Double Trouble

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 the historic farm where the goat stud lives. We'd seen the museum but never gone inside, but it turned out to be really fun! We heard stories about all kinds of old tools and toys and things, and Timmy got to display his really impressive knowledge about things like victrolas. Thursday we went to the park outside the library, and then went inside the library to drop off our entry forms and get some books. We had forgotten how good that park is; maybe next summer we'll get a pass to the rec center pool and do the pool, the park, and the library every day (they're all in the same place).

Several of us were feeling a little under the weather this week. Rea slept all day Wednesday, and Alison slept all day Friday. It stopped us both from getting colds, so hopefully no one will actually get sick. And Elizabeth is having problems with constipation, so that's an adventure to try and deal with. Fingers crossed we can get that taken care of soon.

Rea finished her first drawing unit in CC - she can now draw a map of Canada and label the provinces, capitals, and a couple dozen physical features (rivers, lakes, islands, etc), entirely from memory. Alison finds this incredibly impressive and wants her to show it off to everyone; Rea considers it less impressive and more normal. She is about to begin working on drawing the USA.

Sara went to her first week of Essentials and liked it, except that Alison somehow bought her the wrong book for the writing lessons and that was very annoying. We ordered the correct book; hopefully it comes quickly.

On Friday, while Alison was sleeping, Rea had a bunch of coupons and sales for JoAnn's, so Mike was going to take her. When they went to get in the car, two of the tires were flat - a piece of metal with a nail in it, from one of the posts in the carport, had been on the driveway and we'd driven right over it. They managed to get out the spare and pump it up, and one of the tires only had a slow leak so they could pump it up too, and they made it to the store, but it took a lot of work. By the time they were done, the tire place where we got our tires (who will probably patch it for free if it can be patched) had closed for the holiday weekend. So we won't be able to get it fixed until Tuesday. Grandma Sheila lent us her Prius so that Alison can take Sara and Gideon to the dentist to get fillings on Tuesday while the car is getting fixed. 

Today we went to a family dinner at Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike's house and had a lot of fun. We talked about the possibility of all three families (us, the Plastows, and the grandparents) moving somewhere back east together. It doesn't seem at all likely to happen, but it would be nice if it did!

Tomorrow is the Meet Jello barbecue at lunch. The kids are very excited!