18 March 2023

This weekend the kids and I did some minor hiking (~2 miles) in Gunpowder Falls State Park.  It was along a creek, and it was beautiful.  There was an old stone wall at one point, and a ruined stone farmhouse.  

22 March 2023

We played hooky yesterday and went down to DC to see the cherry blossoms.  It was beautiful! We walked over to the Jefferson Memorial, which was also lovely.  We also spent some time in the Museum of Natural History again, mostly looking at gems, rocks and minerals.  So many amazing things to see.

14 March 2023

 Happy Pi Day!  We had pita pizzas for dinner followed by key lime pie.

8 March 2023

Mr. Brown's older sister invited us down for a visit.  They live in Silver Spring, just outside of DC.  We drove down and rode the subway into DC and visited the Postal Service Museum, which was really fun!  History of mail carrying through the years, an opportunity to sort packages, drive a semi, ride in a mail carriage on a train, learn to type in zip codes, and of course lots of stamps.

The subway was very popular.  The cousins were blase but my kids thought it was pretty cool.  Cousins were very much fun - a girl the same age as Bobo and a boy the same age as Rosebud.
 

Here are Bobo and his cousin with the stamp design they made themselves.  Fun visit - I'm so glad that she invited us.  Hoping to get together again sometime.

6 March 2023

Not everything here has been smooth sailing regarding kid relationships.  At one point Bobo told me that he and E (their 7yo daughter) were bonding over troubles with Rosebud.  However, Bobo has become really good friends with EJ (their 3yo son).  EJ thinks he's wonderful and fun, and Bobo has discovered how much fun it can be to big brother a much younger child.  He chases EJ around and threatens to tickle him and plays games with him.  He came in the other night and very proudly told me that he had helped get EJ ready for bed.  My friend is already planning to hire him as a baby sitter when he turns 13.

News from Texas: Nut Brown was dropped on his head during jiujitsu class and sustained a bad concussion.  He's been banned from screens for almost two weeks now and out of school.  It is getting better, but slowly, and he's very bored but also worried about making up all the school work.  We have been praying for him.

3 March 2023

Bobo has been learning how to sew from a woman at church.  The first project was a pillowcase - he chose black and gray.  Although he complains about going, he was extremely proud of his pillowcase when completed.  Here he is showing it off by wearing it on his head.  The next project is pajama pants!

24 February 2023

 

The elementary school PTA held a Valentine's dance for the kids.  Rosebud was really excited to go, and she chose her dress with care.  She was pretty stoked as we walked in, but the music was so loud and the kids were doing less dancing than just running around screaming that it was really overwhelming for her.  So we went and had a snack, and then back to the gym.  They played some game with hula hoops that she didn't get a chance at, and then she stood in line to do the limbo but so many kids cut in front of her that she didn't actually get up to the bar.  After that, we decided to call it a night and go home.

21 February 2023

 

We made our first venture to DC on Presidents' Day! The kids were excited to go to the natural history museum.  Bobo in particular was in awe of all the monuments and museums that we passed.  He kept saying, "I can't believe we're really here!"

The natural history museum was a little crowded but way cool!  We toured it in a very ADHD fashion, looking at exhibits until we got tired of them and then running off to see something else.  I think Bobo's favorite thing was the giant megalodon model.  We also looked at the Hope Diamond, ancient Egyptian artifacts, ocean stuff and bugs.  The kids were done after a couple hours, so we ate lunch and went home.  It was really neat, and one of the best things is that we can go back whenever we want to see the rest of it!

18 February 2023

 

Rosebud was assigned to make a diorama of dolphins for presentation during her class's "learning day". She wanted to make one that showed the dolphins feeding from a school of fish, so she made a school of fish on a circle of cardstock using flecks of aluminum foil, and two dolphins.  She painted the shoe box and we hung the three items from the top using thread.  She put them all very close to the top, and when I commented that it made them hard to see from the front, she reminded me that this is how it actually works - the dolphins herd the fish towards the surface of the ocean before feeding.

Parents were invited to come to school and view the diorama and ask questions (the kids were prepared with notes on note cards to answer questions), and then we got to do a math activity with our kids.  I was not expecting too much but it was really, really fun to see how excited the kids were to share what they had learned.  Rosebud and I had a really great time doing the math activity together as well.  It was so fun to see what her class is like and spend some time with her at school.

14 February 2023

Mr. Brown and Rose Pink sent us a Valentine's Day package!  There was a bunch of candy and some Valentine's Day toys.  It was so fun to receive.  We felt very loved.

 

That morning, we had the web of yarn all over the house leading to a box of chocolates.  The web was exceptionally large and tangled this year because I did it for all the kids in the house, not just mine.  Then we had pink heart pancakes for breakfast with a box of conversation hearts (their family tradition).

Rosebud was excited to make valentines for her class, but Bobo was not so enthusiastic.  He was worried about making the wrong kind of valentines and the other kids thinking they were stupid.  In the end, I made some up for him that referenced Star Wars and included glow sticks, and sent them to school with him with instructions to bring them home if he decided not to give them out.  He came home very happy and told me that he had given them out, and that the other kids thought they were cool!

10 February 2023

Rosebud dressed as her favorite character from a book for school and chose a kitten named Chi. The cuteness is sometimes just overwhelming!

 

6 February 2023

For Hedgehog Day this year, we actually had a hedgehog guest!  Our friends have a friend who has a pet hedgehog, and we invited them over to celebrate with us!

 

3 February 2023

When we were first contemplating moving across the country, one day while driving to the library it got really quiet in the back seat. I looked back and found this scene.  "What are you doing?" I asked.  "We're practicing sleeping," they said.  "For when we have to drive to our new house across the country."

2 February 2023

We are staying with a couple who are friends of mine and Mr. Brown's, although we haven't lived near them in fifteen years.  We met them in Iowa, and when we parted ways, they had zero children and we had two.  Now we have four and they have five.  The husband also works at the same command that I do, and they generously offered to let me and Rosebud and Bobo stay with them until the end of May when Mr. Brown arrives with the household goods and the rest of the family.

Fortunately for all of us, our kids overlap in age and they have made friends and enjoy each other's company.  Rosebud in particular has made friends with the girl her age (they are one month apart).  The whole gang of them spends a lot of time playing together and I'm so glad that they are getting along and having such fun.  Any pictures included on here of red-headed children over the next several months are our new friends.

 

Update: Rosebud wrote this storybook at school shortly after we arrived here.

 

30 January 2023

 Back in August, Mr. Brown went out to Utah for a family funeral, and he came back with the firm impression from God that we needed to move, and we needed to move right now, as soon as possible.  After some confirmatory prayers and consideration, we started packing and getting ready to sell the house and move to Idaho, which we've been considering for a couple years.  But after moving forward vigorously, we got stuck and couldn't seem to make any further decisions or progress.  We were puzzled and confused, but then I was invited to apply for a promotion at work that would involve moving to Maryland.

I knew almost as soon as I heard about it that this is what God has been preparing me for, for years, going back to when we lived in Iowa.  Leaving Michigan and leaving Florida were key parts of the preparation.  It was a moment when you get a bit of understanding of what His plan for you is, and it was a beautiful gift to have that understanding.  

I interviewed for, was offered and accepted the job.  It started at the end of January, and after some discussion, Rosebud and Bobo and I moved out to Maryland mid-January and are staying with a friend.  Mr. Brown and Nut Brown and Rose Pink are staying in Texas until the school year ends for Nut Brown and the house there is sold. Although the adventure of living apart for four months is not one that we are excited about, we are going to make the most of it!

Bobo, Rosebud and I had a good trip out.  We took it in easy stages, and it was only the fourth and final day that we were all cranky from being stuck together so much.  We listened to an audiobook, ate snacks and made lists of the things that we saw in each state.  We stayed overnight in Oklahoma with Spencer's mother and had dinner with his sister's family.  The next night we slept over at his brother's house in St. Louis and went to the Arch in the morning.  The third day was Illinois/Indiana/Ohio with a hotel at the end of the day, and the last day got us to Maryland.  The drive on the last day was through mountains and tunnels, so exciting!

Bobo and Rosebud are enrolled in school and seem to be doing pretty well.  The friends we are staying with have five kids, including a 9yo boy and a 7yo girl, so there are lots of people to play with in the house.  I requested the school put Rosebud in the same class with the other girl, and they did, so she had a familiar face on her first day in her new class.

Here we go on our new adventure of being a family in halves!

21 January 2023

 Nut Brown got another stripe on his in his jiujitsu class!  He and Mr. Brown have been making a greater effort to get him to more classes, and all his work paid off in advancement!

18 January 2023

Things Rosebud has written this year:

and these treasures are from a week when I was out of town for work:

17 January 2023

As her birthday present, Rose Pink requested a visit to the Austin Aquarium, which is about 30 minutes from our house.  She does love animals and marine life.  The aquarium was more like a zoo than an aquarium, because there were so many animals that we were invited to touch!  I was even brave enough to put my hand in a tank of some kind of shrimp that like to eat your dead skin.  They crawled on me for just a second before I pulled my hand back out.  

Rose Pink spent a long time petting the sting rays.

The girls and I also had the chance to feed parakeets.  We held the feed in our hands and the parakeets climbed on us to eat it.  It was thrilling!  Rosebud loves birds and keeps saying that she wants a bird.

We had such a good time!

 

16 January 2023

With the plan for leaving Texas in place, I decided to go after something that I had wanted to go see ever since I found out about it: dinosaur footprints in a local river bed!

Riverbeds also include water and rocks and we had chosen a gorgeous day to go exploring.  

water + loose rocks = dam required

We also found the dinosaur footprints, and they were pretty cool!