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Ten Things of Thankful: Back to School (BYU Education Week) Edition

Photo: A lush flower bed, with blue and pink flowers, sits in front of the administration building at Brigham Young University
I drove my mom to the airport Saturday morning, after a week of fun together. I told her we should list the same items in our TToT posts this week, but we never coordinated that, so I'm curious to see how similar our posts turn out to be. There were more than ten things to be thankful for this week, so I imagine we won't have identical lists, but we'll see.

 1. I'm thankful for the chance to speak in church last Sunday. We don't have a preacher/minister who speaks each Sunday; members are asked (ahead of time) to prepare an address (about 12-15 minutes long) to share. My assigned topic was the importance of remembering Jesus Christ. As is so often the case as I study for talks, a seemingly simple topic grew in depth and breadth, and I ended up touching on not judging, forgiveness, the sacrament (communion), names, and the love of God. Hopefully it made sense to those listening. 

 2. I'm thankful for family history. My mom and I revisited a line that seems to have a brick wall. Although we didn't break through the wall, we still gathered bits of information here and there that gave us more insight. For example, I found in a county history about a distant relative who was a Justice of the Peace. Apparently he could fulfill his duties well, except he got very flustered whenever he was called upon to marry a couple. According to the article, he would start reciting the Declaration of Independence, or conclude with "May you rest in peace," or would make some other error. It must have been a real problem for him in order to make it into a county history!

 3. I'm thankful for Vampire Penguin. It's a shave ice restaurant, but it takes shave ice to the next level. What shave ice is to snow cones, Vampire Penguin is to shave ice. We had gone to one in California a couple of years ago, when our son and daughter-in-law took us there. We recently discovered one had opened up in our area, so just had to share our find with my mom!
Photo: My mom smiles at the camera, while a white and yellow shave ice dessert sits on a plate in front of her

 4. I'm thankful that we were able to take my mom and our youngest daughter to visit with John's parents one evening. We had a pizza party and laughed while playing Apples to Apples. 

 5. I'm thankful for humor. One of the classes my mom and I took this week at Education Week was all about humor, so needless to say, we laughed a lot this week. The instructor shared many funny stories. For example, he said that you never know what you might find out when doing family history research. One man had found that his ancestor had been hanged for being a horse thief and robber. The man struggled to know how to write about this incident, but finally came up with: "He died at a community event held in his honor, when the platform upon which he was standing suddenly gave way."

 6. I'm thankful for the other classes we attended. One of them was about aging. I wasn't sure at first exactly what demographic they were addressing, but come to find out, they were going with the AARP definition of 50-years-old and older. All of a sudden, I had flashbacks to mothers sitting with their daughters in 5th grade, watching "the movie" and being given special "growing up" packets. I pictured women my mom's age sitting with their daughters my age and explaining "the change" to us. I wondered if I would be going home with a Depends sample, but that was not the case. 🤣

 7. I'm thankful for music. During one of our classes, the Bonner Family sang for almost the whole hour. It was a great little mini-concert. While this video wasn't taken at Education Week, they did sing this song during our class:

8. I'm thankful I was able to learn about the BYU Research Linking Lab. They are doing all sorts of projects to utilize computer intelligence to make family history information more readily available. If you'd like to help train the computers to read handwriting, visit bit.ly/rll_index. 

 9. I'm thankful for willing helpers. I teach the 10-11 year olds at church, and needed another adult to sit in the classroom with me today. (In this day and age, two adults per classroom is standard procedure.) The first person I asked readily agreed to help me, and I appreciated her being there and contributing to the class. 

 10. I'm thankful for John. I haven't seen him as much as usual this past week, as my mom and I were at BYU Education Week from early in the morning to (sometimes) late at night. He held down the fort, encouraged us to enjoy ourselves, and listened to me each night as I would tell him about my day. 

 How was your week? What are you thankful for today? Come join the Ten Things of Thankful and share with the class! 

Joining me this week:
The Prolific Pulse
MessyMimi's Meanderings
Carin's Gratitude
A Season and a Time
TeachezWell Blog
The Wakefield Doctrine
Backsies Is What There Is Not
Viola's Daily Musings
Her Headache

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
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Comments

  1. messymimiAugust 25, 2019 at 3:50 PM

    What a happy week, and i loved your line about the Depends sample. You learned a lot from that humor class, didn't you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Clark FarleyAugust 25, 2019 at 7:01 PM

    What a full week! And does sound like it was as interesting as it was fun. 50 is old? ayiiee!
    Good post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiAugust 25, 2019 at 9:23 PM

      50 can't be old. It just can't be. Or I've spent the past few years in denial. LOL.

      Delete
  3. Pat BAugust 25, 2019 at 11:16 PM

    Fifty isn't old because. . .well you know why. If it is, I don't want to think what that makes me. 😄

    I loved listening to the CD of the Bonner's singing today while I was driving.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiAugust 26, 2019 at 1:59 PM

      I'm glad you enjoyed it, Mom. As for old--no, you aren't either. 200. 200 is starting to be old.

      Delete
  4. Lisa TomeyAugust 26, 2019 at 5:54 PM

    I'm envious of you and your mom. What a glorious experience!

    ReplyDelete
  5. KerryAugust 31, 2019 at 9:14 AM

    I just love how you and your mom do this TToT thing, the both of you. Glad you had such a lovely week together.

    I am familiar with snow cones, but not shave ice so much. Sounds interesting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KristiSeptember 1, 2019 at 8:29 AM

      Shave ice is a much finer grade of ice; the texture is more like a good ice cream.

      Delete
  6. My Tata's CottageAugust 31, 2019 at 10:45 PM

    I linked up from Mimi's. So happy to join today. Have a great weekend! HUGS

    ReplyDelete

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