31 July 2024

D has invented a board game. It has lots of rules and borrows heavily from both D&D and video games.  Rosebud and I play tested it with him on Sunday, and it was actually pretty playable, if a little repetitive. (Like a video game) It was really fun to see how happy and excited he was about his creative effort.

29 July 2024

Tonight Nut Brown made a batch of cookies because he wanted some, and when I asked him how they turned out, he offered me one. I think my heart grew a size because of his thoughtfulness. He has a very kind, compassionate heart. 

Now I'm up in the middle of the night with D, who has some major nasal congestion, and while he's drinking hot tea, we're discussing how Starbursts get wrapped in two-packs.  I tell him that I think they start with a horizontal funnel at the end of the conveyor belt so that only one can get through at a time, and D says, "So they form an orderly queue," and looks at me and grins and nods up and down.  Sure love this kid.

28 July 2024

 

Pool day every Friday this summer 

There's been a lot of this lately... Lego story play.

27 July 2024

This afternoon we went down to Silver Spring MD and met up with Amri and Brett and Hugh and Jess at a park.  Two of their cousins who live in the area also came with some of their kids. It was kind of hot but it was fun to talk with them. The kids did their best to amuse themselves and since we ended up staying for three hours, they did eventually break the ice with Amri's kids and play together.

26 July 2024 (2)

Nut Brown plus bros at the demolition derby

26 July 2024

This morning Mr. Brown went to the gym with Rose Pink and Nut Brown (new this summer - but good for all three of them!) and Bobo and Rosebud hurried with the Saturday chores to earn a donut.  The three of us ran to ShopRite and got donuts plus smoothie ingredients, and when Mr. Brown got home he made smoothies for himself and me and coached others in making their own.  Yum.

We went swimming around 12:30:

Here we are sunscreening at the pool.  We stood in a circle and pushed water at each other and named fruit (Bobo's game) and then we held hands and walked in a circle to make a flow of water.  Nut Brown said it was like making our own lazy river.  Then Mr. Brown floated on his back and Nut Brown pushed him around the pool, and I walked back and forth with Rosebud and Bobo hanging on me, and then it was time to go.  We laid around in the sun drying for a little while, and then we went to Wendy's for a midafternoon meal.

After we got home, Nut Brown drove me and Rosebud and Bobo to the library.  We picked up books (less than we dropped off, so a net reduction for our house, which is good, I think it took us down to 30 books out instead of 50) and then Nut Brown drove us to his friends' house to drop himself off for bro night tonight.  They are going to a demolition derby up in Cecil County.  Rosebud and Bobo and I went to a different library, and Rosebud and I did a scavenger hunt with a compass inside while Bobo waited in the car with a book from the previous library.  She scored a stamp for finding all the pieces.

Now it's evening and Mr. Brown is simmering soup for dinner using vegetables from the farm CSA that we are experimenting with this summer.  It's pretty quiet.  Bobo is waiting impatiently for his friend Aaron to arrive for mini-bro night. Here he is:

Lovely relaxing day today!

22 July 2024

We went to visit my parents in PA this weekend!  The kids immediately found the climbing tree in the backyard and ascended.

Grandpa took us to buy fireworks - lots of them, and big ones too! Then we had dinner (lasagna) and rode our bikes to the Purple Cow for ice cream.  Yum.  The bike rides on the trail near their house are always great. D fell off and scraped his knee but he was a trooper after a little recovery time.

Then we set off fireworks!  The fireworks store was having a 2-for-1 sale so we had twice as many.  Rosebud was nervous about it at first, but Grandpa helped her and D learn how to light them, and they were even more excited about it.  There were so many and such spectacular ones!  We were up late.

On Saturday we went for a hike and a picnic lunch, very scenic and lovely.  Rosebud and D completed bingo cards along the path for various birds and bugs and trees.  That evening we went to an ice cream social with their ward.  It was a little hot, but the ice cream was good!  D and Rosebud really wanted me to come and see something on the playground so they made their best puppy faces:

What they wanted me to see was Rosebud riding a duck:

Sunday we went to church, and in the evening we had ice cream at home.  Grandma soaked sugar cubes in lemon extract and set them on fire on top of the ice cream.  Better living through chemistry!  

And we set off some more fireworks on Sunday evening. We lit off all the big ones and most of the small ones.  The buzzing bees, and the planes that shot out a little parachute guy were some of our favorites.  Besides the huge shiny loud ones.

The city library is directly behind their house.  There's not even a fence.  I'm jealous every time we visit.

Monday morning Rose Pink and I went antiquing with Grandpa for a couple hours (so many wild and fun things to see) and D and Rosebud hung out with Grandma at home.  Then we left to head home.  Grandma packed a picnic lunch for us to eat in the car and slipped in some M&Ms for dessert. She knows what we like!  

20 July 2024

Rosebud was grumpy with me for insisting that she take a shower one evening, and she gifted us her socks on the bathroom soap dispenser as a result.

17 July 2024

It has been a HOT summer, as hot as Austin was for weeks at a time.  Much hotter than last summer.  It also hasn't rained very much, which makes me sad.  We finally got a rainy day today and Bobo and Rosebud and I walked in the rain around the neighborhood and got all wet.  We splashed in the gutters and puddles.  We had an umbrella but gave up after awhile.  When we got home, Bobo had to scramble to get to Mutual but Rosebud and I got into dry clothes and then had hot chocolate together.  It was so nice to have a rainy day!

13 July 2024

Nut Brown and his youth group built a trebuchet. They worked on it for several weeks, and finally it was the night to test it out with potatoes.  It worked! He was very gratified. (It was his idea.) He asked me to make videos of it working to show Mr. Brown because he wanted to share.

Nut Brown is the one with the teal hair and teal shirt in the photo below.

10 July 2024

 I've been helping Nut Brown apply for jobs this summer.  One employer asked him to choose three adjectives to describe himself, and together he and I and Mr. Brown came up with: competitive, compassionate and conscientious. I thought it was funny that they all started with 'C'.  (Although we changed "competitive" to "driven" when he submitted it.)

6 July 2024

Bobo, tonight, was showing me how many marbles he had in his hand. "Not one, Mom, not two... Not three, not five... FOUR marbles, Mom, that's what I have!"

6 July 2024

 We traveled up to Detroit over this weekend to visit some old friends, the Scotts!  It took us about 12 hours to make the drive.  We stopped for dinner at an Italian restaurant that had great atmosphere but mediocre food.

The weather while we were there was really nice.  We spent a lot of time outside, and Nut Brown and Mr. Brown were so happy to be completely free of allergies!

 

 

I had a chance to go out and see my aunt and uncle in Ann Arbor, and we also made sure to stop at our favorite place, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum:

It was a very fun time, spending quarters all over the place and enjoying ourselves. Favorite games included Guitar Hero, the fishing game, skee ball, and Fruit Ninja.

There was also a lot of Lego playing.

It was our friend's 40th birthday, and Mr. Brown led a game session using the rule system and our friend wrote himself!

And we made sure to do our other favorite activity, which is double-date escape room!  We succeeded!  Michigan has the best escape rooms that we have found anywhere..

Then it was 12 hours back on July 3.  The trip back was easier.  Here we are at a rest stop somewhere in Pennsylvania.

And we made it to the hometown 4th of July parade the next day too!  We found some friends from church there, and we had slushies from Sonic to get us through the heat.  It was hot.  But it was fortunately cloudy, and we had a pretty good time.