The Dog Walker's Amazing Halloween Display!

I know you have all been looking forward to seeing the Dog Walker's amazing Halloween display. He works so hard on it every year and with school and the new bit of concrete, it has been a real challenge getting it together this year.

He is still taking classes at Salt Lake Community College. I'm pretty sure I told you they renewed his scholarship for this year and he has been very busy. He began the semester with 13 credit hours, but just last week he started another 5-hour class that is more like a 10-hour class because it is only half a semester long. It puts him in a seat class all five days of the week (not counting the weekends) and forces him to stay focused on school which is good. He is a hard worker and he tries very hard!

He has also had some crazy rehearsals for the BSA 100-year Anniversary Celebration in the Conference Center next week. He was there for 4 hours tonight and 4 hours on Tuesday. He will spend pretty much his whole Saturday there too. That makes it difficult to get homework done, but so far he is managing although we finish up pretty late.

Bossy has some pretty amazing decorations at her house too! Maybe we can get her to post some too.

National Honor Society

I joined Princess at the high school today for a wonderful honor. She was inducted into the National Honor Society! I'm so proud of her for all of her hard work. She is very service-oriented and she has amazing grades. To be nominated she filled out the application, and got reference letters from several teachers. Then when her name was presented to the committee, she was accepted.

When I was in high school I always wanted to be part of the National Honor Society. My older siblings had been selected and since I had the second highest grades in my graduating class, and my dad was a teacher, I figured I would definitely be voted in. But they did things a little differently in our small-town school.

When I was a junior, my name was presented and one of the teachers blocked me. Yeah, that's right, all of the teachers voted every year and if even one teacher felt you shouldn't be in the society, your name was removed from the list. So our assistant basketball coach was the gym teacher for the girls. I think I told you before that I played my freshman and sophomore years, but then I decided that I wanted to take some college classes and I was working, so I didn't go out for the team. She was very angry with me for abandoning ship.

When she blocked me that first year, I thought for certain by the time I was a senior that she would have gotten over the fact that I had disappointed her. But I was wrong. I was the first Salutatorian in the recent history of Manti High School to have not been included in the National Honor Society (I say recent because Dad could only remember back about 20 years).

In fact, Dad was so angry that he refused to ever vote anyone into the National Honor Society again. It's much better the way they do it here. One teacher should not be able to negate a dozen teachers who think someone is awesome.

And Princess is pretty amazing! Congrats, my sweet girl, so proud of you!

More about Teach in Texas

A few days ago I got a letter in the mail from Teach's first companion. She and Teach were together for about 3 or 4 months before she was transferred. Teach spoke fondly of her and we learned that in all the time this sweet sister had been on her mission she had never received a care package. Well, the kids wouldn't have any of that. We immediately set about putting together a little box for her with some fun items. We decided we had better do one for Teach at the same time, so suddenly this became an FHE project.

We carefully wrapped jars of fresh apricot jam in new socks and we wrote a family testimony that we placed along with pictures in several copies of the Book of Mormon. We slipped in a few extra things including a couple of church CDs the Dog Walker burned for us.

We were pretty excited to receive her thank you note with this beautiful picture of Teach and her kind words about Teach I want to share with you.

Your [copies of the] Book of Mormon have been great. I am serving by the prisons and they have put some of them in the libraries there. They will change lives. And last of all I just want to let you know how much I love Sister Teach! She brought so much light and enthusiasm with her. I saw first hand people's hearts softened and changed by the spirit working through her. 

I know this is where the Lord needs her. She has such a pure and caring heart. She has such a strong testimony and close relationship with our Savior Jesus Christ. I know every one of you mean EVERYTHING to her and she loves you more than you know. Thanks for your influence, examples, and love.

Love, 
Sister Companion

That is so like Teach, sharing her love with companions and friends. I say "friends" because it is impossible to be in a room or even on the planet with her for more than a few minutes before feeling like her oldest and dearest friend. She is the sort of personality that just draws people in and makes them want to stay. I'll share some of her own words in a day or two, but just so you know I'm not biased...Teach really is changing the world... one heart at a time.

Dinosaur Nuggets and French Fries

You know Baby Doll had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was the third in a group of 3. I think I've told you before that we like to let the birthday child choose the food they get to eat. Well, it was just me and my sweetie at Sam's Club when I suggested to him that we needed to introduce Baby Doll to Dinosaur nuggets and french fries. "Don't forget the broccoli!" he reminded me.

This particular dinner goes way back and I mean WAY back in our family history. I believe Teach is the first one who ever had a dinosaur chicken nugget, but that led to the craziness we experienced at Baby Doll's birthday party. You see, this is one of those classic times when parents ENCOURAGE their kids to play with food! The broccoli is the trees and it is a very important part of the dinosaur world.

Never mind, it's too hard to explain. I'll just show you the pictures and you can decide for yourself if my family is actually crazy or not.

Just a little crazy, don't you think?