First you must find... ANOTHER SHRUBBERY!
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 this, so Alison's saving the recipes here: matzoh, lamb curry, green salad out of this book from the library. We didn't use a haroseth recipe. I also want to save the location for the Stations of the Cross activity we did https://wau.org/resources/article/re_stations_cross_kids/.
For Easter Sunday, we bought Applegate Farms ham slices and used one bunch of asparagus, cut in half and steamed 2 minutes and then wrapped 6 to a bundle in two layers of ham, then covered with a white sauce and baked. Funeral potatoes were from Mom's recipe and angel food cake from a box. I think that's everything I want to save for next year. And there's a box of plastic Easter eggs in the shed - Don't Lose Them! The plan for next year is to do Easter gifts, too: Something to make (craft supplies), something to do (plan a vacation or activity), something to learn, something for you for each person.
Last week mike played someone else's game at BGDG. It was pretty fun. The guy made a rogue-like card game, and we got killed a lot.
On Thursday we got a new water heater put in. We asked the plumber who came to look at the toilet about it and he said he could do a tank-less if we put in a water softener system (which both of us really dislike) or a new 50 gallon tank. Mike mentioned this to a coworker, who said that his relative was a plumber and had a scratch-n-dent 50 gallon water heater he'd give us for a good deal. When he got here to install it, he told Alison that it might not fit in the same spot because our old one was actually only a 40 gallon. It did end up fitting, so now we have a bigger, newer water heater. That should be nice.
General Conference was, of course, awesome. We set up our reverence tent in the front room on Saturday and moved it to the backyard for Sunday because the weather was so great. We had Starburst Jelly Beans to eat when we heard names of Jesus and Hershey's Kisses for when you understood the topic of a talk, and the kids listened about as well as could be expected. We didn't spend as much time prepping for conference because we spent most of our energy on Easter this year, but it went pretty smoothly all the same.
This week was also eventful. Monday Alison and the kids came down with colds. Alison is now thinking that, as primary president, she should probably look into disinfecting the nursery toys, because that's most likely where we got it. It wasn't too bad, but we stayed away from the library and other indoor places this week. We read lots of books and had an awesome time at nature group and park day. We also are being Catholic about the Easter holidays: they start with Easter Sunday and last 50 days. So this week we dyed Easter Eggs, and we'll keep doing Easter-y things and having celebrations for the next month and a half.
But the real business was getting our main sewer line replaced. They ended up pulling out a chunk of our patio and digging a hole four feet deep across our yard, piling the dirt all over the rest of our yard. Once down there, they realized that our main sewer line in our house is only big enough for a single toilet, so we couldn't get our second bathroom put in, and our main water line was disintegrating, so for the only a little more than the price of the second bathroom we could get it replaced. So we did that. The kids absolutely loved watching, so that was most of school that day for Sara and Timmy (and reading Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel). Rea decided to make cookies for the workers and worked on that independently. A little after noon, we paid $7550 and had working plumbing and a yard of bulldozed-flat mixed dirt, rocks, sand, and wood-chips.
Friday was Mike's last day at 1800Contacts. He said goodbye to his coworkers and came home early. Since he is no longer on the company phone plan, he is trying to go on a pay-as-you-go plan. He has 30 minutes/texts a month for $3, and no data. So - if you want to contact us quickly, Make sure to use email/google talk/or whatsApp.
We also had to get new internet for the same reason. At only $35 a month, it is actually better than our old internet, however he had to crawl under the house three times to get it installed.
Saturday was devoted to getting the yard in order. Alison took the kids to the Stake Baptism she was in charge of so Mike could work on his own, and the rest of the day we all worked. We managed to get the broken concrete and what pavers we unearthed into a path from the door to the street, and we piled all the biggest rocks at one end of the yard, and we spread enough wood-chips to recognize that it's going to look really nice when it's done. There's a xeriscaped yard in our neighborhood that's wood-chips with a rock path and small circles of rocks outlining a few plants, so we're taking that for our inspiration. Our top choices for plants at the moment include desert globe mallow, curly dock, and astragalus. All are pretty, drought-resistant, and useful. Next week we hope to spread wood-chips over everything so that it looks presentable, and we'll add plants over the next year. Hopefully it won't be much work to keep it looking decent enough that the neighbors won't complain.
During the long day of working, Rea was such a big help! She worked really hard the entire time, and put in many of the small pavers. We are really impressed with her work ethic.
Mike also made about 5 lbs of goat cheese. He made about 2 lbs into cheese with fine herbs (A cheese popular in France), and the rest is for gnocchi. We are going to make so much gnocchi!
This week Gideon has been ending words in the 'ey' sound, such as "Eggy", "Bookie", "Bready". It is cute.
Timmy also said on Saturday after our big day "I am not sleepy, my eye-lids are just getting pulled down by gravity"
Sara and Rea just got new Sunday dresses, and are super excited about them. Timmy got a lego shirt, and Gideon got a shark shirt, and both are also excited about them.
Finally, Mike was memorialized in someone's board game. It was for his help in designing icons for the BGG community. Apparently I am a jungle expert. Here is the original image that the guy used to draw me from, and then the card that he added me to:
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 this, so Alison's saving the recipes here: matzoh, lamb curry, green salad out of this book from the library. We didn't use a haroseth recipe. I also want to save the location for the Stations of the Cross activity we did https://wau.org/resources/article/re_stations_cross_kids/.
For Easter Sunday, we bought Applegate Farms ham slices and used one bunch of asparagus, cut in half and steamed 2 minutes and then wrapped 6 to a bundle in two layers of ham, then covered with a white sauce and baked. Funeral potatoes were from Mom's recipe and angel food cake from a box. I think that's everything I want to save for next year. And there's a box of plastic Easter eggs in the shed - Don't Lose Them! The plan for next year is to do Easter gifts, too: Something to make (craft supplies), something to do (plan a vacation or activity), something to learn, something for you for each person.
Last week mike played someone else's game at BGDG. It was pretty fun. The guy made a rogue-like card game, and we got killed a lot.
On Thursday we got a new water heater put in. We asked the plumber who came to look at the toilet about it and he said he could do a tank-less if we put in a water softener system (which both of us really dislike) or a new 50 gallon tank. Mike mentioned this to a coworker, who said that his relative was a plumber and had a scratch-n-dent 50 gallon water heater he'd give us for a good deal. When he got here to install it, he told Alison that it might not fit in the same spot because our old one was actually only a 40 gallon. It did end up fitting, so now we have a bigger, newer water heater. That should be nice.
General Conference was, of course, awesome. We set up our reverence tent in the front room on Saturday and moved it to the backyard for Sunday because the weather was so great. We had Starburst Jelly Beans to eat when we heard names of Jesus and Hershey's Kisses for when you understood the topic of a talk, and the kids listened about as well as could be expected. We didn't spend as much time prepping for conference because we spent most of our energy on Easter this year, but it went pretty smoothly all the same.
This week was also eventful. Monday Alison and the kids came down with colds. Alison is now thinking that, as primary president, she should probably look into disinfecting the nursery toys, because that's most likely where we got it. It wasn't too bad, but we stayed away from the library and other indoor places this week. We read lots of books and had an awesome time at nature group and park day. We also are being Catholic about the Easter holidays: they start with Easter Sunday and last 50 days. So this week we dyed Easter Eggs, and we'll keep doing Easter-y things and having celebrations for the next month and a half.
But the real business was getting our main sewer line replaced. They ended up pulling out a chunk of our patio and digging a hole four feet deep across our yard, piling the dirt all over the rest of our yard. Once down there, they realized that our main sewer line in our house is only big enough for a single toilet, so we couldn't get our second bathroom put in, and our main water line was disintegrating, so for the only a little more than the price of the second bathroom we could get it replaced. So we did that. The kids absolutely loved watching, so that was most of school that day for Sara and Timmy (and reading Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel). Rea decided to make cookies for the workers and worked on that independently. A little after noon, we paid $7550 and had working plumbing and a yard of bulldozed-flat mixed dirt, rocks, sand, and wood-chips.Friday was Mike's last day at 1800Contacts. He said goodbye to his coworkers and came home early. Since he is no longer on the company phone plan, he is trying to go on a pay-as-you-go plan. He has 30 minutes/texts a month for $3, and no data. So - if you want to contact us quickly, Make sure to use email/google talk/or whatsApp.
We also had to get new internet for the same reason. At only $35 a month, it is actually better than our old internet, however he had to crawl under the house three times to get it installed.
Saturday was devoted to getting the yard in order. Alison took the kids to the Stake Baptism she was in charge of so Mike could work on his own, and the rest of the day we all worked. We managed to get the broken concrete and what pavers we unearthed into a path from the door to the street, and we piled all the biggest rocks at one end of the yard, and we spread enough wood-chips to recognize that it's going to look really nice when it's done. There's a xeriscaped yard in our neighborhood that's wood-chips with a rock path and small circles of rocks outlining a few plants, so we're taking that for our inspiration. Our top choices for plants at the moment include desert globe mallow, curly dock, and astragalus. All are pretty, drought-resistant, and useful. Next week we hope to spread wood-chips over everything so that it looks presentable, and we'll add plants over the next year. Hopefully it won't be much work to keep it looking decent enough that the neighbors won't complain.During the long day of working, Rea was such a big help! She worked really hard the entire time, and put in many of the small pavers. We are really impressed with her work ethic.
Mike also made about 5 lbs of goat cheese. He made about 2 lbs into cheese with fine herbs (A cheese popular in France), and the rest is for gnocchi. We are going to make so much gnocchi!
This week Gideon has been ending words in the 'ey' sound, such as "Eggy", "Bookie", "Bready". It is cute.
Timmy also said on Saturday after our big day "I am not sleepy, my eye-lids are just getting pulled down by gravity"
Sara and Rea just got new Sunday dresses, and are super excited about them. Timmy got a lego shirt, and Gideon got a shark shirt, and both are also excited about them.
Finally, Mike was memorialized in someone's board game. It was for his help in designing icons for the BGG community. Apparently I am a jungle expert. Here is the original image that the guy used to draw me from, and then the card that he added me to:
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