Parentheticals

On Tuesday Alison and the kids went up to silver lake for their nature group. It was rather cold down here, so Alison rustled up all of the cold weather layers that weren't packed away and put them on the kids. Then they got up there and it was snowing, and she realized that it was not enough. Sara has not outgrown her inability to deal with cold. Despite her warm clothes and carrying around a hot sweet potato she was miserable within half an hour. Then Timmy started whining too, and Gideon (just because everyone else was.) It was not the most successful nature group ever. On Wednesday Alison came down with a cold, and in an attempt to get better faster before the primary program she tried to eat no grains nor dairy the entire time. She got better in two days, so it seems to have been successful (or maybe it was just a blessing). On Friday we went to the Stromberg's house for dinner. The kids played, and the parents talked, and it was very fun. I dropped off the 3d prin...

We missed posting last week, so this post will cover two weeks. Last weekend we went up to Silver Lake for a hike. We saw a moose in the wild, climbed on rocks and trees, took a nap in the woods, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Timmy really wants to go canoeing on the lake. I can't imagine dragging a canoe up there, but maybe one day... The kids did really well, and they hardly complained at all. After going to silver lake, the rest of the week we had a lot of meetings - Alison's calling, Mike's Board game design guild (BGDG), and Alison's writing group each claimed a weeknight. Mike tried to get his "Grab the Loot" game played with 6 players at BGDG, but there were not enough people there for that to happen. He has been preparing this game for submission to a publisher, and it wants some more playtesting at that player count. He is also trying to fit the game into a mint tin for the mint tin design contest. So far it is fitting, but he will perhap...

This week Timmy has started drawing things that look more like things than like scribbles. He usually draws people and robots, and they have faces, limbs, heads, and other body parts. Sheila was gone until Wednesday, so we volunteered to keep babysitting Petra Monday and Tuesday. It's very easy to have her when we're at home; she plays happily with our kids and doesn't take much effort. Monday we picked up Grandma Julie at the airport and went to the zoo. We always love the zoo. However, this was not the best visit the grown ups have ever had. It was very hot, and Petra would wander away constantly and didn't like to hold hands. We saw the bird show and the elephant show, though, which was great. Rea finally got invited to participate in the bird show; she gave a water bottle to a cockatoo at the beginning so he could drink it and drop it, and then the trained raven picked it up and put it in the recycle bin. Rea has always raised her hand when they asked for volunt...

On Tuesday we arrived home from vacation. Mike went to the board game design guild, and played someone else's game. After Tuesday we have spent most of the week getting back into the swing of things. Mike has been working from home on Wednesdays, so he did that the day after getting back. Friday we went to a play - The Grand Duke  by Gilbert and Sullivan. We like all of their plays, and this one was no exception. The ending was totally ridiculous, but most of them are fairly so, it was expected. Also on Friday Petra came over and played with us. She is coming over a few more times next week so that Scott can go to work even though Sheila is out of town right now. On Saturday we had Scott and the kids over, and the kids played Titanic in the canoe. It was fun to talk to Scott, and the kids had a fun time playing together. Timmy wanted to write this week that we played Smooze , which is that Mike is a giant evil sentient purple blob that is throwing balls of himself at peop...

This was the last week that the pool was open, so we went to the pool on Wednesday so that the kids could show Mike how much they improved their swimming this year. Rea can swim all over without any problem, and was jumping from the high dive board as well. Sara is now swimming very well, and Timmy is bravely walking away from the stairs and playing around in the area where he can touch. On Thursday we all went to the dentist, and only one person had a cavity. On Thursday we also got another quarter cow from a local farm. Our last one lasted 2 years, so we apparently eat about an 1/8 cow worth of beef each year. On Friday after work, we drove out to Grandma Sheila's and Grandpa Mike's house so that we could see the solar eclipse. We spent the weekend with them, going to the pool, their local waterfall, and also talking with family members. It was a fun trip. Some of Grandma Sheila's brothers came to see the eclipse as well, so we had a full house. The eclipse was re...

The sunflowers that we planted this year are growing very big. Rea uses their leaves to hide under when it rains.  We plan on planting the seeds of the biggest one, and harvesting all of the rest of them for food. On Monday Alison and the kids played in the creek at the park where the pool is, and for the first time we met three other families at the place that we didn't even know. The big kids caught minnows, and one of the families had a dog. Gideon loved it, and tried to say dog a lot of times. He didn't sound exactly right, but he has remembered the word, and has been yelling it all week whenever we see a dog. On Tuesday Mike went to the BGDG meeting, and he played the Madness Place. It went well, and he got some new ideas. Now he just has to implement them. On Wednesday, Alison went to her writing group. It was nice for her to be in a different group with non-published authors. It makes her feel more confident about bringing her own writing some time. On Thursday M...

Last saturday we got Rea's bike working, so this week she rode it a lot. Sara has been reading a book every day to learn more about reading. We are hoping that if we do this enough she will start to like it. This week Timmy has been singing a lot of songs that he invented himself. Gideon will crawl across the whole house and play by himself now. That is fun. Alison attended her second League of Utah Writer's meeting this week. It was a write in at a coffee shop. She hadn't worked on writing at all since the last meeting, so it was fun to spend some time writing. On Thursday Mike's work had a summer party. We were all invited to Lagoon. We hung out in the water-park area for the first few hours, and then after dinner went on a bunch of kiddie rides. All in all it was a fairly fun time. The kids loved the whale ride the most. It was a bunch of whales that you sit in and go around a circle while bobbing up and down in a sine wave pattern. It was fun to see them h...