Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Wild Summer of '13

It has been almost 5 months since I have posted on our blog (which by the way will be suspended in December until we return from New Zealand...but do not fear we will be doing a mission blog again too!)

Our summer started out early in May when our sweet Autumn came home from Madagascar for her three weeks home leave! She will be heading to Chaughcharan, Afghanistan to set up schools in the rural province of Ghor for a year or two! She traveled with me back to New York City, where Ammon and Ailene joyfully provided grandbaby number 8! It was very kind of Aden to make his appearance during the few days that we were there!

June was designated our vacation trip to Utah and we were so happy to see many of our dear friends from our mission in Japan. We also enjoyed a great Brown reunion. Our itinerary changed drastically when we found out our daughter-in-law, who was 71/2 months pregnant was having partial seizures. Tests confirmed a brain tumor, so most of our summer has been spent with trips to and from Utah. It was a blessing to be available to help these kids! We love them so!


Having Autumn home for a month was 
so much fun!! She is a very popular Auntie!


Autumn flew to New York with me and we got to be there when Aden Anthony Brown made his 
debut on May 18th. Such a little sweetheart! Aden makes #8 grand baby!!


June found us heading to Utah for a Brown reunion and some R&R....little did we know that great difficulty was awaiting our sweet kids!

Had a great lunch and a super visit with all of our Japan missionary friends that live in the Utah area. We are so blessed!


Brown Family reunion in Hyrum, UT was so much fun!


I had fun with the grand kids that were able to come to the reunion!


Had a mini reunion with my sisters family while we were in the area. Cousins galore!


My sister June and her hubby Rodney are always so welcoming 
no matter how many Browns show up!


While Doyle and I were home for a few days, he was able to bless 
precious little Liora. She is Haven's #4 and as sweet as she can be! 
The kids sure love their Auntie Ariel!


The end of June found us back in Utah for the C-section birth of Caleb Nelson Brown.
After determining that Becky would need surgery and chemo and radiation,
Caleb was brought into the world a month early so that Becky's treatments could get underway.


Here is our "little" man mid Aug. Healthy and adorable weighing 
in at nearly 10 pounds!


Micah's lovely family is coping well and things are looking up for our sweet Rebecca.
There will still be many months of treatment and recovery, 
but we all feel optimistic incredibly blessed!


What a good example these kids are! Celebrating their 7th wedding anniversary
with big smiles on their faces!


Becky's mother, Shelly and I spent a lot of time with these two darling girls
while mama and baby Caleb napped!


 We are waiting for this little man's body to catch up with these cheeks!


After another few weeks in Utah, Ariel flew from Moses Lake and we met in Oakland to 
see my brother David for his 48th birthday. It has been too long since we paid a visit
and it was so good to see him!


We also found that our friends from Tokyo, The Havard family was living in Pleasanton!
What a wonderful surprise- so we stopped in for a visit! 


We also had a great visit with our nephew Lynn and his wife Tami and their two little ones.
Alas, I was too busy holding babies to pull out my camera! Fortunately Ariel did get a quick photo of Abigail....born at 26 weeks, she is doing remarkably well!


While we were in California, we drove half way to Sacramento to meet 
up with my niece Wendy and her charming new husband, Kent. We were unable to 
attend their wedding, so it was nice to spend a few hours over dinner!

Aden is growing so fast!!

 After much hinting from Ammon, the new daddy who has "the best kid in the world" 
Doyle and I hopped a plane to NYC on Sept 5th where we enjoyed a few days with 
Ammon, Ailene, Aden, Dan and his girl Sandra.


Doyle made the appropriate ohhing sounds, much to 
the gratification of mom and dad!


Dan has himself a keeper with Sandra. We think she is super!
(and she plays a mean game of Scrabble)


Doyle was excited to tour the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier. An SR71 Blackbird 
and a Concorde were available to view as well. 
The highlight was the Enterprise Space Shuttle that took our breath away!


 Sorry this was so long, but the last few months have not been conducive to blogging! So now you are up to date on the Browns...like it or not!!!

1 comment:

  1. Great post, Mom! Great to see all of the pictures :-) Love you!

    ReplyDelete