Parentheticals

On Tuesday we went to the ward trunk or treat and chili cook off. The kids enjoyed visiting all of the cars, and we all had a good time. The chili and the company both were good. Also on Tuesday Timmy told Mike and Alison that he was an emeritus eagle. It took a while to figure it out, but he meant American. On Wednesday we went over to Scott and Sheila's house. Mike was showing Scott the ins and outs of the laser cutter, and the whole family came over too. It was fun to talk to them. Sheila has an idea for a website for Mike to make. It sounds like a good idea, and perhaps it will be lucrative too. On Friday, Sara and Timmy both started throwing up. They felt better by Saturday, and then on Saturday Alison and Gideon started showing symptoms of a cold. We are not sure if we just have two independent sicknesses going through the house at the same time, or if they are related. Either way, the cold is lasting much longer than the vomiting. Mike and Alison have contin...

On Monday, we had a special treat. Grandma Julie came to town to spend a week at the cabin with her sisters, and we picked her up at the airport and went to the zoo all day. It was wonderful! Grandma said that she should start coming to Utah once a month, spending a day with us and a night with Patty before going home. We would sure love that! It was great to talk and play and see all the animals. This week Mike has begun getting ready for the Ion Awards again. He has three games this year that he hopes to have ready by December 1st. That is a month earlier than is usual, but he still hopes to have them all ready in time. He has also been doing more work on the website that he is making in his spare time. It is nearly ready to show off to the board game design community. Perhaps in a few weeks it will be done. Gideon is working on standing and walking and climbing on everything. This week he learned to stand for much longer at a time and once even picked up a foot while standing...

Gideon became a meerkat this week. He can crawl around, stand up on his two legs (without any support), and then squat back down to crawling all by himself. He seems to be closer to walking than he was before, and his balance is getting much better. This week Sara, Rea, and Timmy all drew all over their faces. It took quite a lot of scrubbing to get it all off. Perhaps this will be a learning experience for them. They also carved some pumpkins. We are not sure what they were supposed to look like, but they are pretty scary. On Thursday Rea invited some friends over for a Halloween party. It was supposed to be a costume party, but no-one showed up in costumes since they all cam straight from school. They cut corn tortillas in the shape of pumpkins and coated them with orange oil, and toasted them into chips. Rea was very excited about this recipe. Other than that they mostly played outside. It was Alison's type of party. Alison and Mike have been dreaming of making an onsen ...

Alison has been on an alternative sleep schedule since Monday this week. She has been sleeping 4.5 hours each night, and taking three 20 minute naps during the day. According to her research, it takes a few weeks to adjust to the new schedule, and after that she should feel normal again. On the first two days she felt pretty much normal, but Thursday and Friday she has felt sleepy during the day. She says that after having four children, it isn't anything that she hasn't experienced before, but she is looking forward to the adjustment period being over. If she isn't feeling normal again by the end of October she is going to go back to normal sleeping for a while to reconsider her plans. On Tuesday, a new DB technology - Firestore - was announced by google, and Mike is going to use it on the website that he is developing. It addresses some of the concerns that Mike had about the Firebase realtime DB. On Wednesday Timmy's cast came off. They put his hand into...

On Tuesday the kids and Alison went up to Nature Group, which was not at silver lake this time, so they didn't have to deal with snow. It was at a pond, and the kids did a nature scavenger hunt. They had fun looking at minnows and quacking like ducks. That evening, Mike brought his game to the BGDG to have it played in order to try for guild approval this week. It was found wanting. The rule document was not up to snuff. He will certainly work on it some time before the end of the year, and try again. Wednesday Alison went to writing group, and wrote her first draft of her first chapter of her book. She is rewriting it with the eventual goal of making it publishable. It went well. On Thursday we didn't have anything planned at all, so we built a fire, and after the kids went to bed we played a game of The Madness Place (one of Mike's board games). It was nice to not have anything planned for once. Friday we had a babysitter and went to a play. It was "Foreve...