February can get dreary but we made the best of it.

January is long and February remains dreary but we get to celebrate 2 birthdays and I'm a lover of Valentines day.  So all in all, it was a good month.  But time is just flying by now, I can't believe we are entering the final count down to school being over!  I've been really into getting my house organized and living as minimalist as a family of 7 can live.  We are not minimalists but what I've done thus far has been such an improvement and it is much easier to keep the house clean.  I'm really trying to break the habit of consumerism.  I like the lifestyle of using less resources and buying high quality and materials that are sustainable.  Small things like taking our own bags to the grocery store but we also take our own cloth bags for produce.  Anyway, if I'm not careful, I'll be talking about astrological stuff and Mercury in Retrograde before you know it.  Gotta be careful with me around rabbit holes.  

But while we're on the woo woo topic, on the 5th of the month, which was Lunar New Year but also a New Moon.  So I hung out with my people in a teepee for a New Moon ceremony.  One of my happy places is in a teepee, with drums, meditation and like minded spiritual people 

The smart girl that I am, I planned a workshop for Ryan to teach in Moab.  They pay him to come down and pay for his hotel and then I get to hang out in Moab all day.  Who's the smarty?  I'm the smarty.  We ended up bringing Abbey, Charlie and Aiden with us and left Cloe and Brody home alone on a school night.  eeeek.  Because it was a school night and I knew they had to wake up early, I knew we would be safe of house parties.  But Moab is so beautiful.  The girls and I went to brunch because we're fancy.  Or you could just call it a late breakfast.  Then we went for a nice hike and eventually made our way to the workshop.  The HS students that attended were surprisingly good.  We were very impressed.  

February commenced the basketball season.  Aiden and Charlie were so fun to watch.  They're athletic but also aggressive.  Charlie made it clear to me that should would not go to any of her games and that I was wasting my money.  Of course she ended up loving it.  She doesn't love the idea of new things.  They make her little nervous.  

Valentines day is one of my favorite holidays.  I love all the holidays but I think in a dreary and cold winter, adding red, pink and white to my house makes it all better.  My kids love our tradition of a romantic dinner and it's always fun to eat a candle lit dinner.  

Ryan also has a tradition of dressing nice and bringing the girls flowers and chocolate to them while they're at school.  It helps a lot that it embarrasses some of them because parents aren't parenting correctly if they aren't embarrassing their kids. 

There is an instagrammer that is a therapist and a big advocate for self acceptance and love.  She is for sure doing her part squashing the beliefs that diet culture create.  She hosted a self love dance party so I bought 2 tickets.  Once for me and one for a gal that I know can really cut a rug.  Cloe is cool enough to go dancing with her old ma.  I think she had fun.  I did and that's all that matters. 

Cloe went ahead and turned 17 this year.  She is our straight A student and she is starting to see the benefits of that.  She is getting letters from colleges before even applying.  She loves to cook and is considering taking culinary classes her senior year off campus and then who knows from there.  When you have good grades and a good ACT score you give yourself plenty of options. 

Abbey turned 14 on the 20th.  She's our little social butterfly and is CONSTANTLY asking me if she can go places with her friends.  It gets exhausting.  For her birthday, she requested that I check her and her friends out for lunch and they go to Costa Vida.  But she is witty and her spam instagram account always makes me laugh.  She begged for her own room and now that she has it, she is too scared to sleep in there and is still sleeping with Charlotte and Aiden.  When they say no, she floats around until she can sneak her way into bed with someone.  

Luckily for us, my cousins birthday is this month.  She lives in AZ but decided to come to UT for her birthday to celebrate with family.  She rented the neatest cabin and invited us to join.  The highlight was the bunkbed room.  It was a wall of bunkbeds, and very comfortably slept 8.  We had so much fun.  My mom pulled the kids around the property on sleds. 

soooooooo....this is happening

it's been calling me.  i've been drawn back in.  of course, this has required me to do some dusting and of course seeing if it sparked joy in me.  clearly it did, because i've folded it up nicely and it didn't end up in the "get rid of pile".  

i think that it is important that we tell our story and write it down. i have felt a pull to do that for a while but the hand writing part of it has kept me procrastinating.  for now, i'm just going to do a monthly post, kind of up date thing and go from there.  i do have a story to tell.  i have changed, evolved and grown.  i'll tell my complete story eventually.  i love this blog.  i love looking back and seeing what we were doing and how we have changed but also, the type of person i was and what has helped get me to where i am now.  

if you're new here, the excitement and entertainment really happened in 2007 and 2008 when we were living in florence, italy.  honestly, how do you continue blogging after that?

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here it is, first photo on 2019.  cloe and i made a delicious brunch.  Cloe has discovered the joy of cooking and baking.  she is vegetarian so her recipes tend to get more expensive than the average recipe and some times are appealing to just a vegetarian.  but she is almost 17! and we love making as much from scratch together.  this meal even included fresh squeezed OJ.

my little sister is living in town with my mom while her husband is deployed in Japan.  She is really loving having free babysitting.  all. the. time.  we see those 2 little ones at our house often.  but they sure are cute and it's fun to get to know them since they have always lived out of state.  

i recently heard a podcast about this girl that would have a once a month night of abundance with her friend.  they get dressed up and go out to eat somewhere new and don't worry at all about the cost.  they only have positive conversations and they talk about their goals and accomplishments.  i love this idea.  i decided to incorporate it into my life.  i don't have a date yet, so i am taking volunteers.  shortly after hearing the podcast, this one dress a month for a year instagrammer showed up in my life.  you could go hear her speak about her experience and the creative process and see the dresses.  oh, and the dress code was semi formal.  so i bought a ticket for my mom and i.  it was a nice evening celebrating another woman accomplishment and enjoying her work.  these dresses were incredible and beautiful!  she designed them all herself and sewed them.  and she didn't use patterns!

i do have to apologize because i feel like you got ripped off.  i wrote a pretty sweet blog post yesterday that included the same info but just, you know, written better.  i couldn't pull out the humor this time.  or the capitalization of letters.  

everyone gather in a circle, hands in.  on the count of 3, 1..2..3..COURTNEY!  alright!  we've got this, i'm doing this. 

eeeeeeeefffffffffff!!!!! I just did a fantastic post that was full of update, humor and wit.  gone. screw you old computer!

HEY-YO!

Clearly waiting until I pull pictures from Ryan's computer so that everything can be in chronological order is not going to happen anytime soon.  Also, my computer finally decided to unload my phones pictures without requiring me to reset my phone to it's 2012 settings.  So we shall start right here.  What is going on right now, right here on June 21st.  Most importantly, it's summer!  Summer, I love you, please don't ever leave me.  I'll buy you anything you want, just don't leave.  I've never ever said anything bad about you, even if you reach record breaking hot temperatures.  I love no school, I love the warmth, I love my garden and yard and I love lazy days going and doing whatever comes up.

I should note that we did have some major events happen in the last year.  Last July we had a Brown family reunion in Yellowstone.  Camped for 5 nights. In a tent.  yep.  But dat place is bootiful.  School started with us having a foreign exchange student from Spain.  She lived with us for the entire school year.  It was a growing experience.  I finally was blessed with the patience I prayed for back when my first 3 children were young.  Won't be doing that again any time soon now will we.  In October we took our big family vacay down to the happiest place on earth.  That of course being Disneyland.  Spent 5 days at the residence of Mickey Mouse and had a joyous time.  All the kids minus Aiden learned to ski this year.  I tried but the patience I was learning from the exchange student left me with no more to teach Aiden.  Maybe we will re visit that in 4 years.  Then in February, Ryan and I hopped on a jet plane and headed to Paris, France.  We went for pleasure and also to make some final decisions on wether we think its feasible to move there and if so, where?  Let me tell ya, that place is eh-spensive BUT the food, sites, culture, bread, cheese and location to other countries make up for that.  No dates of moving were made and it's still our goal and dream we talk about.  After a week in Paris we boarded a plane to Dubai.  Waiting to board was a bit weird because I felt like after everything my American media has taught me, I should not be getting on this plane with all of these Muslims.  Yeah, sounds racist, but just keeping it real.  Now I should add, after visiting a Muslim country, my opinion has changed.  I found them to be wonderful people.  The UAE was wonderful and life changing.  I liked it more than France.  The food was so flavorful and cheap.  It was so different than any place I have ever been culturally and scenery.

And that speeds us forward to the end of May when school ended.  Charlotte finished 1st grade and her first year of French immersion, Abbey finished 5th, Brody finished 7th and Cloe finished 8th.  Yes, she is now in High School!  Our exchange student went home June 1st.


At Cloe's 8th grade graduation.


kicking off summer.  Memorial day floating on the river in Diamond Fork Canyon


Abbey and Cloe left for camp on the same day.  Abbey went to 5th grade camp at camp Big Springs and Cloe went to Girls Camp in Heber.  Abbey kind of had fun, it was a long week away from home and a flushable toilet for her.  We both cried when I picked her up and we hugged.


Doing a polar bear plunge


With her bud Lauryn at Girls Camp.

They asked Ryan to come up one day and teach a sketching class.  The other classes they could choose from were bracelet making, archery with a PVC pipe bow and arrow AND balloon animal making!  Sounds so character building.  Way to teach these girls life skills!





It didn't help that while Cloe was doing bull crap girls camp, Brody was away at Scout camp in southern Utah hiking and river rafting and having an amazing time.


My friend and I went for a 10 mile hike in our local mountains.  The final destination was this meadow and it was so worth it.  Beautiful view surrounded by greenery all around.


We sat and contemplated life for a while.


The ole' (actually new, it was just built last year) reservoir.  We have spent days and many hours here.  It's nice to be all hot and dip in the freezing water.


Cloe, Brody and Abbey are currently taking tennis lessons through the city.  Luckily there is a park to play on for Charlotte and Aiden.  Oh wait, no, they choose to play in the creek that runs through the park.  It's all good, I love how thrilling it is for them, they feel so brave.

A nice lunch date with this cutie at Two Jack's Pizza before school.  Their pizza is so delicious and their store is part of a gas station.  

Valentine's Day shenanigans.  Cloe didn't "have a Valentine" Like her brother and sister did but she still wanted to do something fun for someone so she bought a stuffed animal, candy and balloon for a boy in her grade that gets made fun of a lot.  And then made some hand made Vantines for her friends.  But, the boy got checked out early before she could deliver it and a girl at school tangled all the strings of the necklaces and she was only able to give out 3.  kind of a bummer day for her. 

Abbey on the other hand, came to the car with a bouquet of flowers from her Valentine.  She gave him a stuffed dog and a candy bar.  

after school, we headed up to the Utah Natural History museum to meet Grandma Brown.  Such a cool museum and then she gave them their valentine present of donuts :)

um, I have a 13 year old!!!

Our best friends the Cox were in town from Alaska and we got to hang out with them a few times.  I loved it and so did the kids.  

Abbey turned 10 on the 20th

Cloe's rec basketball team won the championship and ended the season undefended.  It sucks to play the good team, but when you are on the good team, it sure makes the season fun.  am i right?

Cloe's birthday party was at the Provo Rec Center.  

Abbey's birthday party at Lowe's Extreme Air time.  Tons of trampolines and foam pits and a trapeze swing and a park core area.  The kids loved it.

My sister has gone back to work and I am now babysitting her little boy, Ledger.  Aiden loves "baby ledger".  It's fun to have a baby a few days a week.

The road by us that leads to our church is closed so now we have to take a very round a bout way to get there.  Instead, we walk of bike there.  Cloe reliving the Italy days.  I have a picture of her riding on Ryan's bike like this.  I told her, next time make sure Aiden wears a helmet....

And one more of this cute little guy.

My Biz

If you have had any contact with me in the last year then you already know I've started a business educating people about Natural Health Care and more specifically the use of doTERRA essential oils.  It all started when my mom started using them.  I thought she was CRAZY!  So if you think that about me, just wait, you'll change ;)
I was pregnant with Aiden and she gave me peppermint oil to use for my heart burn.  I never used it.  Until one night, because that's when the heartburn gets the worst, I was out of Tums and forced to use the oils.  Guess what, it worked.  And not only did it work, my heartburn seemed to occur less and less.  Then after baby was born, she gave me some diluted lavender oil for diaper rash.  Viola', it worked, it smelt good and it wasn't made of chemicals that I was rubbing on my babies skin.  I was convinced.  I started to use them more and more and even bought a few bottles for myself.  A while later a friend of mine contacted me about doing doTERRA as a business.  Sharing these oils with people, educating them on what they are and how to use them and selling them as well.  I felt that people NEEDED to know about these oils and here I am.  Changing lives, one drop at a time.  I believe in these oils because they give us an option, we don't have to always rely on Western medicine and I believe in them because they work.  Ask my non-beleiving husband.  Oh, he knows.  He just hates the smell.
And they are often cheaper!  I use Melaleuca for an ear infection.  It costs $.06 per drop and I apply 2 drops on the outside of the ear, 3 times a day for 2 days.  That's less than $2 to treat an ear infection!  Normally you pay a co pay, pay for a prescription, and then have to take antibiotics for 10 days which destroys your gut.
Think about a natural disaster, medicine isn't accessible and you betta believe the pharmacy shelves will clear fast.  What will you use?  Yes, these can be stored in your food storage and will last longer than we will.
I specifically use doTERRA because of their purity and quality.  I know it is a company I can trust.  It's a company built on integrity and you know that when you listen to or meet their executives, warm loving and grateful people.  They are also huge humanitarians.  When I teach my classes, I have to be conscious that I don't talk too much about my love for their humanitarian work.  They make sure the money goes in the pockets of the people that do all the work.  No middle man ripping off the 3rd world farmers doing all the work to support their family.
My goal with my business is to get a bottle of doTERRA essential oil in every home and to eventually support my family.  I asked Ryan what it would mean to him if I made enough to pay the bills plus some.  His response, "I could finish a painting instead of just painting it to the point that it can sell.  And I could paint what I really want to paint."  That was motivation for me :)

highlight of our summer

An incredibly vague catch up post like my last one wouldn't be complete with out the highlight of our 2014 summer.  Raphael, our foreign exchange student from France.  He stayed with us for 3 weeks in July and we had thee best time.  My kids loved hanging out with him, Ryan and I enjoyed talking to him and having him around and we did a lot of fun things while he was here.  We had to show him what America was all about.

First stop, Sodalicious.  A soda shop with more flavor mix- ins and soda concoctions than you would think possible.  He loved it.  

 Since he is in Utah, the Mecca for Mormons, we showed him our heritage and I'm sure he's seen more than most Mormons in France.  (He is Catholic) 

 What's more American than a rodeo?

 Camping because the French don't camp.  He enjoyed himself and we went to a beautiful spot on the Nebo Loop.  There was no one around us so it was quiet and the kids could play and run around without distracting people.  My mom, niece Persayes, Stacy and her kids, Gavin and Tiana and Ryan's dad camped with us.  It was a lot of fun and I camped 2 nights without taking a shower, that was a big accomplishment for me. 

 We made him drive our big Suburban

 Seven Peaks.  Our family had season passes and Ryan's brother was able to get him a season pass as well.  Which was great because we could get into Seven Peaks, Laser Tag and a baseball game all for free. 

 We spent a day up in Park City and rode the roller coaster.  It was so fun.  I didn't know what to expect, but you go down a track on these cars and you aren't really supposed to use your breaks so it is all gravity.  And you gain a lot of speed.  My age really showed because I was scared but still really fun.

 We also rode the Alpine Slides.  

 We took Gavin and Tiana, our cousins with us to Park City and after taking them home, I remembered that it was Tuesday, kids eat free at Ikea on Tuesdays.  Dinner was served.  Free.  Catching on to all the free?  He was a bit surprised with how many things we did for free.

 Baseball game.  I've never had to explain the rules and concepts of a baseball game before :)

 More camping.  Brody loved sharing his room with Raphael and having another boy in the house.  He was also very tolerable of all my kids but especially Brody.  Brody was always wanting to rough house with Raphael.  While camping, we also took him shooting.  He shot a .22, 9mm and a shotgun.  He loved the shotgun. 

Sad, sad day.  We sent him on his way back to France.  Hopefully sooner than later we can visit him over in France.  We loved having Raphael and want to host again but would be worried we won't get someone as cool and easy going and just all around good kid as Raphael.