Parentheticals

This week Mike called and asked a local repair shop how much it would cost to fix his phone. The price that they quoted was more than the price to buy a new phone, so he just ordered the parts, and planned on fixing it himself. All the parts have arrived, but no matter how many screwdrivers he bought he couldn't find one the right size to open the phone up. So, now he has the parts, but can't actually fix the phone yet. He has another screwdriver on the way that will hopefully work this time. We sold our chickens on Monday to an old guy. We decided that finding chicken sitters for the trip to Italy would be too hard, and since we already are leaving the goats at the stud, we will be able to get by without any pet sitters as long as we release (or eat) the grasshoppers before we go. Speaking of the grasshoppers: we have about four right now in the aquarium. The kids haven't decided to eat them yet, so we are just taking care of them and feeding and watering them regularl...

We almost missed writing last week! Here is a quick summary of what happened. Gideon has graduated to wearing underwear. We are very proud of him, even though he is still wetting the floor. This last week was the first week of our homeschool. Alison made the girls planners and special school boxes, and they've been enjoying doing school every day. Timmy is very jealous of their stuff, and Gideon wants to be the center of attention during school time, so Alison is still working the kinks out. But everyone is excited for the new school year. The pool was closing this weekend, so Alison and the kids went swimming every single day. It made for a busy week, but it was very fun. Sara and Rea can both swim independently, and Timmy and Gideon are very brave to play in the water. We enjoyed our pool season immensely. This week we have signed the kids up to start martial arts classes, so maybe that will take its place. Mike went to the Board Game Design Guild. He played some murder g...

The pool is closing soon, so this week Alison and the kids went to it a lot of times. They even brought Marissa over to the pool a few times. As Mike is still a financial clerk in the ward, he did his audit this week. It took almost two hours, and went very smoothly. We found a clerical error, and corrected it on the spot, but otherwise it was uneventful. On Wednesday Mike had his birthday dinner. We had curry and rice with Paratha bread. It was to the core. Mike ate for lunch on Thursday and Friday because well spiced food isn't the kids favorite thing in the universe. This week Alison has also been planning for the kids upcoming school year. With the kids being part of My Tech High this year, she has to write up plans for which classes they will take, and then figure out how to spend the funds that they are giving us. Alison likes planning like this, so it has been fun for her. Mike also found out this week that his game's publication date has been pushed back to Octo...

On Monday we went to Rea's last horseback riding lesson. She was able to post at a trot, stop, start, and turn the horse, and keep it on a rail. She enjoyed her lessons, and would like to have more. We have some martial arts classes lined up for the kids next, however we are considering doing more horseback riding lessons some time as well. This week marked the first week of Mike's vacation from being a teacher. His last semester ended the last full week of July, and his next semester starts in the middle of September. He is really enjoying being a teacher. Tuesday night we looked at a house for sale around the corner from us. We were thinking about going into real estate: the house has a rentable basement, so we could live upstairs and rent our current house and the basement. But we decided we didn't like the house nearly as much as our current house, so we'll stick with our old plans. We did love that the other house had fruit trees: plum, apricot, and mulberry. W...