Hätte Wäre Wenn

The Fourth of July went well. The Plastows came to our house for a barbecue, and Amy brought an awesome collection of fireworks from Costco (Rea really hopes we can find the ones called "goddess fountains" next year). It didn't have Pop-Its or sparklers or tanks, so we bought those. We didn't find any Bestest Crackering Ballz this year, though. It rained a tiny bit and then was very windy, which is not great for fireworks in a drought, but we survived and didn't even light anything on fire. We had a lot of fun. No-one got hurt, and we got to bed at a reasonable hour.

Timmy and Gideon both ordered more Bakugan on the internet. Both packages arrived on Saturday, and they have been enjoying them a lot. For those that don't know, Bakugan are ball shaped toys that transform using magnets and springs to become monsters and robots. They are pretty cool.

Mike is getting closer and closer to the end of this semester of grad school. He only has one assignment left from each of his classes, and he is really looking forward to having a bit of a break. His difficult teacher is still being difficult, however despite that he has made it through with a perfect GPA so far. He is planning a celebration for the day when he no longer has to take any more classes from the bad teacher. 

Grandma Julie came over to help the girls organize all their stuff in their newly-painted room on Monday. They did an awesome job, and that inspired Alison to do a full Organized Simplicity for the first time since we moved. (Alison had intended to do one as part of the process of moving, but that fell apart, if you recall.) We had two weeks of downtime between the Brown family reunion and Nature Group campout, and Andy coming to Utah and our trip to Colorado. Alison was planning to just take a break, but instead we're going to get our house in order.

So far, we've done both kids rooms, the craft closet, the Montessori shelves, the parents' room, and the toy library. It is always amazing how well everything fits and how nice it looks when we do an Organized Simplicity. Alison hopes to get the main rooms of the house (kitchen, front room, and playroom) done in the next week, to make the deadline. (She's already dropped the bathrooms and the bookshelves from the to-do list in order to keep on track.) 

It has been over 100 degrees pretty much every day this week, so we haven't been going outside much. Perhaps we will go down to a river one of these days and try out hands at panning for gold. It sounds like the type of thing that would keep you cool, and burn time in a fun - outdoor environment.

We have also been playing more Dance Dance Revolution. It is a great way to relieve stress and get good exercise at the same time. The kids think that it is very fun, and the parents have a long way to go to get back to how good we were when we last played regularly.

Mike also received in the mail this week a copy of Hätte Wäre Wenn - which is the German title for his game - the Perfect Moment, so there are copies of the game in the wild in Germany now as well as the US. He is excited that it is starting to reach a wider audience. He is starting to think of game design again (since he took a year off because of Covid and his masters program.)