Bugsy caught a second wind early this evening after a second nap so we are up late. Everyone else is in bed (except for Princessa, who did not catch a second wind but wants tp think that she did). That’s OK. We are previewing a DVD my awesome brother and his wife made of the past twelve years of family vacation/reunions, entitled “Cousins’ Adventures.” The rest of the family has to wait until tomorrow to see it for Family Home Evening. Hee-hee. We got it almost two weeks ago but I gave it to Cowboy to carry into the house from the car after we got it and he promptly lost it somewhere in the boys’ bedroom. It just resurfaced yesterday. I figured it would, despite the near black holeness of this bedroom shared by so many boys. Lots of times when I lose something I don’t panic, knowing that it will turn up eventually. Usually it does.

Thursday we went to the parents’ orientation for our Commonwealth School for the 2011-2012 school year. This is a private, but totally affordable, school for kids who are transitioning into scholar phase or doing scholar phase. At the meeting I found out that my friend Aneladee Milne has even more great things hatching
! She is doing a pilot project at our Commonwealth School, SDLA, (see http://sdliberacademy.com) to test LEMI’s latest offering, a self-directed scholar phase project. My daughter is going to do it and it sounds so inspiring and life-changing to help youth find their missions.

She also  shared that she went to a conference on education the previous Saturday sponsored by the Sutherland Institute. She got to sit next to Janeen Brady. OK, I am already jealous. Aneladee shared some fascinating things about agency-based education, BYU-Idaho, and Neil Flinders. I am going to have to blog separately about that later.

Yesterday my dh and I went to the temple. We both did initiatory work for names that I personally found, and my sons and daughter had already done the baptisms and confirmations for. This is the first time that together we have done initiatory work for names that I found. It felt really good. I see these names on paper and wonder about the women. Who were they? What were their struggles and their joys? I hope to meet them sometime in the next life and learn all about them.

Tomorrow is Valor’s first day of college. I am so excited for him! I have waited for this moment for so many years. I so wish I could be there to witness a George Wythe College class in action. It would look pretty funny for a mom accompanying her son to his first day of college. He’s lucky that 250 miles separate us or I would be there. I never got to take him to kindergarten or any other public school class since I have always homeschooled him. He’s been feeling rather homesick after being gone two weeks. I think having college homework to do will cheer him up, or at least make him so busy he won’t have time to be homesick. He’s also still looking for a job. If anybody down in Cedar City has work for him, let me know. It’s funny that one of his roommates is the son of a La Leche League Leader, like I am. They can swap stories about going to LLL meetings when little and which mom got the weirdest phone calls that they overheard.

Friday night we went to the annual block party/barbecue our neighbors’ put on almost every year. They are the type of neighbors everyone would love. They keep their yard so immaculate looking. The wife used to be my visiting teacher and she would always give me little gifts and notes almost every month. Words are my love language but gifts are a close second. They are just so full of neighborly kindness. My husband (and Valor before he moved away to college) home teaches them. It would be nice for them to get presents from my husband their home teacher but instead they are always giving presents to my dh..

I remembered to eat my 2 T of coconut oil before the barbecue. It worked. I could only eat 1 turkey burger, 1 helping of my fabulous coleslaw, and 1 small serving of my neighbor’s corn pudding. That’s it. I didn’t even want to eat any more! The bishop’s wife kept on insisting that I try her sinful brownies with marshmallow and fudge frosting. I just kept politely refusing and she finally backed off. It is so fantastic to not even feel tempted to eat brownies. What a breakthrough! This coconut oil is so a godsend!

After the barbecue we hustled off to a free outdoor concert in SLC at the Brigham Young Historic Park featuring Voice Male (see http://voicemalemusic.com) Every year we keep meaning to do more of these concerts. Last year we heard The Other Three Tenors and loved it. Another night we heard Sam Payne, a classmate from high school days, and his friend Cherie Call. They all sounded great. It is fun to find cheap dates!

Today in church I remembered to ask a new ward member the rest of the story of what he shared in his talk last week in sacrament meeting. I will call him Brother Young. BY’s talk was about following the voice of the Lord, your conscience, or the good voice that you hear in your head. I have been reading about this topic lately in a book called Following the Light of Christ into His Presence by John Pontius ( I finished the book today in fact! I highly recommend it. See http://followingthelight.org). This dear brother shared a story of when he was working at a bank in Provo as a teller while going to BYU. He had an impression to him to deposit $336 into a bank patron’s account, after he happened to notice that this patron, a young man, had next to nothing in his account. BY said that he obeyed, even though that was a lot of money for a starving student. The next day the young man came into the bank wondering where this money came from. It turned out that he was out of money and would have had to go home if not for this money that BY deposited. It was the exact amount of money the young man needed to pay his rent.

BY said that when when he was working at a different bank, three guys came to rob the vault. They pointed a gun to his head and his coworkers’ heads and threatened to kill them if they caused any trouble. They forced the manager to go to the safe at gunpoint. She normally had a hard time remembering where she put the keys. Imagine having to remember at gunpoint! BY shared that he had his whole life flash before his eyes. He humbly stated that he felt at peace, knowing he had lived a good life and that he was ready to meet his Maker. He said a mental prayer, asking God that he be the one to go if anybody had to be killed. He knew that his two coworkers were not ready to die. I felt the Spirit telling me that this was true.

Then he had the nerve to say that he wasn’t going to tell us the rest of the story! So I cornered him in church today to ask for the rest of it. He said that the robbers didn’t kill anybody, they did beat up the manager, enough that she had to take a month off to recover. She evnetually found the keys, and the bad guys grabbed some money and ran out. BY went to lock the doors and call the police. The robbers ran across the street and climbed over a fence to get into their getaway car. The exploding dye on the bait money kicked in though before they got to the fence. These guys robbed banks for 18 more months and then one of them was finally caught. BY’s mother was a corrections officer and got to put him in jail!

I love it when ward members share such fascinating stories in sacrament meeting that show people living gospel principles. You never know what rich stories are inside your fellow ward members. Another good reason to come to sacrament meeting!