Parentheticals

On Saturday of last week we got a watermelon at Maceys and brought it home and put it on the counter because Timmy had requested watermelon with his dinner. Monday morning when mike woke up he stepped in a puddle in the kitchen. After some looking around he discovered that the watermelon had ruptured. Apparently the thing was infected with some sort of gas producing bacteria (perhaps yeast?) and its internal pressure was too much for it. When he picked it up the middle fell out (though the shell was still mostly strong). That was a disappointment. Later on Monday we picked a bunch of apples at the Payne's house and then Mike went to help Grandpa Mike to get his computer printer working. The apples have been really good, and we have made almost 5 gallons of apple chips already. Timmy  has joined a martial arts dojo because he has wanted to start learning a martial art. The one that we found was mixed Judo and Ju-jitsu and Muay Thai twice a week. He liked it, so we signed him up for

On Monday of last week we took Rocket in to the vet to get him neutered. We were concerned how the drugs would affect him and how things would go, however when Alison went to pick him up he came out very happy and cheerful like usual and he doesn't seem to have had any ill effects from the surgery at all. He seems just as happy and chipper as normal. At the same time, Elizabeth decided that rocket needed to look fancier so she applied green food coloring to his face. That means this entire week he has had a green face which is sort of funny. A few days later she painted fingernail polish on the cat, so we have had to tell her that she's not allowed to make any of our animals prettier because it's not safe for them. Sara went to her first acting class this last week on Wednesday. She reported that she loved it, so we expect her to go again this upcoming week without any problems. On Wednesday we had another activity dudes meeting, and we celebrated the birthday of James Wate

On Monday we had our Hello Jell-O barbecue, where people could come over and meet Jello. The day was rainy and we mostly stayed inside. Mike convinced the Rogers to play a new board game with him, and the kids all had fun playing with each other. The meat was not burned and it went pretty well overall. On Monday night we dropped the car off at the auto shop in order to get the tires fixed. They were done super fast and didn't charge us anything, so we assume that they patched them instead of replacing them. Alison either has a new sickness this week or is sick again with the same one as last week, so despite all of her efforts to get better, she is still sick. On Tuesday many of the kids went to the dentist. Rea apparently got two cavities in her teeth when they were still underneath her gums. The dentist said that she couldn't have done anything about it, so that is too bad. Mike's old team was given less budget this fiscal year, so they moved most of the members of the te

We finished the interior walls of the play shed and painted them! The kids picked a different bright color for each wall, and it ended up looking very cute and cheerful. The boys helped a lot with putting up the walls, and the girls had a blast painting. Mike wants to build a loft in part of it, and then it will be all the way done. These pictures were taken after dinner, so the lighting is lower than normal. That being said, the skylights still provided some light.  The Taylorsville Library did an activity where you had five locations to visit in Taylorsville and if you did it you got entered in a drawing for a Leatherby's gift card. We found out about it at the end of last week, so we were hurrying to visit the sculpture exhibit (we wrote about that last week) and the other locations. Monday we went to the trail along the Jordan River where we often walk with the Plastows, and Tuesday we went to the Taylorsville Bennion Heritage Center, which is an old home turned museum next to