14 August 2025

The Bloods and Knoxes organized a tubing trip on Rock Creek! This always reminds me of one of my favorite signs, posted by a restaurant in Michigan near a river commonly used for tubing: "Welcome tubers!" 

Melissa took all the pictures. Here we are about to set off.

We paused partway down near a high rock for jumping. Rose Pink jumped off. D and I hung out guarding other tubes.

At one point we made up a really long tube chain, which was fun and lasted about five minutes.

The creek was much shallower than Mr. Brown and I expected and we had to wade through several parts, which was less fun.

We got out of the creek at a picnic ground downstream.  While we were waiting for the cars, the kids made piles of the tubes with someone inside.

And then knocked them over!  Good times.

It was a nice way to spend the afternoon.  Wish the creek had been a little deeper, but the play afterwards was also a lot of fun.

10 August 2025

Rose Pink is home for about six weeks from college!  So excited to hang out with her.  She's been helping Mr. Brown with projects to earn some money for fall semester, and also a plane ticket to visit a friend in Washington state.  Here she is engaged in one of her favorite activities: burning things.  She also sorted all our loose firewood into buckets by size (see the background of the picture).

9 August 2025

Mr. Brown has begun preparing D for youth dances!

8 August 2025

Rosebud has been evolving her art.  Working on facial proportions. 

On this one she did a good job showing depth in the cat + scratching post in the foreground. 

She was very proud of this one. She told me she'd put a lot of effort into the color fade of the sunset. 

And then there has been a bunch of super cuteness going on!

 

6 August 2025

Mr. Brown decided for his birthday that he wanted to feed the hungry so we signed up to make dinner at a local homeless shelter tonight! In spite of his anxiety, everything went well and there was plenty of food for the 25 or so people there. Rose Pink and Nut Brown joined me as assistants. They both have culinary training and have held ServSafe certifications, so way more helpful than I was. I was allowed to wash the dishes though, because I am happier with my hands in really hot water than any of them. I was really glad we went. It was lovely to have an opportunity to show love. 

Last week Rosebud and D had a playdate with a brother and sister they know from school.  It was rainy weather, and Rosebud and her friend put their swimsuits on and went out to "take a shower". All good until they decided to wash their hair and discovered that rainfall is not enough to wash shampoo out! Her friend's dad sent them upstairs to rinse it out in the shower. 

Lately D has been playing with the wooden blocks in the basement and he and Rosebud have been making stop motion movies with our old digital camera. 

Nut Brown went to FSY last week at the University of Maryland campus. He said that it was hard because every minute of the day was so tightly scheduled, but that it was a good experience. He had to come early because he scraped his knee pretty badly playing an outdoor game, so he missed the last evening's activities. But he has a trip to the temple to do baptisms set up with the group of kids that he was assigned to. 

3 August 2025

Last week we had a singing testimony meeting at church. Nut Brown was one of the first people up, and he asked for us to sing the third verse of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, because he is moved by the plea to "bind my wandering heart to thee". Rose Pink also stood up and chose Abide With Me (p 165) because it was one of the first hymns she had her ward choir sing in Idaho. Rosebud wanted very much to get up too, and finally agreed that he would if I would come up with her. She chose "True To The Faith" because she likes to think about how young people can choose to embrace their parents' faith. ♥️  What great kids they are!

This morning for actual Fast and Testimony Meeting, Mr. Brown bore a beautiful testimony of how much Jesus and God love us. He told everyone that he had restrained himself last week not to get up, so they should be proud of him, but that wasn't going to keep him from sharing a hymn this week! He read us the second verse of How Firm A Foundation. 

After him, a lady stood up and thanked him, and said she didn't know his name, just knew him as Nut Brown's dad.  Nut Brown got up to share his testimony as well, and introduced himself as Nut Brown's dad's son.  Then later Rose Pink also got up and introduced herself as Nut Brown's dad's son's older sister. They are all so funny!

3 August 2025

Last Sunday was singing testimony meeting, where members of our church congregation spent the main meeting choosing favorite hymns for the congregation to sing together, instead of having talks.  Nut Brown jumped up to be first, and he chose the second verse of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", which he's been singing and trying to get D to sing with him for the last few weeks, because he loves the line about 'bind my wandering heart to thee'.  Rose Pink got up a few people later and asked us to sing "Abide With Me Tis Eventide".  Rosebud wanted very much to get up also, but had a hard time getting her nerve up.  I offered to walk up with her, and she stood at the pulpit and asked to sing, "True to the Faith", because, she said, she likes the idea that the youth of Zion won't give up.  She was so nervous and brave!  It was really great to hear from all three of them.

This week was Fast Sunday, and both Nut Brown and Rose Pink, plus Mr. Brown got up to share their testimonies.  I love to hear from them, every time!

2 August 2025

D went to a STEM camp at APG this week.  He was not happy about going - anxious about being around strange teenagers - but came home the first day with this brain hat that he'd made and was very pleased about!  They did lots of other really interesting things, like building elementary robots and making a video game controller out of a potato (seriously).  He decided not to go on Wednesday because he was tired of people, but then finished the week, and as a bonus, the camp paid him $125 for attending.  So now he also has a bank account!
 

25 July 2025

D made this in art class last year! It was an activity where they were illuminating slang words. He chose "cap".

19 July 2025

We went to pick peaches with our friends the Bloods.  In about 15 minutes, we acquired 60 lbs of peaches.  Fun but didn't take that much time.

Here they are after being washed in the kitchen.  Also the four quarts of blackberries that we picked to make jam (yum).  We made peach jam, froze them in slices, and also dried them in the food dryer.  We are also eating them fresh.  I don't think they're going to last very long!

 

17 July 2025

Rosebud was in love with this tiny package of Doritos that she was given as a snack at a baptism after church, and she asked me to immortalize it.

My day lilies were amazing this year.  So were the iris.  Also D was amazing.  Actually he is still amazing, although he never believes me when I tell him.

I added two small azalea bushes to the flower bed in front, and three colorful iris plants (pink, blue and purple).  We'll see if they bloom next spring.  The raspberry bushes in back are bearing this year - not a ton, but we are really enjoying the berries we're getting.

 

11 July 2025

The library gives us coupons for summer reading. This afternoon we decided to combine using coupons with a couple errands! First, we got free Italian ices from Rita's! Yum! That was followed by a stop at Lowe's, where we stayed cool in garden center by finishing our ices. Then we swung by the library to pick up some holds, but it was closed. 😞 The bakery we had planned to stop at next had also closed, so we proceeded to the pretzel place and picked up free pretzels! We followed that with picking up pizza and heading home to eat. D was super courageous to try something new and picked up the pizza himself with only minimal assistance from me. All in all, a fun Friday afternoon/evening. 

7 July 2025

My brother and his family took a trip up to our area of the country, and Rosebud and I ran up to my parents' house to see them!  D had just come home from a week at camp with his church group and didn't want to leave the house.  On the way up on Friday afternoon, we ended up behind a red Kia minivan with Georgia plates driving north on the state highway we were on.  I was sure it was my brother's family and we followed it closely.  About 30 minutes away from my parents' house, it turned off into a restaurant parking lot, so I pulled in after it, and a guy got out who was not my brother.  Oops.

Grandpa took us to buy fireworks, and we had a cookout for dinner.  Everyone else went to a fireworks show, and Rosebud and I went to bed.  My parents paid for a hotel for us, because their house was full.  Rosebud was so pleased to be in the hotel.  She unpacked all her clothes and hung them up, and lined up her shoes in the closet.  She said that she knew it was just for a couple days, but she wanted "to be comfortable".  It was so sweet to see her experience new things in the world.

On Saturday we hung out and played Uno No Mercy a bunch.  Grandma took us for ice cream at her favorite place, in an old mill by a creek.  Grandpa let me drive his Mustang over there.  It's a lot more fun to drive than my car!  

In the afternoon, I took the girls back to the hotel and they went swimming in the pool together.  D logged on from home and played Minecraft with his cousin who is exactly his age.  (actually, one day younger)  They had a great time together.  D was a little sorry he didn't come.  

My sister-in-law made pulled pork for dinner to celebrate a birthday.  My brother suggested that the girls make an anniversary card for my parents, whose anniversary was the next day.  They were very engaged with it - so fun to watch them.  After my parents got back from visiting friends, they took the kids for a bike ride.  Rosebud and her cousins caught fireflies in the backyard together for awhile... usually she's not allowed up that late.  She really loved that.

When it got dark enough for fireworks, we abandoned the fireflies and set off the fireworks we'd chosen the previous day.  It was a ton of fun!  So many different kinds and so many crazy arrangements of explosives.  I love that Grandpa enjoys fireworks so much and shares them with us.

On Sunday, we went to church together and hung out in the afternoon.  More Uno No Mercy. We gave the card to Grandma and Grandpa, along with some chocolates and a pineapple (for hospitality).

Mid-afternoon, Rosebud and I left for home. (I had to be at work the next day!)  Rosebud cried halfway home over leaving her cousins.  She was so sad to be leaving them, and upset at how people are always coming and going in her life.  "If I ever see them again," she said, "it won't be the same because they'll be older and I'll be older and we'll be different."  I was so sad for her.  I remember similar feelings when I was her age too.  I am really glad that we got to see them though.  It was a very fun visit, and it was really nice to talk shop with my brother and sister-in-law about having neurodivergent kids.

5 July 2025

This week the young men at church went camping together.  When they started planning the activity, I asked D if he wanted to go, and he thought hard about it, and after some agonizing, he told me that he did want to go, but that he was probably going to change his mind and I should not let him.  When it did get to be time to go, he did indeed change his mind, and we had many conversations about it for the two days before he finally decided the night before that he was going to go and we got everything packed and ready to go.

When he came home, it turned out that he'd kept a journal during the trip.  He helped me decipher his handwriting so I can include his record here. 

6/30/25 Monday, First day at camp

Today we got there with an extra hour lost because of a replacement windmill piece was ... taking up both lanes. When we got there we chose camping spots, & set up tents. I set up the tent ... pretty easily, but it took me a ... 15 minutes of work.  I sat around, wishing we had a better shelter from the drizzle. We have a tarp that was strung over 2 picnic talbes pushed togher. Kiliohu showed up & I helped set up his tent.  Skip forward 30 minutes of effort and we are huddled beneath the tarp eating food.  5 minutes later the rain pauses.  For a long time & all the teachers & ... decide to go the the lake.  No one returns.

...for an hour, & then me & Kiliohu decide to go check on them and we get ....their & we see Andrew & Carter who are running back.

Can't sleep. Rain too hard. 4:30 pm

(followed a graph of 'fun' over 'time')

All time is an approximation. .......  

Tuesday 7/1/25

We went caving & had breakfast. Caving was fun. Afterwards we played baseball with an oversized corkscrew made out of wood.  We went to the river & caught some fish. The cave w as cold.  We went 17 ..... Carter is & was a ... feeb hitting .. hard in the back.

(followed a graph of 'fun' over 'time')

Drive.. Cave... Drive Back

All I remember is that it was cold. Don't remember which ... ace is

So mom couldn't go cause her hands would ... We did an adventure.  We had a ..... direction in the cave and had to get there in pitch pblack.  There was two crawl spaces. very fun. I got clay from 17 .... ... to the surface (to .........) & then lost it.

There are two Ds at camp. D B (me!) D T (mean)

Wednesday

Lost clay. Went lake = fun, best

too sunburnt too write more

(Names of various boat drivers)

1. Brother Young aka Nightmare

2. Workman

3. Guy I don't know

Diagrams of how the boats were driven with the tubes being dragged behind.
-------------

Overall, he did have a good time.  He loved the caving and the boating.  I loved the graphs he included to show fun over time for each day.  While boating, he didn't put on any sunscreen and came home with a terribly painful sunburn. But he had fun.  I'm so glad that there are men who camp that will take him camping.  A few photos:

30 June 2025

 

29 June 2025

I can't get over what a big change in D there has been since school got out. With all the pressure to suppress his ADHD at school, and the ordinary peer pressure of middle school, he was often morose and grouchy at home. Mr. Brown and I had decided that at least some of it was the teenage grumpies. But now all that pressure is gone, and so is all the moroseness and grouchiness. He's relaxed back into being the kind, affectionate, laughing D that is familiar to us, and whom I love so much! I'm so happy that I get to spend the summer with him!

27 June 2025

I thought I was having panic attacks, but last week we found out that they were probably actually gallstones.  After a particularly bad one on a Sunday night after fasting at the beginning of May, I stopped eating and drinking.  On Tuesday, Mr. Brown took me to the emergency room, where they gave me an IV and rehydrated me, and then diagnosed me with gallstones and recommended me for surgery.  My liver enzymes were so high that I ended up staying in the hospital for three days.  The pain from the gallstones went away and I spent a lot of time sleeping.  It was different to be so limp and quiet.  The pope was chosen while I was in the hospital and I spent part of the night praying for him.  I also had an interesting experience where I was debating whether or not to ask the doctor a question, had decided not to, and then had him turn back to me almost involuntarily to give me the answer to my unasked question.  God was answering my prayers there.  It was just funny to see how he was surprised by what he was telling me.

Because the pain had subsided, I decided to wait on surgery to see whether the gallstones were going to be a recurring problem.  After fasting at the beginning of June, I had another terrible attack - at seminary graduation, which mercifully subsided in 45 minutes instead of going on for hours like the previous one - and immediately called to schedule surgery.  The surgery was done without incident and without too much difficulty in recovery.  Plus they sent me home with pictures of my guts.

Turned out that my gall bladder was pretty much trashed, so getting it removed was the right decision.  No more gallstone pain!  Mr. Brown and I are twinsies in yet another aspect - neither one of us has a gall bladder any more!

26 June 2025

My book club met tonight at a neighbor's home just a block away, so I walked over. I had to leave early to get home before eight for the financial self-reliance group that I'm facilitating at the moment. It was pouring rain! But I had an appointment to keep so I opened the door to dash home... and discovered Mr. Brown pulling into the driveway to pick me up and keep me from getting soaked!

We sat up late to watch Rose Pink's choir concert. It starts at 7:30 MST, which is 9:30 EST, kinda late for us.  The first appearances were not her choir, so we were hanging out at the kitchen table. Nut Brown decided to make fluffernutter sandwiches on his and D's palms! He said, "Ten o'clock is way too late for serious business, that's why we're being silly." He clapped his hands together to smush the peanut butter and fluff together. "We're making peanut butter handwiches!"

25 June 2025

Tonight B helped me fold a mountain of laundry. She was so pleased to hang out with me, and happy with herself and her ability to fold her own clothes. We were together for maybe half an hour, and she was happily chattering away to me about what her hands were engaged in. It was so fun to be with her and listen to her. I was so happy that she was happy.

22 June 2025

This may not look like much, but it's actually a super spy hideout with a spy chief (D) and a spy (Rosebud) inside it. Created with a floor fan and a top sheet.

18 June 2025

Rosebud is involved in very active imaginary play with her classmates at recess.  For awhile she was running a restaurant where the "food" is natural items.  She used green pine cones for bananas, and mud for pudding. Pine tree flowers were sprinkles on other food. She used samaras for pasta, and so on.  She was surprised how popular this game was with her classmates, and they played it for several weeks together.  

One of her friends made 3D printed articulated dragons in different colors for her group of friends, and they took them outside for recess and set up kingdoms for each dragon around the tree in the recess yard.  Rosebud was so happy with her dragon that she made it a bedroom in her dresser:

There was drama around receipt of the dragons - the girl didn't bring them when expected - and around her teacher not allowing them to take the dragons outside to play, but finally everything came together and the girls had a great time with them.  

The game she's been playing lately is with her friends Melanie and Fiona, and it involves possession of superpowers.  I offered to let her skip the last day of school, but she wanted to go in order to make sure that she got one more session of play in with them.

She was sad at the end of school, because she felt like her class had really come together as a community and she was sad to see the end of the community.

10 June 2025

It was my birthday! Rosebud made me a card!  She actually made it for me several months ago and it's been waiting on my dresser for me! 

Nut Brown decorated the dining room for me while listening to Weird Al polka mixes.  That's his motivating music right now.

It's a fairy grove, with floating balls of pink, and one mimic pretending to be a floating ball of pink.

Mr. Brown bought strawberries and Rosebud made tiny pancakes for me that she and I ate with strawberries on them.  

There were happy wishes from many people, which made me happy! And it happened to be the same night as book club, which is one of my favorite things, and they got me a cake. Happy happy!

Two weeks later, I got to have a tea party with my two friends who also have May birthdays - Megan and Melissa.  We had tea in my tea cups and ate biscuits and tea sandwiches and Chinese food, and these lovely petit fours that Mr. Brown and Nut Brown made for us.  They really went all out to support the tea party, and it was very fun!

8 June 2025

Nut Brown decided to make cake pops from some leftover red velvet cake we had, and he made them up for his mission prep class.  He made the balls up and I helped him with the sprinkles.  

I think he enjoys making and bringing sweets.

Also- my day lilies are celebrating summer.  They're so brash and bright that I always feel happier when I see them!

7 June 2025

Last night, walking with D, he was telling me about a background in Minecraft that can be applied that creates a starry sky. He says, "You can see galaxies, and nebula, and black holes... Well, you can see accretion disks, because you can't actually see black holes."  I love that he knows that obscure astronomical fact!

6 June 2025

Message from Rose Pink today:

She's so cool!

6 June 2025

Walking with D tonight and he's talking to me about Minecraft mod sites and tells me that one of them is more "unique-able" than the other. He wasn't struggling for words either, just speaking his thoughts as they came to mind.  

3 June 2025

Except for Rose Pink, none of my kids really do pajamas.  Nut Brown sleeps in his underwear and D and Rosebud generally wear either what they wore that day or what they're going to wear tomorrow.  When they were small, they all wore footie pajamas, and had designated sleeping clothes, but it didn't stick.  Conversation with Rosebud tonight on her way to bed:

Mom: Are you ready for bed?

Rosebud: I'm changing into my pajamas.  Tomorrow is pajama day and I don't want to change in the morning.

2 June 2025

Last night was seminary graduation for Nut Brown.  He had such a huge smile here and was so happy about the ceremony and his participation.  

The ceremony started with the graduates processing to the front pew in the chapel.  He was invited to speak and prepared a wonderful talk about the impact of seminary for him.  They also did a video montage that we thought was supposed to be graduates sharing their testimonies, but Nut Brown was the only one who actually did.  He wrote his out and we did several takes before we had a video he was happy with submitting.  Everyone else gave generic "I loved it so much even though it was early" statements.  And then afterwards when the graduates were recessing, Nut Brown gave everyone sitting on the aisle a fist bump as he went past.  He's so cool.

... and poses in the (currently) mandatory Jotaro pose