Parentheticals

Last Sunday we celebrated Elsa's birthday party because the older kids would be gone on her actual birthday. She got a doll, a huge squish-mallow, a bike, some clothes for her doll, and a few other gifts. She had fruit pizza and ice cream for her meal, which came out pretty good. Overall it was a fun birthday for her. On Monday Rea, Sara, and Tim went to Trek. They had a fun time, and were all safe and healthy. The weather was fairly mild, and they all wore enough sun-screen that they didn't get sun burnt. Also on Monday we took Rocket to the vet because he had been acting very lethargic and not eating or drinking. The vet took some blood samples and told us that he had diabetes. He prescribed insulin, and said that we needed to get some food in him, and then give him the insulin. We took him home and then tried to get him to eat. On Monday night he finally ate some food so we gave him the insulin and everyone went to bed except for Alison, who stayed up with him. When Mike wok...

 We missed a few weeks again, due to General Conference throwing off all of our Sunday routines and then going on a family reunion campout and getting home late yesterday. Here's a brief overview: We went back to having school, but tried to keep everyone busy enough that we wouldn't miss video games too much. It was only moderately successful, and Alison ended up spending a day in bed due to exhaustion, so we decided to slow down a bit. We talked to the kids (mostly the boys) about how, when they moan and complain and cry that there's nothing fun in the world except video games, we feel like they need less time playing video games and more time rediscovering all of the other fun things, and they volunteered to try and stop complaining by themselves. So we're all trying to adjust. Grandma Julie and Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike, were all out of town for General Conference. But our tradition is to get together with family for conference, so Saturday afternoon and evening a...

We failed to write for a few weeks, so this is a big post to get caught back up. Three weeks ago we did Organized Simplicity on the front room. On Monday the 13th we took everything out of the room. It doesn't look like it has that much stuff in it, but it still took up half of the carpeted room and half of Mike's work room to hold all of the stuff. After cleaning out all the stuff we cleaned the room and Alison decided that she also wanted to paint the walls. We ended up painting it a yellowish white that matches the color of the Kallax. Painting took till Wednesday night, so we started moving things back in Thursday and we got it all back together by Friday. Mike marked some board games for disposal, and we also got rid of some art stuff. The room was re-arranged during the move, so we now have a cool new setup which gives us less horizontal furniture to put things on. Hopefully that works to keep the room cleaner. Boo's birthday was on the 15th. We ate fruit pizza and sh...

On Monday we spent time at Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sheila's house. We don't remember much about it, but Caitlin and Sal were there. On Tuesday we walked around downtown Salt Lake with the Brown family and donated at the giving machine that they have set up there. The walk was cold but fun. Elizabeth loved the nativities, and all of the kids loved being with their cousins. The kids ran around like crazy, and we had to take uncle Dan's offer of being the leader of a penguin huddle at each street corner. It kept them all together and relatively warm - not to mention it being fun. Wednesday there was a basketball tournament at our house where the kids played the adults. Somehow the kids got Dan on their team, so they won. After that there was a late over at our house where the kids went crazy. During the late over Sara declared that she was no longer scared of Bruce, and so she stopped being scared of him at all. It was pretty sudden, but we are happy with it. On Thursday we w...

We started writing this post last week, but it never got posted. Last Tuesday Alison's friend - Sylvia Dalyia invited Alison over for a group discussion about emotions. Alison presented the power emotions to them and they all talked about it and had a lot of fun. At the same time Mike discovered that our main sewer line was finally starting to back up in such a way that we will need to shortly get it fixed. He ordered a few plumbers to come over and look at it. So far they coming about $10k, so hopefully the last one has a cheaper plan. Last Thursday we had a plumber come over and scope things out and give us a estimate for the work we were doing. Rea and Alison are both writing stories right now, and have a lot of fun bouncing ideas off of each other, and of building upon each other's work. Last week on Friday Rea went for a walk in the neighborhood and can back with news of a big walnut tree in our neighborhood which seemed to not be being harvested. She had taken some walnut...

Wow - apparently we missed a few weeks. Here is what happened: On Monday the 19th of July we celebrated Sara's birthday party. She really wanted to go to the Treehouse museum, but it is closed on  Mondays, and Alison didn't want to take the kids without another adult, so we haven't yet made it there. Instead we went to the Poulson's house and played in the creek near their house. In the evening Mike and Sara made a white cake for her with vanilla frosting. We opened up her presents, and sang her the birthday song. Andy and his family came back from Macedonia from the 21st to the 31st, and we pretty much spent every day over at the Poulson's house spending time with them. We had a lot of fun - playing legos, going on walks, canoeing, playing in the creek, etc. Mike even got in a few playtests of his board games. It was good to see them again. The next week we went to the Stromberg's house to celebrate Max's birthday. We watched movies and played video games, ...

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...

This week Mike's started to create a list of all of the public places that we forage for food, and another list of parks and places that we want to try to forage for food. We are going to visit a few parks a week and see what new things we find. We have already found a new source of grapes and a patch of raspberry bushes. We are excited to see what we find next. This week Mike also submitted a game to a contest. It is an 18 card legacy game. Here's hoping that it does well. We went to Amy and Dave's house for the girls to get haircuts and everyone to watch Frozen 2. The kids had a great time, until Rea was jumping down the stairs and banged her rib. She was in a lot of pain, but it's been steadily getting better, so we're no longer worried. A few days after the rib incident, Rea decided to climb a tree and scratched her leg really badly. Poor Rea! What a week! Alison got a history curriculum that includes suggested Minecraft builds. Sara and Timmy were so eager to l...

On Monday we celebrated Memorial day with Mike's family, having a picnic at the park and playing with the cousins. The kids all had a fun time together while the adults talked. The kids then all wandered too far away, so we had to break up the conversation to discover where they all had gone off to. Grandpa Mike helped them catch a little garter snake, and they all loved holding it. After that, we worked some more on the fort, and also prepared to swap all of the winter clothes with summer clothes. The girls needed new clothing, but aunt Amy had supplied enough boy clothes for Timmy and Gideon that we didn't need to buy them anything. The day was blessedly free of rain - We like rain normally, but picnics in the rain is another thing altogether. Overall this week was pretty rain free, so we got more time outside, however the kids still fought a lot, so perhaps we have to break the habit from them. Tuesday Alison and the kids went to Wheeler farm. The kids met up with some...

On Tuesday of last week we had Nature group, which was cancelled due to rain. It was raining all week, which made it hard to work on the tree house. Wednesday was Rea's date night. It was raining so we read the hobbit, had a fire, and then we ate currant pie (we still have some frozen currants that we just found in the freezer.) On Thursday we bought and wrapped presents for Alison's birthday. The kids wrapped all of their presents by themselves. Friday was Alison's birthday. Mike worked from home, and Grandma Sheila and Grandpa Mike came over and dropped off a care package. It included easy to make food for when the baby is born, which was a very nice thought. After Mike quit working we had Alison's birthday party, brownies, and then we went to bed. On Saturday first thing in the morning we had a dance party, and then after that since it was the first time in a week that it wasn't raining we worked on the tree house and Grandma Sheila came over to visit us....

Good grief! Apparently we are terrible at remembering to make blog posts. We will now try to remember the last two weeks... We gave up trying to hunt morels. They just don't seem to be out there this year. We made more shoes for Gideon two weeks ago as well - that is a huge process. Alison's mom came over two weeks ago, and they all went to gardner village and had a fairy party. Also, we gathered ingredients for, and began construction on a "tree house"for the kids. It also rained a ton this last week, so construction has been slow. We read and finished "the last unicorn". The kids really enjoyed it. We ordered another bunch of parts from Haba in order to enter their kids game design contest. Timmy and Dad designed a game that we are considering entering into the contest. It is currently about stealing a magic lamp from a cave full of monsters. On this last Friday we went to see Matilda, which was pretty fun, but was also one of those Dahl st...

We got to see Becky's family twice this week. They joined us at nature group on Tuesday and then came to our house to play afterwards. Ellie loved being around Rea and Sara, and Aelfric, Timmy, and Gideon all had fun building with blocks with their moms, if not with each other (they're a little young to play together yet). Then Wednesday we drove down to Springville to go to the splashpad with them. We had a lot of fun both days. On Tuesday night Mike went to the BGDG meeting, and played the Citadel of Madness there. It went well. He got some new ideas and is currently working to implement them. Wednesday night Alison went to League of Utah Writers and learned about different ways to name characters and then critiqued some interesting chapters. Maybe soon she will have enough written in her novel to bring a chapter to critique group herself. Sometime Wednesday the electricity in the master bedroom went out (and also one outlet in the spare room). We were so busy all ...

This was the last week that the pool was open, so we went to the pool on Wednesday so that the kids could show Mike how much they improved their swimming this year. Rea can swim all over without any problem, and was jumping from the high dive board as well. Sara is now swimming very well, and Timmy is bravely walking away from the stairs and playing around in the area where he can touch. On Thursday we all went to the dentist, and only one person had a cavity. On Thursday we also got another quarter cow from a local farm. Our last one lasted 2 years, so we apparently eat about an 1/8 cow worth of beef each year. On Friday after work, we drove out to Grandma Sheila's and Grandpa Mike's house so that we could see the solar eclipse. We spent the weekend with them, going to the pool, their local waterfall, and also talking with family members. It was a fun trip. Some of Grandma Sheila's brothers came to see the eclipse as well, so we had a full house. The eclipse was re...

On Monday and Tuesday we helped Andy and Amanda paint the front of their house and clean out their gutters. We were pretty tired from the trip so far, so that was a nice break. On Wednesday we went to the airport to go home, but the plane had been delayed. We missed our connecting flight in Denver by about half an hour and so we had to wait for 12 hours in Denver to get home. We went to the children's museum amid a tornado warning and flash floods. They made us stay in an inner room with nothing fun in it since the tornado could break the windows and turn the entire museum into a museum of death by flying glass as it were (the joys of tornadoes). When we got home (at 1:30 am) we went to sleep. I missed some work on Thursday for some strange reason. Not really, Alison's car was broken and we had to get Timmy to a doctor's appointment. Not only is Timmy healthy, but we got the car fixed as well. On Friday Alison took the kids to her mom's house. Her sister Katie was...