A Family Conference (with Good Friends)

(Disclaimer:  This post is pure Liz.  If you don't like me, you won't like this post.  If you're OK with my ramblings and thoughts, carry on.)

This weekend I attended a great, and I mean, totally inspirational conference put on by Southern Virginia University.  (A separate post on SVU will come this week--I couldn't stop taking photos of it.)  The theme this year was "Families . . . Forever" and I missed my little family at home the whole time!  Luckily I was with good friends and met a few new ones there. 

The awesome organizer of our little group from C-ville (in red on left) was the one who led us to the beautiful Shenandoah for this event.  We met all of her fun-loving friends and mealtimes were pure entertainment reminiscent of my days as freshman in the Cannon Center but with women old enough to be my mom (minus the flirting, loud freshmen boys, and six-ounce glasses.)

One friend (in black on right) brought her newborn and that little baby was our mascot--everyone wanted to hold her little bundled body.

I was able to see my mom-artist-writer friend Leslie Graff again.  I met her in the fall at a Power of Moms retreat and have anticipated a reunion having followed the progress in a few series she has done.  She was there displaying and presenting her "Domestic Series" which has evolved into this amazing statement of the importance and beauty and of indespensibility of the domestic parts of family life. 

On Friday night after attending a great production of "The Man from La Mancha" we sat out in the heavenly cool of a Virginia evening in June and she gave me great ideas on fostering art development and appreciation in my children.  And that led to opining on LDS culture and our place in it.  She is a woman of great ideas and such impressive works.

Overall I felt bolstered by true principles and great ideas.  Here are some of the highlights mixed in with some ideas I want to implement:

• The family (as a the most fundamental unit of society) isn't just part of God's plan of happiness.  It is God's plan's for our happiness, with the Savior making our forever-togetherness possible.
• Our marriage covenant to God and to our spouse encompasses all of the blessings and promises that our really important in this life.  In fact everything that was taught about the doctrine of the family as taught in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ was so encouraging.
• The Eyres kicked off the conference with a presentation on how entitlement is trapping our kids and our society, and we can counteract it by giving kids responsibility.  They confessed they were shamelessly promoting their new book because they see it as a cause, one that will re-shape our society if families can implement its principles.  (And I'm shamelessly promoting it here because I think they're right!)
• Gender matters in family life in non-trivial ways, contrary to popular opinion today.  Dr. Ariel Rodriguez presented on the biosocial view of gender development--the male and female brain are different starting on day one!  The research he presented just astounded me, but my favorite
• Assigning kids as committee chairs means that they have more stewardship over family workings which they can report on and discuss at family council.  The Andersons talked about the committees that their kids have chaired--activities, service, sunshine, heritage, preparedness, etc.  
• Giving kids unlimited access to the Internet at 12 or 14 or 16 is like giving them the keys to the truck and giving them free use of it.  Dr. Charles Knutson spoke on the Internet and family with wit and candor, and I feel full of confidence (and a little bit of dread, I won't lie) about how involved I need to be in technology as a parent.  He pointed out that when we refuse involvement and awareness we're just taking ourselves out of the equation and our kids' perceived peer group.
• Les' presentation on her purposes behind her Domestic Series has the wheels in my mind turning with how I can use my talents to make a statement about my feelings of the importance of families.  I wonder where my place is in the discussion.
• I'm already planning on attending next year.  The theme is "Journey to Higher Ground."  You should come--really! 

A great big thanks to Dan who took off a day of work at UVA so that he could be a stay-at-home dad all weekend.