Toby the whirling dervish, and family night

I tried to make a little movie of how excited Toby gets when it's walk-time... but he saw the camera and became worried (above).

So, I tried to hide the camera and got out his leash and he was more of his excited-at-the-walk-prospect-self:


But, my favorite part of the evening was Family Home Evening!

Three of our young adult children were present, with 4 of their young adult friends, plus my parents. We always start the evening singing hymns--and it was so perfect! I was sitting next to my oldest son, who is a perfect bass, and knows all his parts; we sang hymns that I actually knew all of my alto parts to (I am cursed with a soprano ear, so it's hard for me to hear the notes that are actually my range); we had two perfect tenors; my youngest daughter plays the piano magnificently (it's such a delight and a blessing); my oldest daughter can add any harmony to make things fun and extra nice; and my husband sings melody like Perry Como.

It was just delicious!

And, it was game night. My youngest daughter was in charge, and had us start off by writing Fall poetry (she only gave us five minutes--not really enough time to compose, but it was fun and we shared them after the game) and then we played "Mafia." OH MY Goodness! It made us laugh and laugh. (Have you ever played? I hadn't. A~ was the narrator. Narrator shuffles the cards that are passed out to indicate who you are in the game: two people are the killers, one is the doctor, one is the detective, and the rest are townspeople.)

People kept giving themselves away by inadvertent comments (especially my mom)!


For the poetry we had to write:
cinquain
haiku
acrostic
free form
or story

Here they are, as recorded by Autumn (or not...I can't get them to upload):