June's Quick Trips

Josh surprised us with a quick trip to Burgess Falls one Thursday by making it an overnight trip just for the fun of it.  We stayed in nearby Cookville, enjoyed eating out indoors at our first restaurant since quarantine, and then hit up the hiking and falls the next morning before the crowds and heat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All pics of Anna in the waters because you know Noah and his feet phobia.  And we weren't real confident of Lasa's footing so she had to stay near the sides with us.

Puzzle we did at the hotel and finished up back at home. First puzzle ever for the Brown fam. Anna did the bulk of it.  I find puzzles a super frustrating way to pass the time and yet I kept coming back to plug in a few more pieces.  I don't know what's up with that.

Josh and Noah took a 5 day trip to FL.  Noah enjoyed seeing Tania, his birthmother, and her father/his birthgrandfather, Hector.  They went fishing.  He also got to catch up with cousin, Hannah, and played tennis with her and got to check out Uncle Jason's new life as a state trooper and to meet his fiance, Bonnie.  Josh enjoyed working outside on a pond for his parents.  Noah says he really enjoyed working on that, too!

And while Josh and Noah were in Florida, the girls and I went to Emily's for a couple days.  While there, we also made a stop to see my parents (yes, my 7-yr-estranged parents by now), which is a whole thing that I am not making a whole thing right now because I just don't have the energy.  It was surreal to be with them again, but the visit went perfectly smoothly and it's good that it happened.  Lasa met them for the first time and Anna warmed right up and the visit was one of their highlights of the trip.  Glad it worked out.  Lasa's other favorite thing was that Noah wasn't there.  Ha!  Anna loved riding bikes with the cousins. There was also board gaming, hair and nail doing, a Descendants marathon, a walk, video gaming, hide and seeking, popcorn, legos, and some playing in the rain. All the hearts for this cousin crew!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June's Many Things

So much activity and busyness in June, I will have to really pare down what pics I share.  Which I hate to do, there was so much fun packed in.  But pare down I will.  Well, I will try.

Anna has been dabbling in watercolor.  Such pretty work!

 

 

 

 

Many swim sessions to beat the heat ... made even cooler with so many buds to join us.

 

 

We added a round of mulch around the pool and it looks so nice.

Noah finally got to have his belated birthday street hockey buds over and it was such a fun, full day for all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other pool news, we made the mistake of letting the kids swim in it after swimming in a lake and they apparently deposited algae grime that took on a whole new life in our pool.  The girls and I got back from a visit to Emily's to find this green nightmare.  So now we have drained the pool entirely, bleached the life out of it (literally) and are filling it back up again.  Lesson learned!

Skies.

 

 

And guess which chickie just registered for KINGERGARTEN?!  This is happening.

 

 

Another food truck run - this time to Tennessee Tatercakes.  So yum!

Our new curriculum for the fall came in.  Excited for a new season of study!

Finished a book that meant a lot to me.  I finished another book by this same author (today, in fact) that also meant a lot to me - Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow.  Recommend both!

Anna bought herself a pet stroller and now we stroll rabbits on the regular.  We are that family.

 

Lasa is working on a summer goal of counting to 100 all by herself.  Halfway there. More than halfway if you consider if just those dang tens where she trips up.  Ha!

Bouquet a la backyard.  Anna arranged this little beauty.

 

A little Anna school update - she took some standardized testing this month to prove the need for her to skip a grade this upcoming year and she killed that test dead.  The principal of our umbrella school called us directly within an hour of my sending her the results to assure me that Anna should certainly, easily, obviously jump on up to 7th grade status instead of 6th in the fall.  Glad for the confirmation and the more fitting grade level.  Whats funny is that she will be doing 8th grade work along with Noah - ha! - but bumping up the simply 7th grade status really just serves us for the next year when she will be doing high school level work with Noah.  This way she can log the credits as an 8th grader that year.  She is such a gifted learner.  It was neat to read some feedback from her CHET teachers saying as much. 

Summer bucket list item that Lasa picked - check!

Father's Day goodies.

Another summer bucket list activity - check!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other summer bucket list line item - snowballs at Pelican's!

This month Josh tried out canning for the first time.  

His maiden voyage into this was with green beans harvested out back.

 

 

 

Other backyard goodies and delights ...

 

 

 

 

Lasa stayed up past bedtime one special night to get to see and catch lightening bugs.  She was so funny because she could only manage to hold them if she shut her eyes the entire time.

Speaking of bugs, I just waged war for a week on some dang fruit flies and finally won.  These are ones I caught in this thing.  Many others I squashed midair or smashed up against cabinets.  These guys were driving me bonkers!

This year has been the hardest of my life. Period. That has been apparent here on the blog in my lack of blogging.  And I am not even talking about the psychoticness of 2020 and all its news.  I have died a couple different ways personally and relationally and have had to wait on and in the Lord to be able to come to life again.  While things have turned hopeful and are slowly moving forward and in newness, I still have tears on the weekly as I deal with the grief still.  The Lord has been so near through it all and sustained me through this refining fire.  So when a little boutique I have been following since Christmas finally opened back up this past weekend, I went and got me something meaningful to mark this season, this truth, this goodness.  This little thing make my eyes water up just now again.

In June we also took three different little trips, which I think I will give to a separate post.  Those will be coming up shortly!