Parentheticals

This week Timmy has been standing independently quite a bit. He really likes doing it. He is still not walking, but it has to be coming soon. He is really proud about it. On Monday I printed up a larger twist counter to see if I could display 40 numbers on a twist counter. It took two tries to get something usable, but that is way less than the 20ish tries I had to do for the smaller ones. On Wednesday we had a Sandy Board Game Design group meeting . It was fun. We played three games (one of which was a possible sequel to Above and Below (Which Alison and I both liked quite a bit)). Ryan liked my "Sorcery, Inc." game enough to offer to co-design it with me (which is really exciting since he is a game publisher, which makes me believe that if we can make it finalized then it will probably be published). On Thursday I found out that my work was going to be moving to a new building one day early. That meant that I had to pack up all my stuff and get out one day early. ...

This week Mike has been working hard to fulfill the rewards for his Kickstarter campaign. The new colors that some people ordered came in on Friday, so he printed the last of the rewards and sent them off on Saturday - except for one person who hasn't actually told Mike which size of windows he wants in his counters. When that person gets around to answering, we'll print and be done! We're glad to get it done so quickly and to have time to spend on other things. (Note - as we were composing this, he told Mike what he wanted, so the last counters are being printed at the moment and we will be done Monday, when the post office is open.) Thursday Alison and the kids spent all day at the park, playing on the playground, eating a picnic lunch, and swimming in the pool. They went to the pool four times this week, and everyone's swimming is continuing to progress. They are really enjoying their pool passes and the time they spend outside. And still no sunburns! Thursday ev...

Alison and the kids have spent a lot of time going to the pool this last week. They are all enjoying it a lot. Andrea is swimming like a fish, and Sara is enjoying walking around in the water. Timmy will blow bubbles and crawl around on the steps. They are very glad that they got pool passes. On Thursday the 3D printer power supply blew up. It was very bad timing because my kickstarter campaign depends on the printer working. We scrambled and got a new supply, so we are OK, but it would have been preferable to not have it blow up at all. On Friday we went to The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) at the Off Broadway Theater. It was very funny. I think that it is still playing, so go see it. It is cheap and good. On Saturday I rebuilt the power supply for the printer, made granola, and we went swimming as a family at the pool. The girls loved showing off their swimming skills, and Timmy was certain that he could swim too. It was fun. On Sunday we played board games...

Last Saturday we went to my work party. It was super hot, but they provided us with free tiger blood snow cones, so we were ok. The girls liked the swimming pools and the pony rides, and the parents liked watching the kids have fun. They gave us some fireworks at the party which will come up later. Now, this week all that we did (says Alison) was go swimming and try to keep the house clean. My Kickstarter campaign started on Monday and I have been managing it fairly actively. I have 15 backers and have $240 pledged (of a $40 goal) at this point in time. If no new pledges were made from here until the time that the campaign ended I would be happy since I am already going to have to make more than 90 counters (which will take some time.) I am glad that the campaign has been quite successful. On Friday I had the day off and so we hiked with the Poulsons up in Albion Basin (up Catherine's pass.) We made it to the little stream and then turned back (because the kids were done)...

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...