Parentheticals

Salt Con was the first weekend of March. Despite everyone being sick we had a lot of fun. We played a few new games and some old games. We bought a few games and a lot of toys. We painted miniatures, played in the Star Trek simulator, played a magical kittens RPG, and ate the continental breakfast at the hotel.  Although we usually go to the pool almost every day during SaltCon this time the pool was under construction.  After salt con the kids all had to go to the doctors and many of them got shots. Most of them recovered fairly quickly, however, Sara seems to have been impacted the most by the shots. Her arms hurt severely for more than a week, and she still seems to be a little bit lethargic, so that tetanus shot is pretty tough. The kids got invited over to a party at the Wilson's. Timmy says that it was just a parade pretty much. Elsa says that it was great, and it had a lot of food and snacks and that she loved it.  Mike and Alison saw Les Misérables at a theater do...

 This week Alison and Mike caught whatever Elizabeth and Gideon have had. Alison stayed in bed all day Monday, then moved to the couch all day Tuesday, and was mostly better (if a little tired) after that. Mike got sick Friday and had a sinus headache Sunday. Neither of us was anywhere near as sick as the little ones, though. Gideon is almost  done coughing, and Boo stopped getting feverish in the afternoons sometime this week, so they're improving, but Boo is still super grumpy a lot of the time and needs lots of cuddles. (If grumpy is a symptom of this sickness, maybe Timmy has it, because he's had a really hard time getting along with people this week.) Mike took the oldest three kids to get their first Covid shots Monday afternoon. He decided to walk in to a clinic; Alison worried that they'd have to wait forever, but it wasn't that bad. The kids are very proud of getting their first shots and excited for their second ones. When they're fully vaccinated, they...

We had lots of warm weather this week. The kids have been loving being outside for long periods. Inside, though, they have been argumentative and grumpy. It got so bad that when they finally started playing nicely together on Thursday, we canceled everything we had planned and just let them play as a reward. But we eventually decided that everyone needs more sleep in order for things to go well, so we're overhauling our bedtime routine. We're going to try to put each child to bed separately, so bedtime will take at least four times as long as it does now. If it means that everyone gets enough sleep to be reasonable during the day, it will be worth it. The kids thought this was an excellent week because we saw the Dalyais every day except Sunday. Monday they came to our house for a Carnival party; Tuesday we all went to nature group; Wednesday we have the Dalyais' nature group and Thursday is ballet taught by one of the older Dalyai girls; Friday Faith Dalyai had a birthda...

Rea scheduled a party this week with some local kids. The Beuses ere going to come but they couldn't because they got sick, however the Dalyias were able to make it. Rea made a lemon cake for the party, which turned out pretty good. They also put on a play: Cinderella. Everyone got a part, and they had a fun time putting on the play. Sara was particularly silly - she was Cinderella, but she played that she was scared of the fairy godmother. Mike finished his game of Twilight Imperium at work on Friday. He won despite two of the other three players teaming up against him. It is good that they were not able to stop him because this upcoming week Mike's office building is changing to an office in Draper (right next to 1800Contacts actually). Friday we made tempura for our date night. It ended up pretty good. Mike determined that with the oil at a really high temperature the tempura ended up more crispy than is usual (which was good.) This weekend Mike tried to fix the fridge...

This week for FHE we talked about what we learned at General Conference. Wednesday we went to Wheeler Farm for Timmy's date night. The kids loved seeing the animals, and playing on the play structures. Thursday Mike went to the BGDG meeting, and the kids and Alison watched a movie. On Friday we went to the new sushi place for a date. It has really good prices, and the sushi was also pretty good, so we are excited that they opened the place up. We also got a large quantity of cooking oil, which we ordered from a website which had qite reasonable prices. At the rate that we use oil for Mike's bread making, it was a good thing to get. Saturday Mike spent some time getting Storybook weaver up and running on Alison's computer. Alison remembers playing it all of the time as a kid, and it seems that the kids quite like it already. Mike made a story for Timmy, and this is a page of it: Saturday night we had the church easter egg hunt, and made toothpick-marshmallow ge...

Tuesday Alison and the kids went to the park and hung out with some family friends. They had a fun time, and I understand that Alison ordered birthday gifts for me during the trip. Wednesday we packed because on Thursday the kids went to Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sheila's house. They stayed there for three days and had a grand time. They all were sad to go home, and they miss their Grandparents. While The kids were gone, Alison and Mike went on a three day vacation to downtown Salt Lake City to enjoy the cultural things there. We saw a play, went to art exhibits and a museum, ate out at restaurants. It was very fun. While the kids were gone Rea's box car children books on tape arrived, so on the way home we listened to them. Rea loved them and the other kids slept through them. Another interesting thing that happened was that we finished motorizing Alison's bucket bike. It is now a electric/muscle hybrid bike. Alison is really excited about it, and it works pretty go...