First Day of School 2017

The boys (and even more so, mom and dad) are ready for the first day of school for 5th and 1st Grade!  TJ was slow to get up and required mom and dad to go into his room and do the "Finding Nemo" line, "first day of school, first day of school."  As he grumbled out of bed I wondered to myself what his teenage years will be like waking him up.  Perhaps hide a few alarm clocks in his room.

This is the last year the two boys will be in the same school at the same time.  TJ got off to a good start on the Safety Patrol and Grant bounced out of the van ready to go!  Of course I had to roll down the window and call out to TJ, thoroughly embarrassing him in the process, to the howls of laughter from Mrs. Boat.

We are looking forward to a big year for both of them as TJ finishes elementary school and makes the jump to Middle School and Grant grows into smart young boy - although I can't agree with his choice of future career (even if he is a funny dude sometimes).  

Our Lucie may have sensed the long days ahead by herself in the house as she watched from the door.  I know she will be happy in a few hours when they come home.  

My First Post

Hello, my name is TJ.  

Summer is almost over.  I start school on Monday.

The best part of my summer was seeing my friends at Camp Seagull.  Camp Seagull is amazing and I wish I could say there for an extra month. I love all the activities at Camp, all the counselors I had, like Noah, Tripp, Matt, and Phillipe.

I love camp and I hope I can be a counselor one day.

 

Writers Unblock

The family journal has added two new writers, Samantha and TJ!  Adding two new fresh voices will be a lot of fun for the stories we tell and share.  

I am excited about for TJ because this will help add to his reading and writing proficiency.  Of course, Sam is a great writer, poet, and observer of the world - her perspective is well deserved here.

Solar-Eclipse-o-Mania

 

The Great Eclipse of 2017 passed over Fuquay Varina, NC, yesterday casting an eerie shadow over the spectators in our backyard. Lisa and I, the boys, Grandma, our neighbors Barb and Wayne, and even the guy installing our tile took time to witness this celestial event.

TJ - wearing safety approved glasses sent by Aunt Linda and brought over by Grandma - saw the beginning of the eclipse at about 1:15pm. It was a tiny sliver of the moon passing in front of the sun.  The boys were only semi-interested for the entire duration.  They just couldn't sit still for long enough to appreciate what they were watching.  The rest of us parked ourselves in the back yard for 90 more minutes. 

We had approved glasses and home made viewers (camera obscura) to view the sky. To be honest, the homemade viewers were going to be a kids project but their attention span was lacking so I did it for them.  

Steadily the sun grew to 94% occlusion.  As it did the heat of the day dissipated, crickets began to chirp louder, and the space around us got...darker.  It was a weird dark, as if one had sunglasses on or if someone dialed back the sun.  

It was neat event to witness as a family.  The last full solar eclipse was 38 years ago and there wasn't much from it for Lisa and I to recall, although I do remember being at my grandmother's house on Cromwell Hill Rd. in Monroe to watch it.  [I may have been just as interested in it back then as the kids were yesterday.]  The next solar eclipse is in 7 trips around the sun; the boys will be teenagers, Betty will be 92, and we will be able to watch it and say "remember the one from 2017?"  

Grant's Best Week Ever

It was the week of Grant recently as the youngest in the Brown family made a lot of firsts.  After years of being absolutely determined not to learn to ride a bike without training wheels, Grant let me take them off.  We have been down this road before, he tries, loses balance, falls, and quits.  This day was different.  He got it!  The times he did fall he brushed himself off and got back on and went again.  Within ten minutes he was going up and down the street and announced he wanted to ride around the lake.  As we headed off to Family Camp we loaded "little red" so that Grant could ride all over Camp Seafarer.  

Grant then amazed us by earning his white band during his swim test at Camp!  This was a huge milestone since he only earned a "non-swimmer" band in the beginning of the summer.  The white band allowed him to go off the Blue Zoom, Yard Arm, and even the Blob if he wanted to!  Grant did so well that he led off the first length of the Camp Seafarer Tri-Fam for the Brown family!  His swimming ability is a huge accomplishment for a boy who didn't even like to put his face in the water last year.

The next evening a bunch of campers went down to the back lake on Camp Seafarer to try some fishing.  The mechanics of setting the bale on a spinning reel did not stop him from trying over and over until he got it right.  And the only person to catch a fish that night was Grant!  The bass he caught was a beaut - even if he was afraid to hold it by its mouth.  

There are so many things to do at Family Camp.  Even though Grant was biking, swimming, fishing and having a great time at it, his favorite thing was motor boating on the Scouts.  Grant first went out with mommy and she sat right next to him at he steered and used the throttle.  The next time he went out, daddy sat at the front of the boat and gave him instructions on course and speed.  While mommy might like to sail, this boy likes motors.  

It was great watching all of this happen right in front of our eyes.  These are the moments that need to be enjoyed as they happen before they are replaced by more moments just like them; simple, yet wonderful and joyous events that make up a family.

Sam's Summer Visit

Sam came down to North Carolina to greet me as I came home and to spend some time connecting with the family and parts of her past.  It was a wonderful visit.

Sam has dialed back the drama in her life that swirled around people and issues beyond her control and has taken on new stressors like college, work, and the life skills required to be 20 years old.  Not that any of it is easy in the year 2017.  She finished her first year in college with a 4.0 and many recommendations for jobs and transfers from a college to a university.  She works for the school as an ambassador, her mother's store, and has started a social media campaign for local chef.  Yes, no doubt she is stressed but she is not being debilitated by it.  She is harnessing the stress to drive her forward.  She told me over dinner that she was afraid of going back to the way things used to be for her and I told her I just didn't see how that was possible.  

Sam is less and less at war with everything/everyone around her - especially herself.  While there are always, always set backs in life - Sam's trajectory has left that adolescent person far behind her.

That is probably because Sam is no longer a teenager!  She turned 20 years old while she was here and celebrated with her family at Macaroni Grill.  (Hard to believe she will be 21 next year).  We got her a cool double hammock that she now tots around with her where ever she goes.

We did some cool things like go to Raven Rock State Park and the USS North Carolina, and Sam spent time with her friends in the area by going to - of all things - a concert with Foreigner, Cheap Trick, and Jason Bonham's Led Zepplin Experience. 

Sam went to Family Camp with us to Camp Seafarer.  A place that she spent nine summers as a camper and counselor but didn't leave on the absolute best of terms with.  Going back to places like that can be challenging.  Sam loved Camp as a camper and I think it was one of most important parts of her young life.  She learned to sail and a love for the water that has stayed with her all these years later. After several years away - and a lot of changes in both Sam and Camp - the reunion could have been challenging.


Yet Sam embraced it completely, and if there were moments of regret or melancholy, we never saw them.  Sam threw herself into the "family" in Family Camp by blobbing, tubing, zip lining, running, playing and cheering!  Sam (and the rest of us) left it all on the table. 


Camp will always be in her, even when she isn't in Camp. 

Having Sam in the house is still a challenge for me.  She is 20 and does not live here, yet I still have an overwhelming need to do that parenting thing; where are you going, with who, when will you be back...it is aggravating for both of us but a responsibility we both have to abide by when she is with this family. I consider it practice for the boys.

And just like that she is back in New York.  Her trip back to New York was a mild disaster because her flight through to Syracuse from Philadelphia was cancelled and rather than spending the night in a hotel or the USO, Sam - ever the resourceful person she is - found four other people heading to Central NY and took an UBER with them.  

That's all for now but on an interesting side note, TJ just discovered that we "blog" and that a lot of the stories are about him; at least the ones from 2007 to 2010.  I hope it has started his appreciation for reading.