Parentheticals

Good grief! Apparently we are terrible at remembering to make blog posts. We will now try to remember the last two weeks... We gave up trying to hunt morels. They just don't seem to be out there this year. We made more shoes for Gideon two weeks ago as well - that is a huge process. Alison's mom came over two weeks ago, and they all went to gardner village and had a fairy party. Also, we gathered ingredients for, and began construction on a "tree house"for the kids. It also rained a ton this last week, so construction has been slow. We read and finished "the last unicorn". The kids really enjoyed it. We ordered another bunch of parts from Haba in order to enter their kids game design contest. Timmy and Dad designed a game that we are considering entering into the contest. It is currently about stealing a magic lamp from a cave full of monsters. On this last Friday we went to see Matilda, which was pretty fun, but was also one of those Dahl st...

On Monday we had a family night. we went to see Beauty and the Beast at the library. It was a play put on by some teenage theatrical group who did a pretty good job. It was free, so for the price it was amazingly good, despite a few technical difficulties. The actors got extra time to talk to the kids before it started, and afterward Sara got to meet her favorite characters, the three silly village girls who follow Gaston around. Everyone really enjoyed it for a special family night treat. Most of this week, other than that, we spent getting ready for our trip. We made lists and packed containers and filled our car with everything we  could need. The kids were so very excited and wanted to help, although there wasn't much they could do. On Friday Alison and Mike went to the play Les Miserables at Hillcrest Highschool. They did an amazing job. It is such a good play, and they performed it with no small amount of skill. We were really happy that we went. We have purchased a year ...

Monday through Wednesday we packed for our trip. We also had FHE, and Rea's date night. Our electric grain mill (which was a wedding present) finally broke, so we started making flour in our hand crank wheat grinder. It was a long process, but the bread turned out pretty good (if a bit coarse). On Wednesday night, Mike mailed out Polynesia to the Cardboard Edison. Of the games that he submitted to it, that was the one which they chose as a finalist. Now it is just a waiting game to see what happens. On Thursday we went to SaltCon. Mike had a game that was a finalist in the Ion Award, so he had to present it to the judges. The presentation went ok, however it seemed fairly obvious that Mike had not won, as the judges really seemed to like a different game - Palooka Precinct - quite a bit. The kids checked out a lot of games from the game library. Rea loved Coconuts, Sara liked the huge Jenga tower (made from 2 by 4s), and Timmy liked Dont Rock the Boat, but hated all the game...