Parentheticals

Alison wrote a post last week and then asked Mike to add images to it, however, Mike completely forgot to do that so this post is now a two-week post. Here is the post from last week: We had one more week of vacation with Andy and Katie, which was great, and then this week we're trying to get back to a normal schedule.  It wasn't quite normal, because Réa was at FSY this week. She had a wonderful time! She went with her friends Emma and Sara Waters to Snow College. Her favorite part was the classes; they had seminary teachers from all over Utah come and teach, and you got to choose which class to go to each hour. We all missed her a lot, but we're glad it was so great.  Our neighbor girls who we've been taking to the park all summer started a class in the mornings, so it's just us now. This was the last week of school lunches, too; summer is winding down! :( Alison is ALMOST ready for the new school year, lol. We got a dumpster Wednesday and Mike and the boys worked...

Last week Andy and family came in to town. Everyday after Mike's got off of work we went over to Grandma Julie's house and spend time with them. Last week Sara and Elsa also went to the doctor's office and got their ears pierced. The earrings that they picked out are very cute, however, the doctor ended up putting the wrong earring in the wrong person's ears so they are currently wearing each other's earrings.  The doctor was very nice and did a very good job, and Elsa said it didn't hurt. They are both being very good at cleaning their ears every day so here's hoping that they do not get infected. Starting on Friday of last week Alison was coming down with something. She slept all day and also on Saturday. Fortunately she got over it fairly quickly so it wasn't one of those multi-week sicknesses. Gideon got the sickness on Sunday and it followed a similar pattern for him, and then Wednesday Rea got the sickness, so it obviously was one that moved. On Mo...

Alison took the kids to the park pretty much every day this week. They have been enjoying the pool and spending time out of doors. They also got physical library cards, so they have been enjoying checking out books on their own. Mike got Friday off this week to celebrate the fourth of July. We went shopping and did things together. Tim and Mike played "Planet Crafter", and also went food shopping for Saturdays dinner. Alison, Mike, and the girls went to the thrift store. Elsa played with the Wilson's.  On Saturday we went to some garage sales and then had everyone come over for the traditional Brown family firework celebration, however, this year the mayor declared a city wide firework ban (because the fire danger was very high). Because of this Alison came up with a wide array of firework adjacent activities such as: ooblek with pop rocks in it, blowing colored bubble snakes, shooting Redcoats with silly string, slingshot launched parachutes, confetti poppers, a dry ice ...

This week Rea and Sara went to girls camp. They had a fun first night, and then the next day it was raining and there was lightning so they ended up having to go home early. That was pretty disappointing, however, to look on the bright side no one got struck by lightning and they did end up with chickens that they could balance on their heads. Rea went a day early to do ycl stuff. She enjoyed canoeing and thought that the storm was exciting. They did secret sisters too, and they enjoyed that. On Thursday we went to Taylorsville days, which is a Taylorsville themed festival that they have this time of year in Taylorsville to celebrate Taylorsville. There were lots of food trucks at the park and lots of rides and amusement park games that you could play. Gideon earned 10 free tickets by working hard helping them set up while we were at the park during the week, and we bought some more tickets so we went on various rides. Gideon and Elsa had a blast and Timmy felt like he was a little bit...

Last Sunday we celebrated Elsa's birthday party because the older kids would be gone on her actual birthday. She got a doll, a huge squish-mallow, a bike, some clothes for her doll, and a few other gifts. She had fruit pizza and ice cream for her meal, which came out pretty good. Overall it was a fun birthday for her. On Monday Rea, Sara, and Tim went to Trek. They had a fun time, and were all safe and healthy. The weather was fairly mild, and they all wore enough sun-screen that they didn't get sun burnt. Also on Monday we took Rocket to the vet because he had been acting very lethargic and not eating or drinking. The vet took some blood samples and told us that he had diabetes. He prescribed insulin, and said that we needed to get some food in him, and then give him the insulin. We took him home and then tried to get him to eat. On Monday night he finally ate some food so we gave him the insulin and everyone went to bed except for Alison, who stayed up with him. When Mike wok...

We skipped a week, so this is for 2 weeks. I thought that I was getting good at doing this again, however, (in my defense), I was sick last weekend, so I guess that that is enough to break a frail habit. Between doctors appointments, dentist appointments, and the aforementioned being sick, we had a really busy two weeks despite not doing anything that was really terribly interesting. Mike has been finishing up a second version of Grandpa Mike's website. As of last night it is entirely working, so he is ready to show it to Grandpa and see what feedback he gets this time. Some time soon it will be feature complete. Tim went to the stake's boys camp the last few days of last week. He had a marginally fun time. He said that there were a lot of annoying things, however, there were also some fun things. For the first time in his life he said that there was too much meat and that he wanted a salad. Rea, Sara, and Timmy will be going to trek on Monday, which should hopefully be fun for...