Parentheticals

We spent this week (and will spend the next) in self-quarantine before going to California for Thanksgiving. It's been challenging at times! But we also had some fun. Monday we woke up to snow! One day a week our school time is devoted to handicrafts and tales - normally we embroider or draw while I read aloud from King Arthur, Tales from the Odyssey, and whatever else we're reading. With the beautiful snow, I decided that snowcrafting was certainly a handicraft, so we headed outside. The boys and I built a snow fort, and the girls made a snow garden. It was a lot of fun! When we were tired, we came in and drank hot chocolate while I read aloud. It was awesome.  In the afternoon, we tried to do our Crowned with Virtue meetings over zoom. It didn't work so well. Only one of the two other girls got on, and Rea and Sara started by being super silly and ended by fighting. Oh, well. Tuesday we finished up our unit on medieval Japan. We must have done something else, but no one r...

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...

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...

Since having come back from California, baby Elizabeth has learned to sit and she is still only nearly crawling. She has made progress - she can take little "steps" with her feet and occasionally her hands - but she hasn't put it all together yet. She took a break to get good at sitting once she learned that. She really likes sitting and using her hands. She gets frustrated when she can't get to something out of reach, so she'll be very happy when she learns to crawl. (Although she's a very happy baby in general.) Monday night after getting back, for our family activity we went to the library to see a teenager acting group from Provo perform a short version of Cinderella. It was a lot of fun. The mice were the kids' favorite characters. The king really hammed up his part, and there was a very funny third trumpeter. We really enjoyed it. On Last Friday and Saturday we had the Plastows over for a sleep over. The kids were good, and they had a fun time pl...

Ever since Mike got the printer fixed the kids have been demanding more and more 3d printed toys. He got all of his parts for his games printed, and is now printing pokemon, pachyderms and princesses. Both Mike's and Alison's teaching has remained quite busy. Alison even has one of her students trying to get all of the classes that they will miss while we are in Italy scheduled during the upcoming week. We will see how well that works. Alison and the kids went to Thanksgiving Point. We heard that there are no field trips to Thanksgiving Point on Monday mornings, so it's the least crowded time of the week. We usually meet some homeschool friends there. This week we played in the water erosion exhibit (a sand and water table) and then rode ponies at the farm. This week our homeschool schedule stopped working. This happens about every 6-8 weeks, and Alison usually enjoys coming up with a new one. But this time she was really hoping it would last one more week until we l...

This week Alison and the kids went to the zoo, thanksgiving point, and the library to get Italian books (to get in the mood for Italy). It was a busy week. Rea took some pictures at the zoo. Here is one of the best ones: On Monday Mike started another semester of teaching CS 101. This time he is teaching two classes simultaneously, which has been so far doable. Finals might be a little crazy, but aside from finals, the first week of a new class is the hardest part. On Tuesday, Mike was biking to work, and both of his brakes on his bike quit working (half way down a hill). He finished his trip very carefully, and then when he went home, he fixed them both (replacing the disk brakes pads, and tightening the pad brakes). Hopefully that won't happen again. We are leaving for Italy in 2 weeks and 2 days, so we have been spending a lot of time getting ready for that over the last week. The kids are watching muzzy, and we are trying to remember all of the last minute things that ...

This week was a crazy one. On Monday Mike was told by his boss and grandboss that his team had been disbanded, and that he was assigned to work on the web team. If someone were to ask Mike which software engineering team at 1800Contacts he would have liked to work at the least, he would have certainly told you the web team. After talking with Alison, Mike started to search for a new job. He applied at five places - all of them in Ithaca NY. He also posted his resume at three different employment sites. Monday night our toilet clogged, and wouldn't unclog. Mike worked on it for a few hours, and eventually we decided to call a plumber. Tuesday morning the plumber came over and got the water flowing again, so we could use the bathroom. This has made our desire to add a second bathroom increase significantly. Also on Monday, Alison did her first class teaching English online with VIPKID. She's been seeing people mention this job for about a year now, and it really felt like i...

Gideon is a year old today! This week he has really started talking. He says very simple things, but he is actually communicating what he wants to now. Some of his favorite words are: "See!", which he says while showing us something that he is holding. The correct response is "Yes, I see it." After that happens, 50% of the time he will try to put the item in his mouth, but the other 50% of the time he will say "Throw!", and then throw it across the room. He is by far the best thrower that we have had in our family at this age. He still signs some of the time, but he mostly likes talking. He regularly summons his siblings by saying "Rea!", and he likes to say "Hi" and "Bye" to people. He also is still right on the cusp of walking. Any day he might decide that it is worth it and do it. He is not the type of baby to be bossed around, so we basically have to wait for him to be ready. Timmy has been singing "All Go...