Parentheticals

This week we have been busily trying to get ready for christmas. We have all of the presents that we need and Alison did all of the shopping, so really we're pretty close now. On Wednesday Mike was able to use some volunteer time off to go to The cannery at welfare square and help them can applesauce. He ended up canning about 15,000 pounds of applesauce. It was good, and he appreciates that guys work pays him for it. On Wednesday we all went to the church because the activity dudes and young women (and men) were having a caroling activity. We had a fun time going around and singing and then ate cookies and drink hot taco after. Gideon and Elsa ended up going home early with Alison. Thursday after dropping the kids off at Grandma Julie's house Alison went all over the entire valley to every store that exists in order to buy things in preparation for Christmas. (Alison wants me to add that it was only actually four stores.) Despite having gone everywhere she was still unable to

Last Sunday after we wrote our blog post Rea received her patriarchal blessing. The patriarch was not far away from our home, and she received a nice blessing. The patriarch's wife acted as a stenographer, and they delivered a text version of it to our house a few days ago, so she now can read it when she wants to. The Dalyias came over on Monday and the kids all played. They had a lot of fun and apparently ate a lot of mints as well. Wednesday was a very busy day. In the morning Alison and the kids went to the Poulson's house and then Mike took Sara to her acting class. Next, Rea went to the temple open house, and Alison took the kids to her presidency meeting with her, and then Mike took Sara back to her activity and grabbed the kids. Here's hoping that we can avoid that busy a day for at least a few weeks. Gideon had a lot of fun at Sullivan's birthday party on Thursday. They jumped on a trampoline, ate pie, played a lot of games, and ran around, so it sounds like it

Look, we're posting on time! Only one week's worth of stuff, so it'll go fast. Last Sunday, Rea got her patriarchal blessing! She decided she wanted it and set up interviews and things, and it was so exciting to have it happen at last. It was a lovely experience. Wednesday Rea did a Secret Santa gift exchange in Young Women's. She had planned to make a snow globe with a sea turtle in it, but Mom procrastinated shopping until it was too late to find the turtle. After a lot of thought and effort, she ended up putting a Christmas candle in the glass globe with blue glass gems and a package of peppermint bark. It was pretty well received. One of her good friends got her name, and gave her a gorgeous locking journal cover that you can put new books into when you fill one up. It was perfect for her! Thursday this week was Rea's end-of-semester blue book exams. She had to draw the Western Hemisphere + Europe and label all countries, US states. and Canadian provinces and th

This post is going to be 3 weeks long because we have been lazy about writing apparently. Three weeks ago we were getting ready to go to California for the Poulson's family beach trip Thanksgiving extravaganza. We all got flu shots and COVID boosters as well. Everyone was very good and we got ice cream after. Elsa also got a hold of Mike's phone and took a bunch of pictures of her face, so here is the best one Two weeks ago we drove to San Diego for Thanksgiving. We took two days to drive there spending the night in Las Vegas in a hotel. During the time that we were there the weather was exceedingly clement, none of the people who made it to Thanksgiving got very sick, and the kids mostly got along as well. We were sad that both Andy's and Katie's family were not able to make it (one because of distance, and the other because of sickness), however despite them not being there we still built giant sand castles pretty much every day and still had chocolate mint pie. The k

 Mike has a cold and is trying to sleep enough so he'll get better fast, so Alison is writing this. And I haven't actually written a blog post in ... a really long time. So we'll see how this goes. I asked the kids what happened this week and Sara said, "Nah, this week was kinda boring." So that's what we're starting from. We did the normal stuff - school and playing with friends and cooking dinners and all. Other than that... Wednesday Sara did her first audition for her theater class play The Lion King Jr. She's hoping to be Scar or one of the hyenas. She is enjoying the class a lot. Rea went with the Young Women to watch a few of the members of the older class in the local high school's production of Mama Mia! She said she liked it. Rea is starting her science fair project for CC. She is working on decomposition and the zero waste movement. It's very cool. She's still writing her NaNo and making a bunch of hand-crafted gifts for Christma

 Last week Sara discovered the KSL classifieds free page and decided to get some things from it. We now are the owners of a cat carrier and a foot stool. Also Last week we went to the OBT to see Dracula vs the Hunchback. The play was very fun, and had some of Mike's favorite Dracula scenes in all of the OBT's repertoire. One of the girls that was in the acting class that Rea, Sara and Timmy went to was acting in that show, so they were really excited to see her. Last Saturday was the ward chili cook off, which usually is at the same time as the ward trunk-or-treat, however they didn't do that this year. We made cornbread muffins, and Amy made lemon jello that was colored orange, and it won the best dessert award, so apparently catering to the tastes of the children worked very well. On Tuesday was Halloween. First we went to the trunk-or-treat, and when our car ran out of candy we left to go to the trick-or-treat. One of the cars was very popular with our kids - they dresse

On Thursday we got a quarter cow from "cedar sage beef"  Also on Thursday the kids invited the Plastows over for a late over. Timmy got a house in wobbly life. Sara was The Mastermind of the entire late over, and she engineered them getting pizza and root beer floats however she didn't actually enjoy it apparently. "I was really tired" she says, and then adds "I don't even know what we were doing" Friday night to Saturday morning the ward had a father's and sons campout. We had hot dogs and chips and soda for dinner with s'mores afterwards. "There were so many sodas!" Timmy comments. Mike got the kids to play two rooms and a boom in the evening and then we went to sleep in our small tent. In the morning we had pancakes and bacon and OJ for breakfast and played more 2r1b. Since then most of the kids that played have been asking to play again, so it was definitely a success. Gideon recalls that in the morning we found a smore next t

This last week was hard to remember, however, here are the things that we do remember: Over the past couple weeks Mike has been fixing up the ghost music box that we purchased on eBay, and it is now working perfectly well. He lubricated it and reassembled it slightly tighter and he also printed some new ghosts to spin around on top. He found some magnets that had smooth slightly curved bottoms and printed holes in the bottom of the ghost figurines that match the size of the magnets so the magnets can be wedged into the bottom of the figurines which makes them spin around in a way very similar to how the original ghost did. Mike's ghosts are slightly larger than the originals, however they spin around slightly better than the originals. Mike also 3d printed a bunch of dragons, since Logan wanted some for one of his school projects, and then Timmy and Boo wanted some too. On Saturday morning the Poulson's invited us over to see the pumpkin races that were going on in the lake nea

Timmy attended his martial arts class again on Monday and Tuesday. He had a lot of fun and learned more things. On Wednesday Sara went to acting class, which she also enjoys a lot. Alison and Sara took the train to get to the class, which took about the same amount of time to get there as the car because of traffic. The eventual plan is to have Sara take the train to get to the class, however it doesn't seem like that is going to happen immediately. On Thusday we went to a combined Waters family birthday party. The party was at Buck's house since he was also apparently having a birthday too. We ate potluck, had cake, played No Thanks, and various other things. It was pretty fun. On Friday we were invited to see a horse show by the Poulsons. Becky went into labor, so the adult Rogers were not there, however we had fun with the grandparents and the younger Rogers. The horses were impressive, and we also saw the knights do jousting and other combat sports. The four horse "Yod

On Saturday of last week we got a watermelon at Maceys and brought it home and put it on the counter because Timmy had requested watermelon with his dinner. Monday morning when mike woke up he stepped in a puddle in the kitchen. After some looking around he discovered that the watermelon had ruptured. Apparently the thing was infected with some sort of gas producing bacteria (perhaps yeast?) and its internal pressure was too much for it. When he picked it up the middle fell out (though the shell was still mostly strong). That was a disappointment. Later on Monday we picked a bunch of apples at the Payne's house and then Mike went to help Grandpa Mike to get his computer printer working. The apples have been really good, and we have made almost 5 gallons of apple chips already. Timmy  has joined a martial arts dojo because he has wanted to start learning a martial art. The one that we found was mixed Judo and Ju-jitsu and Muay Thai twice a week. He liked it, so we signed him up for

On Monday of last week we took Rocket in to the vet to get him neutered. We were concerned how the drugs would affect him and how things would go, however when Alison went to pick him up he came out very happy and cheerful like usual and he doesn't seem to have had any ill effects from the surgery at all. He seems just as happy and chipper as normal. At the same time, Elizabeth decided that rocket needed to look fancier so she applied green food coloring to his face. That means this entire week he has had a green face which is sort of funny. A few days later she painted fingernail polish on the cat, so we have had to tell her that she's not allowed to make any of our animals prettier because it's not safe for them. Sara went to her first acting class this last week on Wednesday. She reported that she loved it, so we expect her to go again this upcoming week without any problems. On Wednesday we had another activity dudes meeting, and we celebrated the birthday of James Wate

On Monday we had our Hello Jell-O barbecue, where people could come over and meet Jello. The day was rainy and we mostly stayed inside. Mike convinced the Rogers to play a new board game with him, and the kids all had fun playing with each other. The meat was not burned and it went pretty well overall. On Monday night we dropped the car off at the auto shop in order to get the tires fixed. They were done super fast and didn't charge us anything, so we assume that they patched them instead of replacing them. Alison either has a new sickness this week or is sick again with the same one as last week, so despite all of her efforts to get better, she is still sick. On Tuesday many of the kids went to the dentist. Rea apparently got two cavities in her teeth when they were still underneath her gums. The dentist said that she couldn't have done anything about it, so that is too bad. Mike's old team was given less budget this fiscal year, so they moved most of the members of the te

We finished the interior walls of the play shed and painted them! The kids picked a different bright color for each wall, and it ended up looking very cute and cheerful. The boys helped a lot with putting up the walls, and the girls had a blast painting. Mike wants to build a loft in part of it, and then it will be all the way done. These pictures were taken after dinner, so the lighting is lower than normal. That being said, the skylights still provided some light.  The Taylorsville Library did an activity where you had five locations to visit in Taylorsville and if you did it you got entered in a drawing for a Leatherby's gift card. We found out about it at the end of last week, so we were hurrying to visit the sculpture exhibit (we wrote about that last week) and the other locations. Monday we went to the trail along the Jordan River where we often walk with the Plastows, and Tuesday we went to the Taylorsville Bennion Heritage Center, which is an old home turned museum next to

This week Alison started official school in our homeschool. The kids were not particularly excited by this fact, but we're making progress:  Gideon had a baseline assessment for the beginning of first grade and did very well.  Sara is in the middle of an assessment of the math she learned last year, to see if she can keep doing her current math schedule or needs to spend more time on math. (She and Alison are disagreeing about this, so the assessment is supposed to settle the question.)  Timmy did a full reading lesson this week (a full lesson takes 2-4 hours), and his reading was very impressive! He is making a lot of progress, and we're hoping that he'll be reading independently by the end of this school year. Rea had her first week of doing all the assignments for her Challenge class. Alison was a little nervous about how it would all fit in our schedule, but Rea is very motivated and got it all done with no problem. Her tutor was very impressed with her on Thursday, esp

This week on Monday we got a cat. Sara has done such a good job of taking care of Rocket that when she asked for a cat and agreed to take care of it the same way the parents decided that she was mature enough to trust to do it. We looked online at a few options and settled for a mixed breed not-very-allergenic black and white cat. He has had a few names - he started with the name Choge but now he is being called Jello, because he is a jellical cat. We will attach pictures to the bottom of this post. He is 8 weeks old (his birthday is June 14th), and he is very energetic and loving. He enjoys playing with everyone and doesn't love rocket a lot yet, however he tolerates him. Timmy also seems to be getting sick. He slept through the visit to Grandma's house and seemed poorly. He is coughing a lot, but he claims to be well. On Thursday was Rea's first day of school for the year. She is doing a class that meets every Thursday from 8:30 till 4:00. In class they all bring interest

We haven't written for three weeks since it has been so busy, but now we have a normal Sunday, so here it all goes. Three weeks ago we spent most of our time getting ready for Dan's wedding. We packed and got a dog sitter and stopped the mail and everything. Our plan to get there was to ride on a series of trains. It should have taken three days each direction, however, the trains on the way there were all delayed. The first was 6+hours late and caused us to miss our connection. We had to have a 24 hour layover in Chicago because of the delay so we went to the Chicago zoo most of the day. It was pretty fun even though the kids whined a lot. We got on the next train and it was also running late, but not so late that we missed the third train. It ended up taking 4 days to get there due to the super long layover. Grandpa Mike picked us up at the train station, so we got to bed before midnight on Thursday. Having missed a day meant that we tried to get two days worth of touring don

This week we spent pretty much the entire time at the Poulson's house because Andy and family was there. They have been living in Macedonia for the last three years, so we don't get to see them that often. The kids spent most of every day in the pool, and they all got sun burned to some extent despite how hard we tried to keep them covered. We played games in the evening and talked. We had a really fun time. Mike and Rocket spent the mornings at our house so that Mike could do his day job. Rocket liked to bark a lot when he was over at the Poulson's house because he wanted to come inside with us. The kids seemed to be getting along rather well. During the night Mike processed huge amounts of apricots. He mostly froze them because we love ape smoothies. He also made jam, fruit leather, and is currently making canned apricots and dried apricots. We also have been eating large quantities of them too, since they are so good. :D Mike is supposed to change work groups to a new gr

On Monday was Marissa's birthday party, so the older girls went to that. It was legend of Zelda themed and they had a lot of fun. Rea went to girls camp on Tuesday. She was nervous about it before, however she said that she had had a fun time when it was all over. Some of her favorite parts were going canoeing, doing the testimony meeting on Thursday and doing a skit at the talent show. Rea and the waters girls performed a skit Rea wrote which was about how everyone got their names wrong. Rea got called all three of the waters girls names (despite the fact that they look different, and they also got called Rea's name as well. The skit exaggerated this tendency. Their friend Abby played a camp director which kept getting the name wrong. On Tuesday every kid except for Rea went to the dentist. Timmy and Boo had no cavities, however, the other two had some. Wednesday Mike dropped the car off to get its breaks changed and the auto shop finished the repairs by the end of the day. In

This is a multi-week post since we have missed a few weeks. On the week of the 18th the following things happened: On Tuesday the 20th Timmy, Gideon, and Mike went fishing with Grandpa Mike while everyone else went to have a girls night with Grandma Sheila. The boys had a fun time trying to catch fish, and then eating some gelato while the girls all made lots of deserts and had fun. On Wednesday we did another activity dudes where we talked about family history and told stories about our families. Mike told about how Grandpa Yoder milked the cows for his adopted grandfather, and how it got turned into a movie. We watched the movie on YouTube. We also put the roofing material on the new kids play-shed that week and got the skylights installed. The kids finished up their acting class on Friday they did their final showcase. They performed a small musical, some acting games, Babylon stories and an opening and closing song. The kids had a really fun time at acting class, and they want to