Parentheticals

Utah went to "Orange" social distancing this week. After studying and pondering the directives for DAYS (because they were so contradictory), we finally figured them out: "Stay home, unless you want to spend money, in which case, try to stay 6 feet apart, but go ahead." Since we have literally engineered our life so that none of the things that bring us joy involve spending money, we can either just stay home forever (Alison isn't anticipating getting out of orange before next Christmas), change the way we live, or stretch the guidelines a bit. We've started socializing with one other family outdoors, reminding the kids to stay 6 feet apart. They try hard :). And once every week or two we'll get together with another family. However, Alison's best friend's mom just died, so we have been babysitting her kids several times this week; we feel that's far more important than the guidelines.  The kids have lost a lot of social skills in two months ...

This last week we hunted morels many days. We found a few, but not nearly as many as we should have. It wasn't a good year for them I guess. We did have a fun time wandering around in the woods, and we saw some pretty cool parks in the process. We have also been reading the last unicorn recently. The kids like it, and wonder what will happen. Thursday Mike went to Bgdg, and presented his game. It was pretty good, however they didn't really give a lot of feedback this time. He has some ideas anyway, so hopefully good things come of it. On Friday we went to a play at the obt. It was A lad 'n his Magic Lamp. It was funny, and there were many memorable characters in it. On Saturday Alison mentioned that she wanted a place to store the bikes not under the car port, so mike started building a bike shed. It came out alright. The kids bikes at least fit under it, and it was made entirely out of things that we had around the house, so that was good. Alison's birthda...

The weather was really good this week. Because it was so good, we played outside a lot - many days we went mushroom hunting, and tried to find morels, but we didn't end up finding any yet. Tuesday nature group at the park went long, and Mike got off work a little early, so he met us at the park. Then we decided to pick up fast food on the way to Dimple Dell and hunt morels for the evening. It was a nice evening. Alison started to attend a water aerobics class this week. She developed Symphysis Pubis Pain this pregnancy for the first time, and all her normal forms of cardio hurt. Water aerobics was recommended by everyone she asked, so she's excited to try it out for a few weeks. Most of the water aerobics moves didn't hurt, which is better than anything else she's tried. On Friday we tried to go to the OBT and catch a show, however we decided to take the train, and the weather was so crazy that lightning struck the train lines, and the trains were no longer running ...

Last Monday we had family night. Sara gave the lesson, and then we went out and hunted for morels. The soil temperature was right, however there hadn't been any rain, so we weren't expecting any mushrooms. We had fun, however we didn't find anything. Tuesday Mike went to the Layton Board Game Design Guild meeting and presented some games to a guy who works for Mayday Games. Mike doesn't think that any of them have a large chance of success, but it was useful because he learned more about the current direction that Mayday Games is going, so he can tailor a game for their company. On Thursday Mike had a goal day party for finishing up reading the Book of Mormon with all of the footnotes. He had pasta and pie. The kids were really excited that he had finished his goal, and kept wishing him a "happy goalday!" On Friday Alison and Mike went to a play. The play had an interesting moral dilemma in the first half, and then during the second half of the play ever...

Tuesday was Sara's date night. First she asked for ice cream, but when Alison pointed out that she had been complaining about being cold all day, she decided to change for hot chocolate. We have a local fancy drink place called Straws where we get "hot ice cream" for the kids when they want it. Sara chose mint chocolate cocoa, which tasted just like mint chocolate chip ice cream. The kids enjoyed it a lot (Sara brought it home and shared). Alison is maybe feeling a little better, but not much. The kids still got to watch a lot of movies this week, although we're getting rid of the multiple-movies-a-day days. Rea and Sara want it to be noted that they watched 'Lady and the Tramp' this week. Rea baked brownies all by herself for us. She is getting very self-reliant with Alison's indisposition. She asked permission, got out the box of brownies, read the directions, mixed them, greased a pan, and poured them in. Alison just put them in and out of the ov...

Over the course of the week we finished up changing Micronesia to be Norse themed. We have learned more about Norse mythology than we knew before. They sure had a lot of war gods. This week for breakfast in addition to pancakes we had muffins. The kids liked them, however they were really messy, since their muffin etiquette is far worse than their pancake etiquette. Specifically, they would carry their muffins all around the house and leave them all over the place. On Monday Alison and the kids all went to the park and stayed for 6 hours. Alison was exhausted after it was over, however the girls had a fun time. They all got sunburned, but that didn't last very long. Probably it was just the fact that they are all so white after a winter. Rea wants you all to know that after they got sunburned she broke the bottle of aloe, so we have to get a new bottle. She will be paying for it herself, since she threw the bottle. Rea has also been reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes recent...

Alison got a cd of Kirtan songs from the library. Kirtan is a Hindu worship style which involves call and response singing. Rea, Sara, and Timmy love it. They sing along with the songs (even though they do not understand the hindi lyrics of them.) There are also lots of parts that are in English, so they do understand the general meaning of the songs. They also apparently watched disney's Robin hood. some time this week (though I do not know when). Sara was singing mixed lyrics to the Hanuman song: "Robin hood jump! robin hood jump!Jump in to the sky robin hood jump!" "There was a time when the goddess divine was captured by the sheriff, what a terrible crime!" On Tuesday Alison's birthday gifts arrived in the mail. I wrapped them Thursday, and we are pretty much ready for her party. Also on Tuesday my new used drawing tablet arrived in the mail. So my drawing blog has some new pictures on it. On Wednesday we had something really yummy for dinner ...