Odds & ends from a busy week

(Content alert: cute kid (i.e., Little Great-Nephew, with face hidden) photo at the bottom of this story. :)  ) 

• Poor dh has had quite a week. BIL was on vacation -- but can't sit still (we don't know how he's ever going to retire...!) -- and Older Nephew was getting ready to move to his new house yesterday. Dh was recruited to help out with various errands, including several trips back & forth to the new house (an hour's drive from us, one way) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, plus helping out with the actual move on Saturday (loading & unloading boxes). He's exhausted! 
• Younger Nephew came to help out yesterday too, having just passed two weeks since his second vaccination. He & his wife have been laying pretty low during this pandemic -- even more so than me & dh, I think! -- but dh got a big hug from him (as well as his brother -- and dh gave them both hugs from me) and he held his nephew (our LGN) for the first time in months. Hopefully we will see more of them all now!  
• In between helping BIL/Older Nephew, we went to the mall (for the first time in 17 months!)... twice in two days! -- first to get me a new cellphone (as recounted here) -- and then back again the next day, because we noticed that I was not getting any of the text messages that dh was sending me. (They WERE, however, showing up on my old cellphone -- go figure?)  The guy at the phone store said he'd never seen anything like it in 14 years of working there (and it WOULD happen to ME, right?).  After almost an hour, he finally figured out that it was an issue with the Samsung proprietary messaging app. Couldn't figure out how to get it to work properly, but he downloaded the Google messages app (which was what I had on my old phone and like better anyway), and it's worked like a charm since then. (I'd already downloaded the Google calendar app myself because I didn't like the one that came with the phone.) Technology, oy...!  
• Still getting used to my new phone (a Samsung vs the Motorola that I had for my last two phones). It's way more complicated in a lot of ways. The camera works differently in a lot of ways too... but I must admit, it's a better camera overall and takes amazing photos!  
• We also spent Thursday morning with SIL & Little Great-Nephew (and the dog).... :) 
• ...(plus the usual weekly laundry, housecleaning and grocery shopping...!)
• I haven't watched too much of the Olympics from Tokyo yet, but I had CBC's live coverage of the opening ceremonies on TV as I cleaned house on Friday morning. It all seemed a little flat and muted and odd -- the vast, near-empty stadium, the drastically reduced numbers of masked athletes marching behind their countries' flags. 
• Still, I did get kind of emotional. I always do (especially when I see our Canadians), but there was an added layer this time, thinking of how hard these kids have worked to get there, and how very different their Olympic experience will be from past Olympics, and from what they've imagined and dreamed of. I felt bad for them, and for the families who can't be there to support them, as they normally would. 
• Still -- it's the Olympics, and they're there!  And even if it's different, it's certainly an historic experience -- and they're still a part of it. 
• Mel posted about the Olympics today, and I used part of this post as my response. 

• 

  Little Great-Nephew (20 months old), dh & the dog. 
  Climbing steps at the park near BIL's house last week. :)