All we need to be happy

Well, we took a few pictures of this lovely place we're living! All we really need to be happy is a home and a good sunset, right? Well, I would have also put a picture of our nice new bed and car license plates, but those don't look as good in pictures.

This is our home, sweet, future home. We will live upstairs in this 150 year old carriage house--the gift shop is below.

Gorgeous sunsets

Sheep: George (above) and Penny (below)

Just Keep Sliding

Hi, it's Shaina here again! Friday, August 1, after that lovely lunch with Grandma Brown, Mel and I went to the Washington, MO Aquatic center for a little swim. We ended up spending the most time sliding down the cool water slide over and over and over. It took a lot of tries to actually catch each other in a picture. Finally we got some good ones!

Weeeehaww!!

Hi!

George--or should we say Martha--Washington hair

Mel definitely has a better sassy look than me... but I think Kiera Knightly could give us both lessons!

Sister Act Part II

Melody's visit gave us sisters the opportunity for many fun activities! Here are some more photos of the fun:

It's Shaina here again to report on the latest adventure: Mel, Em, and I decided to sew skirts together while Mel was visiting. It was quite the LONG day with plenty of exasperation and all of those familiar joys us sisters from the Brown family enjoy while we attempt to sew. The final result was quite nice, even if the journey was somewhat rocky!





Caution: Sisters sewing. Beware of moans of despair, pattern-wrinkling, pin pricks, and excessive stitch-picking!
















Lunch with Grandma:

Our Grandma Brown wisely took advantage of having 3 of her granddaughters in town all at once, and invited us all to lunch on Friday, August 1. An Applebee's treat! Thanks, Grandma!







Steve did get to come to the girls lunch, lucky little fellow! (that's his little head at the bottom)

Girls' Day!

Howdy, folks! It's Shaina here again! Monday, July 28th: Mel, Em, and I met at the mall and set up appointments at Sephora for free makeup consultations. Em watched while the ladies sponged, brushed, dabbed, and rubbed a plethora of products all over our faces. Steve was a patient boy to be out on this girly adventure!

Hi, Steve!

POKE

squint

dab... stab

mmm, it tastes good!

The finished products-- with lips like these, we MUST kiss something cute...

I think we've tortured Steve enough for a day!

Shaina's FIRST EVER Dress Sewing Adventure

Hello, friends! It's your favorite Shaina in the world here, and I just thought I'd show you my latest adventure: I sewed a whole entire dress for the first time in my life on Monday (July 7th)!

The dress is for my job at the Historic Boone home, so I can be in "period clothes" to give tours of Daniel Boone's last home. I borrowed a sewing machine from two friends here, and got right to work. My first barrier was learning how to use a sewing machine that is NOT Mom's lovely 20 year old perfect machine that I've done all my other sewing on in the past.

Once I cleared that hurdle, the sewing part wasn't all too bad. I managed to master my emotions in times of despair, and I finished the dress without any breakdowns, and amazingly with no outside help (unless you count the time I had to ask Jeff if he could figure out what the sewing machine instruction manual picture meant when it illustrated how to thread the machine...) Victory is mine!

I was astounded that the sleeves actually WORKED for me on my first try!

After sewing the sleeves to the bodice, it was definitely time for a cookie break!

...and here is the skirt sewed to the top!

...the back....

Tuesday (July 8th) I wore my new dress to work without the hem done, and then came home and added a little white ruffle to give it a tad more length. The back still has to be pinned closed, but I plan to sew velcro on because I can't wake Jeff up to have him button me up EVERY morning before work--he has to stay up late for his job! Plus, I read that women technically did not start using buttons on the backs of their dresses until after 1815-ish, and this dress is supposed to fit the turn of the century time period. I have different fabric to make one more dress like this one so I can alternate days! Yay! Well, there you have it: my very first real life dress sewing adventure!

Gwynn Family Reunion

June 26-28, we went to San Francisco for the 50th anniversary reunion celebration of Grama and Grampa Gwynn (Shaina's Mom's parents). It was a QUICK but fun family gathering. First prize goes to Aunt Stefani for putting it all together! Another first prize goes to Grama and Grampa for FUNDING it all!!!! It was so good to have the WHOLE entire Gwynn side of the family together--4 generations! (the first time we've ALL been together in over 20 years!)

First stop: Alcatraz. How many people do YOU know on this boat?

Alcatraz materializes through the mist...

Walking up up up "the Rock" to the prison.

In a scary, tiny Alcatraz cell.

The next day, we went to the Muir Woods to see the Redwoods. They were HUGE!

Here's baby Steve INSIDE a redwood!

Mom and Shaina supporting sore necks: looking UP at those tall trees made our necks ache!

Shaina talking with the amazing MASTERMIND of the reunion, Aunt Stefani. It's nice to talk eye to eye with a female!

The Golden Gate Bridge right before Jeff, Dad, and Shaina ran across it. The wind and fog were intense! It was exhillerating to look over the edge into the swirling, scary water.

A Shaina special photo at the Muir Woods. These flowers smelled SO GOOD.

Grampa giving Grama her corsage. I love my grandparents!

The Brown kids after the celebration banquet. This is the last time we'll all be together for at least 2 years, since Brad is leaving on his mission to Portugal at the end of July!
I love my family.

Defiance, MO: The Final Frontier

We moved from our Park Avenue St. Louis apartment to Highway F in Defiance, MO on Tuesday, June 24th. We rented a U-haul cargo van (15 passenger size), packed everything, loaded the van, cleaned the apartment, drove to Defiance, unloaded the van, and returned the van to the rental location (30 minutes away) all in less than 5 hours!!!! It was exhausting, but we made it! Our apartment above the gift shop is being rennovated, so we are staying in the VanBibber House (a Boone married a VanBibber and the built this house around 200 years ago I'm pretty sure). We are living with another employee who is waiting for his lodging to be remodeled as well. What a nice happy family! haha.

This is the front of the house. I love the pink mimosa tree!

This is the road that wraps around back of the house and goes between 2 ponds. We do our laundry in that building in the distance across the pond on the left. Behind the barn in the foreground, there is a little one-room schoolhouse to the right.

An artistic Jeff-photo of the right side of the house. The 2 summer interns live in that cabin.

Our 12-Day Apartment

Well, after nearly 6 weeks of staying with Em and Jesse and Steve, and no luck finding any kind of jobs, we decided to just take a step in to the dark abyss and sign a 1 year apartment lease for a cute little place on Park Avenue in St. Louis (3.5 miles from the Arch). We moved in Thursday, June 12th. The next day, we got a phone call from our wonderful 'ole coach/friend, Coach Wright. He had heard of a job at Lindenwood University's Boone Campus, so he invited us out to visit and meet the dean there. Well, to make a short story shorter, 3 days after we signed the lease in St. Louis, we were already planning on moving again! We did stay in our fun little Park Avenue apartment for 12 days, so here are a few photos of this little home:

Our first dinner in our new apartment: ham broccoli "faux-fredo"

Our bedroom... well, if there is no bed, what do you call it? Our sleeping room!

Shaina was playing with her ribbon twirler when Jeff decided to take pictures of the place. This is our living room.

That was a great little kitchen. Sigh.
Onward!!!!

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Sunday, June 1st, Jeff turned 26!!!! He requested his Mom's special lemon cake, so Shaina called her up and got the recipe. For his birthday dinner, Jeff made himself his favorite pizzas: chicken curry cream and a variation of his classic white bacon heart-attack pizza-- the birthday pizza had diced ham and sliced potatoes in the yummy sauce. Needless to say, everyone else in the house enjoyed the pizzas with him, so we were all happy to celebrate Jeff's birthday!




Jeff blowing out candles looks like Zoolander's Blue Steel!
















Jeff almost blew them all out in one breath-- good thing there weren't actually 26 candles or else he may still be blowing them out!

Frisbeeeeeee!

Saturday, May 17, we went to a field by the middle school and played frisbee together for the first time in months! It was so fun and refreshing to frolick around in the grass and sunshine. How did we take these pictures, you may wonder... well, we got our tripod out and one person threw the frisbee and quickly snapped pictures of the other running and catching it. The powerful wind made catching the frisbee extra challenging!

Go Jeff, GO!

Yay! A catch!

Nice save.

Throwing the frisbee sure made our arms sore!

Graduation!

After 3 years (Jeff)/3.5 years (Shaina), we graduated from our beloved school, Southern Virginia University. We were SO glad to have a sunny, breezy day to graduate so we could have the ceremony outside in front of Main Hall, instead of in the gym. The sun was pretty hot beating down on us in those nice black robes, but the wind finally picked up after we graduated and cooled us off nicely... and took Shaina's hat with it. It feels SO good to graduate! We will miss SVU and all of the good times and great friends we had there. SIGH. "Real life," here we come!



Walking buddies-- ready to graduate! We had to walk 2 by 2, and we were lucky to be next to each other.




Only at SVU does the president of the university give you a hug when you graduate. It is so nice to have the president know you by name. Here he is hugging Jeff. (Shaina is walking up the steps at the far right).




Triumphant Jeff after recieving his diploma and hug. In the background, that's Shaina talking with President Smith. He informed us both that we were supposed to have received gold cords for having a high GPA! oh well. At least we have the knowledge.




Shaina walking back with her diploma. That hat would not stay on straight! Her brain must not have grown enough in college...




Diplomacy.




Jeff with all of his fellow philosophy graduates and their professors (nice tassel in the face--it was windy!)




The support crew. Thanks for coming all the way from Washington state, parents! It really meant a lot to us.