Parentheticals

The kids just discovered stop motion animation and are making videos of their modeling clay dinosaurs. They're having fun. We have a wasp nest in our big tree in the front yard that Mike is really, really trying to figure out how to deal with before the weather warms up. It's much too high for any of the normal methods. He's thinking of shooting balls of clay at it with a slingshot to try to knock it down. This week we had CC and the kids are making friends with a new family, Will and Grace. They're nine year old twins and Timmy and Sara are having fun talking about Wings of Fire and Spirit Animals and other books with them. Tuesday the Rogers were off school, so we went with them and Grandma Julie to Thanksgiving Point all day. We did the dinosaur museum in the morning and butterflies in the afternoon. The kids got to see some new butterflies being released into the Biosphere, which was very exciting. Timmy and Gideon got separated from the rest of us in the Dinosaur M...

This week Alison and the kids went to the zoo, thanksgiving point, and the library to get Italian books (to get in the mood for Italy). It was a busy week. Rea took some pictures at the zoo. Here is one of the best ones: On Monday Mike started another semester of teaching CS 101. This time he is teaching two classes simultaneously, which has been so far doable. Finals might be a little crazy, but aside from finals, the first week of a new class is the hardest part. On Tuesday, Mike was biking to work, and both of his brakes on his bike quit working (half way down a hill). He finished his trip very carefully, and then when he went home, he fixed them both (replacing the disk brakes pads, and tightening the pad brakes). Hopefully that won't happen again. We are leaving for Italy in 2 weeks and 2 days, so we have been spending a lot of time getting ready for that over the last week. The kids are watching muzzy, and we are trying to remember all of the last minute things that ...

This week Mike called and asked a local repair shop how much it would cost to fix his phone. The price that they quoted was more than the price to buy a new phone, so he just ordered the parts, and planned on fixing it himself. All the parts have arrived, but no matter how many screwdrivers he bought he couldn't find one the right size to open the phone up. So, now he has the parts, but can't actually fix the phone yet. He has another screwdriver on the way that will hopefully work this time. We sold our chickens on Monday to an old guy. We decided that finding chicken sitters for the trip to Italy would be too hard, and since we already are leaving the goats at the stud, we will be able to get by without any pet sitters as long as we release (or eat) the grasshoppers before we go. Speaking of the grasshoppers: we have about four right now in the aquarium. The kids haven't decided to eat them yet, so we are just taking care of them and feeding and watering them regularl...