Parentheticals

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...

We spent a excellent week in the outer banks of North Carolina. It was pretty fun. At the beginning of the week Andrea, Sara, and Timothy were all scared of the ocean. By the second day they were braver (letting Daddy take them out beyond the breakers), and the third day they all got scared again (because they got splashed in the face or dunked by the waves - the surf was really rough by our beachhouse). By the last day they were all brave again. We went to a gentler beach and they all would crawl around in the waves saying they were swimming. Rea would really go out in the waves up to her knees and actually swim a bit when a big wave came in. It was fun seeing them learn to like the water. Sara in particular is excited now to learn to swim this summer, and Rea wants to improve her swimming even more. Monday and Tuesday night we went out crab catching. The crabs were similar to fiddler crabs, but they didn't seem to have significantly dimorphic claws. Andrea was terrified of th...

Monday through Wednesday we mostly just packed and fixed the most recent 3d printer problem. Apparently we were having hysteresis, which with a 3d printer is either the stuff heating up slower than it should, cooling slower than it should, or moving slower than it should (for us it was it moving slower than it should). Apparently I had a slight amount of delay between the time that it started to move the head and the time that the head actually moved. Thursday morning when we were supposed to be leaving for our trip to DC and North Carolina our keys got stuck in the ignition of the car. We were later to the airport than we would have liked to be, but we did end up making it on time. Either way it was very stressful. Once we get home we will have to figure out what to do about the car. The kids were pretty good in the airplanes. We had a layover, which is why it is airplanes plural. We spent a few hours in Denver sitting in the upper floor of the airport and playing and wat...

Monday for Family Night Alison took charge of the lesson and made some new rules for our house: You are free to play outside when: your dishes are washed, and your toys are picked up. You are free to ask for breakfast when: your bedroom is clean and your bed is made. You are free to choose a bed time story when: your playroom is clean and your dishes are washed. Rea has complained about the new rules but has done pretty well. Sara rarely picks up a toy, but she did wash her dishes without complaining two whole times. Overall it is keeping the house pretty clean. Our microwave blew up and we went without a microwave for a while. That was pretty fun. Alison discovered many unique ways to heat things. One time we had a cold sandwich and she put it under her armpit (haha; see here ). Alison wants me to make sure that you understand that she didn't really do this. It was a reference to a comic strip. Timmy liked the old microwave. It is still sitting in our front room on t...

All last weekend we celebrated Alison's 30th birthday. Friday night we went out for Thai food, and on Saturday night we went to a triple birthday party at our church. Sunday we opened up presents. Alison got nice salt and pepper grinders, a fiction book that she wanted, and a Pyrex storage set (which was her favorite gift). On Monday we invited people over for a Memorial Day barbecue. We had five attendees (including baby Ellie). We tried charcoal, but it took forever. We ended up using a George Foreman to finish everything off. During the barbecue Scott and I assembled a new 3D printer that we bought together. We got it put together and printed up some things. The first few prints were not very good, but over the last week I have been improving my printing skills, and I can now make any number of cats with ease. On Thursday and Friday Scott and I attended Google IO Extended. A new version of Polymer was just released, and Google just announced that they are allowing people t...

Alison got a cd of Kirtan songs from the library. Kirtan is a Hindu worship style which involves call and response singing. Rea, Sara, and Timmy love it. They sing along with the songs (even though they do not understand the hindi lyrics of them.) There are also lots of parts that are in English, so they do understand the general meaning of the songs. They also apparently watched disney's Robin hood. some time this week (though I do not know when). Sara was singing mixed lyrics to the Hanuman song: "Robin hood jump! robin hood jump!Jump in to the sky robin hood jump!" "There was a time when the goddess divine was captured by the sheriff, what a terrible crime!" On Tuesday Alison's birthday gifts arrived in the mail. I wrapped them Thursday, and we are pretty much ready for her party. Also on Tuesday my new used drawing tablet arrived in the mail. So my drawing blog has some new pictures on it. On Wednesday we had something really yummy for dinner ...

This past week in Utah it rained a lot. I tried to look up how much it was, but apparently that is difficult to find on the internet. Anyway, it was a lot. Today it even hailed a bit. On Thursday we watched Music Man at the Pioneer theater. They did  a good job of it. The program commented how surprising it was that the play was thematically relevant after 100 years, and that was in fact true (with the exception of the shapoopie song, which wasn't even relevant the day that it was written.) They sang well, danced well, and enunciated well. They even watched their phraseology. On Friday we had a mushroom hunt, which was not very successful (but was fun anyway). Saturday we made a brie and went to the DI to discover a vacuum sealer on sale for $10. We bought it since I have been thinking of vacuum sealing cheeses and $10 is super cheap. We haven't used it yet, but we will soon. Saturday we also went to Grandma's house and picked up some things that the grands were g...