Parentheticals

Tuesday we celebrated Alison's birthday. We had a great party with Sushi for dinner (we went to the sushi place at fort union near the thai food place (Itto Sushi, the one that has really good nigiri)). We opened Alison's presents (the kids helped open them), and did the "Heavy Hangover game", and also the balloon game. For those not initiated in the "Heavy Hangover" game, don't feel left out. I had never heard of it until I married Alison. It involved chanting a poem and bonking the gift recipient on the head with your present. A scouring of the internet only came up with the following scholarly quote: I believe the custom died out in affluent countries when the size and weight of gifts increased and the custom was found to cause unacceptable collateral damage to the upcoming generation of gift recipients. It did, however, have a Darwinian purpose in prehistoric times, when clubs and similar weapons were handed out as gifts and the thin skulls of th

This week Alison has felt pretty good most of the week. We even got the entire house cleaned on Saturday for the first time in a long time. It was nice to have the house clean (even if it doesn't last very long.) Our gardens are starting to grow wonderfully. We stole some lettuce, strawberries, raspberries, chives, and other various plants from Sheila and Scott (they had some extra that had volunteered from last year). The raspberries died, and so did most of the lettuce, but the strawberries, mint, and chives transplanted like champs. We got a weed whacker last week, and tried it out this week (a little bit). It worked well. I still need to whack most of the weeds in the front yard. The funny thing is that the more weeds that I look at the more edible plants that I am finding in the yard. As of yet we have lambs-quarters, mallow, henpeck, alfalfa, blue mustard, shepherds purse, nettle, and I am sure that we will find other varieties edible as we look more. We have also found

I have been working on the viking game some more. It is coming along, but it still isn't working very well. I tried it out at work on Thursday, and people said that they liked it, but they were just being nice. I think that it is getting better, however it could be moving along more quickly. This week it rained a lot. We love the rain, because with great rain comes great gardens. Also, we just love the rain in general, since we came from a beautiful place known as north of the Garden of Eden before we entered this lone and dreary wilderness that we call Utah. For Rea's date this week, Mike and the kids watched an episode of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" in which Spike got greedy and turned into a wicked huge dragon until he learned to be generous again. It was apparently a big deal to Timmy. His favorite character is Spike, and after it was over he spent about half an hour grabbing Alison with wide eyes and repeating to her over and over, "Pike! Ra-ra

On Monday Alison had a very sick day; the kids were watching a movie at 9am and she texted her mom asking for ideas. Grandma Julie suggested that she take the kids to McDonalds play place, so they went there after lunch. It worked well. For the price of a container of fries and two small ice creams, the kids played happily for four hours while she laid on the floor. Rea actually got bored eventually and came and took one of the books Alison brought into the play place to read it. It was "Ella Enchanted," and she liked it a lot. As part of family night we started to make Lilac Jelly. It turned out pretty good this year. It ended up making about 6 pints. The recipe was the same as last time that we made it, so I am not going to post it again. On Tuesday for Timmy's date night we went on a long walk and petted a dog. Timmy had a wonderful time. He loves dogs. Sara, on the other hand does not like dogs at all. On Wednesday the kids were invited to go to the zoo with Gra

Tuesday was Sara's date night. First she asked for ice cream, but when Alison pointed out that she had been complaining about being cold all day, she decided to change for hot chocolate. We have a local fancy drink place called Straws where we get "hot ice cream" for the kids when they want it. Sara chose mint chocolate cocoa, which tasted just like mint chocolate chip ice cream. The kids enjoyed it a lot (Sara brought it home and shared). Alison is maybe feeling a little better, but not much. The kids still got to watch a lot of movies this week, although we're getting rid of the multiple-movies-a-day days. Rea and Sara want it to be noted that they watched 'Lady and the Tramp' this week. Rea baked brownies all by herself for us. She is getting very self-reliant with Alison's indisposition. She asked permission, got out the box of brownies, read the directions, mixed them, greased a pan, and poured them in. Alison just put them in and out of the ov