July 4 game

As we drove home from the metroplex one day, I had a great idea for a board game. I eagerly and gleefully spent the next few days expanding on it, gathering pictures, and working with Chat to brainstorm and organize it.

Think of Forbidden Island or Pandemic, but from the perspective of the Founding Fathers. The players take on the role of one early Patriot, each of whom has a helpful ability. 

In order to guarantee Independence, they must

• Vote for Independence as a Continental Congress
• Write the Declaration of Independence
• Gather supplies for the Continental Army
• Secure support from other countries

before the British army is able to overrun the country. Each turn players perform three actions, which may include moving, rallying support for independency, giving cards to another player, and so on. They draw two cards each turn, which will either be one of the victory cards they need, a helpful support, or an announcement that the British are advancing. Then the British army draws 2-5 cards, taking over key cities or valleys in the colonies.

There are two ways you can set up the board. Either randomize the 26 cities in a diamond or set them out in this stylized colonial pattern. I think the historical map is a bit harder because most cities have fewer connections.

I am most pleased with the five cards for the Declaration of Independence. Each one has a key quote from the Declaration: 

• "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." 
• "All men ... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... Among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 
• "Governments ... derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
• "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." 
• "With a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Each of the victory conditions has 5 cards you can collect. One of the patriots needs to assemble any 4 of them and bring them to one of two locations. Foreign support can be gathered to Yorktown or Charleston; the Declaration can be issued from Philadelphia or Boston; etc. There are several Midnight Ride cards honoring Paul Revere, Sybil Ludington, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott, who each rode off to warn the people in Boston. There are also some expansion cards for if you have 5 players (once Hyrum gets home in two years).

When a city is drawn the first time, we put a King checker on them (red for the Redcoats). Players can rally support for independence to remove a checker. If that city is drawn a second time, though, the card falls completely to the British and the card is flipped over. Patriots can no longer cross that area safely (except Lydia Darragh, a spy).

I learned some interesting things about locations of key battles. I was pretty good about battles in New England, but hadn't known about Guilford Courthouse or Cowpens, which were key victories for the rebels in the South.

We tried the game on July 4 and really enjoyed it. We won!

Elder Watson at the MTC(s)

His official missionary photo

Hyrum was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Tue, June 9 by our stake president, Patrick Newman, and me. Pres. Newman met with Hyrum several times in the last few weeks as he prepared to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and to receive his endowment in the temple. Even though I have been a temple worker in three different temples and taught a temple prep class, I felt deeply privileged to be there as Pres. Newman walked Hyrum through all that sacred day would include. In the last few months, Pres. Newman has had these multiple interviews with more than 16 young men and women starting their missions, to say nothing of the people coming off their missions as well. It's been very fulfilling to witness and assist.

Just before the setting apart

Elder Watson started attending the Missionary Training Center from home for the next week+. It was a treat to still have him around, and to watch his growth in real time. I remember my feeling of growth during my two months in the MTC way back when - I wrote in my journal at the time that if this was all I received from my two years' sacrifice, it would have been worth it. Watching Hyrum grow and mature so quickly was amazing.

It also made letting go easier. 

He and his sis have matching shirts.
He got this for her birthday that he would
just barely miss.

Departure at the airport

Training videos via Zoom let us see how very much the MTC has changed in the last almost-30 years since I was there and 35 since Joy was there. Among many other differences are the murals.

The Provo temple is currently being renovated, so they bussed the missionaries to the City Centre or Timpanogos temples. Here is Elder Watson with his 'twinner' companion, Elder Johnson. They got along famously, which was a very good thing as they were assigned to the same district once they arrived in Pennsylvania! 

Among the highlights of his brief time at the MTC was that Elder Bednar, a living apostle, walked into their classroom and did an impromptu Q&A session with them for a solid hour. 

The Y and the U, brought together for the Lord's work

I am particularly thankful that missionaries get to call home weekly now, instead of only at Christmas and Mother's Day. We all missed hearing from Elder Watson something fierce!

Arriving in PA July 1, 2026
with his new mission president

Nia quinceanera

 Nia turned 15 this year. She had her very dear friend S over one day and celebrated with Hyrum before he left for the Provo MTC, she had a second cake on her real birthday, and then a few days later she left for Indiana to watch over her 5 yr old cousin for a few days. 

New dress

Cake 1

Cake 2

Smiling at her friend

Birthday steak

Her favorite present by far was a magic book. "I got 2 magic books that light up on command. It has 4 colours- pink/purple, blue, green, and my favoriite, yellow." It speaks back to you when you address it as "Magic book" and changes colors. Gotta admit, they are super cool.

Here she is at the airport, about to fly solo for the very first time. "It was fun. L is adorable. It was funny that I wanted to watch Bluey more thans she did. She liked doing crafts, but needed more help than not with them, but it's the thought that counts. On the way up, Uncle Steve recognized me by my hair, and on the way back Mom recognized me because I was wearing bright pink sweatpants."

Early summer pictures

April 11 - Joy and I went on a walk around town along the Bosque River Trail and found a mural we hadn't seen before. We took a pic near a little fairy reading a book, just like our Nia.

April 20 - Nia on a giant trampoline doing backflips and 360s and scaring her poor father to death when she lands on her head. No damage done, bouncing up again laughing gleefully. Mom, thankfully, never saw it. JT sits tall and proud.

 

May 11 - Joy has taken up woodburning. Nia liked the idea and tried it out as well. She has some real artistic talent! Left: a dragon for Grandma. Right: a girl reading a book under a tree for our cutting board.

May 26 - Nia discovers Tofu and spinach

May 29 - Hyrum takes missionary pictures

May 31 - Mini golf. Joy hit Lovey's ball in for a hole in one!

June 4,5,6 - Hyrum's driver's license arrives! 

Elder Watson's missionary name tag arrives too!

And then we spend the day at Six Flags!

Only after taking the picture did Bugs discover we were dressed for the "wrong" park

We stayed overnight at a hotel and then spent the next day at the temple

June 9 - Nia enjoyed her strawberry ice cream smoothie with sprinkles in a Buddha head cup. She also enjoyed going to For the Strength of Youth (FSY) as Hyrum was about to become ... Elder Watson!

Hyrum's great big Mother's Day

 Boys don't usually get to celebrate Mother's Day, but Hyrum certainly had a big role to play in ours. My parents flew out here so that we could ordain Hyrum as an elder on Mother's Day. 

Joy got a lightup mosaic lamp

Preparing caramel apples for Grandma

A few days later (May 13) , Hyrum went to the temple to receive his very own endowments, and my parents were able to come with. I was his escort. Lavinia and JT stayed at home when the rest of us drove up. After the endowment session, we also did a sealing session so he could see what that was like. Then we had Chinese to also celebrate Joy passing her counseling test.

Joy: "He and I were excited to start going to the temple together because I work at the temple on Fridays. We were hoping that he would be able to be a temple worker also, but there wasn't enough time for the eight required shifts before he left on his mission. But he did go with me every week. It was really awesome to go to the temple together."

It was the following Monday, after she got home, when my mother had her heart attack. We were so very thankful that we had been blessed to have such a special time together, particularly when we didn't know if it would be the Last time. So grateful it isn't!

Some other related pics:

Celebrating Hyrum's birthday on Zoom

Practicing his deadliest ping-pong serve yet

How many children do we have (at home) today?

Having picked up Hyrum from BYU, we were back up to our full complement of five humans in the house. Because I'm mathematical me and we had the math-based eldest son we have, we had set up a lot of family systems that relied on regular number patterns. For instance, who gets to sit by Dad at the dinner table? Mom, obviously. Who else? Take the number of the day, divide by 3, and if it has remainder of 1, Hyrum; remainder 2, Lovey, no remainder, JT.* I've used the date to keep track of whose turn it is to say the evening prayer and a host of other things, so rotating through the family using the calendar has been an integral part of providing some semblance of order to our otherwise fun chaos.

It was surprisingly easy to move to odd/even when Hyrum left and oddly challenging to move back to our normal when he returned.

Except of course when Hyrum wasn't here. He's an adult now, and he has young adult things to do. So some days we were 5 and some days 4, and that made my little number systems wobble a bit. The kids were very flexible, thankfully, slipping into one gear or the other without complaint.

Then he became a missionary and doing missionary training from home. That means he's here, but can only be with the family at certain times and doesn't have the time for some of the normal things we do. So maybe we have 2.5 kids?

About to depart for her first
solo flight.

Then Nia went to FSY (church youth camp) for a week and we had, like, 1.5 kids.

Then she came back and a couple days later Hyrum left and we're back to 2 kids. Except when JT went on a young men's campout for a couple days and we only had one child. And now this week Nia's on an adventure, will come home, and then go on young women's camp right after....


So this week we are getting foretaste of what it will be like when both Hyrum and Nia have moved out of the house and we have only JT left.

Joy, please tell us about Lovey's grand adventure this week:

"When Grandma got really sick and we weren't sure if she was going to live, one of my first thoughts was that they would not be able to go and watch 5-yr old L [our neice] during A's [her sister's] campout. They were going to do that right after they came to visit us. I felt like we should offer to help take care of L since Pop and Grandma weren't able to do it.

"I contacted Emilee [sis-in-law], and she said she thought they could make something work getting L back and forth from her day camp. But A also had another one she wanted to go to to Palmyra, and L would be home all day during that one. So we talked about me going, me going with Nia...."

L, Nia, A at church today

We talked about all of us going on a weeklong vacation and taking L with us. We talked about driving halfway there, meeting them and exchanging prisoners for a few days. We ran the gamut of possibilities.

"We even tried to find if Nia could with A to Palmyra, but that wasn't an option. We finally settled on Nia going by herself in an airplane, which she has never done before. One of the primary reasons we decided not to send me is because of my work and trying to make sure I've gotten started on doing that and getting my hours.

"Hyrum made a comment about wanting to be the one to go take care of L, but he was going to be on his mission so that wasn't an option. Then JT was, like, what about me? And he's just not old enough - that's a long time to take care of a 5 yr old, full time, three days in a row."

The fact that both boys also wanted to watch over and care for L was very touching. We all agreed they were sweet. 

"In the end, Pop offered to pay for the flight and we sent our little girl to Indiana. I'm really glad that we could offer to help.

"We all want to be at Steve and Emilee's house!"

Nia took this from the plane

* - For those numerically inlined and worried about the 31st and Hyrum getting too many turns, we also rotate that annually. So one year Hyrum got all the 31st's, and the next year Nia did, and so on.

Nia - French face painting and flowers

One of the things Nia was most excited about for starting her public, online school was that they would let her take French as a foreign language. After we brought Hyrum home, Nia spent a day at a school fair a few hours away representing the French club. She painted various faces using French-inspired designs. Her drawings are below the fold. Joy: "Her teacher flew all the way from Chicago to go to that fair, and brought French cookies from France! She had a real blast."

By happy accident, just before we found a beret at WalMart on clearance for $1, and she has been wearing it proudly with great regularity. 

During the winter she got some bulbs from a lady at church, which she planted with great eagerness. She feared for their safety during the winter freeze, but they all survived. One has even started flowering - about one new flower every couple days. It blooms for a day, shrinks, and then something eats it. We appreciate that whatever it is doesn't seem to eat the flower until after it has blossomed.

Picking up Hyrum from BYU

Last week Hyrum - now Elder Watson - left for the MTC and eventually Pittsburgh, PA and its surroundings. Most of our summer has been spent preparing him (and us!) for this glorious two year quest of his. So let's back up!

Hyrum loved BYU. He enjoyed his first year of studies as a math major, attended lots of sports games, made friends, and generally had a blast. He also got his mission papers turned in before he turned 18. In February he got his call to the PA Pittsburgh Mission and we started preparations. April 22-23 we drove up to Provo to fetch our son back home for almost two months.

Nia took an impressive number of landscape photos from the back seat during the drive. I'm including one here. 

One fond memory was on the first day I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. They excitedly chose KFC, which we can't typically get in town and most years only have on Dec 23 as a family tradition. On the one hand, it was delicious. Our main takeaway, however, was to never do that again in the car -- no plates or silverware makes it REALLY hard to dish out greasy chicken and sides! Lots of clothes got messy. Chaotic fun.

We made it to BYU and checked into our hotel just across the freeway from the Orem temple. It's not often (for me) you get a view of the temple from your hotel! We were there for just a few minutes when Hyrum let us know he was done with his finals and ready to receive us.

After a quick peek at his room, we drove to the tennis courts across campus so he and JT could play some tennis before leaving. J: "Didn't you also play with him?" I did for a few minutes. We grabbed a bite at the cafeteria - a much more expansive and impressive place than when I was there 25 years ago - and then spent a frenzied hour moving Hyrum's stuff out of his room and cleaning it up for an earlier-than-expected inspection. We made it! J: "Though we did miss a couple of drawers, they were okay with me cleaning them out after the inspection." What a nice Mommy! Nia was also very helpful. "Hyrum wished he hadn't needed any help. It's hard to move."

After a short walk through campus, Hyrum went to say goodbye to some friends and we went back to the hotel. Joy and I repacked some of his stuff to take up less room and chose some cleaning supplies we really didn't need to haul back to Texas with us. Even though we four had only brought a couple carry-ons, unloading an entire dorm room filled the car surprisingly well! That was Hyrum's last night at the Y for the next few years. Here is Nia at the library, the place of her soul's delight.