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.

26 June 2024

Rosebud made this book at school this year and was tremendously proud of it.  Here I have immortalized the front and back covers.  The interior was some worksheets that she had filled out with information about ants.

24 June 2024

Waiting for hoagies at Wawa during Hoagiefest.  The two of them are so close. He depends on her as a play companion, and she thinks he's pretty wonderful. This doesn't stop them from fighting and getting on each other's nerves sometimes, but they are like peanut butter and jelly. Where you find one, you usually find the other.

22 June 2024

Some school work from Bobo:

a drawing of a car from several perspectives

and a poem that touched me because of the memories of all of these things from both Austin and Maryland.

20 June 2024

Nut Brown dyed his hair blue for the end of school.  Rose Pink helped him bleach it first so that it would be very blue!  We didn't get any photos where it was incredibly blue- this is a few weeks later:

When he went to school with it bleached, other kids asked if he was:

• Johnny Bravo
• All-Might
• Guy Fieri
• Billy Idol
• Jonny Test
• Angry Lays Chips
• Goku
• Slim Shady
• Duke Nukem
• Cloud Strife

He liked the bleached look a lot.  Unfortunately, the blue didn't turn out the color he wanted and he was unsatisfied with the results.  We didn't get any photos where it was incredibly, incredibly blue- too bad.

The idea of hair dye was enticing to all of us - Bobo went green to match his favorite green outfit (green t-shirt and green shorts), Rosebud asked for blue like Nut Brown, and Mr. Brown bleached his hair too.  Bobo's and Rosebud's washed out pretty quickly because they didn't bleach their hair.

19 June 2024

Amazing things happen around here sometimes.

18 June 2024

End of school awards:

Notes from Bobo, both of which are well-deserved!

Rosebud came home with another certificate related to having her artwork shown at the county art show last December:

Rosebud brought home a steady stream of these glow notes all year from her teacher.  I love it when others recognize how great our kids are.

The boys both made the honor roll all four quarters this year but didn't want us to come to the assemblies honoring them.  Nut Brown made straight A's all year, and Bobo had straight A's first and fourth quarter, and B's in one subject 2nd and 3rd quarters.  Good job to them! 

 

10 June 2024

D wrote/drew this graphic novel as a school assignment.  It's about an Oreo/Chips Ahoy malevolent interaction.  He is so proud of it!  I wish the photo quality that Blogger allows was better so you could enjoy it as much as the original.