Snow Day!

We had a snow day on Friday!  No school!  First thing in the morning, Peter was out on the four-wheeler having a ball.  It snowed from about 7:30 on Thursday morning all the way until Friday afternoon.  We got at least six inches.  It was a light, dry snow, not big flakes coming down.  But then Saturday it got cold!  It was -8 F during the night!  This is extremely unusual for this part of Idaho in November.  It's only 3 degrees right now as I write on Monday morning.  Thank goodness for good furnaces (we have two in our house) and heaters!  Libby showed me Mendoza's temperature right now, and it was 88 F!  Joseph's going to have quite a transition when he gets home in January!

We drank so much hot chocolate the last few days that our cupboard, normally full of mugs and cups, looked like this!

We didn't get through the snow day without accident, though.  Libby was riding on her sled behind the four-wheeler - Bruce was pulling her around the pasture - and she bumped on something and chipped her two front teeth! The corner of one is gone, and about 1/3 of the other one. 

She didn't get hurt any other way, though so that was good.  But she kept saying, "There's nothing there!  There's nothing there!"  So sad!    We'll get into the dentist on Monday and see what they can do.  They said they'll bond something to them, but they'll get chipped off and have to get fixed frequently.  When she's 20 they'll put on a veneer or a crown.


Jesse sang in a concert last night with Concert Choir at the DeJong Concert Hall, but she had to go off after a few songs because she was coughing and couldn't stop.  She's had a bad cough all week.  Somehow she got off to college without a diffuser or RC or Raven (good respiratory essential oil blends), so when she really needed it, she didn't have it!  But, I've gotten over that one.  It has kept me humble this week, and pretty certain it kept Jesse humble.  haha

Jesse and Stephen are both in Concert Choir, so they took this great picture together before the concert!  BYU does a live video stream of the concert, so Bruce and I got to listen to it.  It was so good!  We thoroughly enjoyed it. The second night, Jesse just lip-synched the songs so she could stay up on stage without coughing.  At least she was able to do that!

And this happened on snow day too:  Mary went off with her friend Nic to get some hot chocolate at Dutch Bros and they went off the road into the ditch.  

Bruce and I had to go pull them out with the truck.  While they waited for us to get there, a policeman pulled up and had them wait in the back of the police car until we came.  That was ripe for a selfie.  :)

Josh got into the championship game with his intramural soccer team.  They lost by one goal.  They had tough playing conditions - the field was covered in snow!  So that was a bummer, but Josh sure had a fun season playing with old high school buddies.  

We FaceTime with Josh almost every Sunday.  I took a screen shot of him last night.

We got to talk to Josh's friend Elisabeth, so it was fun to "meet" her.  She spells her name with an "s" like our Elisabeth, and she said her mom calls her Libby!  Thankfully she goes by Elisabeth most of the time though, and our Elisabeth goes by Libby, so that eliminates some confusion!

I loved our church meetings yesterday.  I turned to Bruce at the end of Sacrament meeting and said, "It doesn't get any better than that!"  One of our former Bishops was a security guard for the First Presidency when he was in college.  He told of an experience where Pres. Hunter had just passed away, and Gordon B. Hinckley had been set apart as the new President of the Church.  Fred had the assignment of sitting outside the room in the Temple where Pres. Hinckley spent the day on his first day as the new prophet.  He said that most of it was too sacred to talk about, but he bore a strong witness that he knew that Pres. Hinckley received his commission as prophet from the Lord that day.  The Spirit bore a beautiful confirming witness to my heart and mind that what Fred was relating to us was true.  And then after that, our current Bishop spoke for about five minutes, and reminded us to sit down as a couple and go over Pres. Monson's September Ensign talk, and decide together what we needed to do as a family to prepare.  It was a wonderful tandem witness of following the prophet and a reminder of specifically how we can do that.

I am so grateful for the Sabbath Day.  It is a day set apart from the things of the world for a reason.  The Jews have a saying about the Sabbath, "We have not kept the Sabbath.  The Sabbath has kept us."  Oh, how I love that, because I can say the same thing in my own life, and in our family's life.  The Sabbath has kept us!  What we do on the Sabbath Day holy is a clear testament of who and what we worship.  If there is anything to be learned from the Old Testament, it is that the Lord would have us worship Him, and Him only, not idol gods.  I prefer to leave sports, entertainment, business, education or social pursuits for another day, and fill up the Sabbath Day with worship, focus on family, and activities that set the day apart and make it a day of rest, worship and service.  I'm grateful for the Sabbath!

I found this picture of Christ on lds.org that is my new favorite!