Last month, at BYU graduation, President Worthen gave a great talk .  He told the backgrounds of how the letter y in our alphabet came to be and also how the Y on the mountain came to be.  The story of how the Y on the mountain came to be is a story of rival classes trying to outdo each other and then fatigue because the project they attempted was too big.  But Pres. Worthen said this: "Symbols such as the letter  y  or the Y on Y Mountain ultimately gain meaning in our lives not so much because of their physical shape or presence but because of what we choose to make of them. Likewise, the meaning of events in our lives will be determined not so much by the events themselves but by how we choose to view and respond to them. And that in turn is shaped dramatically by the perspective from which we choose to view both the symbols and the events in our lives. " Yesterday for Memorial Day, we did our traditional Hike to the Y  I really l...

Recently Camille participated in the Hope of America program at BYU.  Because 5th graders study American history, this is one of the programs all our 5th graders have done.  Our oldest son did it twice for some reason--his school chose to involve other grades one year.  So this is our 10th time doing it.  I have to admit, I was not wild about this program when my oldest children did it.  It just seemed like a very large hassle for the parents since we have to drop off our children early (6:15), fighting lots of traffic, etc. and then stay or come back for the program which starts around 7:30 (7:45 this year) and not getting home until after 9pm after you find your child and fight all the traffic getting out--which is pretty late for children to be going to bed in my opinion.  With my older children, I had babies and toddlers to take care of at home and it really didn't seem like a good idea to go.  So I would drop off my child, then have my husband sta...

A few days ago, Scott and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.  I look back and realize I have grown and changed a lot, hopefully for the better.  I am grateful for the chance I have had to grow and change with my dear husband. It's been a great 30 years. At the graduation last week, we sat in a very familiar spot in the building where we first started getting to know each other:  the Harris Fine Arts Center at BYU where we were both music majors, Scott on trombone and me on violin.  We spent many hours going to concerts together, hanging around the building doing homework, rehearsing, etc. On Saturday night, the official day, we went out to eat and tried to remember all the vacations we took together as a family over the last 30 years.  We were able to remember a vacation for every year of marriage. After the restaurant we went to the temple where it all started.  The flowers were beautiful and it was a lovely evening.

Last week we got to go BYU graduation since my 2 sons and their wives were all graduating.  Well, technically, only the wives were finished because my two boys will finish in December, but they decided to walk together this April since there is only one graduation per year. It was great weather and overall, a really nice day.  In the morning was commencement.  Arthur C. Brooks got an honorary degree and gave a great speech. All the talks were good. Afterwards, we attended a luncheon at the Kennedy Center which was the college that AnnaSue was graduating and the convocation they were walking in.  The convocation followed in the deJong concert hall.  My one complaint of the day was that the reader only said AnnaSue's name and not the names of the other graduates.  It was very odd. It turned out that the other three graduates were supposed to give their cards to the reader but were not told to do so, so there was a lot of confusion and in...

Recently I decided to go with Camille's 5th grade class on a field trip to Camp Floyd.  It's amazing how much you can learn on these field trips!  I loved it, especially because somehow the bus ride wasn't as loud as it has been in the past and I enjoyed talking to the other adults there. Camp Floyd is about a 40-minute bus ride from where we live.  It was a temporary outpost for the US Army in 1858 when they came to Utah to make sure the Mormons weren't trying to start a rebellion against the US government.  Here's what I got off Wikipedia: Established in July 1858 by a U.S. Army detachment under the command of Brevet Brig. Gen.  Albert Sidney Johnston , Camp Floyd was named for then Secretary of War  John B. Floyd . The detachment consisted of more than 3,500 military and civilian employees, including cavalry, artillery, infantry and support units. This unit, the largest single troop concentration then in the United States, was sent by President...

Last week was spring break for our school children.  Since my husband had to teach classes at the university over spring break, we couldn't really go anywhere but we were still able to do some fun activities. The weekend before, my husband drove our high schoolers up to Rexburg to spend a few days with their cousins.  They did some activities with their cousins and I think it was a nice break for them. While they were gone, the rest of us went up to Salt Lake City and visited Temple Square. Meanwhile, I tried to keep the youngest two busy with different activities.  We went to the library, played tennis, and went to doctor appointments.  Camille's kidney doctor dressed up like Hello Kidney because this month is Donate Life.  I have a new Halloween costume idea! We went to a movie on Tuesday evening, "How to Train Your Dragon 3", was a fun movie.  On Wednesday I took the younger children with their cousins to an indoor swimming pool.  I...

Recently I read a book called The Collapse of Parenting:  How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grownups by Leonard Sax . He's a family physician along with a Ph.D in psychology.  He practiced for 19 years and then took an extensive leave to travel around the world visiting many schools and seeing the challenges. His basic premise is that too many parents are afraid to be the adults who know better. The parents' job is to teach their children the culture of the world they live in but, too often, they let their children's peers do it. The chapter I liked the best talked about the personality qualities that help children to be the most successful in life.  It goes like this: "Which of the following, measured when a child is 11 years of age, is the best predictor of happiness and overall life satisfaction roughly 20 years later, when that child has become a 31- or 32-year-old adult? A.  IQ B.  Grade point average C.  Self-control D.  ...