Parentheticals

Surprise! This week was supposed to be our campout - except it wasn't. It's next week. Alison is not 100% sure how this misunderstanding happened, but there you go. Camping next week. There will be a trade blanket at the campout, and Alison found a really cool craft for growing crystals on rocks and painting them. It was gorgeous in the person's blog, and she got really excited about doing it and taking it for trade fodder. Unfortunately, she forgot that she and crafts have an inimical relationship. They did not turn out so great. Mike is trying to do it better, so that hopefully the kids will have something to trade. We'll see how it goes. (Mike is now making monkey paws as a backup. Alison is very grateful.) Mike has been doing research into how to insure other people's stocks, otherwise known as options. He is pretty excited to try it out, since obviously the insurance company always wins. (Alison was a bit worried about our lack of actuarial tables, but it turns...

We had a family reunion this week! Monday we drove up to Flaming Gorge to meet Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike, the Plastows, the Strombergs, and the Andersons and spend a few days on the river. On the way, we stopped at the Dinosaur Quarry in Vernal and saw the dinosaur bones still embedded in the wall. It was very exciting for all the kids, especially Boo. It was hard for the kids to believe that this was exactly what it looks like when paleontologists dig up fossils, and that these were REAL FOSSILS. It was fun! We got to the motel fairly late Monday, so Tuesday morning we headed out to raft the river. The water was really low, so the rapids were very mild. Mike and I were in the "calm boat" with the Andersons, and we brought in any other kids who needed a break from the excitement (mostly Boo and Gideon). Everyone had a great time on the river! Wednesday we took the rafts and inner tubes to the lake and swam and floated and wandered the shore. Papa Mike and several of the ol...

This week felt busy - even if there was not much that went on during it. On Monday the kids played with Logan and Dustin all day long. They are loving being so close to family members. On Tuesday the kids went to ballet at the Dalyias house.  Wednesday evening we also mowed the grandparents lawn. The Plastow kids came and helped pick weeds and earned some otter pops. Dustin and Gideon helped pick weeds while Rea and Sara mowed the lawn. Brooklyn mostly hung around, but she did help to bring in the mail for the grandparents. Thursday morning Mike took the car in to get an inspection and oil change. Additionally it was surprisingly cold weather.  In the evening we went out to pick some mulberries. We got enough for a smoothie.  It was mulberry banana and ended up very sweet since we added nothing sour to it. On Friday the kids and Alison went to park day and Alison and Mike built a LEGO robot for our date night. Saturday, first thing in the morning we attended Star's b...

We had a barbecue on memorial day, and had the Plastows and Rogers over to visit us. We played Mike's new RPG, and the kids joined in as well. It went well. We also ate lots of desserts and had a watermelon as well. Amy found a doll house and offered it to our kids earlier on in the week. They have been enjoying the doll house a lot. Baby even tried to climb into it herself. On Thursday Mike took a half day off and went to the bishops storehouse and cleaned up the floors, stocked the shelves, and washed food bins. On Friday it was 100 degrees and Alison took the kids to wild flower park. They managed to have fun for hours despite the heat. The moms mostly stayed in the shade. At the park one kid brought a doll to hand down to Elizabeth, which Elizabeth liked a lot, but she decided that it needed hair, so she found orange chalk, gave it hair and then proudly told Alison that the doll had hair. Saturday we did our errands and then invited the Plastow kids over to play.  Logan showed ...

This week was not as exciting as last week (phew!), but we had fun. We switched over to our summer schedule this week, since our scheduled school-ish things (nature group and weekly learning logs) ended last week.  This year, summer schedule involves listening to a early-elementary-school-level audiobook over breakfast (nature stories, stories from history, things like that), then getting ready for the day, then half an hour of review (math, reading, handwriting) before they head out to play. They also need to take a siesta in the hot part of the afternoon if they want to stay up in the evening when it's nice - not that it's hot yet, but we're starting the transition now, because it's always a grumpy week or two until we all adjust. We're listening to less-exciting upper elementary/middle school level audiobook over naps, in hopes that it won't keep people awake. The kids have gotten to play with their cousins a lot, and they will get to do more now that public ...

On Friday, the older kids had their final exam for Nature Kids Connect, our nature group. Rea and Sara ended up with a harder exam than most. The kids ages 8 and up were supposed to walk from one trailhead in Dimple Dell to another. The starting trailhead just happened to be the one we went to for our Forest Kindergarten for several years and the one where Mike likes to forage, so our girls were at an advantage at the beginning. They were supposed to identify about a dozen plants, and all but one of them were ones that we have foraged or pointed out (poison ivy), so they not only knew what they were, but exactly where to find them. They were even able to help some of the other kids. As they hiked, the kids got more and more strung out, and Rea and Sara were on their own in the part of the park they didn't know when the trail split and they took the wrong turn. They wandered around and realized that they were lost. That was scary, but Rea recognized one of the mountains. It was the ...

 This week, we were still not sick! Yosh! Monday we had our next-to-last Crowned with Virtue meeting of the year. The girls have enjoyed getting together, and Rea learned to love embroidery. The boys have had fun playing too. We don't know yet if it will continue next year. Mike was on call during a release this week, which meant he worked a lot more hours than usual. Luckily, his masters program has a one month break during May, so it worked out OK. He also found out about another 18 card game contest being put on by his publisher, Buttonshy Games. The challenge is to create a rules-light RPG. Our family loves playing rules-light RPGs, so the idea of creating one appealed to us a lot. When we started throwing around ideas at the dinner table, Alison suggested that an RPG based on the format of the best Disney movies would be awesome, but that you would have to sing, so that wouldn't work. Mike took that idea and decided to make the songs into cards, so that you could play with...