A Few Announcements

1. April and I are doing a totally free webinar tomorrow night with my parents on their new book - The Entitlement Trap.  Check out the details and register HERE if you like.

2.  I spent a little time making this blog a little more user-friendly.  My son Ashton helped me figure out how to make those links at the top of this page under the banner header - About This Blog, About Me, About My Family and Tried and True Ideas.  I'm so glad to have and 11-year-old who can answer my computer questions when my computer-guru husband Jared isn't around!  I hope these new features will make it easy for you to find the specific information and ideas you might be looking for.

3.  After getting lots of requests, we're offering our first-ever Couples Retreat where moms AND dads can come together to learn and share exciting ideas for building strong families.  I just finished the registration page for this event on September 10th at my parents' house in Park City and wanted my blog readers to get the first opportunity to register.  Click HERE to read all about it.

4.  For those who've been wishing they could attend a Retreat but distance and cost have been prohibitive, we're working on some great online workshops using footage from our Retreats.  We've got a great videographer who's helping us create video clips that will be used in conjunction with worksheets and reflection questions so people can participate in their own little personal Retreat right in their own home.  Of course, the energy, synergy and fun of attending a Retreat in person can't be replicated, but I'm excited that we'll be able to some great content to moms and dads around the world through these new online workshops.  I don't know when exactly we'll get them done.  I've stopped making promises on timelines because I've realized deadlines are deadly when you don't know what a project will really entail and when you're trying to keep your family's needs on the top of your priority list.  But sometime this fall is feeling realistic.

5.  If you can't make it to the Couples Retreat in September, maybe you can make it to BYU Idaho Education Week in Rexburg July 28-30.  I'll be presenting on Family Systems, Educating your Children and Taking Care of the Person Inside the Mom. My good friend Allyson Reynolds who's one of our Power of Moms Trainers will also be presenting as part of the "Mom/Family Track" that we helped start at BYUI last year. BYUI does a great job with Education Week, so if the dates, location, and price appeal to you, come!  You can find all the details HERE.

6.  Lest you think that Bear Lake is an idyllic paradise where everyone shows nothing but love for each other and joy abounds constantly, I think I should mention that while love is thick around here and we're blessed with lots of good times, we've got our fair share of hard stuff too.  The clean-up is often a bit overwhelming with twenty some-odd kids underfoot - and the question of who should be cleaning up what is sometimes an issue.  Planning and sharing meals generally works out great as everyone's great about pitching in - but as supplies run low, there's some negotiation and coordination involved in getting food from the nearest town 40 minutes away that doesn't have great options or getting someone who's coming up here from Salt Lake to bring food with them - the right food in the right quantities.  The kids have their little issues with each other and have developed a serious case of selective hearing (they've become very adept at tuning out adult voices asking them to do something).  Plus the kids have started trying to get what they want by asking a series of adults until they get an answer they like and we've had to squelch some of that.  Even though the batch of babies and toddlers we have this year are uncommonly mellow and sweet and fun, there are babies crying and toddlers and little kids making all sorts of messes quite frequently.  And even the best kids get pretty un-fun when they're short on sleep which is often the case around here.  But I'm not complaining.  Not a bit.  I'll take the over-worked bathrooms and the 10x/day need for sweeping the floor and the near-constant noise.  The relationship-building and fun is worth every little inconvenience and more.