Parentheticals

For years now, Alison has been trying to get the whole family biking. After an array of (expensive) attempts that haven't worked, we finally have a functional system! Alison has a nice road bike and tows a double bike trailer with Gideon in it. Timmy has a balance bike that he rides sometimes (very slowly), and then he gets in the trailer, which has a trunk that holds the balance bike. Sara also has a balance bike, which she is loving! She can keep up with or even pass Alison towing the boys! Rea has a nice 20 inch geared bike that can go faster than anyone else in the family (since the adults never get to go full speed on family rides). And Mike still has the bike he got in high school, so it's obviously a good solid bike. We have gone on bike rides every day this week, usually around 2 miles round trip. It's been wonderful! Gideon has begun using much more complex sentances lately. One of the first ones we noticed was one night when he was ready for bed and wanted to be...

Apparently, last Saturday the morel hunters wandered through a patch of poison ivy without realizing it. Rea woke up Monday with an itchy, red, oozing mass on her neck that almost drove her crazy all week. Luckily she is old enough to rub hydrocortizone on it when it itches instead of scratching, and also luckily, it only lasted one week. Daddy, Sara, and Timmy just had localized patches of red bumps, but all three of them still have it hanging on and refusing to heal. Daddy's is the worst now. Mommy and Gideon are glad that they missed it. Other than the poison ivy attack, the week went fairly well. We played outside almost all day every day, since it was warm-to-hot (in the eighties all week). Saturday we planted some seeds in the backyard and fixed up bikes for the summer. For Sara's date on Wednesday we got pizza and ate it at Dimple Dell and then looked for more mushrooms. We didn't find any, but we had a lot of fun wandering and exploring new trails. Mike and th...

Another week has passed. Alison got a new bike this week. She is trying to figure out how to bike around four kids, and was hoping that having a bike with a higher seat would allow her to attach a trail-a-bike to it, which would mean that she could carry two kids along behind her on her bike. It doesn't seem like it is going to work, however, and she might end up just hauling the kids in the bike trailer like in previous years. Wednesday was Rea's date night. She chose to have a fire, read books, and have a dessert. It was fun. This week Rea and Sara went to theater camp to prepare for a play that they put on on Saturday. It was The ugly duckling. They said their lines clearly, and spoke toward the audience most of the time. They did very well. At the same time, Alison, Timmy, and Gideon waited outside for them, and got good naps. Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sheila came over to Utah this week, so we were able to spend some time with them on Friday and Saturday. We watc...