It’s been beautiful outside. I have loved driving up the canyon every day and having the opportunity to see all the fall colors change. I have occasionally convinced my family to come and enjoy being outside in the beautiful mountains with me. I’ll let you decide which kid drags his feet and proclaims that he doesn’t like the mountains.

Peter earned his wolf badge at scouts. He has a couple of wonderful leaders. He always likes scouts when he gets home: and he never wants to go! It’s a struggle.

Finally, a couple of random pictures from the kids. Sometimes it’s hard to be away from my family so much when I’m at school. But I believe I am on the path I need to be, and I do like school. I’m learning a ton and doing well. But I’m also learning that I cannot do it on my own. I need the help of the students and teachers around me, the support of my family, and God’s help most of all. When I trust in Him and his timetable (which has me leaving school early on some days, and waking up at 5:00 am others to work on school.)

I wanted to share one other thing. Family scriptures and prayers has been a struggle for our family. Relevance is not a strong point in our family. It has more than once turned into a yelling power struggle of rowdy kids and frustrated parents. Sometimes we pray that our children will be reverent. And I realized one day that I think we were praying for the wrong thing.

I talked to my husband about praying for our children that they will feel God’s love, and that love will help them want to be reverent. Forcing our children to be reverent was very ineffective. But having an attitude of having scriptures and prayer a time to feel God’s love and ask for His help has helped the power struggles go away and have more peace during that important time.