Minsy Gets Some Tiger Pride

Minsy is sporting her new Tiger t-shirt.
Sadly they only had one in an 18-month size.
Even more sadly, it totally fits Minsy.

There are a few things that are distinctly American, and high school football is one of those things. With Minsy I have looked forward to introducing her to things like this ever since she arrived on American soil. I love to watch the wonder on her face as she takes it all in. Tonight was the first game of the season for the Waynesville Tigers, so it was the first opportunity we had to bring her to a game. And we had a blast.

It felt really, really weird to be having a high school football game before school had even begun for the year. Normally we would have already started at this point in the year, but this year Waynesville is not beginning until after Labor Day so that the brand new 6th grade center could be completed in time for the first day of school. This means that the fall sports have already begun even though we are not yet in session. I wondered if that would keep the number of people attending the game down, but it didn't seem to. Maybe there were a few less students than normal, but overall it seems as if this first game was well attended. We arrived a bit late for the game because for some reason I thought the game began at 7:30, but it actually started at 7 pm. We took our place in our usual area, right in front of the Waynesville cheerleaders. I'm not sure how we always end up in this section, but it's been our spot for the past fifteen years. (And I should pause for a giant EGAD! now that I realize that we've been coming to Tiger football games for 15 years. I can't believe that we've lived here that long.) We're almost regulars at this point.

I was a bit worried about how Minsy would handle being in the middle of a huge crowd for so long, unable to really see or understand what we were looking at. Sometimes at events like this she gets really antsy, causing us to need to leave early. But at the game tonight she had so much fun.

The first thing that she noticed was the Tiger mascot. It's hard not to notice a giant stuffed animal roaming the area. Minsy has a sort of love-hate relationship with large animals, whether they are real or fake. Apparently she had a bit of a freak out when she came to the high school this week with Laney and Savannah to get Savannah registered. There is a giant bronze (Is it bronze? I don't know. It's some sort of non-shiny metal.) statue of a tiger. Minsy was not thrilled with it at all. Well, tonight she saw our mascot and was fascinated. Spencer told her that there was a chance that the tiger would eat her ... because that is what Spencer says in moments like this one. Minsy said, "No Tiger!" ... except when she said Tiger she pronounced it more like "tijer." Kinda cute. Then she waved to the tiger and decided that the tiger really needed to eat some popcorn instead of snacking on small Asian children. So she kept grabbing handfuls of popcorn and holding them out to the tiger. Only the tiger couldn't eat the popcorn because we were sitting like fifteen rows away from it ... and it's a costumed person (hard to get the popcorn through the breathing holes.)  We were going to have to get her closer to have her own one on one Tiger mascot experience. Katie, Hyrum, and JoJo volunteered to take her down to the field level to get closer. And ...

She was terrified! She would not look at the guy/girl/Tigerthing.
Oh well!

So Minsy's intro to the Tiger mascot did not go so well. At least she didn't seem to be too traumatized by the experience. I don't think that she'll end up with latent fears of stuffed tigers or anything like that. When she got back to our seats she still insisted on calling out to the "tijer" and offering it some delicious stadium popcorn.

How about this fancy giant Tiger tunnel that the players
get to run through before the game?
Our boosters spare no expense for our team.

Let me just tell you, Herman is so loud at these games. So loud. I am still amazed after all these years of marriage that such volume can come out of his mouth. I am sure that if I was sitting on the opposite end of the bleachers I would be able to pick his cheers and yells out over ever other person there. At times this can be a bit overwhelming for a shy person like me who would prefer to blend into the crowd, but I will admit that Herman does always make the games more exciting as he cheers on the Tigers. And Minsy loved hearing her daddy yell so loud. Soon she joined in, yelling "Go Tijers!" as loud as her little lungs would allow. And that was not very loud at all. But it was super cute for those in our immediate area who could hear her.

I don't think that Minsy has ever really seen a cheerleader before, but she LOVED watching the WHS cheerleaders. She would cheer when they cheered, and she would clap when they clapped. I loved to see her have so much fun watching them and mimicking their actions. We may have a future cheerleader on our hands. I will say that if she stays so tiny she would be the perfect person to top the cheerleader pyramids or get tossed high in the air.

This is kind of a funny Laney face. Sorry Laney!
You know we think you're beautiful!

At one point Laney came by to grab Minsy and take her to the student section for a bit. That must have been a treat for her. Minsy is definitely a crowd pleaser, so she loves hanging out with her adoring fans. I was happy to see Laney back in the high school swing of things. I have worried a bit about how her transition back to regular high school would be after her year off to home school, but so far it seems as if things are going wonderfully. She jumped right in with a group of her friends to watch the game, and other than her brief time grabbing Minsy and then bringing her back, we didn't really see her at all.

Of course we were there to see the wonderful game ... which, by the way, Waynesville won in a thriller 26-21 over West Plains with a last minute touchdown. And I gotta say ... we got lucky with this win. Things looked pretty dire until the very end. But Herman and I were really there to see the band and root for Savannah in her first marching band season.

The Waynesville Marching Tigers!

I have to admit that it was kind of strange seeing the band perform at this game. Normally at this point school would have been in session so that the band would have had several extra marching practices. So far this year they only had a few weeks of band camp, so for this performance they didn't wear their uniforms or march at all. They just gathered together at mid-field and played their songs. I can tell that their program will eventually be really awesome, and I can't wait to see it. I will say this ... the percussion section was AWESOME! They sounded amazing! Savannah is a tuba player, for those of you who don't know. You can  pick her out of the picture above because she is the one brass tuba. All the others are silver. She will be getting a brand new silver tuba sometime next month. Hurray! Watching her hold that gigantic instrument while she played made my shoulders hurt. I can't imagine how she is able to do that. And in a few weeks when they start doing the actual marching program? That will be amazing to see. How do you hold an instrument like that, play the right notes, and go running across the field for the program? That takes some super human skills, I think. Herman made sure to show the proper amount of parental pride by yelling at the top of his lungs, "GO SAVANNAH!" and "GO BAND!" She has really matured a lot through the years because instead of hiding her head and pretending that Savannah is actually some other poor sap in the band, she actually turned to where we were sitting, smiled and acknowledged Herman's shout. Way to go Savannah!

Overall this was a really fun experience for the Blau family! It has been awhile since we have brought all of our kids to the games. Last year Savannah stayed home for a lot of them so we left the younger kids with her a lot of the time. But this ended up being pretty fun, so we'll probably bring the whole crew along this entire year. I'm glad that Minsy enjoyed the game. I can't wait until it gets a lot colder for the games because I bought this super cute Tiger hat in China when we were there specifically so that she could wear it to the Waynesville football games. She hated wearing it in China ... probably because she realized that it really was a ridiculous hat, but maybe she'll be happy to wear it here to a football game when she realizes it helps her to fit in, especially with giant man-sized fuzzy tigers!

I had to add this picture. Katie is giving a giant hug to Esther Malone.
Esther played Maria in The Sound of Music two years ago when
Katie played Gretl. Katie LOVED Esther! Still loves her!
She cried and cried whenever the musical was over, and
for awhile she called Esther every night. Now Esther
is headed to college, but Katie got to see her one
last time before she left. Makes me smile. :)

Me and My Not-So-Friendly Relationship with Water

JoJo, Laney, Hyrum, and Minsy getting a little sun!

aquaphobia [ˌækwəˈfəʊbɪə]

n

(Medicine / Pathology) an abnormal fear of water, esp because of the possibility of drowning

I'm not exactly sure when I developed an unnatural fear of swimming. I've never been a strong swimmer. My parents enrolled us in swimming lessons at the local pool, and I never ever passed the beginner's lesson. That's right world ... I never passed beginner's swimming. But it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I just had trouble with the backstroke. That seems a bit weird to me now since I prefer to swim the backstroke to anything, but it was what it was. My brother Bryan and I were the seven year-olds in the beginner class with the four year olds. Humiliating. After the third try without passing I think my parents just gave up on us ever passing, so we never advanced past that level. I didn't like going underwater, and that makes swimming a bit difficult. But still, we had season's passes to our community pool, and my brothers and I would walk to the pool regularly during the summers when I was in elementary school. I never freaked out during those times, but I was always a cautious swimmer.

The old Waverly Bridge. It still freaks me out
just looking at the picture.

I have always believed that drowning would be a horrible way to die, so I'm a bit terrified of drowning. Just the thought of being unable to get oxygen into my lungs, and being totally conscious for all of the terror puts me into panic. I remember once when I was growing up we were at my Grandma Lay's house and my mom and aunt were talking with my grandma about a television show which had recently aired in which they discussed ways to escape from situations like fires and cars being submerged in water. I still remember them talking about how to escape a car when it goes underwater. It involved rolling the windows down slightly so that the car could slowly fill with water, equalizing the pressure and making escape easier. I could just imagine sitting in my car and slowly watching the water rise. Eek! That whole conversation freaked me out, and I still think about it every single time that I cross the Missouri River at Waverly on the way home. At least they finally replaced that horribly narrow bridge that was there when I was growing up. Now the wider bridge doesn't give me nightmares like the narrow one had, but I used to be terrified that I would hit an oncoming car on that bridge and go careening off the edge into the murky waters below.

But even with all of those early fears of water, I still enjoyed going swimming every once in awhile. I think that things really changed for me when my kids were born. Now I was not just worried about myself ... I was worried about my children. As horrible as drowning would be for myself, I couldn't fathom just how horrible it would be for that to happen to my children. So I became a SUPER nervous swim mom. Any time we come close to bodies of water I am constantly harping on my children to be careful. Any sort of horseplay can put me into a fit of apoplexy.

So my kids are doomed to be terrified of water too, right?

Not so much. I happened to be married to a man who is part fish, I think. Herman loves the water. He spent the best times of his youth swimming at the Elm Hole, a swimming hole on his grandparents' farm. He didn't seem to have a lot of supervision on these swimming expeditions, and yet everyone turned out okay. Herman does not fear the water. He LOVES it. And he loves to play with the kids whenever we go swimming. One time my dad saw him swimming with the kids at a hotel pool and said it was like I had one extra child with me. That's about right. As I watch him horse around with the kids I am always yelling at them to be careful until eventually I have to just find somewhere else to be. I can hardly watch it without feeling my blood pressure rising. Stick all of them in a natural body of water like a lake or the ocean and I really start to freak out. When I can't see the bottom of the water I start to imagine all sorts of crazy scenarios ... sharks, stingrays, jellyfish, snakes, whirlpools, The Creature from the Blue Lagoon, unnatural holes that could suck them under. Anything could happen. Whenever we are at the beach I spend the entire time counting children in my head ... 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 -- okay, everyone's accounted for. Once, a few years ago, we went on vacation to Gulfport, Mississippi, and the water right outside our hotel was extremely shallow. Herman and the kids decided to walk out as far as they could go into the ocean. ...And it was FAR. I'll bet they walked for at least a quarter mile. I could just see their little heads bobbing along the water's edge in the distance. I was a nervous wreck. The great news was that they were able to see several dolphins close up. The bad news is they were far enough into the ocean to see dolphins close up. It was not the most calm I've ever been in my life.

Hey! It could happen. Really.

With all of this fear of swimming I have not been the best parent to take my kids to the pool much. I dread doing it. Luckily Herman takes the kids most of the time. But they really, really, really try to encourage me to come along with them. Usually I beg out, explaining that I have too many things to do. I managed to make it all of last year without visiting the new community water park one time. This year they finally got me to go. And it wasn't so bad. There are lots of fun things for the kids to do, and lots of the water is shallow, so I don't worry so much about the little kids drowning, especially while there are lifeguards watching. At this point JoJo and Minsy are the only kids who aren't great swimmers, and JoJo is getting close to learning. That gives me some comfort. I'm glad that parenting for us is a team event so that Herman is there to help my kids love the water in a way that I never have.

Yesterday at the water park I even challenged Spencer to a race. I think I might have won, but that may have only been because Spencer underestimated me. I think he was taking it easy because he knows that I am not a big water person. So hurray for winning the race. But my poor body was not up to the challenge. I came home and practically collapsed with pain and fatigue.

I don't think I will ever get over my fear of the water. I will always worry about my kids swimming, even when they move far away. It is just one of those things about me that will probably never change. But you know, I don't think that it is too bad to have someone in the family who is hyper-aware of dangerous situations. That will hopefully keep us safe enough as we travel this world.

So you probably aren't going to see me a lot at the local pool. And if you see our family at the beach I will probably be the one on the beach counting over and over and over. Just another little quirk that makes me who I am.

Testimony to my lack of time at the pool ...
Look how white my legs are!

Trust Me ... I'm a Dentist!

Laney has a friend from EFY who got his wisdom teeth out today. She wanted to do something to cheer him up after such a potentially traumatic surgery, so she got Katie, Hyrum, JoJo, and Minsy together, and they made a music video for him. I thought it was super cute, so I wanted to share it with everyone.

Enjoy!

If We Were a Movie ...

I really love the random conversations that come up when talking with my kids each day. Yesterday while I was making dinner Spencer asked me what movie I would choose to be an extra in if I had the chance to pick any movie in history. Without even hesitating I gave him my answer ...

STAR WARS!!

And I'm talking Episode 4: A New Hope, not the ridiculousness that was episodes 1-3. How could I refuse the chance to be an extra on that one? It was such a groundbreaking movie with special effects that had never been seen before, fun action, and big scenes ... although as an extra I would really hope to be part of the rebellion and not the empire. I think the empire masks would have sent me into a panic attack with claustrophobia.

So what did the rest of my family choose?

Spencer's  choice:

The Longest Day

Lots of shooting, rolling around in mud, yelling ... all of this is right up Spencer's alley. He would love being in a movie like this. But I warn you, after seeing how he creates military strategy in his computer battle games, I am sure that he would have rewritten this one with a strange ending ... like having Sweden march into battle and singlehandedly destroying everyone, thus creating a new world order with Swedish culture running the show for eternity. (I can't adequately describe how he plays his games except to say that he likes to have unlikely countries conquer the world.)

Herman thought he would like to be an extra in:

Real Steel

I'm not sure who he would be in this one. I think he just wants to be around for the great robot boxing scenes. He loves that movie, and it reminds us of our time in China when we headed to a Chinese movie theater in Wuhan to see it with a Chinese audience. Super fun!

Laney's choice:

Lord of the Rings

Alright. That's a good choice. It's kind of like the Star Wars of this generation. Epic. Lots of battles. Great special effects. Aragorn (sigh). I asked Savannah about this one, and Savannah said that she could not be an extra in this one because you would be working in the rain a lot with lots of mud and gross conditions. And on top of that you would have to wear the layers of makeup. But Laney explained that she wouldn't be in the movie to be an Orc or a Uruk-hai. She would be cast as an elf so that "they could make me beautiful." 

But then, after a second of thought Laney said that maybe instead she would choose ...

Emma

She chose this movie because of the chance to do all of the dancing scenes. I'll admit. That's a good reason to choose an Austen movie, so I have to agree with Laney on that one. Except, if I was to choose an Austen movie to be in it would be ...

Pride and Prejudice

It's the crown jewel of all Jane Austen mini-series in my opinion. And please, if I get to be an extra in this alternate universe of ours, let me get to dance next to Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle in the line dance. :)

Savannah's choice:

Star Wars

That's right. Star Wars. She's my daughter. But Savannah says that if she was in the movie she would want to be a storm trooper ... or an ewok. She explained that the clone warriors in the newer Star Wars movies were mostly computer animated, but in the original movies they were live actors, so you would be part of a really big and epic group of people. Epic.

Katie had an interesting choice:

The Last Airbender

I asked Katie why she wanted to be in that movie and she said (and I quote): "Because that movie sucked, Mom. I would want to be in the movie so that I could talk to the director and let him know some important changes that he needed to make." That is such a Katie answer! My Katie: Righting the wrongs of the world one direct conversation at a time.

I wouldn't have gone with Hyrum's choice:

Attack of the Clones: Star Wars Episode 2

Star Wars Episode 2??? For me the first three episodes of Star Wars made me wonder if the entire Star Wars universe was totally lame, but I had just been too young to realize it at the time I watched episodes 4-6. I was not a fan of the later trilogy. But my sweet Hyrum, on the other hand, LOVES these movies. To him Hayden Christensen is the best actor in the universe. He loves to pretend that he is Anakin (the awesome Jedi, not the angry younglings killer). 

JoJo's choice:

Star Wars Episode 2????

Obviously I am not very cool mom to my little boys since they both picked this movie that I don't really appreciate.  But it is all about learning to be an awesome Jedi fighter, and right now JoJo and Hyrum truly believe that they too can grow up to be awesome Jedi fighters. With enough work and determination they will be able to save the world from the evil empire. And I can't fault them for that, can I?

But you know what? After giving this more thought I have to say that maybe I'll go a bit more recent in my choice and choose to be an extra in the 2012 version of  ...

Les Miserables

Music. Drama. Dancing. Fighting. Romance. Tragedy. Everything I love (in a movie that is). And maybe I can finally put all of the hours I have spent belting out these amazing songs since I was in high school to practical use. Maybe, if I'm lucky, they would let me stand in during the confrontation song and sing Javert's part. A girl can dream, can't she?

Norm Lewis: Best Javert ever!

A Day in the Life of ... a Primary Substitute

Today I got a call before church to see if I would be willing to sit in and substitute for a primary (children's) class, and I agreed. Lately I have been substituting for the older primary children, but today they wanted me to teach JoJo's class, the six and seven year-olds. No sweat! Last week I had had a blast teaching the ten year-olds (Katie's class), so I was excited to help out. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for. As we were walking to class JoJo told me that he was super excited to have me as a teacher because I always sub for Katie and Hyrum's classes, but I've never been his teacher. I could tell that he was really excited to have me there because he would not stop hugging me and kissing me and trying to sit on my lap. And JoJo is not normally a super snuggle bunny during church, so this was a bit different behavior for him.

As I joined up with JoJo's class in the primary room I saw that I was going to have my work cut out for me. There was a fairly large class (for junior primary) of nine students, and seven of them were boys. And those seven boys were full of energy. Oh man! They could not stay seated to save their lives. And they were talkers. I don't think I've every seen so many boys who loved to talk so much. My ability to keep everyone calm was severely hampered by JoJo who was hanging off of my body for dear life. Now I have done this while having a baby cling to me, but I've never tried to keep order while having a six year-old clinging on. We made it through singing time and sharing time without too much of a disaster, and I figured that things would be better for me when I could contain all of them in a smaller classroom and submit them to Sister Blau's power teaching. All I can say is ... it's time to pull out my old standard, the Herding Cats commercial, to illustrate exactly how class went for the better part of an hour. Enjoy!

And that about covers what my teaching experience was like today. Once I got one corner of the room calmed down another would erupt in talking or dancing or spitting (yuck!) or laughing. I pulled out every single trick about teaching that I have ever learned, but nothing ... NOTHING ... could calm these boys down. They were bouncing off the walls. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't distraught or unhappy at all. I was having a great time teaching. I was just having to work super hard to keep everyone engaged. Nothing like a class of hyperactive boys to keep me on my toes! 

The lesson today was on obedience. That's right ... obedience. Go figure! At one point in the lesson I was trying to talk to the kids about how Jesus was obedient to Heavenly Father's will, even when it was hard. So I was telling about the Garden of Gethsemane and how Jesus sacrificed for all of us so that we can all have the opportunity to return home to Heavenly Father someday. This was the one time during the lesson when I really felt like I had everyone's attention at the same time. Hurray! But then as I looked at the class I saw that one of the boys was crying. And these weren't just little silent tears. No. He was sobbing. Uncontrollably sobbing. Oh no! What had I said? I frantically went over the last few things I had taught, but I couldn't think of what he was upset about. So I stopped class to ask this little boy what was wrong, and he burst out with all the energy a seven year-old boy could gather and said:

 "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" 

What? Oh no! No, no, no. I told him that he wasn't going to die for a long, long time. But he said that he didn't want to die EVER. I wasn't quite sure what to say to make him feel better. I just stopped class and gave him a giant hug and told him that it was going to be okay. None of my words were making a difference. But then the absolutely most sweet and endearing thing happened. All of these rowdy and practically uncontrollable six and seven year olds started talking to this boy and telling him why he didn't need to be worried. One little boy told him that everything would be okay when we died because Jesus and Heavenly Father would be right there when we got to heaven to give us a hug. Then another said that we would get to see our families there too. And another talked about how beautiful it would be in heaven. And another told about how there would be no sadness or evil, so heaven would be a fun place to live. Things got a bit out of hand when one of the kids explained how awesome heaven would be because even if our dogs got their heads chopped off they would immediately grow new ones and would be okay. But still, it was such a sweet conversation. I could have never, ever planned for that. This little boy who had been so upset was comforted by the words of his friends in primary, and it was such a blessing to me to be able to witness this. 

So today I learned that my classroom management skills maybe aren't quite as awesome as I might have believed them to be. A class of six and seven year olds can take me down pretty easily. But I also learned that those same kids can have such a sweet and pure testimony of the love that Heavenly Father and  Jesus Christ have for us.  What a pleasure to spend my Sunday teaching this fun class today! But I'm not afraid to admit, I seriously need a nap after that experience!

While I was teaching JoJo drew this picture of me on the board. He really was super happy to have me as his substitute today. Looks just like me, don't you think?

China Pictures Finally -- Part Four (Hong Kong)

Nine months later, here are the links to the last of our entries on our time in China and our trip home with pictures:

• Hong Kong Day One -- How Many Forms of Public Transit Can the Blau Family Use in One Day?
• Hong Kong Day Two -- How Did We End Up Here?
• Hong Kong Day Three -- Facing All My Fears Whether I Want to Or Not
• Hong Kong Day Four -- Total Relaxation
• Homeward Bound!!

If you didn't get a chance to read the other entries and are interested in the wacky adventures of a family of clueless American travelers in a foreign land, here are the links to the rest of our China trip:

• China Trip Part One -- Beijing
• China Trip Part Two -- Wuhan
• China Trip Part Three -- Guangzhou

I promise that this is my very last China trip post! Thanks for following us on our amazing journey!

Adventures in Homeschooling: The End of the Story

Last year at this time we were unenrolling Laney from Waynesville High School, and I was having a bit of a panic attack about it. I won't rehash all of my feelings again, but I did record all of them on this blog post that you can check out HERE. To say the least, I was a bit worried about this new path that Laney had chosen to take, but I felt as if it was the right thing for us to support at that time. So Laney has spent the last year taking her classes from home through an online high school program provided by BYU. Today Laney headed back to the high school, this time to re-enroll for her senior year of high school. Here are my thoughts about the whole experience:

I'm sure that Laney could provide her own blog post about exactly what she gained from her year as a homeschooler and why she feels she benefited from the experience, so I'll use my post to talk about my thoughts about the whole thing. When she chose to pull herself out of school last year we had all sorts of thoughts about why that was the thing that Heavenly Father would inspire her to do. And the reality is, we still don't really know the whys of this experience. I have some ideas, but I'm sure that we may never totally know until we get to see the whole eternal big picture someday. As Laney headed to the school to enroll today, she said that she was a bit nervous about going back. Part of her believed that it might have been better to just fly through her courses last year so that she could have graduated early and started college a year earlier. (But I'm super glad she didn't make that choice -- not ready for her to leave us yet!) I think that part of her worried about getting back into the grind of all day schooling again. But I have no worries. I feel like she has grown so much in this last year that she will be ready to handle whatever comes her way, whether it is an academic challenge or a social challenge. She's going to thrive!

As we headed into the high school library to meet the counselors and set up Laney's classes for the year Laney was immediately grabbed by several of the students who were there with the National Honor Society or Student-to-Student who were there to give tours of the school to new students. All of them already knew Laney, and it was neat for me to see how excited all of them were to see Laney and that she would be back in school with them next year. She comes into school with a built-in group of friends who are accepting of her and her choice to sit this last year out. Seeing Laney interact with them made me happy. I am glad that my kids all have such good friends surrounding them. 

We had a long wait for our counselor, so we sat in the waiting area with all of the other students while we waited. Laney got a chance to catch up with old friends and meet several new students who were waiting as well. Because Waynesville has so many military families in the district we have an unusually high number of new students each year. While we were waiting there were several new seniors who had just moved into the area. Laney made sure to make the rounds and introduce herself to many of them, and I recognized one of her great qualities that she has really developed in this last year. Laney is good at being a friend to those in need, and I think that she made several of these new students feel much better entering a new school as a senior. Herman also got his chance to schmooze a bit as he interacted with everyone. Several of the WHS kids who were there to give tours had Herman as a principal in elementary school, so they already knew a bit about what type of person he is. But my absolute most favorite moment was when Herman cornered the boys who were there to explain his dating philosophy to them. He told them that they needed to be going out on lots and lots of dates with different girls and not pairing off. One of the guys said, "Can we really do that?" "Oh yes you can!!" explained Herman. And then he went on one of his long explanations of the benefits of dating in this way instead of pairing off. I watched these boys staring at Herman in rapt attention, hanging on his every word. As they listened every single one of them was nodding their head at him. Now, either this was because they totally agreed with his philosophy, or they thought, "If we just smile and nod at this guy, maybe he'll stop talking." So funny!

When Laney finally got to the front of the line to get her schedule together it was relatively easy to do. She already knew what she needed to take in order to graduate. The tricky thing for her was that she needed to have five quality point classes. These are generally the AP classes. Pretty difficult, but not too big of a deal. Laney is on track to be a valedictorian this year, but in order to do this she had to have five of these quality point classes, so that was her big requirement in coming back to school. In order to get these classes she had to drop her chamber choir class. I think she was a bit bummed out about that because she really wanted to take choir this year for the first time. But, like Herman said, this was probably the sacrifice that she was going to have to make because she studied at home last year. And it was a sacrifice she was willing to make. 

So her schedule complete, Laney is now officially back in the Waynesville School District for her senior year. Hurray! With all of that done, I look back on her last year and want to share some things I think Laney gained from her home school experience. 

1.  Laney became a super self-motivated learner. With online classes Laney never really interacted with a live teacher at all. She received all of her assignments online and turned them in online as well. The most human interaction came from the lady at the library who served as a proctor for her exams. Herman and I never really sat down and told her to do anything. She could have sat out the entire year if she chose to, but she made her master plan for the year and stuck to it. With her assignments she always seemed to go above the call of the assignment and give it her all. I think that these are skills that will serve her well when she enters college.

2.  Laney matured so much as a person. She spent this last year trying to better herself in so many areas of her life. I have never seen a person with so many lists of things that she wanted to accomplish. But she wasn't just a list maker. She went about getting those things done. I know that she didn't do everything, but the things that she accomplished went a long way toward helping her grow as an individual. She became more driven, but at the same time became more centered so that she seemed pretty even-keeled about everything that came her way. She became a source of strength in our family.

3.  Laney got the opportunity to interact with so many AMAZING women during the year. I'm an okay mom, but I'm not perfect. At the beginning of the year I think that Laney wanted to strive to be prepared to be an awesome mom someday. And so she kept going on and on about how she was going to work on her "womanly attributes." What does that even mean? I could never get her to really pin down an answer for me, but I think that she was wanting to be the best that she could be. Only seeing my example wasn't enough, but seeking out some unrealistic ideal of perfect womanhood wasn't right either. Luckily Laney got the chance to hang out with some great examples of women and moms. She was a permanent babysitter for Chitra Conner, Emi Stapler, and Melissa Stewart, and these women were such great examples to her. Being around them gave her a realistic idea of what it means to be a wife and mom. Each of these ladies approached motherhood differently, and they are each amazing, so Laney got to see several different examples and realize that there are lots of ways to have great "womanly attributes." I'm super grateful to these ladies for the examples that they were to Laney this year.

4. Laney became an amazing sister to Minsy. It had to be hard for Minsy to come to the US, knowing absolutely no English, and not knowing a single thing about these crazy people who were now her permanent family. I think it would have been even harder for her to transition to our life if it hadn't been for Laney. Laney became her best friend during the day. She played games with her and cooked with her and tried to teach her things all day long. She took Minsy to the park and on play dates. I think that Minsy's easy transition can be attributed to all of the effort Laney put into helping her in the early days.

5. Laney's testimony grew exponentially during this year. Every once in a while during this year Laney would make a comment somewhere and say how she had so much she needed to do to be better. Now, I know that all of us can always find things to do to help us be better, no matter how awesome we might be. But I had to roll my eyes sometimes when Laney said this because she was doing so much already. Every day she would read her scriptures in English (and Spanish!). She journaled. She found ways to do service. She studied Institute manuals. She strove in all that she did to learn all that she could and live the things she learned. She was such an example to me.  And I think that through this extra time this year Laney really found her spiritual groove. This opportunity to hear Heavenly Father's will in her life, follow that prompting, and then to see the blessings that came from that has been priceless. I have no fear sending her off on her own soon because I know that she has learned this valuable lesson this year. She will not need to lean on anyone in order to have a testimony. She has her very own. And it shines brightly.

There are so many other things I could list. Who knows why Laney was prompted to study from home last year? I don't. But I think that it is an experience that was well worth it for Laney and for us as a family. I still believe that I would be a terrible homeschool mom, but with someone as self-driven as Laney it could work. We're not in any hurry to push any of our other kids to do this. But for Laney I'd say that our year of homeschooling can be labeled a success. Yea!