Secret tunnel

This post is going to be 3 weeks long because we have been lazy about writing apparently.

Three weeks ago we were getting ready to go to California for the Poulson's family beach trip Thanksgiving extravaganza.

We all got flu shots and COVID boosters as well. Everyone was very good and we got ice cream after.

Elsa also got a hold of Mike's phone and took a bunch of pictures of her face, so here is the best one

Two weeks ago we drove to San Diego for Thanksgiving. We took two days to drive there spending the night in Las Vegas in a hotel. During the time that we were there the weather was exceedingly clement, none of the people who made it to Thanksgiving got very sick, and the kids mostly got along as well.

We were sad that both Andy's and Katie's family were not able to make it (one because of distance, and the other because of sickness), however despite them not being there we still built giant sand castles pretty much every day and still had chocolate mint pie.

The kids found hermit crabs while at the park, and were really excited about that.

At the beginning of this last week we drove back home. The drive went fine, and we went to church Sunday morning like usual.

Getting back into the groove of school was incredibly difficult for the children. Alison had to deal with lots of discipline issues this week. At the same time, this was Sara's last week of CC before her Christmas break, so she was excited about that.

Next week Rea has exams and then she is off too. Despite them being off of CC we will still be doing school at home for the next few weeks.

Rea and Sara were offered parts in the Off-Broadway theater play Utah-homa. This Saturday they attended their first practice session for it and had a lot of fun. They will be having another practice session every Saturday between now and the time that it starts so Mike doesn't get to sleep in anymore.

We are all really excited that they are going to be in this play. It should be very fun for both of them.

Speaking of being in plays, Sarah also learned this week that her part for The Lion King Jr play that they are putting on in connection with her acting class is shenzi (the hyena). She is rather excited about this, because this was one of the characters she wanted to be.

Gideon is now beating the levels in inklings, one Timmy is playing a lot of risk on his computer.

Mike's work is participating in the Advent of code programming competition this year, and Mike has decided to participate as well. Everyday they give two challenges and whoever can solve them the fastest gets the most points. Mike is currently ranked number for in his company. He expects to complete the entire challenge, however we'll see whether he gets too busy to do that or not. It has been a long time since Mike participated in a programming competition, however he is really enjoying it.

Mike was frustrated about there being fruit flies in our house, so this Saturday he made all of the bedrooms get cleaned very thoroughly. There was much lamentation, however the rooms look really clean now.

Finally Elsa is eating an apple right now and looking very cute.