3 May 2019

A few more notes about our time in 'the cottage'- the 800 sq ft vacation rental stone house we lived in from March 1 - April 25 this year.

1. It was very small.  It has two bedrooms with a bathroom in between the two that opened into both bedrooms.  Rose Pink and Rosebud both ended up on air mattresses on the floor.  There was a third bedroom but it was in the garage out back, so no one wanted to sleep there.  This meant that privacy was hard to come by - at one point Mr. Brown and I were *ahem* kissing and Nut Brown kept opening the door to look at us so Mr. Brown pushed me into the closet to continue uninterrupted. :)

2. It made all our clothes smell like wet cat.  I won't miss this at all in our new house.

3. Its backyard was entirely river rock gravel.  The kids spent hours playing with them - it was really endless entertainment.  Then we had a really rainy weekend and it turned out that it collects water in great big puddles, just for a bonus.  So much fun! We are thinking about putting rocks down in our next yard instead of grass.

4. We watched a lot of PBS Kids.  The kids particularly loved Odd Squad and Wild Kratts.  Lots of imaginative play based on Odd Squad.

5. The screened back porch with a big table was a wonderful place to have dinner. Unfortunately Mr. Brown discovered that he's allergic to oak pollen and was a prisoner inside for several weeks.

6. Rosebud experimented with potty training.  At first she would only go in the toilet if rewarded with treats.  No treat, no toilet.  Then one day I used tp on her for the first time, and after that she would carefully wipe herself *before* she climbed onto the toilet to go.  hee hee hee.  Finally, Mr. Brown took away her diaper during General Conference weekend and she was convinced to go ahead and finish potty training.  She's still in a diaper at night but has done just fine during the day.  Only a couple of accidents.

7. One of the things that we missed the most about being homeless was that we couldn't check out books from the library.  (I think we will miss the Orlando Library System more than anything else from Florida.  Except for my sister.)  Fortunately the neighborhood had two Little Free Libraries in it, which we visited frequently.  We also ended up buying some books at thrift stores, which we then donated to the Little Free Libraries when we left.


8. Our favorite Austin restaurant - Kerbey Lane!  Definitely a place that we will take people if they come to visit.