Parentheticals

Last week Andy and family came in to town. Everyday after Mike's got off of work we went over to Grandma Julie's house and spend time with them. Last week Sara and Elsa also went to the doctor's office and got their ears pierced. The earrings that they picked out are very cute, however, the doctor ended up putting the wrong earring in the wrong person's ears so they are currently wearing each other's earrings.  The doctor was very nice and did a very good job, and Elsa said it didn't hurt. They are both being very good at cleaning their ears every day so here's hoping that they do not get infected. Starting on Friday of last week Alison was coming down with something. She slept all day and also on Saturday. Fortunately she got over it fairly quickly so it wasn't one of those multi-week sicknesses. Gideon got the sickness on Sunday and it followed a similar pattern for him, and then Wednesday Rea got the sickness, so it obviously was one that moved. On Mo...

This last week we went to southern Utah in order to attend the nature group fall camp out. The leader has a relative who has 800 acers and a cabin on the Utah-Arizona border, and they let us camp there for free every October during fall break. It's a lot of fun, although we always end up getting a hotel instead of camping because Mike needs to work at night. That was a good thing this year, because they had an unbelievable cold snap down there! At one point, they were predicting lows of 25 for those nights! I think it was a little warmer, but most of the families ended up finding somewhere indoors to sleep. Some of the teenage boys tented the first night and woke up to frost on their sleeping bags - they slept in their cars for the other nights. We were glad to be in a hotel. We drove down Wednesday afternoon and checked into the hotel. Thursday morning we went to Coral Pink Sand Dunes, which is one of our favorite places down there. The dunes are pretty, playing in the sand is fun...

We had a family reunion this week! Monday we drove up to Flaming Gorge to meet Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike, the Plastows, the Strombergs, and the Andersons and spend a few days on the river. On the way, we stopped at the Dinosaur Quarry in Vernal and saw the dinosaur bones still embedded in the wall. It was very exciting for all the kids, especially Boo. It was hard for the kids to believe that this was exactly what it looks like when paleontologists dig up fossils, and that these were REAL FOSSILS. It was fun! We got to the motel fairly late Monday, so Tuesday morning we headed out to raft the river. The water was really low, so the rapids were very mild. Mike and I were in the "calm boat" with the Andersons, and we brought in any other kids who needed a break from the excitement (mostly Boo and Gideon). Everyone had a great time on the river! Wednesday we took the rafts and inner tubes to the lake and swam and floated and wandered the shore. Papa Mike and several of the ol...

Last Sunday evening late at night we arrived at Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig's house, and we arrived home this Saturday night, so we spent almost a full week there. Mike was doing an ordinary workweek from their house so this didn't count as a vacation for us. Rea wants me to add that it still counted as vacation for Alison and for the kids. Rea and Sara had also just got home from a trip to Disneyland with Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig, so a lot of this post will be about Disneyland. Also, Rea is the only kid interested in blogging today, so most of this will be from her point of view. Rea's favorite picture from Disneyland Rea's favorite thing to do in Disneyland was walking with her grandparents. She also liked going on the rides. Her least favorite thing was her feet hurting after she walks so much every day. Rea's favorite foods from there were broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl that she had at one of the restaurants and also pineapple i...

Since last week was finals, Mike hasn't had to teach all week. This means that on Monday and Tuesday, Mike got work done at 11 and had the rest of the day off. He took the week between Christmas and New Year's off because work told him to use up his vacation days. We normally do the Twelve Days of Christmas from Christmas Day to Twelfth Night on January 5th, but this year Rea and Sara are invited to go to Disneyland with Grandma and Grandpa from January 1st to January 5th. So we started the Twelve Days of Christmas early and we'll do our Twelfth Night celebration tomorrow. The activities that we did this week were: Sunday - Read Christmas books around the fire Sunday - Made and drank egg nog Monday - Making ginger bread houses at the library Monday - Visited Temple Square to see the lights Tuesday - Put on the Nativity play Wednesday - Opened presents Friday - Played with Grandma and GrandpaSaturday - Watch Christmas movies Since Mike had all this time off and h...

We spent last week in San Diego mostly at the beach house. Yay for Thanksgiving! We look forward to this vacation all year. Over multiple days Mike, Gideon, and Rea picked a whole bunch of natal plums and made jelly out of them. The jelly was pretty sour but had a decent flavor. One of the days that we were there, Alison went boogie boarding. She was very brave. We have always been lucky and had sunny weather for all of our Thanksgiving holidays. This year, we had rain for almost half the week. We were so glad Grandma got such a big place this year; we didn't feel at all cramped by the rain. The kids really enjoyed playing with Grandma Julie's Legos for days and days while it rained outside. Grandpa Craig bought some metal shovels that were really high quality and we dug a hole almost tall enough for Mike to fit in standing up. It must have been five feet 6 in or deeper. We also built a very large sandcastle one of the days. We introduced kid Olympics to the fa...

This last week we went on our first "working vacation". We drove down to Zion's national park with Alison and the kid's nature group. We stayed at Zion's Most Wanted, which was a hotel built in the house where a prominent polygamist was living before he was arrested. We went to zion's, to water canyon, and coral pink sand dunes, glitter mountain, and also to the cabin of the lady that runs the nature group. We had a fun time hiking around, seeing nature, interacting with the nature group, and exploring that part of the state. During the mornings, Mike would work, and so it didn't cost us any vacation. We will likely continue to do small trips like this until we are ready to do large working vacation trips. The culmination of this will probably be a few months working from another country (perhaps in South America?), but Mike has to make sure that that is kosher first. We plan on visiting Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sheila next, however, given...

Apparently, we are horrible at writing blog posts right now. I guess that we need to find a new time to write them as we keep having things after church on Sunday, and so they always fail to get written. Now - to try and remember the last few weeks: On the 27th we saw Macbeth at the historic draper theater - it was pretty fun. They used a post-apocalyptic setting so that everyone could dress in steampunk styles. They also abridged the original play slightly, and they did an awesome job; we could only recognize a few spots where they'd cut things. It was a great performance. On the 29th we opened up our winter clothes and started putting away our summer clothes. The kids have enough warm clothes for a few days now, which was good because it suddenly got cold. We don't normally have to turn on the heater in September! On the 3rd Mike went to BGDG. On the 5th we drove to Reno to visit the Poulsons while Mike went on a business trip. We had a fun trip and did a lot of...

Andy's family visited us this week! Rea has been telling everyone for weeks that her "cousins from Tajikistan" were coming; Alison would usually explain that her brother works for the State Department, and most of the time that Tajikistan was part of the former USSR, in response to blank looks. Alison took a week of vacation from all her Primary President responsibilities (good thing we had Conference this weekend!), playgroup, homeschool, grocery shopping, and everything else in order to have fun with Andy and Amanda and their kids. They went out to eat a lot, visited Temple Square and toured the Conference Center, and went to the Natural History Museum of Utah to see the dinosaur skeletons. It was incredibly fun, but exhausting. The big cousins all shared a room and stayed up way too late, and the adults liked to stay up and talk too. Alison also realized that there's a reason she only does a selected group of habitual things while Mike is at work: carting four ki...

We have returned from our trip. It was fun. We arrived Friday night at the cabin and I got to play some bang and star wars epic duels with the guys (and Sheila). Saturday we went hiking up a river and saw some waterfalls (baby Andrea enjoyed playing in the water a lot). Sunday we had a testimony meeting and roasted marshmallows. Monday we came home. Our house was pretty hot when we arrived home, and I smelt something funny. After walking around to try and figure out what it was, I remembered that I had not put the cheeses into the refrigerator (usually we have to house much cooler, so they can age normally, but this was crazy super ageing, and I think that it might have done some damage). I opened up one of them immediately, and it was bad. The other ones do not look bad, and I put them in the fridge. I intend to open them up tonight and see 'what has tobe done'. Hopefully they are still good. We have another play session coming up - I am not quite prepared for it yet. Hopefull...

The vacation is over. We made it back safely, and in a timely manner (although we had some concerns about the latter - our flight got cancelled, and we had to quickly get onto an earlier flight to make it home before church). I have made great strides in my SRD you can download it here , if you want to (Unless you like table top RPGs, I wouldn't really recommend that). I am now feeling ready to start the game. Our dog was watched by my younger brother Daniel during our vacation. We also let him use our car as a form of payment. He didn't know that you have to turn off the radio in between uses or the batteries will die, so it was apparently less useful than it could have been. Alison's garden is doing well. The plants are growing quickly. Additionally, I re-waxed the cheese that was made right before the vacation. It is looking pretty good.

As of yet the vacation has been swell. We have spent a lot of time on the beach - boogie boarding, walking, and collecting shells. We also went to the Mormon Battalion Historic Site, Balboa Park, and the Poulson's old house. Baby Andrea has started to pull to standing, and climb up stairs. We played some games (including a modified Baron Munchhausen, five crowns, and a dice stacking game.) Swee and I caught up reading Girl Genius as well as Darths and Droids. I am continuing to work on my plans for the new role playing game. I have the SRD practically completed, and am working on the world generation. I should start talking about making characters to people.

Tomorrow we leave for CA. We are going to get everything packed tonight. We will be gone all next week (seeing Becky's mission, as well as other things.) My SRD is moving along nicely. I have made a lot of psionic items, and am nearly ready to make a second release. I think that I will make some teaser pages (to hint that I will be delivering some pages in the future) I am looking for a new manga to read on the airplane. Perhaps Swee and I will read Nausicaa (as she has never read that), but we might just read separately. If so, I want to find something like Yotsubato, Cromartie High, or Azumanga Daiho. My last cheese is pretty dry. I have to remember to wax it tonight before we go on our date. Oh, also, our dog doesn't yet have a sitter... that will be important to get.