Vacation and Sickness
Last week we failed to post, so this is going to be a double post.
This year Alison said that when Mike went on his week long work conference that she and the kids would drive out to Nevada to see her parents, but Mike's work decided to do an online week long training instead of a conference (it is cheaper), and it happened to be last week, so we all drove out to Nevada and visited with them for the entire week.
The kids loved playing in the heated pool and hot tub, and walking around the lake which was full of all kinds of waterfowl. Mike's training went well - he learned a technology that he has never really understood, and it will be useful.
Alison was impressed at how nice it is to live in a small apartment. We talked about if that was something we wanted to do at some point in our life. The maintenance needs of an apartment are much lower than a house, and as long as you don't want a goat, not having a yard is a nice plus as well.
We spent Saturday with the Poulsons, and got to watch the first half of conference with family again (we haven't done that in years). Sunday after the first session, we started driving home, so we listened to the second session on the way home. It was surprisingly easy to listen to general conference when all of the kids are strapped into 5 point harnesses and stuck 3-10 feet behind you.
Perhaps there is a lesson in that.
This week we got home Sunday evening, and got back into the swing of things. Gideon got a cold as soon as we got back, and it's been slowly moving around the family. But Grandma Julie came back with us to visit Patty, and she came to our house in the mornings while Patty was at work, so Mommy could cuddle sick kids and the other kids could play with her. It made it a very fun week.
Mike's team at work has been releasing things to production, so Mike has been busy with that. It is not going super smoothly, but fortunately the things are being released in a manner than it is OK if it takes us a few days for them to all get put into place.
Tuesday Mike volunteered at the SheTech technology conference - He taught high school girls how to program robots. It went well, but it is too bad that there were not more female engineers that decided to do it. There are a lot of female engineers at the company mike works at, it is just that only two of them agreed to participate.
Thursday we went on a mushroom hunt, but we didn't find anything worth eating.
We couldn't figure out a baby sitter for Friday, so we ended up doing a $2 dinner date, where everyone got to spend $2 at Maceys, and purchase ingredients for a dinner. The dinner ended up being macaroni and hot dogs, with a fruit salad, garlic bread, and a drink. If you want, you can try to guess who bought ingredients for which parts of the dinner. (Hint: neither Alison nor Mike bought the main dish.)
Saturday we took it fairly easy, since some members of the family were sick. We ended up cleaning up the house, and doing some shopping, and visiting the park, but not much else.
Sunday morning, Mike was feeling horrible, and he ended up catching a fever and laying in bed all day. Mike is not used to being sick, so Alison had to make him stay in bed and drink enough water. Eventually she realized that he had a new book that he has never read, and she started him reading that.
The kids are very excited for Holy Week, so here is the summary of how this week will go (every day we'll read the scriptures associated with the story for morning scripture study, then do the activity in the evening):
Sunday - Palm Sunday/Triumphal Entry: Daddy is a donkey walking into Jerusalem and the kids race to put down "garments and branches" (blankets) in front of him so he never walks on the bare floor.
Monday - Cleansing the Temple: We play the game "Clean Up Your Own Backyard." (https://tipspoke.com/clean-up-your-own-backyard-game/t10871)
Tuesday - The First Passover: Watch the movie "Prince of Egypt."
Wednesday - Passover (Jesus celebrated on Thursday, but nothing that exciting happened Tuesday or Wednesday, and this gives us more time to talk about each thing): We do a Christian Seder meal with symbolic food (lamb [curry], bitter herbs, green herbs, unleaven bread, charoset, and grape juice) and a script to talk about the symbolism. Here's one version: https://jenniferdukeslee.com/a-messianic-passover-seder-for-families-with-children/, or here's a simpler one: https://feelslikehomeblog.com/2015/03/how-to-celebrate-a-christian-passover-meal-for-preschoolers/.
Thursday - Garden of Gethsemane: I haven't come up with a good activity about the Atonement that the kids remember and look forward to yet. Anyone have any ideas? I think I'm trying this one this year: https://www.somewhatsimple.com/atonement-object-lesson-and-handout/
Friday - Crucifixion: Making Garden Tomb scenes. (Google it - there are so many choices.)
Saturday - Christ in the Spirit World: I don't have an activity to do with this, either. This has traditionally been the day people have invited us or we've invited others for Easter Egg hunts, but we don't have one planned this year. We might move our egg hunt to Sunday and dye eggs on Saturday. Or do both on Saturday. We might also make Resurrection Rolls to eat Sunday. We'll see. Sometimes Saturday night we make a big "empty tomb" out of chairs and blankets, too.
Sunday - Easter! We get up and sing Easter songs and read about the empty tomb and open the tombs we made on Friday/Saturday to show that they're empty. After church, we have an Easter Feast of ham-wrapped asparagus with white sauce, funeral potatoes, salad, and rolls. For dessert, we make an angel food cake and put a lamb face over the hole in the middle so it looks like a woolly lamb and talk again about Jesus as the lamb. We go for an Easter walk (http://www.ldsliving.com/FHE-Easter/s/3993).
Monday - We talk about how Jesus came to visit his apostles and ate bread and fish, and we have tuna melts for dinner.
Tuesday - Road to Emmaus: go for a walk as a family.
We're talking about what we can do to celebrate the Easter season (50 days after Easter) like we do the Carnival season. We are considering inviting different friends over every week and making cards we can give to people. The kids like this idea better than I do. I'm thinking of making the cards "nature cards," so I'll just provide construction paper, markers, and glue, and tell them to go find things to decorate their cards with. And do it at the park. That might be an amount of craftiness I can handle. I prefer the idea of doing a hike (okay, walk) with friends every week. Both of those ideas feel kind of Easter-y, but I can't find any traditions like Carnival parties that are widespread. Too bad.
This year Alison said that when Mike went on his week long work conference that she and the kids would drive out to Nevada to see her parents, but Mike's work decided to do an online week long training instead of a conference (it is cheaper), and it happened to be last week, so we all drove out to Nevada and visited with them for the entire week.
The kids loved playing in the heated pool and hot tub, and walking around the lake which was full of all kinds of waterfowl. Mike's training went well - he learned a technology that he has never really understood, and it will be useful.
Alison was impressed at how nice it is to live in a small apartment. We talked about if that was something we wanted to do at some point in our life. The maintenance needs of an apartment are much lower than a house, and as long as you don't want a goat, not having a yard is a nice plus as well.
We spent Saturday with the Poulsons, and got to watch the first half of conference with family again (we haven't done that in years). Sunday after the first session, we started driving home, so we listened to the second session on the way home. It was surprisingly easy to listen to general conference when all of the kids are strapped into 5 point harnesses and stuck 3-10 feet behind you.
Perhaps there is a lesson in that.
This week we got home Sunday evening, and got back into the swing of things. Gideon got a cold as soon as we got back, and it's been slowly moving around the family. But Grandma Julie came back with us to visit Patty, and she came to our house in the mornings while Patty was at work, so Mommy could cuddle sick kids and the other kids could play with her. It made it a very fun week.
Mike's team at work has been releasing things to production, so Mike has been busy with that. It is not going super smoothly, but fortunately the things are being released in a manner than it is OK if it takes us a few days for them to all get put into place.
Tuesday Mike volunteered at the SheTech technology conference - He taught high school girls how to program robots. It went well, but it is too bad that there were not more female engineers that decided to do it. There are a lot of female engineers at the company mike works at, it is just that only two of them agreed to participate.
Thursday we went on a mushroom hunt, but we didn't find anything worth eating.
We couldn't figure out a baby sitter for Friday, so we ended up doing a $2 dinner date, where everyone got to spend $2 at Maceys, and purchase ingredients for a dinner. The dinner ended up being macaroni and hot dogs, with a fruit salad, garlic bread, and a drink. If you want, you can try to guess who bought ingredients for which parts of the dinner. (Hint: neither Alison nor Mike bought the main dish.)
Saturday we took it fairly easy, since some members of the family were sick. We ended up cleaning up the house, and doing some shopping, and visiting the park, but not much else.
Sunday morning, Mike was feeling horrible, and he ended up catching a fever and laying in bed all day. Mike is not used to being sick, so Alison had to make him stay in bed and drink enough water. Eventually she realized that he had a new book that he has never read, and she started him reading that.
The kids are very excited for Holy Week, so here is the summary of how this week will go (every day we'll read the scriptures associated with the story for morning scripture study, then do the activity in the evening):
Sunday - Palm Sunday/Triumphal Entry: Daddy is a donkey walking into Jerusalem and the kids race to put down "garments and branches" (blankets) in front of him so he never walks on the bare floor.
Monday - Cleansing the Temple: We play the game "Clean Up Your Own Backyard." (https://tipspoke.com/clean-up-your-own-backyard-game/t10871)
Tuesday - The First Passover: Watch the movie "Prince of Egypt."
Wednesday - Passover (Jesus celebrated on Thursday, but nothing that exciting happened Tuesday or Wednesday, and this gives us more time to talk about each thing): We do a Christian Seder meal with symbolic food (lamb [curry], bitter herbs, green herbs, unleaven bread, charoset, and grape juice) and a script to talk about the symbolism. Here's one version: https://jenniferdukeslee.com/a-messianic-passover-seder-for-families-with-children/, or here's a simpler one: https://feelslikehomeblog.com/2015/03/how-to-celebrate-a-christian-passover-meal-for-preschoolers/.
Thursday - Garden of Gethsemane: I haven't come up with a good activity about the Atonement that the kids remember and look forward to yet. Anyone have any ideas? I think I'm trying this one this year: https://www.somewhatsimple.com/atonement-object-lesson-and-handout/
Friday - Crucifixion: Making Garden Tomb scenes. (Google it - there are so many choices.)
Saturday - Christ in the Spirit World: I don't have an activity to do with this, either. This has traditionally been the day people have invited us or we've invited others for Easter Egg hunts, but we don't have one planned this year. We might move our egg hunt to Sunday and dye eggs on Saturday. Or do both on Saturday. We might also make Resurrection Rolls to eat Sunday. We'll see. Sometimes Saturday night we make a big "empty tomb" out of chairs and blankets, too.
Sunday - Easter! We get up and sing Easter songs and read about the empty tomb and open the tombs we made on Friday/Saturday to show that they're empty. After church, we have an Easter Feast of ham-wrapped asparagus with white sauce, funeral potatoes, salad, and rolls. For dessert, we make an angel food cake and put a lamb face over the hole in the middle so it looks like a woolly lamb and talk again about Jesus as the lamb. We go for an Easter walk (http://www.ldsliving.com/FHE-Easter/s/3993).
Monday - We talk about how Jesus came to visit his apostles and ate bread and fish, and we have tuna melts for dinner.
Tuesday - Road to Emmaus: go for a walk as a family.
We're talking about what we can do to celebrate the Easter season (50 days after Easter) like we do the Carnival season. We are considering inviting different friends over every week and making cards we can give to people. The kids like this idea better than I do. I'm thinking of making the cards "nature cards," so I'll just provide construction paper, markers, and glue, and tell them to go find things to decorate their cards with. And do it at the park. That might be an amount of craftiness I can handle. I prefer the idea of doing a hike (okay, walk) with friends every week. Both of those ideas feel kind of Easter-y, but I can't find any traditions like Carnival parties that are widespread. Too bad.
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