Parentheticals

On Memorial Day we had the traditional Memorial Day barbecue. We had 4 families over and it was super fun. I would call it an amazing success (even if Meowth would have called it a day to forget) On Tuesday we started to switch over to summer schedule. What this means is the kids can play outside as long as they want in the morning and then when they come inside they have to do a little reading or math. Next they take a siesta and do team clean, then they can have screen time to dinner, then we play outside to dark again. We haven't really gotten into it fully yet, so perhaps this week will be better. Tim has finally gotten through his level three book of his reading program, and to celebrate his hard work we got sushi and made tempura for Wednesday night dinner. A lot of the kids complained about the idea of sushi, but we got a coconut tempura shrimp roll from the local sushi place that is practically a dessert, and everyone who actually gave it a decent try liked it. Timmy insist...

Hey, look, we wrote two weeks in a row this time! We finished up the Twelve Days of Christmas this week and are heading into Carnival season, where we plan a party every week to head off the intermitability of January and February. We got out of the habit during the lockdowns from COVID, so hopefully we'll do a good job this year. It really is helpful with the February blahs. Last Sunday the power went out on the other side of the ward, so the Plastow kids came and built an amazing snow fort and played with our kids. Amy and Dave came over for dinner and we invited them to spend the night if their power didn't come back on. It did come back, but the kids were all excited about having a sleepover, so Logan, Dustin, and Brooklyn spent the night. Monday we had our annual New Year's Day game day. Becky and Chauncey's family came, and we had a wonderful time playing The Scarlet Pimpernell. The girls actually got invited to hang out with their friend Marissa from Sandy in the...

 It's been more-or-less February for about two months now (February being, of course, the "beastly month" when everything seems awful for a while). That is finally over! We've had over a week of lovely sunny springlike weather, and everyone is feeling great! We spent lots of time outside, we had to break out the sunscreen, Timmy got his ants, Rea is growing things in her garden. It's so nice. Both last Friday and this Friday we went to nature group and then Wildflower Park and ended up being out for nine hours or so. We went to Cabana Park with the Plastows on Saturday and to Brookside Park when we visited Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig on Thursday. We also went to Crestwood Park today. At Crestwood, Rocket discovered that he loved swimming in the creek. He really doesn't do well in the heat - even though it's just in the seventies, it's too hot for him to do much without wanting to lie down and pant in the shade - so it looks like come summer we'...

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 ...

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...

This week there was a lot of sickness in the family. We overcame the sickness of last week, and the mid way through the week Timmy started acting sick again, but by Sunday he was feeling a bit better. Alison also has not been feeling her best, but she is also not really that sad, and with little kids she has kept things together quite well. Having the kids sick for so long has bred bad habits into them. Once when we were discussing "the screaming problem" that we have been having (people screaming instead of asking for the thing that they want). Alison said "who wants to help us with this screaming problem?" Timmy said "me! me!", and raised his hand before saying "AAAH!" Additionally, while he was feeling good I was singing the "Go! Go! Go! Joseph!" song to Timmy, and he replied "Go! Go! Go! me!" On Tuesday the kids and Alison went over to the Poulson's house and helped decorate for Craig's birthday. They had a f...