weekly 2014.11.16

Rebekah went back to school this week but came home on Thursday telling me she had itchy dots all over her arms. I was in in the middle of making dinner and not totally paying attention to her claim, but then I happened to take a look and sure enough she was covered in spots! Roseola strikes again. Every single one of our kids have had it, so at this point I don’t freak out, but it does look super crazy. Finally today, 99% of her spots are gone.

Harry happily brought home his Sphero this week. He runs it with an app on my old iPod and it can move around, bounce, and change colors according to how he programs it. It’s a pretty fun toy. The details of his “ownership” are unclear but I feel pretty sure it’s not for him to keep. I hope it doesn't end up broken and we have to buy it. We had stake conference today and he snuggled by my side the whole time. Then this afternoon he snuggled some more and we watched “Marmoset” videos on my phone. (His choice.) All the snuggling is unusual for him, but I’m not complaining, he’s not going to be my little boy for forever.

Spencer’s social life is thriving as usual. This week he went with one friend to an indoor soccer place to play, another friend took him to the Museum of Natural Curiosity and yet another friend took him to the movies. Since we never go anywhere or do anything, it’s a good thing he has nice friends.

Thomas just finished making a pan of brownies. I’m in negotiations with him that this should be his weekly duty. He is bemoaning the super cold weather that just arrived because he’s going to have to find a new place to carve and fiddle with wood since it’s too cold outside. He carved a Harry Potter wand for a friend this week and also finished his hand carved box with some red felt inside.

Aaron said he wasn’t going to play Jr. Jazz this year, but he just got recruited to play on a team with some friends that all got cut from the high school team. Maybe for the first time ever he will have a good team. (Sports are so competitive around here that it’s really hard to play on the high school team, just because these kids got cut, doesn't mean they’re not good.) His birthday is next week and he’s telling me that all his dreams will come true if he gets some beakers, a hot plate and some polymorphic plastic to melt. I’m not sure if that’s a birthday present or a recipe for disaster.

Rachel has had an interesting week. I've had a good laugh over the fact that it took her 17 ½ years, but she’s finally turned into a real girl. Up until now she’s been the most level headed, calm and unemotional girl, nothing could faze her. And now after the events of this week, it seems that she’s a real life crazy, emotional girl. (Love you Rach!!!! But you know it’s true.) I’m talking about the girl’s choice dance at the high school last night and I’m going to blog about it later in the week, so I’ll leave it at that.

We had stake conference this weekend, with Peter F. Evans of the seventy visiting. He was just fantastic and seemed like such a down to earth guy. My favorite quote from him was, “President, talk is cheap. We want donuts.” Next time you see me ask me what this means. Rachel was asked to say the opening prayer for the Saturday night session which scared her, but she did great.

We are working on our 72 hours kits today, or as I like to refer to them, our 56 hour kits, because that’s about how far we usually get in the planning/packing. We are finally streamlining the process with bags of freeze dried food like backpackers use. Making the bags much lighter than when we had them packed full of canned food. We haven’t worked on the clothes yet, but Thomas did pull out the jeans that he packed 2 ½ years ago and they’re about 8” too short, so we all got a good laugh.

Over and out!