It has been a long time! Christmas was a success! Trying to get my boys' faces away from a screen has proved hard, especially since Santa gave each boy a Nintendo DS. If only they could make money playing video games for hours...They put down their games with crossed eyes and glazed expressions. I try to find things for them to do that are as interesting, but I have a feeling that I come up short. It reminds me of one of my favorite professors from college, Dr. Johnstonneaux, who taught middle school English for years and years. He said that if he had hung naked from the chandelier in class, he would only have been able to hold his students' attention for 3 minutes max. I've felt that way with my own class and with my own children.
Mikayla got a Russian dwarf hamster that she named Mr. Ages from the movie The Secret of Nimh. He looks just like him. He has a little white mustache and old man eyebrows that make me laugh. He's bitten Kayla and brought blood a few times, but she still loves him. She has a little schedule for him taped to the outside of his cage. She gives him time for exercise, time that she reads to him, time for him to sleep. She will be 11 on the 11th of February and she has reminded me several times that she will be in Young Women in a year. My heart squeezes when I think of her plowing through her youth with a single-minded determination to get it behind her.
I was able to do a session for the first time at the Oquirrh temple. It is much smaller than the Jordan River temple, but makes up for it in its beauty and the feeling I have when I go inside. We can see three temples from our house. Four on a very clear day. Where else in the world is this possible?
