Today was Father's Day and we got to go to church with James and Alisa. James is the bishop in their ward. We had a great sacrament meeting, and then it was time to go to Primary. Brandt and Blythe were both a little nervous about being there without us, but I agreed to go in and get them settled. They don't have a huge Primary, but they had opening exercises just like we do, they sang a welcome song to us, and James was actually in Primary the whole of sharing time for a funny tie cutting activity. Blythe didn't want to go to class by herself, so it was agreed that she could go with Brandt, and then everything was fine. They both answered a question correctly and got to cut off a piece of James' tie. So fun! Kent and I went to Sunday School and then I went to Relief Society with Alisa. It's been a while since I was in Relief Society. I talked too much.
After church, we came home and played in the backyard. The children set a trap, wanting desperately to catch a skunk. James, however, was going out of town Sunday evening, Alisa was unwilling to deal with a trapped skunk, so we set the trap for a squirrel instead. Brandt and Blythe were beside themselves with hope to catch something.
Peanut butter covered pinecones.
What squirrel could resist that?
More trap setting
Small critters beware!
Squirrel bait--crackers
Saturday night the kids put a trap out on the patio with the intent of catching a skunk. As a side note, skunks are prevalent in James and Alisa's neighborhood. James said they are all over the place, and if he really wanted to, he could catch a skunk every other night. He has discovered the best way to dispatch of a skunk is to drown it, and he's perfected the technique of skunk disposal. While Brandt and Blythe wanted to catch one, James didn't. Anyway, the kids put a trap on the patio and then wrote in chalk along the patio, "Skunks only. No dog." There was no way they were going to catch a skunk the way they had set up the trap, but James cleverly put a stuffed skunk in the trap so when they woke on Sunday morning, from the window they could see something black and white and fluffy in the cage. Excited joy followed by bitter disappointment but hearty laughter when they saw what they had actually caught.
Isn't their patio nice?
It inspired Kent to agree that we need to replace the deck with a paver patio, not a concrete one.
This afternoon we played Kubb in the backyard (the adults) while Ethan good naturedly played with Brandt and Blythe. Kubb is a lawn game where the object is to knock over wooden blocks by throwing wooden batons. It requires both skill and strategy, and I will say, Kent and I lacked both. We played twice and Kent and I won the second time, but I think largely luck and very little skill were involved. I would like to get a set for our backyard because we really had fun playing. When Brandt and Blythe took turns, they mostly just threw the batons with little attempt to knock something over, but how fun is it to just hurl batons in the direction of adults? Fun!
We had a delicious kebab dinner followed by more visiting and getting James out the door for his business trip, but we were glad he was headed to Utah and we promised to feed him breakfast on Wednesday morning.
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