Parentheticals

Elsa volunteered to help me write this blog post. This is what she said: "We were going to the beach house, and Victoria was there, and we went on the beach and we found so many pretty shells. That's all I remember." Just to be clear, we did not go to the beach house last week. :P I'm not sure if she's making up a story, telling me what she remembers from the last year, or what. She did get to play with Victoria this week, though; Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig were in town this weekend and invited all the cousins for a sleepover. Alison and Mike and Becky and Chauncey had Arby's for dinner and played Here to Slay at Becky's house while the kids were all at Grandma's. It was very fun! And when we went to pick up the kids, we sat and created characters for a The One Ring roleplaying game that Chauncey's going to GM for us. Earlier this week, Rea got to go to Grandma's house an extra time for an adventure. She was signed up to take her official ...

On Monday Mike went to the Salt Lake Community College surplus computer sale and got Rea a used laptop. It is small and cute and has good stats and battery life. It was only $195, however Rea hates it. She says "Dad! I told you not to get me a computer 'cause I don't want one!" We are hoping that she will start to like it some day because being able to use a computer is a good skill to have. We had lots of medical appointments this week. Alison met with her psychiatrist on Monday and modified her medicine some. The first medicine has prevented any more major depression, but she still feels mildly depressed about half the time, so the psychiatrist is hoping adding this one will help with that. Tuesday morning Alison went to get a chipped filling fixed and get an impression taken for a mouth guard. Apparently she grinds her teeth now. Tuesday afternoon Timmy and Sara went to the dentist. All four kids had dentist appointments last month, but it was the week everyone was...

This week was not as exciting as last week (phew!), but we had fun. We switched over to our summer schedule this week, since our scheduled school-ish things (nature group and weekly learning logs) ended last week.  This year, summer schedule involves listening to a early-elementary-school-level audiobook over breakfast (nature stories, stories from history, things like that), then getting ready for the day, then half an hour of review (math, reading, handwriting) before they head out to play. They also need to take a siesta in the hot part of the afternoon if they want to stay up in the evening when it's nice - not that it's hot yet, but we're starting the transition now, because it's always a grumpy week or two until we all adjust. We're listening to less-exciting upper elementary/middle school level audiobook over naps, in hopes that it won't keep people awake. The kids have gotten to play with their cousins a lot, and they will get to do more now that public ...

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 ...

This week our Brown grandparent's came over and we spent a lot of time with them. Alison went out with all of the girls and ate lunch together, the kids spent time at the grandparents, Mike ate lunch with Grandpa Mike, and we all also went over to eat dinner with them. It was fun to see them again. Wednesday evening we went to the nearby nursery and bought some tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Hopefully they grow well. Rea also planned and executed a may-day celebration. It had a parade of children and a maypole dance. They also ate a picnic of lemonade, peppers, pears and cheese.  On Friday we were all well enough to go to nature group for the first time in a month. It was hot, and a few of the kids whined, but we stayed the whole time and the kids had fun. Mike did yard work and mowed the lawn with our new mechanical lawn mower. It works pretty good, but doesn't do well on tall grass or sticks. Saturday we transplanted two new trees: a cherry and an apple which we bought from t...

 This week the weather was really good, and we spent a lot of time in the yard enjoying it. Mike and the kids finished up building the "stump fort" - adding windows and a ladder up to the top. Mike also cleaned up the yard, and started planning what things were going where in the garden. We went to strawberry hill and took 7 strawberry plants to transplant in our yard. As of yet they are all still looking pretty good. We transplanted them under ideal conditions: a rainy, cool day, and we took the entire root ball of each one, so hopefully they survive well. The kids have been playing a lot with Aiden (the boy that lives one house to the south of us), and have been flooding the yard and making mud balls a lot. Mike doesn't love the mud that much, but the kids love it so much that we need to come up with some solution to the disagreement. Perhaps mike will offer the back area of the yard to them as long as they treat the part that is grass with more care. With the lingering...

On Monday we had a guy from a window place come over to give us an estimate for replacing all the old windows. It was over 10k and Mike had already scheduled another meeting with another company, so we didn't accept it at that time. By Tuesday we had received offers from 7 people to buy our house. They went from 1k under the asking price to 15k above it with most in the 5-10k above range.  The one that offered 15k over also sent a letter and seemed pretty excited to buy the place, so we went with him. However, he had an inspection on Wednesday, and the inspector told him that some weeds were growing in the crawlspace, and it freaked him out so much that he backed out of the deal.  Mike went down there to fix the problem that night, and with the help of the teenage Dalyai boy, had all the tree roots removed in two hours. There has never been normal weeds growing in our crawlspace, however those trees of heaven aggressively sucker, and they constantly attempt to colonize the cra...

 Monday and Tuesday we did all of the kid's school for the week to get ready to move. We went to sign the papers Wednesday afternoon, and the check engine light came back on again, even though we just got it fixed. We ignored it and went to the closing, which went fine, and then asked the agent if we could get the keys. He said that he had an appointment in Park City, and so he texted the sellers' agent to see if we could get them. The house that Amy is moving into had an excess washer and dryer that they were willing to give to us, so we moved them out of the house so that we could get at them once we got our moving truck. Getting the washer out of the basement was difficult, and unhooking the dryer required borrowing a tool from Amy, but we got it eventually. By then, it was almost 7pm, and everyone was very hungry. The kids had gone through the coupons from the mail and created a meal plan for us from Wendy's, which fortunately turned out to be very near our new home. We...

The weather has been really nice, so we went hiking some more this week. We gathered more plants for the food forest, and played that we were from redwall We now have lots of currants, some serviceberries, black raspberries, a gooseberry bush, strawberries, mint, a plum tree, and some Oregon grape. We want cherry trees, apples, raspberries probably more plums, and perhaps a peach tree and some asparagus before we are all the way done. The garden is finally starting to sprout. We have tons of pea plants, and some lettuces to show for our work so far. We have also been burning all of the trees we cut down and dug up from our yard. The kids really wish we had marshmallows. Mike's next school semester started, and it has mostly been going well. Alison has been preparing to teach a bunch of people about how to get along with their kids. Her class starts on Monday. She has nearly 100 people signed up so far -that is pretty exciting. We also have been recently playing a lot of...

This last week the weather was nice, so we played outside a lot of the time. As we were preparing to plant our garden in the backyard, we ordered some fruit bushes. Alison had read about building a permaculture food forest, and this seemed like a good way to start that. We had ordered a gooseberry bush, two Serviceberry bushes, and also a pair of black raspberry bushes from a nursery in the east. The bushes all arrived on Friday, so Mike went outside and planted them and watered them heavily. We hope that they produce lots of berries for us to eat in the future. Of all of the seeds we planted a few weeks ago, very few of them have begun sprouting, so we went and replanted the whole entire area yesterday. We have also been burning a lot of wood that we got by ripping out all of the trees of heaven which were growing in our backyard. The fires have been crazy, according to Rea. Alison also went on a massive food shopping trip on Saturday so that we could get all of the stuff that w...

We accidentally didn't write a blog post last week, so this post is going to cover two weeks. Last week, we began to tear all of the small tree of heavens out of our yard so that we can have a tree of heaven free yard. Alison thought that it would take a lot of work and a long time; however, Mike and the kids are very strong, so we got most of them out in two days. We kept working on them sporadically for a few other days, and now the entire yard is tree of heaven free (except for the strip between the carport and the fence, which we haven't yet done). We will have to grub up sprouts for a few years probably, but we're hoping that they will actually eventually stop. While we were working in the yard we decided to dig an irrigation trench from the place where the kids always leave the hose on ("it's our creek!") all summer, to the place where we have planned a garden this year. We then planted some of the seeds which Alison bought so that we could have all ...

The girls worked like crazy this week to earn money; they each did over a dozen chores. They had seen the Valentine section in the grocery store and wanted money to buy things. Alison decided to capitalize on their enthusiasm and started another round of Organized Simplicity. She and the kids cleaned out the shed and went through it and organized it. The kids actually helped a lot and earned a bag of candy for their Carnival party this week. On Thursday (for Carnival) the kids had an Easter egg hunt in the snow at the park. They invited their friends the Dalyais and the Beuses. The big girls found some eggs without candy in them and decided it was a mystery. Their evidence points to the big boys sneaking it. They really enjoyed it, actually. Rea has been reading a lot of Boxcar Children mysteries lately. Mike also found out that the Perfect Moment (the game that he has a publishing deal for) is going to be published in June of this year! It has been a multi-year goal to get that to...

Mike left for a work convention last Sunday after church, so we didn't do our blog post. So this post will cover two weeks. Last week, Alison and the kids started doing Forest Kindergarten again. After mushroom hunting, the kids really wanted to go to Dimple Dell, so we went there all week. The kids loved it. Alison was not huge fan of the switchbacks, but the creek and trees at the bottom are nice. The kids had a fabulous time, and Alison and Gideon sat and read and cuddled. Friday we had Brown Family Dinner, because Daniel had graduated and his parents were in town. We met at Amy's house and had pizza. It was fun. Mike showed off the Brave Lala illustrations Sheila made; they are awesome! The kids loved playing in the playhouse and on the trampoline. The adults talked about investments. Saturday morning Alison had to attend a Stake Baptism for a girl in our ward. Rea was invited along to sing, and all the kids ended up coming. They were decently well-behaved, and Rea sa...

Did you know that in japan the word trivia translates to "bean knowledge"? Sunday was our Primary Program. Since Alison is the Primary music leader, that took quite a bit of our time and energy last week. Réa and Sara earned some money helping her prepare her visual aids for the kids to sing to. They've also been practicing their talks for the past two weeks (they got a treat for saying their parts from memory whenever Timmy got one for potty training) and listening to the CD of the program songs in the car every time we drove anywhere (Alison is SO GLAD to be done with that). It paid off; both girls said their parts clearly and without needing any prompting, and both knew all the words to all the songs. In fact, all of the kids did a wonderful job singing loudly and clearly. The closing song was Praise to the Man, with the kids singing the first verse and the congregation singing the rest, and Alison told the kids that from where she led the music, the kids were just a...

Tuesday Alison and the kids went to the park and hung out with some family friends. They had a fun time, and I understand that Alison ordered birthday gifts for me during the trip. Wednesday we packed because on Thursday the kids went to Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sheila's house. They stayed there for three days and had a grand time. They all were sad to go home, and they miss their Grandparents. While The kids were gone, Alison and Mike went on a three day vacation to downtown Salt Lake City to enjoy the cultural things there. We saw a play, went to art exhibits and a museum, ate out at restaurants. It was very fun. While the kids were gone Rea's box car children books on tape arrived, so on the way home we listened to them. Rea loved them and the other kids slept through them. Another interesting thing that happened was that we finished motorizing Alison's bucket bike. It is now a electric/muscle hybrid bike. Alison is really excited about it, and it works pretty go...

This week we finished cleaning out most of our house. We did the kids room, the front room, half of the 3d printer room, and the garage shed. We tried really hard to get done with everything before this Saturday so that we could have a garage sale. We didn't finish the house in time for Saturday, but we had the garage sale anyway. We piled everything outside and posted an ad in KSL telling everyone about the stuff that we were selling. Some of the things were very popular, since people started showing up an hour before the sale was supposed to start and perusing the stuff that we already had out in the driveway. We ended up making over $250 and getting rid of a ton of stuff. Our house feels much more comfortable and spacious with fewer things crowding it. We still had to take a large load of stuff to the DI (more than would fit into the car with our whole family), so I drove it down while Alison and the kids played. One of Rea's friends had ridden her bike over while we wer...

On Monday, Alison got a new bike. It is a Madsen bucket bike, and can hold all of the kids as well as groceries. We hope that Alison will be up to taking trips in it to the library soon, so that they can go to the library every day and Alison will keep in excellent physical condition. If it is too hard, we are going to get her an electric assist to help her on the hilly parts. The bike rides pretty well, and is obviously very well built. On Tuesday they rode the bike to Macey's, which went pretty well, and it was also Sara's date night. For her date we watched Joseph and the amazing technicolor dream coat. Wednesday Alison's parent's moved to California. Now that we have no more parents in Utah, it is much more likely that we are going to move. We do not, however, have any immediate plans to move. On Thursday Alison and the kids went to the pool. The girls all loved the water and swam for a while. Sara got too cold and got out after a while (I used to do that a ...

Monday was Memorial day, and so we had a Memorial day barbecue. We invited all of my siblings over, but only Scott and Max could come over (Sheila and Petra were having a nap, and everyone else was busy and or didn't answer). Even though we didn't have a huge amount of people, it was still fun. The kids all played bopping games with pool noodles, and ran around. We had hamburgers, ribs, hot dogs, barbecued pineapple, watermelon, lazy blueberry pie, veggiekabobs, and chips and home made humus. everyone seemed to enjoy the food. It was really fun. I really wanted blueberry pie, but didn't want to work hard to make it, so I invent a new recipe. Put it in your recipe book: Lazy-Mike Blueberry Pie 1) Buy a pre-cooked graham cracker crust. 2) Cook a Danish dessert (boil 1 3/4 cups water on the stove, add 1 box danish dessert mix, boil for a minute.) 3) Pour blueberries and danish dessert in to pie crust. Two cups of blueberries should do. 4) Chill it for two hours. ...

This week Alison has felt pretty good most of the week. We even got the entire house cleaned on Saturday for the first time in a long time. It was nice to have the house clean (even if it doesn't last very long.) Our gardens are starting to grow wonderfully. We stole some lettuce, strawberries, raspberries, chives, and other various plants from Sheila and Scott (they had some extra that had volunteered from last year). The raspberries died, and so did most of the lettuce, but the strawberries, mint, and chives transplanted like champs. We got a weed whacker last week, and tried it out this week (a little bit). It worked well. I still need to whack most of the weeds in the front yard. The funny thing is that the more weeds that I look at the more edible plants that I am finding in the yard. As of yet we have lambs-quarters, mallow, henpeck, alfalfa, blue mustard, shepherds purse, nettle, and I am sure that we will find other varieties edible as we look more. We have also found...

I have been working on the viking game some more. It is coming along, but it still isn't working very well. I tried it out at work on Thursday, and people said that they liked it, but they were just being nice. I think that it is getting better, however it could be moving along more quickly. This week it rained a lot. We love the rain, because with great rain comes great gardens. Also, we just love the rain in general, since we came from a beautiful place known as north of the Garden of Eden before we entered this lone and dreary wilderness that we call Utah. For Rea's date this week, Mike and the kids watched an episode of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" in which Spike got greedy and turned into a wicked huge dragon until he learned to be generous again. It was apparently a big deal to Timmy. His favorite character is Spike, and after it was over he spent about half an hour grabbing Alison with wide eyes and repeating to her over and over, "Pike! Ra-ra...