The Summer Plan--2011

It's ingrained in my soul from my childhood that a family should have a summer plan. In my head right now,I can hear Mom say, "Otherwise the summer gets away from you and you haven't done all the things you wanted to do..."

So every May we dutifully make charts and plans. Here's this year's rendition--it's actually our best iteration yet!

The Daily Schedule compliments of Jonathan.

Now that I actually look at our schedule, I realize we treated it more as a "guideline" than a rule. :)

But if scripture reading didn't happen at 7 with Quin, at least we made sure to do it by 8:30 or so.

And if our whole-family, monkey-in-the-middle fun and games and elevated heart rates at 7:15 didn't last past the first week because of my fall...and if Mario at the Olympic Games on the Wii became the exercise of choice...well, at least we tried.

Confession: Nobody actually touched the piano all summer.
Realization: We only had ONE regular Saturday all summer.
Successes: Found out that a majority of the kids right now can actually weed a whole row in the garden!

This was the newly invented motivation system. Quin thought Soderbucks would put him in the poorhouse, but nobody had the willpower to do anything with them but play on their gameboys. :)

Somewhere in the summer, Rachel actually 'graduated' from Soderbucks. It was when she stuck to the Family Camp cleanup to the bitter end, then took all the seats out of the van and vacuumed the van just because she wanted to see it done. With a bow and a scrape, Quin and I named her an adult with full privileges--to partipate in family clean-ups as able and to watch screens at her own discretion. Beautiful moment. Brings a tear to my eye...


We're hoping to fill this more.

We've extended the season to Labor Day weekend...

















We actually made this chart so I could be excited about all the activities we already had planned. What a busy summer!

"Mothers of the Prophets"

Just finished reading “Mothers of the Prophets” by Arrington, Madsen, and Jones.

They all seem like happy, hard-working women who liked people (especially their children and husbands) and, of course, had strong testimonies of the restoration of Jesus’ Gospel and a willingness to sacrifice whatever needed to be sacrificed.

One story struck me especially.


This is a picture of Melissa Jane Bigler, who was the mother of Julina Lambson (who married Joseph F. Smith), her husband, Alfred Lambson, and a niece.

In 1852, Alfred was called on a mission to the West Indies. He left Melissa in Salt Lake with a three- year-old and a one-year-old for two years. When he came home, he was home for two years and they had a baby son. Then he was assigned to serve as a blacksmith and mechanic for the wagons of pioneers in Florence, Nebraska.

.
He was there TEN years!

His little family stayed in Salt Lake City. As a sidenote, Julina, at seven years old, went to live at her aunt’s house and was raised there the whole time he was gone.

Makes it seem like a husband having a few meetings here and there isn’t much of a sacrifice.