Shakespeare camp

For the last week, Olivia and Carmen have been going to a Shakespeare camp organized by some women in our stake. They had lots of activities over the week, and assigned the kids into groups to learn small scenes from various Shakespeare plays.

The performance was on Friday and it was quite the production.

They had beautiful costumes (Amber made ours), fun sets, and all the kids did a fantastic job acting out their scenes.

My birthday

I turned 41 years old on Sunday. I opened my presents after church. I got some thoughtful presents from the kids: the mini Lego Millenium Falcon, some Sour Skittles, a UV sanitizer, and a fun card game called Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.

Other presents from Amber and "Amber" included some shoes, a hydration backpack for our upcoming road trip, and lots of Lego sets.

Everyone else had gotten ukuleles for their birthdays, so it was no surprise that I got my own, except this one is a "u-bass". It plays just like a bass guitar, but it's smaller, acoustic, and has rubber strings. I've had a lot of fun playing it already.

I got to choose my dinner, so I went with one Amber won't make otherwise (because I'm the only sane person who likes it), milk toast.

And for dessert I chose an apple-cinnamon crumble.

Dermadry

Carmen has for years now had hyperhidrosis, with excessively sweaty hands and feet. For instance, her hands were literally dripping at church on Sunday

It's been a problem for her with schoolwork, piano, shaking hands, getting stinky feet, etc. We usually have a towel by the piano for her to dry off and wipe off the keys.

A while back I saw an ad for a device that is supposed to be able to treat it, so I ordered one for her. It uses iontophoresis, a technique that sends a small electric current through the skin and disables the sweat glands. She is supposed to use it every day for a couple weeks, then on an as-needed basis after that.

She just started the treatments, so we're hopeful it works!

Miles's baptism

Miles was baptized on Friday.

It was originally supposed to be on Saturday, but after we had scheduled the baptism to fit with Amber's parent coming, the Leflers coming, and a youth conference that Abby was going to accompany Olivia on, they swapped the days of the 2-day youth conference so the canoe trip would be during the baptism.

We were able to figure out a way to do it on Friday evening, including both Bishop Greg Pomazal and I coming home from work early. Damon and Olivia gave talks, Olivia and Carmen did a string duet musical number, and I performed the baptism and confirmation. In the end it all turned out very well.

Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures because I needed to take Olivia and Abby to the stake center immediately afterward, but I texted Amber and had her take at least one at the building.

He lost his tooth the day before, so he has a cute gap-toothed smile, which I got a better picture of when I got back home.

The Roper grandparents and Leflers stuck around for a while and we had fun going to the splash pad and playing bells together.