Monday, February 25, 2013

recap: the weekend

I live in a winter wonderland.  More snow!

I also live in a world where my card-reader won't be read, so I have not been able to upload any pictures from my camera.  I have LOTS.  There will be a barrage of blogging when the computer cooperates.

This morning Paul Potts was singing Christmas music in the car and it didn't feel a bit strange until I thought about it being February 25th.  Seriously?!?  How did THAT happen?  One of these years our February snows will coordinate themselves with the December holidays.

We were delighted to have Enrique home for less than 24 hours.  He brings fun to a new level when he's around.  He wrangled the crew, took them to the mall (for his new running shoes) and had them all playing "the train game" (aka Ticket to Ride) after feeding them Enrique stew for dinner.  Sans parents.

The Mister and I attended the temple on Saturday afternoon in honor of our niece Naomi, who will be leaving on a mission to Lyon, France in May.  It was good to be there, good to see her (she flew home for a weekend from BYU) and also good to spend time with her family.  We were up and out the door early on Sunday (in the middle of a snowstorm) so that we could attend church in Connecticut to hear Naomi's brother Derek's homecoming talk.  He recently returned from Rio de Janeiro Brazil.  He'll be joining Yonder at BYU in April.

We got home after a very long day of driving yesterday to find that we couldn't get into our driveway.  The plows had us nicely barricaded us OUT with a heavy, wet wall of snow.  "This, dear daughters" (said Mr. Dub as we unloaded our gear and began to plod down the snow-covered driveway) "is why we wear coats and BOOTS on winter Sundays."  We do have a lengthy driveway.  Especially when it's cold and snowy and dark, and we're all dressed in our Sunday best.  Thankfully for us, we have a friend with a plow who was willing to lend a hand, er, plow and Vanessa slept in the garage instead of the neighbor's driveway.

I finished reading my first recreational novel of 2013.  It's been such a long time I can't even remember the last book I read.  This one was good.  I will admit to grimacing more than once at the language.  A novel about teenage angst, cancer, life, love and death; I will also admit to not wanting to read The Fault in Our Stars because, why would I want to read a book about cancer anyway?  In the end, I forgive the language because (sadly) I am acutely aware of how prevalent its use is among teenagers today.  I also moved beyond the cancer downer because the book really isn't so much about cancer, as it is about relationships.  I found myself laughing out loud at several quirky comments.  I also found myself really liking Augustus Waters for his sense of adventure and his drive to make others happy.  PG-13+ and two thumbs up from me.

Last night we had Family Home Evening. Morning Boy taught the lesson.  To prepare, he picked a page of scripture by first opening to his favorite verse (Matthew 25:40), and, reasoning that since we all knew he knew that one very well, he'd teach about this other section (pointing to the adjacent page).  It was fairly random, (he disagreed) but on he went, and the eight-year-old ended up teaching a marvelous lesson about The Parable of the Ten Virgins, complete with a 12-question quiz at the end to discourage participants from not paying attention.  My favorite moment of the evening came at the end of the question round when he announced Bonus Questions! to break the tie.  "These, he said, will be worth two points instead of one, because the answers weren't found in the reading."  He then looked at team RED (Mr. Dub and Rooney) and asked "What is a Virgin?"

I love having teenagers AND an eight-year-old.



3 comments:

Michael Stokes said...

and?

Let me quess, Rooney answered as my friend was trying to formulate an appropriate age spanning answer

:-)

Unknown said...

Of course we had already covered that topic in lesson prep; the lesson giver knew ahead of time that a virgin was an unmarried female.
Duh.

shirlgirl said...

And, the answer is- - - - - - -?

Good answer, too! Sorry your computer and camera aren't complying. Miss your pictures. And, I can't imagine trudging down your driveway that needs to be plowed and the entrance to it. Don't you just love the plows that block you in with all that heavy wet stuff? No fun! And, another one is on the way. I've had enough of winter already. We're making up for last year, that's for sure.