I met with my BYUI students in their study groups this week. On Tuesday BYUI’s entire system went down so one group got excused from their meeting with me. I really enjoy getting to know my students. This semester I have a lot of students who are coming back to school after many years of work or raising children. It’s inspiring to see the value they place on getting an education.
The highlight of this week was Mark’s birthday! Birthdays are a big deal to me and I wanted Mark to have a special day even though our gathering and traveling are limited now. He knew I was planning something fun, but I kept the details a surprise. On Friday he came home from school to a “camp” party!
This sign says “Warning: do not feed the bears.”
Luckily my parents had this amazing lantern and made me some log slices to decorate with. They even had some branches left from their Christmas tree! It was perfect!
I hung lights above our bed so we could pretend we were sleeping under the stars. I had hoped to hang more up, but our cinder block walls get condensation from the cold in the winter. No matter what I did I just couldn’t get the command strips to hook to the outer walls. It was still fun though.
I even had campground signs around the apartment.
I also created a forest of trees with a little note for Mark on each one.
Mark was very surprised and happy. It couldn’t have been more perfect- the day before the party my aunt, Tammy, said she had a bunch of free pajamas from her job at the lazy one pajama outlet! We got a bunch and happened to get some matching Buffalo plaid ones which were just perfect for the party!
I tried to plan camping-type activities for us to do over the weekend. We watched Follow Me Boys! We made fire starter and Mark did some leatherwork. He also had to go on a scavenger hunt to find his birthday presents.
Mark has been doing so well with his health program this month. I’m very proud of him! He decided to have a healthy birthday dinner and dessert. We had hamburger bites and zucchini fries for dinner. Then I made a frozen Greek yogurt dessert.
Our Story: The Bell Family 