Parentheticals

It has been a while since we posted, however we have been busy and we let it slide. Here are the things that we remember: On last Friday the kids were invited to a sleepover at Grandpa Craig and Grandma Julie's house with Ellie, Aelfric, and Victoria. They also got to see a play too. The play was "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever", which we like a lot. They came straight from the play to Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike's house on Saturday to go to the Giving Machine. This is a new tradition, where Papa and Grandma give each family a certain amount of money to donate to different causes. We chose ducks, a garden, and polio vaccines. Then we walked around Temple Square to see the lights and then got cookies at the Deseret Book across the street. Our family parked at the edge of the free fare zone and took the train downtown and back, which the kids loved. They're always excited for train rides. It was a very fun evening. Sunday we had a Brown family dinner. All of Papa

Well, we're back. We were tired on Monday, but we made it through Classical Conversations. Timmy and Gideon were encouraged to behave by promising that they could have Logan and Dustin come over. They were pretty good, but unfortunately the Plastows were sick this week, so it didn't happen until Thursday. They played their new game Amazing Frog and seemed pretty happy about it. We got some snow this week, which made the dog and the kids very happy. At nature group on Friday, they went sledding and had a great time. They ended up making chains of sleds and sending up to six kids down the hill at once. The "hill" they chose ends in a drop-off into a pool of water, and they seemed to think that the steering challenge added spice to sledding. No one actually got wet, so that was good. Speaking of the water, it's a collection point for storm drain water, and someone must have poured dish soap into it somewhere, because it produced an incredible amount of bubbles the en

 Two weeks in one! We spent the last two weeks first preparing for California, and then being in California. So much fun! Monday the 14th we took the car in for a check and oil change before going on the 1500 mile drive. It was a good thing we did, since the engine mounts were breaking and needed replacing. It was good to have everything checked out (we did NOT have a wheel explode on the drive home this time, thank goodness). However, when Mike went to make the appointment, Alison said that the best day would be any day but Monday. Oops, that was all they had available. So we borrowed Grandma Sheila's car and Mike helped Alison drive everyone to and from Classical Conversations in two shifts. It actually went pretty well, to Alison's relief. The kids were good about it. (We did leave all their carseats in the car when we returned it to Grandma Sheila, but Mike and Sara went back and got those later.) Tuesday and Wednesday the kids started getting ready for California, we made

 What happened this week? Yesterday we had a game night at Caitlin and Sal's. It was really fun! The kids were very good watching a movie and barely interrupted us at all, and we got to play Battle Sheep and Treasure Island and Tricksters. They were all really fun, especially Treasure Island, which we'd never heard of but was a really fun cooperative-competitive pirate game. Earlier that day, Mike and Rea went shopping for toys to fill a box for Operation Christmas Child. They got some very cute stuff; the toddler boy who gets it should be very happy. Before that , Rea had gone to visit Max with Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike. They had Jimmy John's and played Sushi Go and she had a great time and was really happy she went. Today at church, Rea taught her first Young Women's lesson! She said it went great! She spent a lot of time this week preparing, and we're so glad it went well for her. Friday Mike and Alison watched The Man Who Knew Too Little for their date. That&

This week, Rea sprained her ankle Monday afternoon, which was a definite drawback when it came to trick-or-treating that night. We pulled every item with wheels into the house before we finally decided that sitting side-saddle on Sara's bike with her hurt foot tucked up was the most comfortable. She managed to make it close to most doors, but someone had to carry her bag the last few steps for her. It never occurred to us how hard trick-or-treating would be if you couldn't climb stairs. Something to think about. Halloween was fun anyway. Boo was a fairy, Gideon a blue dragon, Timmy a caveman, Sara a jellyfish, and Rea a naiad - the kids made their costumes themselves out of things from our dress-up bin. We met the Plastows at 6 at the park and did a couple of streets. We decided that 6-7:30 is about the perfect time to trick-or-treat. We also found out that our porch light turns off automatically, so that's why no one ever takes our candy. We'll have to fix that next ye

 We are very determined to post on time this week! Hopefully you received this Sunday evening. Our Classical Conversations community had their first-quarter break this week, and it happened to be Ellie and Aelfric's fall break too, so Grandma Julie was very excited for the cousins to get together and play. The girls got to go play with Ellie on Monday, Wednesday we spent all day with them, and Thursday we all went to see the witches at Gardner Village and then went back to Grandma's house to spend the rest of the day together. It was a great fall break! Mike got a cold and was sick for a lot of the week. He doesn't usually get sick, so this was annoying. (Alison has arranged our lives so that things are OK if she's sick, but it's much harder when Mike is down!) But we made it through and he's feeling better now. Alison started getting sick Friday. She went to nature group, but she was the only adult there. Rea and Sara's friend Marissa rode her bike over, an

As I sit down to write this, I see a one-paragraph summary from last Sunday and remember Mike telling me that he couldn't remember anything from that week and did I want to write something. I guess we never did anything about that. Oops. Last week we picked apples at the bishop's house, tried to get grapes, but didn't find many. We ended up buying grapes and made nearly three gallons of grape juice. This week we picked apples at the Paynes' and made delicious apple fruit leather. Gideon loved it so much that he wanted to eat all of it, so Mike told him that if he picked and processed the apples himself, he could have all the fruit leather that came from it. It took him four days, but he ended up with fruit leather that should be ready tomorrow morning. We hope it works for him. Monday was the last day of the first quarter of Classical Conversations; we had donuts and pizza. The kids are still not unequivocally enthusiastic, but Alison still thinks it's a great thing

 We missed a few weeks again, due to General Conference throwing off all of our Sunday routines and then going on a family reunion campout and getting home late yesterday. Here's a brief overview: We went back to having school, but tried to keep everyone busy enough that we wouldn't miss video games too much. It was only moderately successful, and Alison ended up spending a day in bed due to exhaustion, so we decided to slow down a bit. We talked to the kids (mostly the boys) about how, when they moan and complain and cry that there's nothing fun in the world except video games, we feel like they need less time playing video games and more time rediscovering all of the other fun things, and they volunteered to try and stop complaining by themselves. So we're all trying to adjust. Grandma Julie and Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike, were all out of town for General Conference. But our tradition is to get together with family for conference, so Saturday afternoon and evening a

On Monday we went to Classical Conversations in the morning and then in the evening we went to Flat Iron Mesa Park to have a picnic. We had potato soup and garlic bread for dinner. After that we let the kids play for a while before going back to bed. We did faux camping Tuesday through Thursday last week. We went to various locations in Millcreek canyon - each day we parked a different place. We thought our place on Tuesday was good, but we tried a different place Wednesday anyway, and found it to be a much more fun place. Wednesday we went further down the canyon and found another picnic site. Each day we would make a fire and cook dinner at the site, so when it rained on Wednesday that made our dinner take longer. Thursday we parked even farther up the canyon, but then hiked back to the place we ate dinner on Wednesday. On the way back we picked a bunch of elderberries, which we plan on making into elderberry syrup.  On Friday we went up to the Poulsons neighborhood to have a camp ou

Classical conversations began this Monday. The kids all packed lunches and they all did foundations where they practiced memory work. They did a science experiment where they looked at thermometers in the sun and the shade and saw which one was hotter. They also did an art lesson where they learned about all of the shapes that can make up drawings (circles, lines, angles, etc). After that they ate lunch, and then Rea Sara and Mom went to essentials where they learned about grammar and the parts of a sentence. They also played "Number Knockout". Rea really enjoyed it and she especially loved essentials. Boo went to the nursery, and the teacher said that she was very well behaved. Gideon says that the toy oven was a good crib for dolls. Timmy made a friend there, and Sara liked lunch. After we were done with Classical Conversations, we all were super tired and fell asleep early and slept very late. Mike periodically goes down to visit the Salt Lace Community College surplus equ

Last Monday was Labor Day, so we had a barbecue at the Plastows house. Sara was sick, so Alison stayed home with her, and Mike took the kids. The kids put on a talent show, and we watched them and talked On Wednesday Home Depot emailed Mike to tell him his toilet had finally arrived, so Thursday morning he got it and during lunch he installed it. The toilet install went fairly well, but the weird type of rubber seal that we bought was hard to position, so it took a little bit longer than usual. It is nice to have three working toilets again. This Friday was the first day of our new nature group. The group we've been with for years got just too big and the kids didn't have any friends there, so we started our own. There's a boy Timmy's age and it's within walking distance of the Dalyais so hopefully Marissa can always come, even if the rest of her family doesn't. All the kids had a very fun time this week, although Alison recognized a lot of things she needs to d

 This week, things started heading toward whatever 'normal' is going to be this fall.  We had our first day at our Classical Conversations community on Monday. It was what they call "Week 0," not a real week following the curriculum, but it gave us a chance to try getting there on time and to see how things will go. We made it on time, but not prettily. Alison is trying hard to think of a different way to do lunches - everyone says "just have the kids make their own" as if that weren't MORE work than doing it all myself. And Sunday evenings are an awful time to have something scheduled, because we don't have a schedule Sundays after church and we like that. Oh, well. We'll figure it out. We don't have community this week, because of Labor Day, so we have another week to think about it. The girls wanted to do first day of school pictures like their cousins, so we took some Monday afternoon. The boys didn't want to do back-to-school picture

This last week on Tuesday Alison and the kids went to see the dinosaurs at Ashton gardens at Thanksgiving Point. It was the first time that they were going somewhere with the new homeschooling group, however despite Alison's heroic efforts which enabled her to get there with all of the kids on time, everyone else that was supposed to show up showed up super late, and the kids were hot and tired by the time that the activity was supposed to start. It was frustrating. On Wednesday Alison and the kids went to grandma Julie's house in the morning, and then Alison drove back and picked up Mike in the afternoon so that the kids could all show him how well they learned how to swim over the summer. Mike doesn't remember a summer happening, but the kids all did swim really well, so he must have just missed it somehow. On Thursday evening Alison took the kids out to tombstone tales. They heard a lot of interesting stories about the graveyard and how the people in this area used to li

Wow, SO MUCH has happened in the last three weeks! Buckle up, it's been a wild ride. The first week of August was Rea's first time at Girls' Camp. I'm going to ask her to type up an account of it for her typing class this week, so we'll give it its own post. Suffice it to say, she had a wonderful time! Aunt Amy was still YW President (she got released two weeks later), so she had that point of familiarity, and Rea made good friends with some of the other girls. It was perfect and we're all so happy for her. While she was gone, the rest of the family went to a meeting of a homeschooling group called Classical Conversations. I (Alison) first heard of this organization eight years ago when I was first looking into homeschooling. I went to their three day homeschool parent training class and their high school program sounded AMAZING. My kids were really too young for it then, and it's very expensive, but I bought their Memory Work CDs and we've been using th

 Last Monday we brought dinner to Grandma Sheila because she had foot surgery. We made chicken noodle soup with chicken bone broth. It ended up really good, so we are going to remember the recipe: Add 10 chicken wings (bone in with skin) to a slow cooker and enough water to cover them slow cook until the meat is done. Pull out the wings and remove meat from them. Set aside meat in refrigerator. throw back the skin, fat and bones back into the water add five celery, an onion cut in half, two carrots, lots of garlic and then slow cook overnight. The next day toss out everything but the broth. Re-add the meat and then add carrots, celery, egg noodles and salt to taste. Cook as long as it takes egg noodles to be done. Serves multiple people. The first half of the week Mike was working on his final project for his Masters degree. He submitted it Wednesday and it has since been graded and he passed the class and earned his master's degree. Last Thursday we cleaned the church. We did it t