This week

1. Brett and I have been talking about forgetting the idea of getting a new job in industry and just getting a farm.  Not seriously, but we have been talking quite a bit about it. :)  Brett keeps mentioning that farming is a lot of hard work, and I keep wondering why he keeps pointing that out.  It's a puzzle.

I bought Talmage this jersey and he thinks it is the best thing I've ever bought him.

2.  The kids are officially finished with school!!  I need to post the pictures that they were given from their teachers.

Working on his model plane.

 3. They have swimming lessons this coming week in an outdoor pool, and the weather forecast looks like this:

Which just means that they'll go to a different-- indoor-- pool instead, but that's sad because it's not five minutes away from our house.

We went to a spiffy, brand-new playground and Wyatt just wanted to play in the puddles.

3.  I forgot to mention that last Saturday we went into the woods and started a fire and roasted marshmallows until they were all gone, and then we played hide and seek and sardines for a while.  It was so fun.  We pulled a few ticks off some kids in the following days though.

This picture is for Lindsay who thinks Wyatt's hair is not really a white-blonde.  I kind of think it is.

4.  Our fourth of July was fun.  We got together with a half-American family, the Wilsons, who used to be in our ward but moved a while ago.  We had Chicago-style hot dogs, frog-eye salad, watermelon, chips and delicious fresh salsa, brownies, apple pie, and homemade root beer.

Homemade root beer is a 4th of July tradition in my family, so I decided to see if I could make it happen.  I asked on Facebook if there was anywhere I could buy dry ice, and my friend directed me to a store that she thought had it.  Indeed it did.  They had a website where I read about it, the store is very very near my house, and I even called and asked the price per kilo since I wasn't going to spend a crazy amount even for tradition's sake.  The guy on the phone said it was only 5.50 per kilo-- super!

So I went of to the store, which was not like a grocery store at all, but a warehouse-looking place that had lots of tanks-- like helium tanks and so on.  So I got there with the kids and I started asking him about buying a kilo or two and he (luckily speaking very good English) told me that actually there is a 6 kilo minimum purchase!  Of course I did not need 6 kilos, so the very kind man went and opened a box for me and put just 1 kilo in a box.  Then I had to sign a paper with a list of safety guidelines on it and pay a lot more than 5.50, but less than 33, so I guess it was good in the end.  :)

And the other thing about my root beer was that the root beer extract that I had brought from the States last summer wasn't a dark brown color-- it was a tiny bit caramely colored.  So my root beer looked very weird and naked.  BUT... it did turn out very tasty so I say the root beer 4th of July tradition was a win.

We had fun chatting and eating and playing in their backyard, lighting sparklers, and eating more.

5.  And I'll leave you with this mustache.