It's A Wonderful Life

We are enjoying our major summer vacation right now - traveling through the midwest on our way to Nauvoo, IL.  Our church owns a historic town there where they have restored buildings and put on musicial productions to celebrate the sacrifices of the pioneers moving west in the mid 1800's. We are currently in Kansas City, MO where there are a few more church historical sites to visit.  If we gave our children the choice between Disneyland and Nauvoo, they would choose Nauvoo.  We take a big vacation like this every other year.  Every year would be too expensive!  Not to mention a lot of work. Just a few days before coming on this trip, in a moment of busyness, mostly due to getting ready to go on this vacation, Deanne said, "I need a vacation.".  I looked at her and she realized, "Oh yeah, we are going on one in a few days."  That just goes to show you that we don't view our family vacations as a "vacatio...

 Three teenaged boys... a pool... a 14 foot ladder.... and a ball.  Nevermind that it was 10:00 at night, Creed, Pierce and Casey were gong to have a "swim".         Landing in about 40 inches of water, they had to almost do belly flops or back flops to avoid hitting the bottom too hard.  After they were safely back inside they devoured an entire loaf of mom's homemade bread making toast.

Most people have stray dogs wander into their yard. We had a stray pony this week. The grass was greener....       Deanne loves having thick green grass.  But in her love for living things and as act of charity, she told Casey to go move the pony to another part of the grass - so he didn't eat it bare in just one spot.    

Last week Hyrum was asked if he would like to give a talk in Primary. Of course, he said yes but in Hyrum style it was with jumping and extreme excitement. Sunday morning we sat down on the couch, I with pen and paper and Hyrum dictated what he wanted to say. I am of the opinion that these talks are for my children and I should allow them to say what they want to say. If they get too off base I will redirect them back to the topic. Hyrum needed no redirecting. We wrote his talk and in church he got up and gave it with confidence. Here is Hyrum's talk. I added some ands and tos but otherwise this is in his own words. Jesus keeps us safe from bad guys. The bad guy is Satan. When we do bad things that Satan wants us to do then Jesus helps us repent. Jesus wants us to repent and have the Holy Ghost. Jesus wants to see us again. We need to follow Jesus so we can live with him and Gideon. Jesus wants us to be happy. Some ways to be happy are to clean our room and our bed. Go...