We’ve had some funny and sacred things happen in our family lately. The sacred was that my son Valor got to be ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood on Sunday. Our grandparents and cousin came for the blessed event. Valor, of course, came too by leaving his college abode four hours away. This is no small feat when he doesn’t have a car to drive anymore.  He arranged his schedule so he could have his father ordain him. Next month he will turn his papers in so he can be called on a mission as he is turning 19 in September.The weekend with him happened too quickly. It included a date/or outing with his sister and friends to a dance for some homeschooler’s 16th birthday party clear out in Herriman. That’s the homeschoolers’ curse, according to my friends at the moms’ retreat I went to the same time of the dance. Our kids have friends all over the Wasatch Front and up into Idaho and down to St. George. I have been meaning to ask him if it counted as a date or just a group outing.

The funnest time was when we all gathered around my bed on Saturday night to share fun stories and news about friends and family. As we basked in our family togetherness, I thought this must be what the Duggars feel every night when they gather in the boys’ bedroom for their family Bible time. It felt like heaven. This is what the inspirational evenings feel like that Oliver DeMille writes about.

Here are the funny things:

• my husband told the story of when he last went to Present Yourself, a Kirk Duncan/ 3 Key Elements (seehttp://3keyelements.com) event. Part of the event is that you get to get up on the stage and be a rock star by singing whatever song you want in a costume. Someone came up to my husband after the event and complimented him on his singing, by saying, “I really enjoyed hearing you sing. I can tell that you have been operatically trained.” Now, if you know my dh, you know that he has never felt confident about his voice and doesn’t sing in any choirs, in fact he was asked to leave one, and has never had voice training. This story made me laugh the hardest I have laughed in a long time. I am laughing again right now as I type this! Dh wants to learn how to sing, and I am encouraging him to join his home teachee’s male choir, because “We will train you.”

• on the way home from our spring parents’ meeting for our commonwealth school on Saturday night, we were in the car with Valor, because of, well, it’s a long story involving car logistics of having different activities for family members different places on a Saturday and only two cars. Anyway, we got off the freeway and were at the top of the off-ramp, waiting at a red light. We were stopped next to a car full of teenagers. First dh asked Valor if he knew any of them, thinking maybe went Valor went to seminary with some of them. As he got a closer look he decided they weren’t the type that would know Valor, because of the rowdy music they were playing and the long hair. Dh husband rolled down the window and started rocking out to the music. They smiled at him and offered, “Want to race?” At the end of the sentence, the light turned green and dh floored the pedal without saying a word and left them in the dust. I wish I could have seen the look on their face! It was funny to feel we were in a roadster mini-van driven by a 53 old guy who was almost old enough to be these teens’ grandfather, complete with my LLL license plate frame that declares, “Mothering, a proud profession.” We stopped at the next light, and they caught up to us, and my husband stuck his had out the window and made the “hang ten” gesture while they all laughed.

• the next day we were getting ready for church. All was going well and we were actually going to be to church early, a rare event for our big family. We got out to the car at 10 minutes to and started calling to the little kids to get into the car. No answer. We looked and looked. Finally, we found that they had scattered to the vacant field next to our yard, a favorite playground. They were covered with yellow stains. It looked like they had been frolicking in mustard seeds! It turned out they had been rolling around in the dandelions and throwing them at each other. We quickly changed their clothes, but we got to church late. Usually when they go outside, especially to the field, without asking, they lose the privilege of playing outside for a day or two. But then they just end up watching DVDs. I would rather have them play outside, so the consequence was that they lost screen time for three days. Our house has been really messy as they haven’t been vegging in front of the tube.

• While everyone else was off having fun Friday night, me at my moms’ retreat, dh at a seminar on how to be a millionaire, and Valor and Virtue at the birthday party/dance, 14 year-old Honor came home from his ballroom dance class to discover he was locked out. I forgot to tell Valor when he left not to lock the house since Honor doesn’t have a key. On my way to the festivities of the moms’ retreat, from the temple, I stopped at my mom’s home to get my phone that I had left there to charge. I was locked out as well! I had left my younger kids there to be babysat by my mom while I was at the moms’ retreat, and they had all gone to a concert for their cousins. I totally guessed at the number combination to open the garage door, and I was right! So I broke into my parents’ home to get my bag of clothes and phone, and checked my messages. Sure enough, Honor was locked out. I had had a sinking feeling about it in the temple. So I called and told him how to break in. It was rather embarrassing that I had to call the bishop’s home, next door, to get to him, as that is how he had called me.