Five Brown Kids

Taye swam in the annual Black Heritage championship meet. Swim teams from Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit and one crazy fast 13/14 boy from Virginia. The mood was festive - the music only stopped for the starter gun - and so fun for all the kids and parents to be surrounded by other black kids, parents, race officials etc. Taye got two second places and four third places.  Scotia had friends over to swim in the neighborhood pool. We had it all to ourselves.  Big D's family came over for a Memorial Day swim and BBQ. We had a really wonderful time playing at the pool and eating delicious food. They just feel like family friends coming over to hang out. Such a nice relationship! 

Scotia's end of year talent show and BBQ were wonderful. Perfect weather at an awesome park. She is so sad to be leaving third grade. 2016 talent show from jessica brown on Vimeo . Scotia is in the front corner closest to the camera.

She is serious about the goggles 

I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends. Another fun weekend wandering and shopping. 

Happy Birthday Courtney! 

We are slowly getting settled. We picked house #4 of course. Same as last time. New build on the last street of development in a great neighborhood. It was already done so we didn't get to pick anything but it's almost perfect (I would have picked lighter floors and a white kitchen)   The kitchen is unpacked, but not much else.  Blythe at story time. I love this long haired tattooed librarian. He always has an acoustic guitar or electric guitar or ukulele and Blythe loves to dance to his music.  Jaxon's twists. It's the latest hair style. He's such a cutie.  (He's at the pool so the hair sparkles are water...) 

Timing Taye in the 1 mile. Glad I was the timer and not the swimmer. 

So after we made an offer on the new house and wrote a nausea inducing ernest money check our realtor/friend sat us down and said you need to get your house sold now. In four days we got an entire season of house tasks done and then called in a flat fee realtor service.  For $400 dollars they helped us choose a sale price, put a sign in the yard and listed it on the MLS.  The agent suggested a top dollar price- the market for starter homes is hot and we have a well kept home on the greenway.  We got three offers the first day, picked the best one with some excellent advice of a friend and now the house is empty and belongs to someone else.  It worked perfectly.  This all went down during the boys spring break, Taye cleaned and painted and scrubbed and left for Florida and Jaxon helped me with all the last minute cleaning and showing details.   He was awesome.  One of us watched Blythe while the other knocked off a task and then we switched.  ...

Seriously, it's great. Blythe was at the neighbor's house all morning. The movers just left with all the furniture and Carleen is here helping me clean. New house here we come! 

A little momma bird made a nest in one of the pots outside our front door. She laid five tiny eggs. And we all checked in on them obsessively while we waited for them to hatch.  The mom seemed pretty chill but once those babies arrived she wore herself out bringing caterpillars and bugs to feed them all.  A few days ago we came home and the now very large, very squished teenage birds were gone.  A few were stuck down in the metal pot- we carefully set it on the deck so they could get out. They are all off now - heading to bigger and better spaces.  Seems like a fitting metaphor for the last decade in our safe little house. 

Goodbye little house.

Don't love the house color but those teal front doors are dreamy! 8 foot kitchen island Master bath fit for a king Basement bonus room

On Saturday (while we should have been packing) we were at Falls Lake watching Taye in the Triangle Ortho Spring Triathlon.  (750 yard lake swim, 15 mile bike and 3.1 mile run) He signed up with a couple of swimming friends.  Our next door neighbor who lent him the super fast bike also came and watched and took all these great pictures.  It's always so fun to see Taye in action and while I enjoyed watching him work hard I kind of wished I'd signed up to do it to. This summer....