Opera, motorcycles, cookies, and whooping cough.

A few unrelated thoughts:

Last night as I got into the car, the guy on KBYU was saying, "That was the ecstatic, yet ironic, finale from Thaïs." Ecstatic, yet ironic? How is that possible? Perhaps if I'd heard it I would know?

When we were shopping for bikes we went to a store called "Rapid Cycles," but when we pulled up and looked in the window, we saw they sold motorcycles, not bikes. I was kind of embarrassed, and glad I hadn't gone in and asked if they had bikes, because I would have felt stupid. But now I'm thinking, why? Why am I the one who has to feel stupid? Shouldn't they feel stupid for naming it Rapid Cycles and making people think they meant bikes?

I am making a batch of cookies from a New York Times article---allegedly the "Best Chocolate Chip Cookies ever." Supposedly the secret is letting the dough "ripen" for 36 hours before baking. So I'll bake them up Saturday. I'll let you know how it goes.

Everyone should get your tetanus booster so you don't get whooping cough (the tetanus booster has a whooping cough--pertussis--vaccination with it). Whooping cough isn't nearly as fun as it sounds. Just ask Sam.

I am aware that the correct way to state that previous sentence is, "Everyone should get his or her tetanus booster."

The End.

1

Bike Carwash

(I tried calling it the Bikewash, but that evidently wasn't acceptable)

Lots of fun and excitement today at the Bike Carwash. Water sprayers . . . fwumpy brushes . . . soap sprayers . . . flaps . . . and so forth.

Also, 4 sparkling clean bikes (and trikes)

3

Gifted and Talented

What's the deal with using "gift" as a verb? I've been reading it everywhere. "Super-duper Green Eco- Enviro- Earth-lovin' Organic Cleaners, Inc. would like to gift one lucky reader a free cleaning product!" Or "This lovely tufted bedspread was gifted to me by my friend, Vanessa."

Am I missing something? Don't we already have a word for that: give? What's wrong with "give"?? "Gift", to my ear anyway, sounds pretentious and silly.

I will gift you a dollar if you can explain this to me.

1

The internal life of the adult world

I was looking at this guy's photos the other day, and read his description of one collection ("Flora") as follows:

Flora shows Isabel's sensory interaction with the outside world through the flowers and flora of the English countryside. Through her stance, expression and sensory concentration, we see her immersion in and with familiar British flora (and the ideals they represent) - an immersion that reveals as much about the internal life of the adult world as it does of Isabel and childhood."

Have you ever read something like this? Something that is, quite obviously, a bunch of garbage, made up to sound good without meaning anything? (I mean, really. "Immersion in and with familiar British flora?" You can't be "immersed with" and "immersed in" something at the same time; it's a contradiction in terms. And "the internal life of the adult world"? That doesn't even mean anything. Certainly it isn't "revealed" by a bunch of photos of a kid in the woods. Who does this guy think he's fooling? Well, some people, obviously.)

I remember the first time I noticed it. I was in high school, doing an editing internship for one of my teachers, and read some article of literary criticism in an academic journal. I thought to myself, "Wait a minute. This sounds exactly like the kind of thing I write when I don't really know what I'm talking about, but am writing something I know will sound good enough to be accepted as valid." And then suddenly, I just knew. This author was doing the same thing. Amazing! I was quite shaken by the experience. Suddenly a little of the "luster" of someone with a PhD, wore off. (Not that I don't respect those with advanced degrees. I totally do. I think I'd like to go back to school someday myself; I love school. But I just realized, that just because someone had academic credentials, it didn't automatically mean they always knew what they were doing. Especially in the humanities/"soft sciences." English, while really my favorite subject, is the probably the worst offender in these cases.)

The best (or worst?) thing about making up a bunch of stuff and calling it "social commentary" or whatever, is that it is very hard to expose. The very fact that you can be so good at saying all the right words, gives those words some validity. I myself am VERY good at this sort of thing (not to brag or anything). In fact, Sam and I sometimes like to amuse ourselves by giving each other essays to write on unexpected subjects, and seeing how academically convincing we can be. Here is the text of the commentary I wrote on the following assigned topic:

Compare the Ptolemaic model of the solar system with Marxist Philosophy. Explain the benefits and downfalls of each if they were combined with a goblin horde or a McDonald's ball pit. Use illustrations if necessary. (Some would be daunted by this subject. Not me.)

(I will transcribe my essay so you don't have to read my handwriting)

The Ptolomaic and Marxist ideals both centered around one fixed body: to wit, the earth and the proletariat, respectively. Because of their fixed position, neither of these entities could move from their ordained sphere. Marx believed that only by varying the means of production---that is, by bringing more power into the sphere of the working classes, as in Ptolomy's epicycles---could the proletariat improve their own position. Any move of political power towards the worker, necessarily brought power away from the bourgeousie: thus the unending struggle between classes.

In the Marxist model, more industrial activity---represented by more "balls" in the "ball pit"---was simply a cover-up for more exploitation of the worker. However, industry could be beneficial to the worker if it was in the hands of the worker---that is, if each worker had his own ball from the pit---and then each threw his ball (in unison) at the "goblin horde" of the privileged class. Only a revolution of this magnitude would be able to overcome the entrenched power of the upper class: thus the well-known slogan, "Workers of the world, unite!"

For Ptolomy, adding to the number of cycling planets--in metaphorical terms, simply adding more "balls" to the "ball pit" of the universe---provided no net benefit, but merely increased the net disorder and unpredictablity of the system. On the other hand, adding a goblin horde to patrol the edges of the system would be beneficial, in that it would keep the epicycles from exceeding their ordained bounds.

4

Yard Work

Big Loads of Dirt

Scooping

Ky comes to investigate

The boys supervise

Spreading out the dirt

0

Landscapes can also be rendered in jelly

While I'm not a fan of the ubiquitous (and much-overused) Utah Jello Joke, I AM a fan of jello, and was therefore quite pleased to see the following:

Yes, it is St. Paul's Cathedral of Jello. It is described as follows:

Bompas & Parr are jellymongers, creating fine jellies that were traditional staples at good tables. They design bespoke moulds and curate culinary events such as the Architectural Jelly Banquet that was part of the London Festival of Architecture. Jelly, thanks to its consistency and capacity to hold a variety of forms, lends itself very well to architectural sculpture, as demonstrated by the model of the St. Paul Cathedral shown above. Landscapes can also be rendered in jelly, as can a range of more abstract concepts and shapes, all in many different colours, from pastels to brights. Their "jelly airport" serves 250.

Ah, the English. Things I like about the preceding paragraph:

• they call it "jelly" rather than "jello"
• "Jellymongers"!
• "The Architectural Jelly Banquet"!! Why don't we have one of these?
• Would you have thought to praise jello for its "consistency and capacity to hold a variety of forms"?
• The offhanded comment, "Landscapes can also be rendered in jelly." Wonderful.
  

3

First Harvest

My new bike and our first real garden harvest: basil, two zucchini, and some chard! We rode our bikes over to check on the garden, and Abe and Seb were so excited. (I always let them eat some basil leaves while we are there. They like that.) We also have a bunch of tomatoes ripening. I'm trying to decide what to cook with the ceremonial First Zucchini. Tortilla soup, perhaps?

2

A Woman of Quality

Honestly, if I read one more recipe calling for "good-quality" chocolate or "good-quality" olive oil or "good-quality" parmesan cheese, I'm going to scream!! For heaven's sake. How snobby is that? If I habitually buy "good-quality" ingredients, then it isn't necessary to tell me; and if I don't, get off my back! I'll use the Great Value brand chocolate chips if I want to! And what's more, I'll enjoy them!

4

Wait for me!

*Photo by Kayla Terry

Last night as I was going to sleep there was lightning all over the sky. It was up in the clouds, and it must have been far away, so it was just these eerie, silent flashes going on and off in the dark. I love lightning, so I was trying to stay awake and watch it, and then I'd start falling asleep and another flash would be so bright it would come through my eyelids and wake me up. Every time I woke up I would think, "Oh no, I missed some!" and try to keep my eyes open again. Finally I fell all the way asleep, no doubt missing some more of the storm, and it made me think how much I hate missing out on things.

Like, it was almost weird for me to think that the lightning would keep going on whether I watched it or not---and whether or not I wanted it to wait until I was awake again so I could watch it. And it was sad, too. I guess maybe I haven't lost all of that little-kid sense of the world existing just for my sake, and it always surprises me to learn of fun or cool or interesting things that have been going on without me. I don't like it. So stop it! Stop doing all those fun, exciting, cool things you are doing, now, right this minute, as I am sitting quietly in my kitchen making ricotta cheese (waiting for the milk to heat). I don't want to miss out on any of it. You may resume your regular schedule once I have joined you.

Thank you.

1

The Little Things, part II

Okay, I'm thinking that maybe just one example is not convincing enough. Here are a few other "little things in life" that my boys love (but will not be the subject of any precious scrapbook sayings such as "snakes and snails are what little boys are made of"--or whatever it is):

1. Saying, "Oh, mercy! What . . . on . . . earth?" (that's from A Woggle of Witches)

2. Carwashes, specifically:

• "flap brushes"
• "air dryers"
• "paying thing" (credit card machine)
• "tendants" (they got a lot of this stuff from a book where the carwashes had attendants)
• "soap sprayers"
• "tubes"
• "propeller-sprayers"
• "the track"
• "red light-green light" (the lights that tell you to pull forward)

3. Fwuffballs

4. Picking their noses (sorry, I don't like to admit it, but. There it is.)

5. Oxygen concentrators (thanks, Grandpa)

6. Biting their food into the shape of a crescent moon

7. Burping and saying "pardon me" over and over and over and over

8. Making up little songs (one that comes to mind goes like this: "Factory, Factory, Boom! Boom! Boom!")

9. Water sprinklers

10. Tapping people on the shoulder from afar with anything that is long (examples: a stick, a drinking straw, a water noodle, a broken piece of hose, a drumstick, a recorder, a pair of tongs, a watering can spout)

1

Enjoying the little things

People always talk about how little kids have so much wonder for the world. And it's true. But it seems like that observation is usually followed up with some sort of sappy advice like "Enjoy the simple things! A butterfly landing on a flower. The gentle gurgle of a river. A delicious popsicle on a lovely summer day." etc. (Speaking of which, this is such a good idea. Maybe I'd actually buy popsicles if I had one of these. I HATE sticky boy hands.)

Anyway, I don't know what kids those people are watching, but with my boys, the things they enjoy are not the "wow-look-at-how-adorable-this-little-boy-and-girl-dressed-in-grownup-clothes-and-kissing-in-a-country-lane-with-only-their-cheeks-tinted-pink-are;hoo-boy-if-only-life-were-that-simple-for-us-adults" kind, but rather these weird, obsessive little things you'd never even think to enjoy as an adult. Like at our house, the best part of laundry day is when I turn on the dryer. It emits these little chimes as you choose the settings (really, it's so cheerful, it reminds me of those doors in "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"---the ones that sigh with pleasure every time they get opened) and as soon as Abe and Seb hear that, they go running for the back door. The dryer vent goes out onto the back porch, and it has these little white slats on it that open up when the dryer goes on. Somehow the boys discovered that, and they love to sit outside and watch them open and close.

Sometimes Seb has sat there for a whole load, waiting so he can see the slats close again. He calls them "white things," and every time we're giving someone the tour of our house he says to them, "We have a dryer vent at our new house! And white things! I yuv the white things! Do you want to see them?" (I don't think most people ever figure out what he's talking about.) When we drive around the neighborhood, Sebby will ask about all the houses, "Does that house have a dryer vent and white things?" Abe and Seb play "Washer and Dryer and Dryer Vent" (their name for it), which is a game where they make washers and dryers out of boxes and spin their hands around and make "Vvvvvv"-ing noises, and then hum the little tune the dryer makes when it's done (yes, it has a little tune for that, too), and say, "The white things are closing!"

When they're waiting for the dryer to go on, I can see them out the window, and as soon as the slats start to open, they turn and give each other these excited, happy grins. Yes, I admit I'll sit there turning the dryer on and off and on and off, just to watch them smile about it (speaking of being too focused on your kids!). Today I took these pictures.

1

Red Rover, Frisbee, and other Cousinly Delights

Here we are at our fun picnic with the cousins. Abe is starting to really love being around his cousins (especially Katy and Adam), so he was happy, and Sam and Kenneth seem to be ready to break all kinds of frisbee records. Abe also played Red Rover for the first time, and I think he liked it. (Even though it ended with someone in tears . . . as always . . . it's still one of my favorite games---I always loved playing it in grade school.) I was happy because we brought Nana's "World's Greatest Cookies." Sebby was happy because there were lots of water sprinklers to count. And Malachi was happy because, well, because he's always happy. What a good baby.

Here is the cookie recipe (for you, Karen):

World's Greatest Cookies

2 sticks margarine (1 c.), softened
1 c. peanut butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
3 c. flour (or so)
2 t. baking soda
1 t. baking pwd.
1/2 t. salt

1/2-1 c. chocolate chips

Mix as usual; Bake at 325 for 11-12 min.

0

New Bike

Here is a picture of my new bike. I love it!!! We went together, the whole family, on a bike ride tonight, and it was one of my favorite things we've ever done together. Sam pulled Ky and Sebby in the trailer and Abe rode along with us.

I haven't ridden a bike for years and years, and I was a little bit afraid I'd forgotten how. (I know, I know---one doesn't forget---but I could conceiveably have been the exception to the rule.) Then I had to ride Sam's old mountain bike the other day on an errand, and it was so hard: first of all it was too tall for me, so I kept almost falling over, and then I couldn't get my feet to stay in the toe clips, and then the handlebars were so far away that I was bent right over double, and my neck was killing me from having to crane up and look at the road. And then my bottom hurt like crazy afterwards, from the hard seat. So that wasn't fun, but then for the past several weeks we've been shopping for bikes, and I tried this kind of bike, and it's totally different. SO comfortable, and you get to sit upright, and you can just relax and ride. It's so fun! (Oh, and Sam's cough was better while we were riding, too! Hooray!)

After the boys went to bed Sam and I went out and rode again (coming back every 15 min. or so to make sure the boys were still in their beds, which they were, but playing carwash in them) until it got too dark to see. We could just ride along next to each other and talk. I loved it. I didn't ever want to come home.

3

Very odd

So, sitting in church last week, I could hear singing (very faintly) coming from another room. And I swear it was the theme music from "Lost."

What on earth?

1

Toothy

Yes. Malachi has a tooth. Two teeth, in fact. There have been no serious biting incidents . . . so far.

0

Tall Boy with Purple Tie

Abey is shooting up like a weed! I had to get him some new ties to fit his newly tall frame. He still hasn't graduated to tying his own tie, though (this is a zipper tie)--I guess that will come pretty soon. He is so handsome!

0

Over-attentive?

I read an interesting article today, which included this quote:

"Why shouldn't parents do all in their power to make their children's lives less bumpy, more concentrated and carefully planned, thereby increasing their prospects for a happier, more satisfying life? No reason at all, really, except that trying to do so often comes to seem so joyless and the children who emerge from such ultra-careful upbringing so often turn out far from the perfect specimens their parents had imagined."

The guy talks about how, in his generation, parents simply got less involved in kids' lives, and he thinks in a lot of ways, that was a good thing. He said there is a phenomenon these days "of simply paying more attention to the upbringing of children than can possibly be good for them."

So, I wonder. I think maybe there's some truth to it. I'm not really thinking of this so much as selfishness vs. unselfishness, as just sort of chilling out a little. In other words, you can debate about how much "me time" a parent needs---how much is necessary and good and helps you be a better parent, and how much is just an excuse to be selfish and put yourself first (rather than sacrificing and giving things up because you know you are a parent now and it's your job to think of your kids first). But what I'm talking about here is not that, but a different issue: the issue of to what degree you let your kids absorb and consume your attention.

I don't think you shouldn't pay attention to them, obviously. But maybe, in my own case, a little more perspective would be in order? A realization that my kids will live most of their lives as beings independent from me, and I shouldn't get so caught up in every aspect of them that I have a hard time disentangling myself when they grow up and leave? And I especially like this point from the article:

"So often in my literature classes students told me what they "felt" about a novel, or a particular character in a novel. I tried, ever so gently, to tell them that no one cared what they felt; the trick was to discover not one's feelings but what the author had put into the book, its moral weight and its resultant power. In essay courses, many of these same students turned in papers upon which I wished to (but did not) write: "D-, Too much love in the home." I knew where they came by their sense of their own deep significance, and that this sense was utterly false to any conceivable reality.

"Despite what their parents had been telling them from the very outset of their lives, they were not significant. Significance has to be earned, and it is earned only through achievement. Besides, one of the first things that people who really are significant seem to know is that, in the grander scheme, they are themselves really quite insignificant."

I like that. It seems like a good balance to go along with the self-worth and confidence that everyone naturally wants to instill in their children: a sense of (healthy) insignificance. I believe that wouldn't be a bad thing to pass along to my kids.

Here is one more related note: I also read about a school that worked on teaching their students "resilience": that is, the ability to cope with difficult situations themselves; to just deal with whatever came up rather than needing help with every little thing. This is what one of the teachers said:

"There have been real changes here . . . we used to have young children who would burst into tears if they forgot their togs but now they just front up to the office and ask to ring their mum. We still have incidents from time to time but instead of saying to the child, 'How do you feel about that?', we say, 'What are you going to do about it?'."

I love that! It seems like good advice for adults, too, in fact.

So---here is my new pep talk to myself: Buck up! Quit complaining! You are not so significant after all! No one really cares what you 'feel'---what are you going to DO about it?

3

Thank you, Sam

Sam reminded me of a great phrase.

From now on, when I don't know someone's name, instead of "what's-her-name," I will refer to said person as "what's-her-bucket."

Thank you.

1

Orange Juice Cake

Have you tried orange juice cake? I'm drooling over it (just kidding, I am actually just eating it in a sedate, ladylike, very controlled manner). It's just right for eating outside on your porch on a summer evening.

You, too, can make it. Like this:

1 yellow cake mix (or white)

1 small box vanilla pudding

4 eggs

1 c. orange juice (already made; not concentrate)

1/2 c. oil

Mix together and spread into well-greased bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 45-50 min. (Convection oven: 325, 40 min.)

While it's baking, mix the following in a saucepan:

1/4 c. margarine (or up to 1/2 c., if you like it buttery-er)

1/2 c. sugar (or up to 1. c., if you like it sweeter)
3/4 to 1 c. orange juice

Bring to a rolling boil. When cake comes out, pour this mixture over the hot cake while it's still in the pan. Let it soak in for 1/2 hour or so. Then turn the cake out onto a plate and eat!

(*I put fresh basil on mine to make it look pretty, and I think it tastes really good with it too!)

1

Kennecott Copper Mine

If you've been to the Bingham Copper Mine, chances are you have a picture of you standing next to this very tire. (But probably not with that eerie, disembodied head peering through behind you!) Now we, too, are among that number.


It was a fascinating excursion! We got to watch the truck pouring powdered dynamite down into the holes for blasting (which, regrettably, we were not allowed to be present for), and see the huge trucks crawling up and down the spiraled edges of the mine, like ants. Very large ants. (Compare the scale of the white pickup truck and the huge dump truck in the bottom picture.)

1

I'm oozing into a shapeless puddle of naked longing over . . .

Many of the blogs I read seem to drop into this kind of design-specific vernacular whenever they describe something. It's like their own special language, some of which I do not like. Particularly bothersome phrases include:

• "eye candy"
• "I'm swooning over ____"
• "I'm drooling over ____"
• "I'm coveting ______"
• referring to something as "this year's must-have"
• using a descriptive word from the sense of taste, for something you don't actually taste; e.g., "A yummy set of chairs" or "What a delicious color of pink!"
• "luscious"
• "sumptuous"

For some reason all those phrases just sound kind of dirty to me. (Along with the dreaded duo, "nuance" and "tweak") Maybe it's the old Puritan values manifesting themselves in my DNA, but isn't there something kind of, I don't know . . . indecent about swooning, drooling, devouring eye-candy, etc.--in public?

Anyway, for the following, I will contain myself to an austere "This is nice":


Wall aquariums! They're so futuristic-looking! I never knew a fishtank could be so stylish and modern. (From here)

1

Worried

Abe's going to start kindergarten in a few weeks, and I suddenly find myself feeling nervous about it. The other night I just lay awake worrying, and I just couldn't stop myself. It seems like it shouldn't be a big deal, but suddenly all these questions kept coming to me, like:

• What if he's sick one day? Am I supposed to go in and get the work he missed? Or if I do that will the teacher (who will be some cute young thing, probably younger than me) think I'm stupid, because he's only in kindergarten, for crying out loud?
• If he doesn't understand something, how will I know about it so I can help him?
• What about piano lessons? Should he be starting piano lessons? What about swimming lessons? Has every other kid already had swimming lessons?
• What if nobody likes him?
• Do I go pick him up from school? Do they just send him home? How am I supposed to know things like that?
• Am I supposed to give money to the PTA? How much? I suppose I should be IN the PTA. How do you do that?
• How does all this year-round stuff work? What if I send him to school when he's supposed to be off-track, and then they try to send him home, and I'm not home because I went to the store because I thought he'd be at school?
• He should know how to read. Beth's kids know how to read. How do I teach him how to read?
• If he forgets something, do I bring it to him? Or do I just let him suffer the consequences? What if I go to school to bring something to him, and my baby is screaming, and the teacher asks me to leave because I'm disturbing the whole class, and I can't leave because I can't find Sebastian, who has run off down the hall while I was trying to find Abe's classroom?

Well, okay. It was kind of late at night, maybe I wasn't at my very most rational. And I know, I know; it will all turn out okay; all these are stupid little worries and fears. But still. Everyone seems to know these things. Except me. It's okay if Dads don't know them, but Moms are supposed to know them, and so I feel like I should too---but then, how am I supposed to find them out? And I don't just want Abe to just turn out okay; I want him to be a good kid, even an extraordinary kid, who is confident, and people like him, and he knows how to stand up for himself without being obnoxious. And suddenly I'm having this panic attack; like, I'm so woefully unprepared, and now how do I teach him all that???!

Then I have to tell myself: for goodness sake, I was certainly not confident all the time, and I didn't have that many friends, but I was mostly happy, and I got through the times when I felt sad and shy and lonely. I guess you always just want better for your kids. It's something you always hear people say, and I thought I would be wise enough to just shake my head and say, "Well, they have to make their own mistakes and learn from them"---but I'm not; I just feel so bad for him! I hate to think of all the years and years of painful mistakes, and loneliness, and awkwardness he has ahead of him. Even though I know there are lots of good things about being a kid, too.

0

It was inevitable

This . . . (small carwash for little cars)

has evolved into this (big carwash, for boys):

0

Unique

(image from here--Umberto Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space)

The other day Sam and I were wondering if there have been so many people on the earth that everything you could ever think of to say, has already been said by somebody at some time or other. (In some language.) Would it be possible to combine several words into a sentence that had never been said? (This train of thought began because Sam said something about "gabbling goldfish" and I said, "I bet no one in history has ever put those two words together before." Then we were trying to decide if the fact that the words were alliterative made them more likely to have been said at some point, or if it didn't matter.)

Anyway, I frequently find myself saying things that I know are being said, probably at the same instant, by mothers the world over ("Wait until your mouth is empty before you talk," or "Be nice to your baby brother.") But occasionally something will come out of my own mouth, or one of my boys', that might conceiveably have never been said in the history of the world. Something that if you had told me, ten years ago, that someday I would be saying/hearing those exact words in that exact order, I would have laughed in disbelief.

Here are some recent occurrences:

• "Mommy, Sebby's biting the weight machine!"


• "They're just imaginary mints! You can't fight over them!"


• "Forks aren't for poking into the cracks of the table."


• "Sebby, if it's in your underpants, get it out. Rocks aren't supposed to go in our underpants."


• "Don't cry about it! It's just a pretend wrecking ball! It's not actually going to wreck our house, unless it asks us first."


• "Spaghetti doesn't go in your pocket!"


• "Nobody's popping anybody. People can't be popped."


• "Just let him have his fluffball! There are enough fluffballs for everyone!"


• "Your pajamas are not windmills!"


• "Please don't flap your carwash brushes at the table."


• "Yes, I know those are my arms, but not all arms go 'ding ding ding' or have flashing lights on them."

Are these truly unique phrases, or are they being said by other people too? Anyone else have any candidates for a "never-been-said-before" sentence or phrase?

1

I saw a mighty angel fly

We've been watching the progress on the nearby temple with great interest, but not too much has been going on lately. Then, today, we went outside and saw two big cranes at the end of the street! So we grabbed our camera and got over there, just in time to see:

Moroni! We watched them hook him onto one of the cranes and then lift two men up in another crane to help secure him to the spire.

All the boys were very interested!

Now we can see the whole spire from our windows upstairs! Hooray!

1