Parentheticals

(This post was written by Alison. That hasn't happened in over a year, I think, so it felt worth noting.)  This week we've been moving in. The kitchen is all done and the rest of the house is arranged enough that we got through a lot of boxes this week. Then the washer overflowed. So we got to spend Saturday pulling up all the flooring in the master bedroom, laundry room, closet, bathroom, and hallway, and emptying and drying the contents of all the boxes in the garage that got soaked. That was not fun. Actually, it felt like getting kicked when we were down. Bad form, universe. Anyway. Up until then, the week went pretty well. Mike went back to work and the kids and Alison went back to their schedule of going to the park and the pool everyday. Mike's been working very hard every evening to finish the moving-in process, and Alison and the kids were helpful off and on, when they were available (Alison) and in the mood (kids). We have one more week before school starts, but t...

It has been 3 weeks since we posted, so we have a lot to talk about:  3 weeks ago we went down to St George with Alison's family. We had a lot of fun. Elsa played with Victoria with the dollhouse. Chauncey brought over X-Wing ships and the boys played X-Wing regularly. We also went swimming regularly and went down to the river.  On the day that we were leaving Timmy hurt his foot, and because of that Mike kept him out of the water for the first two days. Timmy was very disappointed about this, however, his foot healed properly so that was good.  It was nice to be with the Poulson family and have a lot of fun. Last week Rea went on trek. She made her own pioneer dress and looked very authentic. She did very well. Her cousin Logan was there with her as well. They walked 14 miles a day, and were very tired afterward. While they were at trek, we worked very hard to finish up the house. While Mike worked on the plumbing Grandpa Mike worked on the flooring with Aunt Amy and Sco...

Last week we wrote up a blog post but never posted it, so this one is going to be another twofer. Early last week, we celebrated the 4th of July. Earlier in the day we went over to the Plastow's house and had a barbecue while it was raining. The rain was really nice given how hot it has been recently, and the barbecue was very good with lots of tasty food. We invited the Plastows, the Browns, the Plastow grandparents, and the Rogerses over to our house and all lit off fireworks. It was successful, and no one got hurt, and nothing got lit on fire, so that was pretty good.  Last week, Mike took most of the week off from work and worked on the house the entire time. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we painted. We started installing the cabinets on Thursday; however, they took forever to do, and we finally finished them Saturday evening. While Mike was working on the cabinets, Rea and the kids worked on installing lots of floors. The bathrooms and playroom are already done, so we have been ma...

On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday Timmy, Sara, and Rea (respectively) went to Owl Camp. For those that don't remember, Owl Camp is an event that the library puts on. It is Harry Potter themed, and they dress up and do Harry Potter things: games, crafts, etc. The kids really love going to it, and it was fun this year just like previous years. We also celebrated Taylorsville days this week, which has carousel and Ferris wheel rides as well as other rides. The kids loved going on lots of rides, and had fun there. Most people's favorite ride was the carousel, and Rea and Sara did the Ferris wheel. The dragon was unexpectedly intense, and the obstacle courses were a surprise hit. Elsa also did a pony ride. While the kids were involved in lots of festivities Mike was installing structural plywood, doors, and tubs at the house in an attempt to get them all in before the drywallers arrived. It was a ton of work, and Mike was pretty exhausted by Friday (when the drywallers began), howeve...

We forgot to post again last week, so here we are with another double post. Not this week but the week before the garage door installers came over and installed a new garage door in our house. It looks pretty good and opens and closes very easily. That week we also had the four-way inspection again and finally passed it. That opened up our ability to finish wrapping the house and also installing insulation.  We scheduled the insulation installation as soon as we could (Monday of this week). Late last week we moved to the Waters house because they had gone to Africa and we wanted to be closer to our house and our Ward. It was great too stay at the Brown's house, however, it is also nice to have an entire house to yourself and to be able to walk to the park and church and our friend's houses. Last Saturday we went to a wings of fire convention which is named fan wings fest. Everyone at the convention was interested in wings of fire series, and the author of the books was also in ...

I started a blog post last Sunday, but we were too busy to actually write the things up that were in the post, so I am now converting a bulleted list of things to write about into an actual post, and then adding all of the things that happened last week as well. Rea recently created an Etsy shop. Here is a link to it: https://ecogiftcreations.etsy.com . She is selling notebooks, candles, hanging stone decorations, and bags of polished rocks. She made all of the things herself, and is planning on saving the money that she makes for college. We also received about 200 lbs of expired strawberries from the Waters last week and processed them for storage. Many were moldy, but we ended up with a lot of good ones as well, so the freezers in the Brown house are all full of strawberries right now. The kids have been going at them with a will and have made multiple strawberry smoothies every day, so they are getting used up. Mike also made a gallon of strawberry syrup, which is being used to mak...