to California and Yosemite about 5 years ago, but sadly we just didn't have enough time to squeeze in a visit to the Redwoods.  Our week has been jammed packed.  It was the children's first full week back to school, and getting up before the sun comes up is just plain cruel.  I am definitely not a morning person.  The children are really happy to be back in school even with the mirror restriction/limitations put in place because of COVID.   They also started face to face Karate again and I have noticed a huge difference in their ability to focus and they are sleeping so much better.  I heard from Winston this week and he is finally settled in his first city with his first companion.  He is living in the city of Leipzig.  He covers the northern part of the city.  They are even teaching a woman from the Congo.  Thankfully, they are not confined to their apartment, and so they are able to move about the city freely. He is really happy. I should hear more from him tomorrow. I know today he was able to go to church and meet the members of the congregation or as we call it ward, and afterward, they had a dinner invitation for dinner.  Besides going to school, we have been keeping ourselves busy.  Our neighborhood pool finally opened, so we have been going for nightly swims just before they go to bed.  We made some jam this week.  Yum, I tried a new recipe this week where you replace the packaged pectin with a grated green apple and I have to say it worked out much better.  We shared some with the neighbors.  We also started home German School this week.  The German School we attended on Saturdays will not be opening this year due to safety reasons, so I decided to teach the kids myself.  The neighbor girls decided they wanted to join us.  We read a story in German that they were all familiar with, we listened to a couple of German children songs, learned a little about German culture, and learned some vocabulary this week we focused on fruit. When I was done teaching they went over to the other girls' house and their mom did a cooking lesson with them where they made a cake.  This is starting to get a little long, but I don't want to forget their trip to the lake.  Well, I better get going.  I think we a going to go cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie.  We are pooped!  Have a wonderful week!

Elder Rothaermel and Elder Wandtke

flowers I picked from my garden

Strawberry Jam

Baking a cake and a break from German lessons

I forgot we learned about Chemistry this week. It's all about keeping busy.