Recently my youngest daughter started taking a tumbling class.  On the way home, I noticed a rock-filled field full of wild sunflowers blooming very cheerfully.  I don't think anyone planted them. The flowers are growing in one of those ugly fields next to an industrial-type building with no landscaping or anything.  What you need to especially understand is that these sunflowers have had next to no water for this entire hot summer.  We had exactly one rainstorm in August that gave us about 1/2 inch of rain.  That was it for all of June, July, and August with highs in the 90's or even 100 most of those days. But somehow these sunflowers have not only grown but blossomed and thrived despite having almost no water and a serious lack of fertile soil.  They are truly resilient flowers. It's a good lesson for me as I think about the adversity I face and will face in the future.  How can I be more resilient and teach my children resilience?

After a summer of being far apart, we all gathered together over Labor Day weekend for a family reunion.  Everett came home from Armenia, David and Stephanie drove from Louisiana, Lincoln and MiCayla came back from Houston, and Garrett and AnnaSue came home from spending the summer in Latvia.  We were definitely far-flung this summer! We drove up to the rental house in Bountiful up in the foothills on Friday afternoon.  All the married couples got their own bedroom and there were enough other beds for everyone else too.  Each couple was in charge of a meal and I put my teenagers in charge of Saturday morning breakfast. On Friday evening, we played some fun games--Werewolf, 4 to a Couch and maybe something else I can't remember. We started an Assassin game with water guns.  The hot tub was quite popular. Saturday morning we went on a hike not too far away.  When the younger children got tired of hiking, I stayed with them at a little creek where the...

Right after I got back from Louisiana, we celebrated my husband's and daughter's birthdays (they share a birthday).  Then, the day after that, my husband took my youngest son and oldest daughter on a trip to southern Utah.  They visited Bryce Canyon and did a hike there.  Then they drove to Escalante and camped.  The next day they rented a Jeep (the dirt road is brutal on cars as we learned from sad experience) and drove out to Lake Powell via Hole in The Rock, hiking a few slot canyons on the way.  They came back to their campsite that night and then left for home the following morning. Bryce Canyon: Slot canyons: Lake Powell in the background: The Jeep they rented in the background: On the last day, they drove to Upper Calf Creek Falls which is near Boulder, Utah, and took a plunge into the very cold water.  Talmage couldn't figure out why Susanna was hesitating so she informed him, "Because my pre-frontal cortex i...

On August 18th, our missionary son came home from his mission in Armenia.  He was originally supposed to come home on September 15 but the mission president recognized how hard it is to come home and not be able to start school for several months because you have just barely missed the beginning of the semester.  So he sent home about 7 missionaries a few weeks early so they could all start school. Here they are at the airport in Armenia together: Everett's travel day was unbelievably long.  Armenia is 10 hours ahead.  He got up at 7am on Friday, August 17th (9pm on Thursday for us).  Then he didn't sleep at all on Friday night because they had to go to the airport at 2am on Saturday morning and he was busy talking to all his missionary buddies.  They flew to Vienna at 4am, then had a long layover.  Their next flight was to Chicago arriving 1pm or so.  They had a long 6-hour layover there which became even longer when the flight was dela...