We Don't Need No Education...

That's not how I really feel about education, by the way. I was going to type "Education Week," and that song popped into my head. It's really the only Pink Floyd song I know. Pink Floyd is weird. And may I say that teachers do need "dark sarcasm in the classroom." It's the only way for teachers to get by without tearing out their hair. Seriously. Am I right, Mindy?

Anywho, my sweet mom bought Nat, she, and I tickets to Education Week up at BYU Idaho, just for the Saturday classes. I haven't been to Education Week since... maybe 1999? It was a long time ago. And it was fantastic. I was nervous that every class would make me feel like a crappy mom and wife, but luckily, that wasn't the case.

The first class was Meeting the Needs of Your Spouse. Oh my goodness. There was this crazy, inappropriate guy in there. He kept raising his hand and yelling stuff like, "What if I try to be honest with my wife and she accuses me of lying, and then tells our children that I'm a liar???" "My wife says that I have problems, but she is the one who really needs to be here!" Just really oversharing. I could tell the teacher (who is a marriage therapist) felt really uncomfortable. He kept saying, "Let's talk about this over lunch." "Can we talk about your specific problems after the class?"

Besides the uncomfortable comments from Angry Man, the class was great. The teacher referred to each of our relationships as a Love Bank - we're either making withdrawals or deposits in our relationships. A deposit is anything that gives your spouse energy. A withdrawal is anything that drains energy from your spouse. The teacher said that some couples are "living on credit" - living on PAST deposits. There should be a 5:1 ratio of deposits : withdrawals.

The second class was on The Proclamation to the Family. The teacher kind of droned on and on, and he reminded me a lot of my religion professors at Ricks and BYU. And that's what this guy does for a living, so that made sense. Two quotes he used that really hit home for me:

1. "Modesty is a virtue of a refined individual." - Boyd K. Packer. I love that. Refined. Not prudish. Refined.

2. "The kind of marriage required for exaltation does not even contemplate divorce." - Dallin H. Oaks

Third class - Raising Resilient Kids. Many of the things this teacher had to say, echoed that book that I read called Parenting with Love and Logic. He talked about how, when your child has a problem, you need to have them come up with solutions. You need to say things like, "What have you thought of?" "What have you tried?" "Did that work out?" "What might you do instead?" When you work with them on small problems, they will have the self-sufficiency to solve their own problems when they are bigger.


The fourth class - Peace Be Still. This class was mainly on forgiving others, and how Christ was the ultimate example of forgiving others. The man that taught this class is the director of the entire institute down at the U of U, and he really knows the scriptures. One nugget of info that I found interesting - Christ suffered in Gethsemane for three to four hours. Another nugget - Judas Iscariot initially decided to betray Christ because Christ had rebuked him, and he was very, very angry. When Christ offered Judas the "sop" (a yummy-looking piece of bread) at the last supper, he was offering peace - a way for he and Judas to work out the problem between them. The sop was traditionally given to the most honored and respected guest, and Christ was offering this sop to Judas as a peace offering. But Judas wouldn't work it out. He was angry, he ran out of the room, and he betrayed Jesus, all because of his anger at being rebuked.

The last class - Traditions Worth Keeping. Wow. This lady has a LOT of energy. Her family counted up the traditions they have, and there are eighty. She has a Tradition Book. She does an awards ceremony once a year for her grandkids, giving them awards like, "Most improved reader," "Best chore-doer," and stuff like that. I wish I had half of her energy. Yeah, that class did make me feel a little bit like a crappy mom. :) Maybe someday I'll have more energy to do fun traditions with my kids, but for now, I'm just treading water, trying to make it through every day. :)

And of course I took pictures. Me? Take pictures? Naw....

Nat always does this pose when I take her picture:

So we laughed and all posed like that:

Nat got a mother's ring for her birthday - I took a pic with her mother's ring and Mom's mother's ring:

Pretty, huh?

There are gorgeous gardens up there at BYU-Idaho. We had fun posing with all of the random statues:

In this shot, Nat and I are doing our "Three Coins in the Fountain" dance in front of a fountain:

Mom packed a lunch, and we ate it in the car. She packed some crazy-arse string cheese. Half of each cheese stick was mozzarella, and half was cheddar. The cheddar part was bright, fluorescent orange. Not quite natural-looking. The color of a carrot. It made me nervous. Look closely:

Is it a carrot or the cheddar half of the string cheese? You tell me.

We had a little time between a couple of classes, so we walked through the book store. In the game section, we saw my mom's favorite game, Killer Bunnies:

She bought that game for the family to play on Christmas Eve. Ben and I were up in Washington, so we missed out, but from what it sounds like, it's a good thing we weren't there. Apparently, it's the most complicated game ever. The family spent hours trying to figure it out and never quite did. It's a family joke now. Mom's always like, "Let's play Killer Bunnies!" And everyone groans and yells.

After our last class, Mom offered to take us to Chiz's in St. Anthony. It's really this teeny little hole-in-the-wall, and the menu is random. You can get Chinese food, or prime rib, or burgers. Kind of bizarre. But the food is great and it's cheap. Here we are in Chiz's:

And Mom and Nat, outside of Chiz's:

Mom, thanks a ton for taking us. It was so, so nice to be spiritually fed. I don't get a lot of spiritual nourishment at church lately because of Mr. Banshee, a.k.a. Micah, so it was great to really soak in all of the things these great teachers had prepared. It was a spectacular day.