Five Brown Kids

Bear is still getting lots of attention. Fourteen years of cuddling, sleeping, playing and still going strong.

Taye swam 8 events at long course age group champs last weekend. His best event was the 50 free - he finished 13th in the state.  Fast kid!  The swim meet was four days long. It was a lot of driving back and forth (I placed 13th in the state for mothers with driving stamina). We crashed one night at the Bagley's house and that was perfect.  So fun to watch my Taye-berry perform.  Also, I read two whole books. Watch Taye swim for 26 seconds, read for an hour, watch him swim for 1 minute, read for an hour.  Finally, dinner at Chipotle where Taye used half a jar of Tabasco sauce. He's such a Ripple. 

I took this one.  See those 3 little brown kids in the water? Rain on the ferry ride home and this many square feet for everyone to be under cover.

"Taye, here's the baby and a bike in a box. I'm going upstairs to relax."  Blythe is blessed with great big brothers.  Also I want to remember that in her second day of bike ownership I took her out on the greenway where she discovered that if you pick your feet up on the down hill you will go fast! She is a daredevil. My 19 month old will need her helmet on riding the push toy. 

We were all upstairs a few day ago getting ready for bed when Tyrone marched into the room I was in and said, "Did you know Taye has brown hair!?!?" Actually I did know and thought it was hilarious that Tyrone was just noticing now that Taye is finally growing it out. Genes are so crazy. I have black hair, Tyrone has black hair and we have kids who all have brown hair. Craziness! 

Photos from a nice camera once Courtney sends them. We tried something new this year. Primitive cabins on Portsmouth Island (Part of Cape Lookout National Seashore.) In retrospect primitive probably wasn't the most relaxing vacation idea for 3 families with 10 children including one really little one. We needed the separate bedrooms, flat screen TV's and full sized showers of a real beach house. We went via ferry over to the Cape Lookout Lighthouse first. The hike to the top was awesome! Everyone's favorite vacation moment. The ferry stopped briefly at Shackleford Banks and we could see the wild horses. Then we took another ferry out to the cabin island. The cabins had electricity, bunk beds, stoves and tiny bathrooms. We kept our food in coolers with ice.  The beach was beautiful and right out the front door. Kids could run down by themselves.  We didn't see any sharks, but a big pod of dolphins! Blythe loves the beach and wading in the ...

I choose to be Mormon because I believe it is best for me and my family.  I can do this because I live in a country founded on the belief in religious liberty.  For this I am grateful. That means I do not have to be subject to the Catholic's revealed truth on birth control, or the Jehovah Witness' biblical understanding of blood transfusions or the Islamic scriptural interpretation on woman's rights.  But this also means I can not force my religious beliefs on others.  I am thankful that the Supreme Court of the United States can be a "neutral party" (separate from any church - at least in theory) to legally protect everyone's life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in whatever form that takes.

I have no pictures of Scout camp. But Taye learned to sail a "sunfish" and took the mountain biking class which finished with a 22 mile ride. He loved it! Sunfish photo from the web Jaxon had an awesome week at "lake house" camp. Tubing, jet skiing, lake swimming, trampoline jumping, bacon breakfasts, monopoly and Fourth of July fireworks over the lake.  Perfect summer weeks for both boys.

Since we didn't make plans for a big trip this summer I scheduled each of the kids a few camp weeks.  Typical 8 year olds paint a tomato in one color - red. At camp Scotia learned to use different textures, colors, blending and shading to make these beautiful paintings. She is already planning for next year's session. 

In a typical summer day I can spend between 2-5 hours or more driving kids around to various activities (mostly year around swim practice, but also summer camps and other fun activities). I don't mind a few hours of driving - it's an escape from an "always needs to be cleaned house" and I have a bunch of podcasts to listen to. It's almost as relaxing as sitting on the couch watching TV.  But this week Taye is gone to camp and Jaxon is gone with a neighbour to their lake house.  And that meant that today I spent a grand total of 5 minutes in my van. A 3 mile round trip to pick up Scotia and a neighbor from swim practice.  This morning I went running (while Tyrone biked with kids up to swim) and then biked to the upper pool to meet everyone and swim my laps (triathlon training). This aft we napped and cleaned. It was heavenly.  I love scout camp week. 

She jumps in, goes under, comes up and wipes her face off and does it again. Swim like a brown, baby!

The Browns were in town for almost two weeks. We stayed busy following the kids around. We sat through two very hot and very long swim meets and watched Jaxon scrimmage at basketball camp.  Barbecued with friends and ate banana pudding twice. Went to Marbles kids museum, walked on the greenway and watched the Brown Family 2014 video.  Pauline and Willie and I went to the temple.  Pauline taught us all how to index. It was a good visit. Dairy Queen after every swim meet