The Quiver

The Great Thanksgiving Remodel

Right before Thanksgiving, we started remodeling the living room. The furniture got moved to various parts of the house; the carpet came up and the baseboards came off. Now it was time to put in that laminate flooring that we’ve had staring us in the face for months and months.

All that furniture has to go somewhere.

It has been a little crazy around here ever since. All the stuff that normally lives in the living room had to find “alternate lodging” for a while. For all the big or heavy furniture, that meant the kitchen. Have you ever tried living in a house without a kitchen? (Well, we still have one; we just don’t have all of one to use.)

Right as we’re getting to the home stretch, just a few small patches of floor to finish laying, someone decides that now would be a good time to paint the walls, too. So the floor ground to a halt while the walls got started.

Wha-?! What

The walls are mostly painted and the floor is in. I even managed to get some of the baseboards back on before I remembered I needed to cut holes for the heat vents. That was about all I had time for, so now we’re stalled again until after Sunday. (We try our best to keep the Sabbath day, and this wasn’t quite large enough of an ox for us to justify working on our little project. Nearly, but not quite. The insanity level is, however, reaching critical mass.)

I do so love my Sweetie, but she has produced some … unique looking children. He has such a cute personality that sometimes you forget that he’s a mutant.

Mutant child.

A face only a mother could love.

Thank you for such wonderful children, Sweetie — even if they are a little strange looking.

As promised, here are the (lit) Jack-o-Lanterns for this years Punkin’ Carving.

Tuesday night was punkin’ carving night. We figured it was probably time, what with Halloween just around the corner. Most of the kids are old enough to do their own designs, and the three oldest can use the pumpkin carving tools one gets from the store without help. The younger kids get perhaps more help than they wanted with the design.

So without further ado, Carving Night:

(The final lit results will be in the later post.)

TheGiver decorating his Jack-o-lantern

Note the "Tongue of Concentration"

Bookworm working on her Jack-o-lantern

Cheezer (with lashes)

Gamer planning his Jack-o-lantern

Finishing Gamer

Not pictured: Tank and his Jack-o-lantern; he was finished very first and on his way to the tub before the camera even came out. Fast kid. … Maybe we should re-nickname him to Lightning or something.

Not pictured: Hobbit; he’s not quite into anything but playing in the punkin’ goo yet.

Not pictured: the wee one; he doesn’t even know what a pumpkin is yet.

Not pictured: Kraut; between wielding the camera and carving a pumpkin, no pictures managed to be taken of him (whew!).

Gamer got to go to Build-a-Bear with Grandma and Grandpa, as has become a birthday tradition in our wee family of late. Grandma wrote it up on her blog. (Short take: he got a Husky named Hunter, and a Husky pup named Max.)

The kids have been repeatedly watching Eight Below, a Disney movie based on a true story of sled dogs that had to be abandoned at a South Pole station. They really like the movie. It has Huskies, after all. I quite like the movie, too; kind of heart-warming, kinda sad. And it has Huskies. (Who doesn’t like Huskies–at least on film?)

Gamer designed his own cake. Mom, of course, did the actual decorating; Gamer put the final touches on, including the bonfire of candles. (Cheating if you ask me; all the candles in one spot?! How are you not supposed to get your wish then?!)

The cake was pretty cool: it was a beach scene, with grassy area on one side, a sandy beach in the middle (brown sugar), and ocean waves complete with white-caps.

I arranged a special Date Night for my Sweetie a while back [sheesh! almost a month ago now. -ed]. Wouldn’t tell her anything about it except the date, and that she should plan on leaving home early and getting home late. (Unfortunately, school for the kids started a week earlier than I’d thought, but everything worked out okay.)

I stole away from work early that day, zipped home, picked her up, bade the ankle- and knee-biters farewell (and threatened them with dire consequences, should the house be a smoldering cinder when we returned), and headed off to Salt Lake.

We stopped at MacCools Public House in Foothill Village for a nice Irish dinner. (Very tasty, by the way. Thanks for the recommendation, Sir Weston!) As it was early, we had the place mostly to ourselves — at least our corner of the restaurant, where the darts and shuffleboard are. Tuesday, incidentally, is “Appetizer Day” at MacCools so all your appetizers are half-priced. (Sah-weet!)

Then it was off to Red Butte Garden for the main event:

The “concert” (for lack of a better term) was quite enjoyable, even if we wound up sitting way in the back. (I’d never been before and didn’t know how quickly the place fills up. Word to the wise: when visiting RBG, come early and bring your dinner — or have it catered there; there’s plenty of time to eat.)

Garrison Keillor, who does the Prairie Home Companion radio show is quite a talented man. He sings (if not perfectly, at least better than I can); he quotes vast bits of poetry from memory; he improvises, playing to the audience as a good performer can; and he can spin a captivating story out of the most trivial and mundane things that happen (or may have happened) up in Lake Wobegon, his home town.

Pictures of the actual show (sorry for the poor quality, but that’s what you get with a cellphone camera in low light):

All in all, a very enjoyable evening. (One could wish for a slightly less expensive venue, but you get what you get. Tickets in Denver were half the price, and it would have been fun to do, but the gas cost would have been prohibitive. Oh well. We still had fun!)

Well, that was a thing. We took the day and went to Lagoon as a big family. We managed to convince my brother-in-law and sister-in-law to come, too! A bit warm, but if you know how to deal with it, it wasn’t too bad, I guess.

We even have proof that some had fun, despite their best efforts to be stony-faced for the camera.

You’d better watch out; that “kiddie” ride will get you all wet, but who cares, right? I was surprised how many times some of the older kids wanted to ride this one. I guess you’re never too old to have fun—or get wet!

The older kids got to go off with one set of the parents while the other set watched the little ones. I think they made out the best. Pretty soon they’re going to want the run of the park themselves, and I’m not too sure how I feel about that.

Even the younger kids made sure to look out for the littlest. Our youngest (2yr) had difficulty figuring out the steering, but next time around, his brother took him under his wing, bless him.

A little over nine hours as we trudged home. It was fun to watch the kids and take them on rides … but a part of me wants to ship them off somewhere so I can be a big kid and take my Sweetie on the rides, hold hands, screaming as we plunge …

Oh well, maybe she and I will “bounce back.”