A Family Home Evening Idea You'll Totally Want to Copy

Do you ever get to Monday night and don't have a plan for FHE? Have I got an idea for you! We did it last Monday and it was so spiritually enriching and made us closer as a family. You ready?

Invite your local Dance Dance Revolution master over to show you some tips!

(for some reason, Ryan took no pictures of his face. He'll probably appreciate not being mobbed and asked for autographs, because of Ryan's discretion.)

There's a boy in our ward, leaving on his mission soon, who, Ryan found out during a Get-To-Know-You in Priesthood meeting, has apparently spent his pre-mission years diligently prepping himself for...all the DDR (or "didder" as those in the know call it) arcades in Brazil. (Seriously. He has already looked up all the locations in his mission boundaries. "If I beat this level, you have to commit to baptism, deal?")

So we invited him over to give us tips on our new Christmas present. He was very knowledgeable, if not slightly (okay VERY) condescending, and this is what we learned:

• Only people who want to "play bad" return to the middle between steps. He had his body positioned at a diagonal and basically rocked back and forth between the front, back, right and left squares.
• If you want to be really good (at the highest level then he makes the music faster on purpose), you have to build your own wooden and plastic platform, with all the computer boards, that hooks up to the PlayStation. Which he brought over, because he couldn't possibly play on our lame mats. He has also used metal piping to construct a railing system, so he doesn't have to support his body weight. (Duh. "That just wastes energy.")


• All of the dancers have names. Emi is our favorite. Jenny in her little bikini bottoms and gyrations is NOT.


• There are ways to unlock new songs (and it's by being good...oh yeah, I've unlocked a few this week. I'm coordinated that way.)


• If your parents try to limit your playtime, you just buy your own stuff and then they can't do anything about it. (We thought that was GREAT insight for our 2 oldest.)
  
• Phrasing: "didder" (what Dance Dance Revolution is called), "shadow playing" (when you stand behind and do the steps without being on the mat), "coin lines" (at the arcades, you place your ID on the game in order of how you arrived, so you can go play other games while you wait. This will come in handy on our next date night.)

So ask around for your own "Revolution Guy" as Jane calls him. It will be a night to remember.

And then come see if you can beat the Romneys. To the Celestial Kingdom, of course. What did you think I was referring to?