The Week of Not as Much Cleaning

On Monday we celebrated the 4th of July with a barbecue. We had Amy, Sheila, and their respective families attend. The kids played, the adults talked, and all had a good time. We did fireworks toward the end. The kids all got scared from the morning glories, and lit the grass on fire (fast stomping by the ladies put it out).

The 'Bestest Crackering Ballz' were aptly named. Sara chose them because of the glittery pink and purple wrapping, and they were amazing. We did scare Dustin into a screaming fit because all of the cheap crackling balls we had done before were so pitiful that we were standing very close when the "Bestest Crackering Ball" went off, and it was surprising! Even Dustin enjoyed the later ones.

After the extended family went home we went off to the park on the hill and watched every firework show in the valley at the same time. It was very fun, and the kids loved running around with other kids at the park in the dark. Next year, we need to bring glowsticks; it makes it much easier to keep an eye on them in the dark.

We were all up very late watching the shows, which started off a whole week of late nights and progressively more fussy kids. It was also very hot and didn't cool down at night as much as it has been (we're seeing how long we can go without air conditioning this summer). Between the two, we didn't feel like doing much for the rest of the week. We made it to the pool once, and the library, and even the park for one playgroup, but it seems like a lot of every day was spent at home and grumpy. Alison is insisting on naps and earlier bedtimes this week. (Timmy is screaming in protest at the new regime as I type this.)

Tuesday Mike took Timmy and Sara to Wheeler farm (Rea didn't want to go). Timmy really enjoyed chasing the geese, and both of them loved playing on the various farm implements, tree houses, and play structures.

Friday we babysat all day for our friends the Dalyais, which was the highlight of the week in the kids' minds. They have five kids ages twelve to one, so they weren't too much work for Alison; they mostly all played together and the biggest ones took care of the littles. The girls absolutely loved it, but Alison was tired by the end, mostly from keeping them all fed in a hot kitchen.

Friday Mike also took his car in for a checkup because it was making an odd noise on left turns. This '95 Geo Prism has been a very reliable car for Mike for over ten years, but unfortunately some of the parts are getting hard to find. The repair shop said that the part he needed was no longer manufactured new and he would have to go to the local Pick and Pull to find the part used.

So Saturday morning he set off in search of the part. The repair man had suggested he bring scissors; he hadn't mentioned razor blades and bolt cutters and other tools that would have made the job much easier. Finally he managed to more-or-less disassemble the engine and get out the part.

Meanwhile, Alison and the kids were getting ready for our planned meetup with Amy's family at an artificial creek near their house. The kids had a wonderful time splashing around and climbing on rocks, and we had fun talking. No one even got sunburned. It's always nice to spend time with family.

On the way home we dropped the part off at the repair shop. The man looked at the fruit of Mike's hard labor, twisted off the plastic cap (which was accessible in the engine without even the scissors, let alone the rest of it), and said, "Great! Just what we need, and perfect condition!" This was a bit frustrating, but at least the car will be fixed soon.

We managed a deep clean of the bathroom on Saturday. That's the only room we did this week, and it only took about an hour (smallest room in the house by far; only about a square yard about 3 inches deep of stuff). We did get rid of enough that there's lots of empty space in our medicine cabinet. We still need to do the 3D Printer room and the kitchen; maybe we'll feel motivated this week, with all our extra sleep (and maybe even turning on the air conditioner).

Sunday Mike taught Elder's Quorum and Alison did Primary Singing Time, so Timmy was forced to go to nursery. Since he's started going down for a nap between 11 and 1 most days, 11:00 Church and nursery have been very difficult. But apparently he settled down pretty well after Mike left him and was happy for most of the time. We celebrated with popcorn when we got home.

Alison has decided that it's too hot to cook and is looking up uncooked recipes. Today we had raw stuffed peppers, which would have been better had the anaheims she bought been more like normal anaheims and less like jalapenos. The stuffing was good. We also found a recipe for breakfast-worthy no-bake oatmeal raisin "cookies" (scare quotes because they don't actually contain any sugar if made with unsweetened coconut). Those might be breakfast this week, at least for Alison. The recipe's found here if you're interested (we didn't have flax seed, so we used wheat, and we made applesauce by microwaving apples the kids had taken one bite out of and left around). If the heat keeps up, we might have lots more non-cooked recipes to share, because Alison has found that once she's cooked a meal, she has no desire to sit in the now-even-hotter kitchen and eat it, and that's not good for the baby. Or maybe we'll just do the air conditioner.