31 August 2026

 First day of school!  9th grade and 5th grade.  My sweet husband remembered to take pictures for me this morning, which made me feel very loved.  D was up at 1 am this morning because he was anxious, although his middle school is in the same building as the high school, so it should be a pretty easy transition.  Rosebud has had varying degrees of anxiety as today approached, mostly related to not being able to do everything that she wants to do, but I think she's ready now.  I'm excited for this school year for both of them!

30 August 2026

Walking home from the Wines' last night. Rosebud was enjoying her cloak and wand outfit and was trying to come up with incantations for spells. After some thought, she announced, "I figured out one for 'levitate'. Wave your wand and say, "Let's break physics!"

16 August 2026

Clearing off my dresser and found this award that D won this spring.

Rainy afternoon, and Rosebud and I watched birds out the window for awhile, with a camera and with D's binoculars.  Then she let me braid her hair in a loop around her head, and regretted it as soon as I accidentally pulled her hair for the first time.  It turned out pretty cute though!  I'm glad she agreed I could play with her hair today.  She usually won't let me.

Finished off the armadillo cake tonight.

13 August 2026

 For Nut Brown's birthday, he asked for a party that involved his friends and his family, so we had a cookout with way too much delicious food (hamburgers and chicken skewers, the best potato salad ever, so many chips).  It was fun to hang out with Nut Brown's friends, who are pretty funny guys.  They get along well together.

This is most of them.  Sam suddenly turned away to pick up some firewood right as I snapped the shutter.

Nut Brown asked for an elaborate cake for his birthday, so Rose Pink made him an armadillo.

Nut Brown and the guys took it on in battle in the basement (D&D).

They humored me very politely when I asked for a picture.  Also, as part of their game, Nut Brown had them sing a monster to sleep, and those of us upstairs listened to the whole group sing Backstreet's Back, all the verses.  

Then we sang and he blew out candles and cut the cake with Mr. Brown's treasured cleaver!

Happy birthday to Nut Brown.  It was a fun evening.

8 August 2026

 I planted onion sets in the front flower bed this year, because I figured the deer wouldn't eat them.  They didn't eat them.  But the onions didn't get very big either, just barely doubled in size, and most of them weren't big enough to even bring in.  But they didn't get eaten by the deer!

6 August 2026

Rosebud went to Sumobot camp for a week this summer.  She partnered with another girl to build and program a robot that would try and push another robot out of the ring, and they made a presentation to share with parents about it.  Their robot did pretty well, but Rosebud was frustrated that she didn't feel like she had enough time to do as well as she wanted.  I enjoyed watching the robots fight on the last day of camp!

Camp was close enough to work that I dropped her off and picked her up, and she came back to the office with me for an hour before the end of my workday.  Here's what my office looks like at the moment:

Rosebud drew stars on my board for me.

D also went to STEM camp this week.  He was learning about natural disasters, and came home and built bridges out of popsicle sticks.

 

2 August 2026

We celebrate Mr. Brown's birthday and our family birthday right next to each other every year.  This year, because Mr. Brown likes to get a pan of gyro meat for his birthday,  Nut Brown suggested that we wear togas while enjoying pitas and bubbly juice.  Fortunately I had enough sheets.

It was very silly and very fun.

For the family birthday, Rose Pink made a red velvet roll cake that was quite tasty!

24 years and counting!

31 July 2026

 

30 July 2026

Rose Pink is back for a month!  We went to hot pot to celebrate.  A really fun thing to do together!

Also, a fire to burn school papers.  D doesn't like getting smoke on him so he was sitting far away in the wheelbarrow, and his hero-worshipper was sitting next to him.

A couple of items that Rosebud requested photographic evidence of before consigning them to the conflagration:

25 July 2026

someone (D) has been having fun with twos.

Our turn to clean the church, and Mr. Brown is teaching the boys how to properly care for the sacrament equipment and preparation space to ensure cleanliness and reverence.  It was a beautiful moment to watch him teach them some of their priesthood responsibilities.

 

22 July 2026

Today we became a minivan-less family... the Pan has been having issues and it was time to bid it farewell.  My parents generously offered to sell us their Toyota Camry, so we are now a two-sedan family.  We bought the Pan because Rosebud was on the way and we needed accommodations for four kids.  Right now we have one kid away at college and the second on his way out the door as well, so we don't need a minivan any more.  The Pan entered our life when we needed it, and it faithfully served until it wasn't needed any more.

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We have 113 books checked out from the library right now.  This is what 113 library books around the house looks like:

Yep, they are everywhere.

 

21 July 2026

 What a week!

The house we stayed in had these wonderful porches with a lovely view.  It was a peaceful spot to sit when the house got a little too noisy with all the excited people in it.

Rosebud immediately connected with her two girl cousins from Georgia.  They were largely inseparable the whole week, and the night we arrived they went to the pool together with Grandma.

On Wednesday, Mr. Brown and Nut Brown and Rosebud went to the water park with my brother Mark's family.  D and I stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa.  D had hurt his ankle and didn't want to do a lot of walking, plus he was not yet sure what to think about his cousins.  He played a lot of his favorite video game and rested.  Eventually Grandpa took us all out go-carting (a bit of a letdown for D because he misunderstood how the pedals in the go-cart worked) and out to lunch.  It was a quiet day for us, and a lot of fun for the others at the water park.

Bears were definitely a thing.  There was a stuffed bear in the house, and it made Nut Brown nervous enough that he asked if we could put it in the closet.  We did see a bear sniffing around our trash cans.  We were all squealing and taking pictures and he completely ignored us.

Thursday, we hung around the house all morning, and in the afternoon we rode a mountain coaster near the house and did some mining for gems by washing away dirt in a sluice.  That evening everyone went to dinner at Dolly Parton's Stampede, which was pretty cool.  Watching the trick riders was fun, and the food was pretty good for a place that's serving a couple hundred people at once.  Nut Brown was really into the audience contest they had, until he realized that it was probably rigged.  We had a lot of fun eating and watching the show!

Friday, we went to Ober Mountain with Grandpa and my brother and his son, and we enjoyed a bunch of slides and a coaster and a chance to do archery!  It was really hot, and the rain kept us from the alpine slide, but we had a good time with all the rest of it. (Thank you, Grandpa!)  

Riding the ski lift up to archery - silent and beautiful.  And it turns out that Grandpa did archery in high school so he was helpful as the rest of us learned!

Ice skating- I had to tell the boys to slow down because they were skating so well and so quickly!  They were having a lot of fun but unintentionally putting some other less experienced skaters at risk.  

Saturday, Mr. Brown took a bunch of teenage boy cousins to an escape room, and Rosebud went with her girl cousins to a different escape room.  Rosebud was glad for an activity where she wasn't talked over or ignored... as sometimes happen with big brothers.

Sunday, we went to church.  My men were particularly handsome.

By this time, my sons had gotten comfortable with their cousins, and they played a lot of games (both video games and card games) and made a lot of happy noise together.  Here they are celebrating the end of a card game by dancing on the table benches.

We also gathered for an official family photo.  I think everyone is in it except for Rose Pink!

And then Monday - headed home, with stops at both Buc-ee's on the way.  Rosebud said a very sad goodbye to her cousins.  They have a secret handclap now and I watched them do it with such sad faces when I went to get her for our departure.  The boys were all ready to be home again, although they had both enjoyed themselves.  Big thank you to Grandpa and Grandma for hosting us all!