Parentheticals

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...

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...

Mike got over the not-Covid pretty fast, but Alison was wiped out for half this week. She barely got out of bed over the weekend, and Monday and Tuesday she dragged herself downstairs and did school while laying in a sleeping bag. The kids were pretty good. In the afternoons she would sleep while Mike took the kids - it is very convenient to have him off work at 2, so Alison didn't have to try to be functional for longer than that. By Wednesday Alison was feeling a little better, so we went on a few walks; Boo has started to ask to be walked in her stroller when she gets sleepy. We went to Crestwood Park to see what we could forage. There were tons of riverbank grapes this year, so we picked a bushel. (That is an approximation, since we don't actually know how much a bushel is, but it seems about right. It was a very big reusable shopping bag full.)  Thursday we were mostly back to normal life, just in time for the craziness of Friday. Every Friday, we have to get up, get break...

This week was the camp out. Mike stayed home and worked and did homework. He is having a hard time getting all of his homework done during the night, so sometimes he has to work during the day on it. It is disappointing to him, since he has been really enjoying having such a lot of family time. Still - he only has three more weeks in this semester, so he is looking forward to a small break. Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sheila invite him over for dinner repeatedly, but he only ended up going over one time since he ended up going up to the campout on Thursday night. When Mike came up, we hiked around and looked for edibles. There were lots of strawberry plants and some raspberries and elderberries and sticky currants. We're thinking of going back in a month or so to see what's ripened; nothing was ripe this week. Alison and the kids had a great time at the campout, although they missed Mike a lot. They explored the campground and played in the stream and did crafts like friendship br...

On Friday, the older kids had their final exam for Nature Kids Connect, our nature group. Rea and Sara ended up with a harder exam than most. The kids ages 8 and up were supposed to walk from one trailhead in Dimple Dell to another. The starting trailhead just happened to be the one we went to for our Forest Kindergarten for several years and the one where Mike likes to forage, so our girls were at an advantage at the beginning. They were supposed to identify about a dozen plants, and all but one of them were ones that we have foraged or pointed out (poison ivy), so they not only knew what they were, but exactly where to find them. They were even able to help some of the other kids. As they hiked, the kids got more and more strung out, and Rea and Sara were on their own in the part of the park they didn't know when the trail split and they took the wrong turn. They wandered around and realized that they were lost. That was scary, but Rea recognized one of the mountains. It was the ...

Monday we had our Crowned with Virtue activity at our house with the girls' friend Bailey. This month we're learning about a woman named Irina Sedlar, who smuggled Jewish children out of Nazi territory. We had never heard of her, so it was interesting to learn about her. The program suggested having the kids figure out codes or do a treasure hunt, so Alison bought an escape room from Teachers Pay Teachers, and the three girls spent over an hour happily working their way through the puzzles to save the baby doll. Tuesday Sara wanted Broccoli Cheese Soup for dinner, and Mike made it while Alison napped. We had some bunches of parsley and he threw them in. It made the soup vibrantly green, but the kids were not a big fan of the flavor addition. It all got eaten eventually. We had a lot of nice weather this week and Timmy became a big fan of riding his bike around the block. He fell several times, but he kept going, and he's had a lot of fun. Lots of times other people would go...

This week we were in quarantine since we went to California last week. We will have one more week of quarantine till we are done. Alison still says that it was totally worth it, even if quarantine is hard. Elizabeth is having her first major language acquisition explosion. Every day she says two or three more words or phrases that she has never said before. It is really fun. On the other hand, She seems to be cutting more teeth, so two days out of the week she didn't sleep all night. That was pretty bad. Mike has finished his finals, and gotten his grades for his first semester of his master's program. He is also approaching finals in the class that he is teaching. His grades are As, so even with his annoying teacher he is still doing well (he has one teacher that likes to try and trick people into answering wrong on quizzes and things, and that makes it more difficult than necessary. He really likes his other teacher, however). We bought Christmas gifts this week. It was a bit...

Mike is doing midterms for his master's program, as well as doing week one of his BYU-I class he teaches. He's doing a good job keeping up with all of it. At BYU-I, he's teaching a new kind of class, and they're paying him an extra $400 to be a "class representative" and $300 for teaching something new. He normally makes $900 per class per semester, so he's getting almost twice as much as usual for one class (which is all he wants to teach while also going to school and keeping his day job).  Alison is still teaching her program to two groups (one is 9 weeks into the program and one is 3 weeks into the program). It's going well; she's getting things automated and feeling like she's doing a good job on the coaching calls. She's cut back everything else she does in her business to a minimum until after the move. It's nice to have that freedom. We finally got a plumber to check the main sewer pipe at our new house, and it has roots growing...

What an exciting week! To kick it off, we were at Dimple Dell and discussing how, if we have to move to get a second bathroom, a house near Dimple Dell would be nice. So while the baby was nursing and everyone else was playing, Alison looked at houses on her phone. And she totally found her dream house! It has a xeriscaped front yard, mature fruit trees and grapes in the solidly fenced backyard, beautiful huge windows in the living room, a large kitchen/dining room, a second living room, three bedrooms, bathrooms, and a half-aboveground (so natural light) basement. We drove by it and everyone was excited; even Rea, who has flatly refused to move, said that she would move there. As soon as we got home, we contacted the realtor, only to find that it was already under contract. That was really disappointing! But after a day, we started thinking about using the house as inspiration to add on to our house. We've started to draw up plans to make a huge lighted front room with a basement ...

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...

The government of Utah seems to be schizophrenic: they told us that we were going to be no longer in level 1 isolation but when they changed it to level 2 isolation ,the description sounds pretty much exactly the same as level 1, so basically they have no idea what they're talking about. Alison devoted this week to the launch of her new business, Power Emotions Parenting. She did a free week-long online class and invited a few of the most active participants to join her for free in the Power Emotions Parenting coaching program that she wants to sell later. This way she can actually do it once and know that it works :). If anyone would like to participate, let her know! She only wants people who are willing to do the work and participate for eight weeks (for that "know it works" goal), but if you can commit, she'd be happy to give you a place in the program. Alison had to spend less time on the business this week than the week before (when she was getting ready for...

Most of this blog post was dictated by the kids. See if you can guess which parts: On Monday and Tuesday there was a lot of snow here in Utah. It snowed all night, and when we woke up we had 10+ inches. It continued to snow until we had about 16 inches. We had a lot of fun in the snow, and it is still around a bit. On Monday we played outside in the snow in the yard. Shoveling the driveway took hours! We made Samoan cocoa afterward. Tuesday we went to nature group in the snow, which was fun. We found big icicles (as tall as Gideon!) and played in the snow. Gideon and Elizabeth were whiny, but the other kids had fun. Wednesday we went sledding at the Dalyai's nature group and it was very fun. There was a sled run named Potato Burglars' Run, which was fast and very fun and a little scary. Sara went down it twice even though she didn't like it. On Friday at nature group, Timmy and Sara sledded in Mommy's big sled and it was very fast. Mom bought this new s...

Our week in California was wonderful, just like it is every year. Timmy liked playing with Grandpa Craig, Sara and Rea both liked everything about California, and Alison like sitting on the beach and talking to her parents and siblings. Mike liked being with Alison and the kids among other things. Rea thinks that we should mention that we built sand and water structures on the beach. Mike found out that the natal plums that grow all over the place out there are edible (which is cool). Perhaps next year we will make a salad out of them, and bring some seeds home to try and plant inside our house. Rea and Sara both loved the beach and stayed out all day with whatever grown-ups were there. They played in the sand and the waves and Rea even learned to boogie board. Timmy liked the beach somewhat but was always happy to go back to the house and didn't ever get wet. Alison sat and held a baby inside or outside, and Mike worked on his NaGaDeMon game and kept Alison and the kids compan...