Family: A blog post

On Tuesday night we went to the temple with the ward bishopric. Apparently the ward financial clerk is invited to such events. It was good to go. We don't get there enough because finding babysitters for an extended period of time is difficult. We also went to dinner afterward. It was fun.

On Wednesday we had Science Time with Daddy. The subject was gravity. We had a fun time talking about why we build walls vertical (and not diagonal or horizontal). We also talked about how on the moon you can jump higher, and how every planet has gravity that pulls things that are near the planet to the planet.

On Thursday Rea and I went out to the library for a daddy daughter date. She wanted to get more fairy books. It is great that she loves reading chapter books. Hopefully she can pick some that are higher quality some time :). I also went to do some home teaching.

Friday we made apple sauce as a family date. It was surprisingly easy, and the results tasted great.

Saturday we tried to pick some wild fruit so that we could make some jelly, but the oregon grapes in the area didn't really produce anything of note. The rowan trees and the wild grapes were also fairly fruitless. We ended up going to the home depot and the DI instead.

At the DI we got all of the parts necessary to build a frame for a 3D printer case. In addition to being very stylish, the case should allow us to place the printer in the pantry area and free up the extra room for a den or something like that.

I spent a few hours designing joints for the poles, so that I can 3d print connectors up that are exactly the size of the poles. They are printing as I type. I will post pictures when the frame is complete.

After coming home and eating lunch we spent the rest of the day doing a really thorough cleaning of the front room. It was one of those 'Organized Simplicity' cleanings where you throw away tons of stuff (like a spring cleaning). It always generates a ton of mess, but when it is done the house looks way better, and we also only have the things that we actually need.

Over the next week (or next few weeks) we will likely do it to the rest of the house.

All this last week (since I haven't mentioned it already) we made apple chips. we have 5 gallons of them.

Finally, concerning the kids: 

This week Timmy slept through the night all but one night, and he has been walking more and more for fun. He has six words that he has mastered including the ever useful 'sticker", 'apple', 'ball', 'doggy' (which means all mammals), 'bird', 'uh-oh', 'up', 'boo', 'book' and others. We realize that this is more than six. 

Sara memorizes the educational songs that Alison plays at breakfast very well - way better than Rea does. She must have gotten that from me. (She can name the types of tissues in the human body, the parts of the axial skeleton, the names of the states and the capitols as well.)

Rea is riding on her bike very well. She rode to the park and back (2 miles) one day this week. She also is enjoying her birthday gifts a great deal.