Parentheticals

The kids have all gone back to school, and things are going fairly well. Over the weekend, Gideon lost his shoes, so we are currently on the hunt for them. We know that they are somewhere around here; however, we just don't know where they are. We also went to a Connect-Ed open house last week, which was basically a get-together for all of the teachers and their families in the homeschool co-op that Alison is teaching for this year. On Friday, we went to 'The Importance of Being Earnest', which the OBT put on. We enjoy all of their plays, and are excited that they showed one of our favorites again. In November, they are putting on 'The Frightmare Before Christmas', which Sara (and perhaps Rea) is auditioning for, so here's hoping that they get parts. Sara has also gotten her aerial silks set up in the front yard; however, they are not high enough, since Mike can't find his taller ladder. He thinks it is possible that someone took it when they were taking hom...

(This post was written by Alison. That hasn't happened in over a year, I think, so it felt worth noting.)  This week we've been moving in. The kitchen is all done and the rest of the house is arranged enough that we got through a lot of boxes this week. Then the washer overflowed. So we got to spend Saturday pulling up all the flooring in the master bedroom, laundry room, closet, bathroom, and hallway, and emptying and drying the contents of all the boxes in the garage that got soaked. That was not fun. Actually, it felt like getting kicked when we were down. Bad form, universe. Anyway. Up until then, the week went pretty well. Mike went back to work and the kids and Alison went back to their schedule of going to the park and the pool everyday. Mike's been working very hard every evening to finish the moving-in process, and Alison and the kids were helpful off and on, when they were available (Alison) and in the mood (kids). We have one more week before school starts, but t...

It has been 3 weeks since we posted, so we have a lot to talk about:  3 weeks ago we went down to St George with Alison's family. We had a lot of fun. Elsa played with Victoria with the dollhouse. Chauncey brought over X-Wing ships and the boys played X-Wing regularly. We also went swimming regularly and went down to the river.  On the day that we were leaving Timmy hurt his foot, and because of that Mike kept him out of the water for the first two days. Timmy was very disappointed about this, however, his foot healed properly so that was good.  It was nice to be with the Poulson family and have a lot of fun. Last week Rea went on trek. She made her own pioneer dress and looked very authentic. She did very well. Her cousin Logan was there with her as well. They walked 14 miles a day, and were very tired afterward. While they were at trek, we worked very hard to finish up the house. While Mike worked on the plumbing Grandpa Mike worked on the flooring with Aunt Amy and Sco...

Last week we wrote up a blog post but never posted it, so this one is going to be another twofer. Early last week, we celebrated the 4th of July. Earlier in the day we went over to the Plastow's house and had a barbecue while it was raining. The rain was really nice given how hot it has been recently, and the barbecue was very good with lots of tasty food. We invited the Plastows, the Browns, the Plastow grandparents, and the Rogerses over to our house and all lit off fireworks. It was successful, and no one got hurt, and nothing got lit on fire, so that was pretty good.  Last week, Mike took most of the week off from work and worked on the house the entire time. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we painted. We started installing the cabinets on Thursday; however, they took forever to do, and we finally finished them Saturday evening. While Mike was working on the cabinets, Rea and the kids worked on installing lots of floors. The bathrooms and playroom are already done, so we have been ma...

On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday Timmy, Sara, and Rea (respectively) went to Owl Camp. For those that don't remember, Owl Camp is an event that the library puts on. It is Harry Potter themed, and they dress up and do Harry Potter things: games, crafts, etc. The kids really love going to it, and it was fun this year just like previous years. We also celebrated Taylorsville days this week, which has carousel and Ferris wheel rides as well as other rides. The kids loved going on lots of rides, and had fun there. Most people's favorite ride was the carousel, and Rea and Sara did the Ferris wheel. The dragon was unexpectedly intense, and the obstacle courses were a surprise hit. Elsa also did a pony ride. While the kids were involved in lots of festivities Mike was installing structural plywood, doors, and tubs at the house in an attempt to get them all in before the drywallers arrived. It was a ton of work, and Mike was pretty exhausted by Friday (when the drywallers began), howeve...

We forgot to post again last week, so here we are with another double post. Not this week but the week before the garage door installers came over and installed a new garage door in our house. It looks pretty good and opens and closes very easily. That week we also had the four-way inspection again and finally passed it. That opened up our ability to finish wrapping the house and also installing insulation.  We scheduled the insulation installation as soon as we could (Monday of this week). Late last week we moved to the Waters house because they had gone to Africa and we wanted to be closer to our house and our Ward. It was great too stay at the Brown's house, however, it is also nice to have an entire house to yourself and to be able to walk to the park and church and our friend's houses. Last Saturday we went to a wings of fire convention which is named fan wings fest. Everyone at the convention was interested in wings of fire series, and the author of the books was also in ...

I started a blog post last Sunday, but we were too busy to actually write the things up that were in the post, so I am now converting a bulleted list of things to write about into an actual post, and then adding all of the things that happened last week as well. Rea recently created an Etsy shop. Here is a link to it: https://ecogiftcreations.etsy.com . She is selling notebooks, candles, hanging stone decorations, and bags of polished rocks. She made all of the things herself, and is planning on saving the money that she makes for college. We also received about 200 lbs of expired strawberries from the Waters last week and processed them for storage. Many were moldy, but we ended up with a lot of good ones as well, so the freezers in the Brown house are all full of strawberries right now. The kids have been going at them with a will and have made multiple strawberry smoothies every day, so they are getting used up. Mike also made a gallon of strawberry syrup, which is being used to mak...

On Tuesday of last week Alison and Sara and Rea went to see Wicked with Grandma and Grandpa Craig and Julie. They really enjoyed it. Rea said it was great! Sara also finished all of her rise testing. She did very well and got good scores, so she is very excited about that. We will be making peanut butter brownies in celebration. On Wednesday Mike took a half day off of work to work on the house with Grandpa mike. They got a lot of work done: they filled in cracks with the exterior of the house and started the blocking and built some framing that had been missed by the other guys. The house is still moving forward, however, it isn't moving as fast as we would have hoped because there's just so much to do. We are going to have to push back the four way by one week. That being said we are still making major progress. For activity dudes we played various games outside and inside. The kids really enjoyed it. At Young women's this week Sara wasn't invited because it was only ...

We missed posting last week, so there are two weeks to report on.  We have been making good progress on the house during the time. The HVAC, electric, and plumber are all going regularly. In fact, we recently calculated that everything might be done in June Not this Saturday, but last Saturday we went to a ward fund raiser for girls camp. The girls put on a carnival for the kids and had a silent auction for the adults. It was fun. We also celebrated Mother's Day. We made Alison breakfast in bed, and the kids sang in church. Rea and Sara also taught the young kids in church for their Mother's Day lessons. The lessons went fairly well. This weekend the plastic stayed over for a multi-day sleepover since Grandma Sheila and Grandpa Mike have been taken care of them. The kids played way too many video games and watched way too many screens, however, they did get along fairly well. On Saturday Mike and Grandpa Mike took advantage of Taylorsville bulk waste disposal day to get rid of ...

Timmy and Gideon went to Disney with Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig this week from Monday through Thursday. We were sad that they were gone, however, we were very excited that they got to see all of the things at Disneyland.  They loved so many things about Disneyland. Gideon's favorite part was the Ferris Wheel and Timmy really liked the Car's ride. They got a wheelchair for Timmy; however, he also sometimes walked on his boot. While they were gone, we made smaller meals and Alison, and the girls went out most days to the library or somewhere like that. The result is that we had much less cleanup to do around the house. We can't say that that was a direct result of the boys being gone, however, it was certainly funny that that was what happened. Elsa missed the boys most of the kids, since she loves playing with her brothers so much. We are all glad that they came back. Wednesday for YW Rea and Sara walked to the temple. Rea said, "It was pretty cool", Sara said...

Mike brought Tim to the doctors on Monday and learned that his foot is broken. He has been ordered to stay off it and they gave him a cast that would allow him to stand on it if he needed to. He has been scooting around with a scooter that we borrowed from Grandma Sheila ever since.  Monday evening we all went to Thanksgiving point for the egg festival. The Poulsons invited us and the Rogers there and we had a fun time seeing everything. Mike went with Timmy and they found a route through the park that avoided most of the stairs. On Wednesday Sara's school invited Mike over to do a career Day presentation. He presented to three different classes and they really enjoyed asking him about video games and how programmers make them. Grandma Sheila and Grandpa Mike have been away for the last week, however they came back for one night before leaving again to go off to Oregon. When Grandpa Mike arrived back he noticed that one of the pillars that was poured was blocking the garage door. W...