So Many Strawberries, the Failed Four-way and Promotions

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 make strawberry drinks, and perhaps some might survive until Gideon's pancake meal that he has planned this upcoming week.

There has been progress made on the house, but it has been mixed: on the one hand, we failed the four-way, and had to do a lot of things that the inspector pointed out, and on the other hand, the workers are mostly working on it with a will. The only people that have much left to do are the plumbers, so here is hoping that they come through this week so that we can finish things up and get to the next phase of the job.

We are also taking care of the Waters's cats and chickens, which means that we are driving over to the other part of town multiple times a day, most days (Mike to work on the house and the kids to feed and water things).

We celebrated Memorial Day, although at this point, I have no memory of what we did to celebrate it. I wrote it down last week, so I am sure that we did it. Probably we talked about people who died for our country?

At the house, there were some wire scraps that we found that had been discarded by the electrician. We have been using them to wire wrap things, and most of the kids have made some artwork of some sort with them.

We celebrated Alison's birthday party last week. She got a bunch of wall clocks and an alarm clock among other gifts. Alison is very aware of the passage of time now.

At her birthday, we played the old paper bag game that the Poulsons used to play at their birthday parties, as well as performed the "Heavy Hangs" ritual, where the birthday person wishes everyone birthday wishes in response to being bonked (gently) on the head by their presents. It is an interesting tradition.

Last week, Co-op ended, so Rea has not been doing full school for the longest time of all the kids. Friday of this week, it ended completely for everyone else, too. They are all very happy to be moving over to the Summer schedule, and on Friday, we made pizza to celebrate the completion of another school year.

During (and right before) the four-way, Mike got concerned about how we were going to insulate the house. With 4-inch external walls, it is going to be hard to get everything up to an R20, so we are going to have to take some extreme measures. We are probably going to hire an insulation company to make sure that everything is up to snuff, since we can install insulation ourselves, but the guy that we talked with made us a bid that ended up being only marginally more expensive than doing it ourselves, and saving all of that effort seems worth a little bit of money.

Rea and Sara went to a Temple open house (in Saratoga Springs, perhaps?) for Young Women's two weeks ago, and they were excited to find that it had 2 baptismal fonts. That is the sort of forward thinking that we need right now, since you can hardly get into the baptistry in the Taylorsville temple, and it was just made.

Speaking of temple trips - Rea also was baptized for a Brown for the first time when Mike and Rea went to the temple to do baptisms last month, which seems like it would be more common, but every generation back causes more non-browns to be added to the family tree, so it is actually pretty rare.

Rea has also been working with Mike on the house a lot - whenever he invites kids to come over to help, she is always willing to help, and it makes it much easier for him to accomplish two-person jobs. He still has a lot to do, but with a helper, it is much easier to get it done.

We were shopping for groceries when we found a clearance sale that included about 20 bags of Memorial Day-themed tortilla chips for $1 each, so we have been enjoying those for the last two weeks. Most of us enjoy nachos, so we have been making them regularly.

This last week, Alison took Elizabeth in for her final DTAP immunization, since the school told her that Elizabeth needed 4 before she started kindergarten; however, the doctors said that she was up to date, and didn't need another one till October. Mike had to tell the school that they were wrong, and it all worked out in the end, however, we still had to schedule and plan it and drive all over the place, so that was sort of annoying.

This Wednesday, Sara was "promoted" from elementary school. Alison and the kids attended it, and Sara received an award for most improved reading. She said that she was surprised that she didn't get most improved math, but honestly, her math knowledge has always been very good, so she just started out too high to get that one (even if she has learned a lot this year)

This Wednesday night, we had Activity Dudes/Young Women's. The boys practiced giving speeches and then played some games, and the girls did water games. A fun time was had by all. Timmy and Gideon were the first two boys who agreed to give a speech, and did a good job of it, so they are pretty brave.

On Saturday, we attended "Burdens for Blessings", which is a free garage sale that is put on by Mike's parents' stake. The kids got some new clothing and a few toys for Timmy's and Elsa's birthdays. Mike got some water bottles and a slackline set. Rea also got a desk for her room, and Gideon wanted to get one, but we couldn't fit it into the car.

Yesterday we decided to move into the Waters' house, since they are out of the country, and since they invited us to do it. With having to drive over multiple times a day to that part of town anyway, it seems much more efficient. We will also appreciate having our animals with us again, and they will not cause such a large mess in the grandparents' house, so overall it will be a good thing.

Sara and Gideon and both sad about moving out of the Brown's house; however, the feelings are mixed, but it is overall going to be much more efficient. We plan on moving over a few days this upcoming week, so you will hear more about that in the next post.