Parentheticals

The kids have loved riding their bikes this week, but they've all outgrown their own bikes. We need to buy Rea a bigger one, put training wheels on Rea's for Sara, and move Timmy from the trike to Sara's bike with training wheels. Alison also wants to put a handle on the back of the trike so she can push Gideon. The kids are not too excited about the changes. Sara was OK as long as the doll seat moves to the back of her new bike, but Rea was very upset about losing hers. Alison finally had to tell her that she could only keep her old bike if she bought Sara a new one with her own money. Then she started fighting with Sara about the name of the bike. Rea insisted it keep whatever name Rea gave it, and Sara wanted to transfer her old bike's name to her new one. Finally they agreed that if Rea paid Sara $2, Sara would keep the bike's name. So we hope that's all settled, and this week we'll get Rea her first geared bike and another set of training wheels, and th...

On Monday during the day Mikes new team at work went to an indoor shooting range for a team building activity. Mike shot four guns, and did the best with the handguns. If you are a thief, and within 7.5 yards of Mike, and he has a hand gun, say goodbye to the right half of your neck. Monday night we went on a hike at the Bell Canyon Granite Trailhead. We hiked up to the reservoir and decided that we were going to go camping there some time. Rea was pretty grouchy the entire way up, but Timmy and Sara and Gideon had a grand time. Once we got there, we saw some ducks, and then we decided to turn back. Rea and Gideon switched places as the grouchy one, and the entire trip back Gideon screamed, and Timmy, Sara and Rea had a fun time. We have since expanded our plans for a camp out to include actual shopping for a camp stove that is small enough to backpack with. We will probably not carry up our water, so we need filters as well as ways to attach our hammocks to trees. It will probably...

On Monday, Mike started his new job. He is now working at DealerTrack - a company that offers services to car dealers. So far he has helped plan for the next iteration, set up his computer, and written a small website using Angular 4 and Firebase. Dealertrack is only 3 miles from the our house, and Mike found out on Friday that they have a place to charge his car, so he is pretty happy with the new job so far. On Tuesday Mike went to BGDG, and played an Oregon trail game. It had a cool core mechanic, but too too long, and was too complex and random for what it was. Next week Mike is going to bring his own game, which should hopefully be fun. On Wednesday, Alison went to writers group, and heard a lecture on creating magic systems. It was a little bit interesting, but the info was very basic. Hopefully the next time that she goes, it s more fun. Friday we went to the Little Miamaid at the OBT. It was a play about a little mermaid that wanted to marry a human. Eric Jensen played ...

We never actually finished our blog post last week, so this week is two-for-one. That means that it is double long as well. Last week was Holy Week, and we have been celebrating in many different ways. Alison always comes up with activities for each day, so this week, on Sunday we played the Triumphal Entry game, On Monday we talked about cleaning the temple and played "Clean Up Your Own Backyard", on Tuesday the kids learned about the origins of the Passover by watching Prince of Egypt, Wednesday we had a Passover meal, Thursday we did service (opening the church nursery for a funeral), Friday we talked about the Stations of the Cross, Saturday we had an egg hunt, and Sunday we celebrated Easter. Really, Easter should be as big as (if not bigger than) Christmas. We wouldn't celebrate Christmas at all if it weren't for Easter. So Alison goes to a lot of effort to make Easter a big deal. This year the food turned out the best of any of the years we've done...