I Love To See The Temple

Edgardo and I went to the Jordan River Temple yesterday and participated in an endowment session - there's a cheap date for you.  Just as we were about to leave we were approached by a gentleman who asked us to join a group doing sealings as they were short one couple.  So 40 minutes later we had met several members of Grandpa and Grandma Harmon's home ward and everyone was excited to know that the most recent addition to their ward- Marvin & Claudia - are my parents (cue sound "It's A Small World After All").  Unfortunately, we realized when we got out to the car that we were already 5 minutes late to pick Sarah up from school and she had been trying to call both of us.  I spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening helping each of our boys get rather large projects done for school - made it to bed at 1:30 AM when Jacob ran out of steam for his project; we'll be finishing that up later this morning on one of his breaks.  I know that probably sounds strange.  Jacob and Sarah are both attending "Itineris, Early College High School" instead of going to Copper Hills High School with all their friends.  Sarah, who is very social, is having a really hard time being away from her friends but Jacob is pretty much equally unhappy regardless of which school he attends.  Itineris gives you both high school courses and college courses and has it's own annex building at the Salt Lake Community College Campus, the schedule there is very much like it any other college in that you have classes at odd times with long breaks in between.  Jacob will have all his high school credits finished this semester and when he graduates with the class of 2009 next Spring he will be just 2 semesters short of a completed Associates Degree.  We hope that this will be the case for Sarah in her senior year as well but I am not at all certain that she will make the effort to attend again next year as she is pretty miserable without her favorite friends right now.  I love the fast track for the college education and the DraMAtiC discount on the cost of education through this program ($180 for tuition per child/year and we've only spent $700 on college courses so far for Jacob - most of the college classes are free - and we will only have to pay for 2 semesters when Jacob graduates at regular college rates to finish his associates degree).  Another great benefit of Itineris is that most of the class rooms are in the basement and there is no cell phone service in that part of the school so TeXtiNg during class is impossible (You gotta love that!), Sarah was not doing as well at Copper Hills as she is doing at Itineris in terms of grades and I suspect the social aspect and the texting was a big part of the problem.  Hope, hope, hope - I really hope that Sarah will change her focus and her attitude next year so that she will finish at Itineris and come away with an Associates Degree and get that FanTaStiC head start on her future.  Hope springs eternal!