Every October the kids get three days off from school.  It's a welcome break from the usual routine but I am usually very busy trying to get lots of jobs done along with extra activities. My main task for fall break is to take stock of everyone's clothes, switch out the summer clothes and see what we need for winter.  That's kind of boring but definitely necessary so we did that on Thursday. Then on Friday, we headed for Payson Canyon with my husband who took the day off.  In all our years of living in this area we've never done any recreating in Payson Canyon.  It turns out to be a nice place to visit. The first spot we visited was "Grotto Trail".  It's a very short hike with a waterfall at the end, perfect for small children.  Unfortunately we got a little ways down the trail and a DNR guy told us the trail was closed for a few hours because an aggressive moose had to be taken down and they were "harvesting" the moose.  I'm not sure t

This morning I was on the Internet when I really should have been getting ready to go run some errands but I came across a blog  http://www.dinneralovestory.com/   that talked about reading a book called The Secrets of Happy Families.   I'm not sure how good the book is after reading a negative review of it on Amazon.  What the blogger liked most from the book was learning about the "Do You Know" scale. The "Do You Know" scale is a list of questions made by some researchers to figure out how well children know their family history. These are questions like "Do you know where your parents met?"  Or, "Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?"  According to the results of the study, the more a child knows about his family's history "the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem, and the more successfully they believed their families functioned."  Clearly, genera

I don't consider myself a particularly creative person.  On the violin, I'm more than happy to play the notes someone else has written rather than make up my own.  I'm perfectly content to read books rather than write them.  I have to get my house decorating ideas from someone else.  And on and on... But life hands me lots of opportunities to be creative whether I want to or not.  Every summer and fall I get to be creative with the produce from the garden and fruit trees. Lately we've had a great abundance of tomatoes and apples.  So yesterday I made salsa to can.  I filled my 12-quart pot with peeled, quartered tomatoes and cooked it way down, adding onions, green peppers, jalapenos, and seasonings.  I can't say I particularly enjoyed the process so I'm writing this post to remind myself to plant fewer tomatoes next year! Tonight was apple night.  I made a spinach salad and added sliced apple to it.  Then I made an apple cake and we had hot applesauce w

From August 2006  On Monday, September 29, 2014, my grandpa, Francis Everett Broadbent, died.  It was the same day my little granddaughter (his great-great granddaughter) turned 1.  He was 92 years old and never expected to live that long.  He suffered from severe, life-threatening asthma for most of his life and had to move from New York to California because of it. He was also diagnosed with leukemia about 17 years ago and given one week to live without chemo.  The doctors didn't expect him to survive.  But obviously he did--he had more work to do.  He also had other health problems that made life challenging including almost complete deafness which made it very difficult to talk to people and go to church.  But he kept trying anyway.  He lost his wife in March of 2012 after caring for her for many years and because of those things, I think he was really happy to finally be released from this life. 2006:  It doesn't seem that long ago except my children were 8 year

Our mornings are intense.  We try to cram a lot into that time before school so that after school can be a little more relaxed and we can concentrate on homework and other activities.  Here's how my typical morning goes: I wake up at 5:30 most mornings.  (This morning unfortunately my bladder woke me up at 4:45 and I never went back to sleep).  I do this so I can pray and read scriptures without interruption and distractions.  But my body has adjusted to this and I am now incapable of sleeping in even if I wanted to.  I think this might be related to getting older. After personal study, I play hymns on the piano to get my children up to the living room so we can do our family scripture study.  It's not exactly high quality but we are consistent.  We try to start at 6:25. After family scriptures and prayer, it's 6:40 and the kids do their jobs while I make breakfast and my husband helps Camille get dressed and make her bed.  She should be able to do this by her