A Celebratory Weekend.
During the first half of this week, Alison was sick for most of the time, which prevented them from doing as many things as they normally do. The kids missed the pool the most.
Mike went to his design guild on Tuesday and played Grab the Loot. It went well, and he got a lot of good ideas.
On Friday Mike was told that his game was chosen as the winner of the Button Shy Wallet Game Design contest. His game (The Perfect Moment) is now being considered for publication by Button Shy Games. Winning a contest with one of his games has been a long term goal for Mike, so he is really excited about this.
After learning this, Mike decided to bring home sushi for dinner. The mood felt very celebratory.
On Saturday we celebrated Timmy's third birthday. He loved all of his presents, and spent much of the day playing with them. When we got bored of watching this, we told him to bring his toys to go strawberry picking. The three oldest family members picked pretty much the whole time and got a lot of strawberries, and the younger ones helped some and played some. Gideon was very happy to sit in the grass and eat as many strawberries as his sisters brought to him. He is so grown up now.
Timmy chose to have macaroni and cheese and hotdogs and watermelon for his special lunch, and also wanted lemon cake for his desert. We ran out of time to bake the cake, but we plan on doing that really soon.
After a while, we went outside and installed the pump that Timmy wanted for one of his presents. It is a red handled hand pump that pumps real water. Mike buried a five gallon bucket, and the pump has a pipe that rests on the bottom of the bucket. We put a drip line from our sprinkler down into the bucket, which should keep it full, and not waste more water than we would have been spraying down in that part of our yard anyway.
We eventually plan on making it catch the water and reroute it into the bucket again, but that hasn't yet happened. Perhaps next weekend it will.
In the evening we went to a ward barbecue, which was really fun, and also happened to be at the same stake center that we have been picking strawberries at.
Saturday evening we also finished up the initial stages of our second cheddaneer (cheddar flavored paneer), which tastes pretty darn good. We pressed it all of Sunday and it is now in the fridge. It doesn't taste anything like cheddar, but it has a nice flavor, and is finished in one day. We added in some annatto, so it is also orange in color.
Sunday was fathers day and Timmy's real birthday. Alison didn't have ward council, so the morning was much more relaxed than usual. We played Timmy's birthday game for the first time (and then three more times after that). Timmy decided that the aliens should be the good guys for the third and fourth game, so we had evil robots and brave aliens. It was fun. He even followed the rules.
After church we had Mike's father's day quiche, and then Becky and Chauncy came over, and we talked in the front yard while the kids all played. It was good to see them.
Finally, we ended the day with a instant lazymike strawberry pie. The instantness of it was derived from the fact that we froze some of our strawberries and then used them to chill the pie to eating consistency in about five minutes. This wouldn't work with store strawberries as they are so big, but with wild strawberries it worked fine. We still have one piecrust left, so we will probably have another pie sometime soon.
Mike went to his design guild on Tuesday and played Grab the Loot. It went well, and he got a lot of good ideas.
On Friday Mike was told that his game was chosen as the winner of the Button Shy Wallet Game Design contest. His game (The Perfect Moment) is now being considered for publication by Button Shy Games. Winning a contest with one of his games has been a long term goal for Mike, so he is really excited about this.
After learning this, Mike decided to bring home sushi for dinner. The mood felt very celebratory.
On Saturday we celebrated Timmy's third birthday. He loved all of his presents, and spent much of the day playing with them. When we got bored of watching this, we told him to bring his toys to go strawberry picking. The three oldest family members picked pretty much the whole time and got a lot of strawberries, and the younger ones helped some and played some. Gideon was very happy to sit in the grass and eat as many strawberries as his sisters brought to him. He is so grown up now.
Timmy chose to have macaroni and cheese and hotdogs and watermelon for his special lunch, and also wanted lemon cake for his desert. We ran out of time to bake the cake, but we plan on doing that really soon.
After a while, we went outside and installed the pump that Timmy wanted for one of his presents. It is a red handled hand pump that pumps real water. Mike buried a five gallon bucket, and the pump has a pipe that rests on the bottom of the bucket. We put a drip line from our sprinkler down into the bucket, which should keep it full, and not waste more water than we would have been spraying down in that part of our yard anyway.We eventually plan on making it catch the water and reroute it into the bucket again, but that hasn't yet happened. Perhaps next weekend it will.
In the evening we went to a ward barbecue, which was really fun, and also happened to be at the same stake center that we have been picking strawberries at.
Saturday evening we also finished up the initial stages of our second cheddaneer (cheddar flavored paneer), which tastes pretty darn good. We pressed it all of Sunday and it is now in the fridge. It doesn't taste anything like cheddar, but it has a nice flavor, and is finished in one day. We added in some annatto, so it is also orange in color.
Sunday was fathers day and Timmy's real birthday. Alison didn't have ward council, so the morning was much more relaxed than usual. We played Timmy's birthday game for the first time (and then three more times after that). Timmy decided that the aliens should be the good guys for the third and fourth game, so we had evil robots and brave aliens. It was fun. He even followed the rules.After church we had Mike's father's day quiche, and then Becky and Chauncy came over, and we talked in the front yard while the kids all played. It was good to see them.
Finally, we ended the day with a instant lazymike strawberry pie. The instantness of it was derived from the fact that we froze some of our strawberries and then used them to chill the pie to eating consistency in about five minutes. This wouldn't work with store strawberries as they are so big, but with wild strawberries it worked fine. We still have one piecrust left, so we will probably have another pie sometime soon.
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