Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

  Ken and Sarah kicked off 2022 with a 25th anniversary cruise, then we bought a house after 10 years of renting in Austin!  We did some very “Austin-y” things by going to our first UT football game (Tian joined us and TJ, who has been to many games, was there, too!), and seeing Willie Nelson at a Beto rally. Tian (13) and Travis (14) started Mu Sool karate this year. In summer, they were pages with Jr.NAD ’s page program at the National Association of the Deaf biennial conference in Orlando, Florida, then traveled to Rochester, NY for a week of Tech Tigers Camp at NTID-RIT. Ken and Sarah stayed nearby at an AirBnB and visited Niagara Falls.  Both boys are halfway through 8th grade and will start high school next fall!! How is that possible?! TJ (19) started a new job at a water storage systems company. He worked 2 jobs all summer to buy a 1997 Corvette and has just enrolled for spring in the welding program at ACC.  Early this year, Kenzie (21) moved out to an a...

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!  No matter how long it's been since we last connected, reach out! And if you're ever in the Austin area, let us know and hopefully we can plan a driveway gathering! We only mailed out a handful of cards after years and years of not even creating a Christmas card. If you'd like a hard copy, let me know and I'll send one along in snail mail! Photo Highlights of 2020:   http://bit.ly/BrownXmas2020 2020 Christmas Letter Flowers drawn by Sarah 2020 started out like many other years as we went to work, visited friends, Sarah traveled to LA for work, Tian and Travis started track at Texas School for the Deaf and the whole family went to watch their track meets.  By the end of February, we had bought our first pack of masks and by early March, we were all quarantined at home.  In mid-March, we had a family meeting to discuss safety protocols and the rest of our 2020 has been under the cloud of the COVID pandemic. Ken and Sarah have been fo...

I'm super excited to share our meals and how we saved well over $400 during our vacation! **Check with your hotel to learn what appliances are/are not allowed. These meals can all be made in the microwave if a skillet cannot be used.** Originally, we had booked two standard rooms at Cabana Bay Beach Resort. When they offered us a great upgrade deal, we changed to a tower family suite with a kitchenette.  This ended up offering us a huge savings by allowing me to prepare 5 breakfasts, 4 dinners, and some snacks in our room.  The grands ate a few breakfasts and 3 dinners with us, so we were feeding 7-9 people at an average of $15.55 per meal!  (That's $1.73-$2.22 per person!) Big thanks to Trader Joe's for providing such high-quality, quick-prep foods!  (No, this isn't an ad or sponsored blog!) First of all, if there is any debate about the size of these "mini" fridges at Cabana Bay Beach, see this photo and notice the gallon of milk in the background. T...

If you're unfamiliar with the Fish Extender (FE) phenomenon on Disney Cruises, a simple Google search will quickly get you up to speed, but Dis gives an excellent description and this is one of my favorite blog posts about it. For the past 8 months, we've been a part of an active Facebook group consisting of about 350 of our cruise mates.  It's fun getting to know a bit about our fellow-travelers.  If you are going on a cruise, I highly recommend you join DisBoards or Cruise Critic so you can connect with others.  Our travel group has created tee shirts, booked mixology classes, teamed up for excursions, shared stateroom door decor  designs, and of course, organized a fish extender exchange...and a Halloween candy exchange....and an ornament exchange. (Don't let all this fun overwhelm you. We chose to participate in the FE gift exchange only, so you aren't required to do it all! It's meant to be fun, not stressful.)  We are looking forward to meeting up...