Family, Isn't It About...

Time. Family Time!
I'm lucky to have my family live so close. I get to see them a lot. I also have the chance to be a part of a few pseudo-families trying to fill the needs when blood relations aren't readily available. So here are some of my family updates.

- The Wood Family - 

October included general conference in Holden, Mom's birthday, a cabin trip with Sierra and Harper, cheering Mom on at the Provo halloween half marathon, the Wood family halloween dinner, a traditional halloween visit to Grandpa and Grandma Burnett, and plenty of family dinners and afternoons doing laundry at the parents' house. Lots of fun!

- The College Family - 

Some of my roommates and friends have little or no family in Utah, so we build up little networks of pseudo-families to help fill the need. A roommate needed help recovering from ACL surgery and needs rides to work, school, and physical therapy. A friend needs someone to vent at. Another friend needs someone to go get treats with and unload their frustrations. One of my roommates is in a family science class and needed to do a family tradition and write a paper about it, so all 6 of us roommates went out to eat and celebrated all our birthdays at once. The family tradition was everyone saying what they loved about the birthday person, so we took turns telling what we loved about each other. Great tradition! Mostly college students can get wrapped up in work and school and the loneliness sets in. Even though they call, facebook, or skype their family, it really helps to have a support network nearby to call on when life is hard.

- The Summit Family - 

Where to even begin? For many of the students, they see their teachers and classmates more hours in the day than their foster or proctor families, and certainly more than their actual families. The learning at Summit doesn't start and end with standard curriculum. Some impromptu lessons this month? Let me see... interviewing skills, accountability, substance abuse, respect for women, mending relationships, proper theatre etiquette (at Thriller), valuing other people for who they are (at school campout, music class concert), and how to have fun (Chess tournament, Halloween faculty flashmob, Halloweiner roast). My students also like to ask me about what my life is like. I think the most attentive and behaved they ever were was when they asked me about what my life plans are and what I value in a relationship.

Sometimes the lesson works the other way. Today my students taught me about family. Tony walked into class, buried his head in his hoodie, and was silent for the first part of class. Lorenzo pops up out of his chair like usual (I swear I'm going to duct tape that kid down). He goes over to Tony and asks him why he's sad on his birthday. Tony mumbles out that he misses his family. Lorenzo then takes up a quick cash collection and gets a note from me to go to the vending machine. He comes back with chocolate for Tony and leads the class in the birthday song. Then he tells Tony that he'll be his family and gives him a big hug. It's really sad to see what happens when families fail and kids end up in the system, but sometimes we have small moments of success like this one.

I also love the faculty I work with. When I need teaching advice they are full of good ideas that work! Then there are the school's counselors and administrators who psychoanalyze my life and give me dating advice, whether I want it or not. Haha, I love them too. One of the school activities coming up that I'm looking forward to is a Girls' Night Out. All the girl students are invited and asked to bring a father figure with them. I don't know what's planned, but I'm sure it'll be good since the invitation asked the father figures to wear pink, haha!

I'm so lucky to have my family, my college family, and my Summit family!