Summer 2026

It's been a while since I checked in here. Summer 2026 has been good to us. I've been enjoying the slow pace of the days, floating around the pool, taking more half-day trips to the beach than ever before, and of course, reading a lot. We do a roll call multiple times a day, as we attempt to keep up with the comings and goings of our kids. "Who's here?" "How many plates am I setting?" Many are the times we ask one another or the family group chat, "Where's Thomas?" 

Tim and I gave our bedroom a refresh after six years living here, and I love it so much, can't wait to share. It's waiting on just a couple finishing touches.

I'll call Annie's and Thomas's birthdays on May 19 and 17, respectively, our unofficial start of summer. Annie is 17 and going into her senior year of high school. She's had a busy summer with a babysitting job in addition to her work at a little restaurant downtown on weekends. The cheer season started again in July, and so now we don't see much of her.

Thomas turned 4 and got a little dirt bike for his birthday. He is quite a little talker, incorporating catchphrases like "not gonna lie", "if you ask me, " and "that's what I'm talkin' about" into conversations. He also makes pronouncements that don't entirely make sense, such as, "This bath is freedom of life." He's getting to be such a big boy, but he is still a mama's boy 100%. He tells me he loves me about 20 times a day, and is very affectionate. Every night I tuck him into bed with a ghost story, and I have a few that I made up, as creepy as I could imagine. Think of abandoned places with lots of dust and cobwebs, strange sounds, and poltergeists. Thomas looks at the ghosts and ghouls as they make their appearance in Lowe's every late summer, as his old friends. He went to see Spider-Man last night, his first movie in a theater. Tim said he definitely had ants in his pants after the first thirty minutes, but he was at least quiet. He says he liked it.

my Mother's Day flowers

We went to Topsail end of June/ beginning of July, this time with Dad and Scotty and Grace and their families.

We had a full "strawberry moon," and it was spectacular watching it rise every night.

Aspen's fiance Noah came along this time. They're getting married in November, and Delaney, Thomas and I will be going to Cincinnati for the wedding.

The thing that had me bawling the morning we left was the thought of how these little boys were such buddies all week.

The kids love nighttime crab hunts.

This isn't so bad to come home to.

Delaney had a good first year of college, and she traveled a lot more than I expected her to, all throughout the year. She came home many times, but she also took weekend trips other places, most notably New York City to see the musical Hadestown. She drove there from Boone for a three-day weekend, as in did all the driving while her friends snoozed the whole way, and parked the car and everything. How is she my child? 

She made plans to see The Outsiders (for the fourth, or maybe fifth time-- who's counting, she could never see The Outsiders enough times!) in Richmond, VA, with a couple close friends this past spring. Tim reserved her a hotel in walking distance, but with 24 hours until check-in time, they discovered a snag in their plans: the hotel required guests to check in in-person, and none of them were 21. I volunteered to be the over 21 adult in the room, and I met them there the afternoon before the show. It was a rare opportunity to just be tagging along with her and her friends, and I saw a really funny side of her. For instance, when the elevator doors were closing as we were walking up, she karate-chopped her hand right into them. One of the girls remarked in mock disapproval, "College has changed you, Delaney."

She worked at Harris Teeter most of the summer. She went for a quick trip to Massachusetts with Tim and Timmy, and she saw Noah Kahan in Raleigh a couple weeks ago. She has a nest on our living room loveseat where she does her crafts and watches YouTube, and she has many things in reach for whatever mood hits. It's back to school for her in a little over a week.

Joey at ten-and-a-half has been living his best life, riding his dirt bike and fishing with his friends, being invited on their boats, spending as little time at home as possible, and staying in the same clothes for as long as he can get away with. He'll start fifth grade in a few weeks.

Tim, Delaney, and Timmy drove up to Massachusetts last month, stopping along the way in Annapolis, MD, for a tour of the Naval Academy. It was just for fun, not a real college tour for anyone, but all the same I did mention to Timmy while I was on the phone with Tim that I'd be a proud mama to be see him in those dress whites.:)

If we hear some noise in the kitchen late at night, we can be almost sure it's Timmy; if we hear cereal being poured into a bowl we know it's Timmy. (If we hear the ice dispenser, it's Annie.) Nothing hits the spot for him like a bowl of cereal at midnight. He loves playing on his Xbox, he makes a mean quesadilla, and is loving driver's ed. He just came in from his last lesson all smiles. The soccer season at school has started again, and that gets him outside for a couple hours a day. 

Once a month I volunteer to teach the Budget for Baby class at the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society on Cherry Point, where Tim works as director. One rainy Friday morning as I was wrapping up a class I told the participants that although many people don't like the word "budget," having one actually gives you freedom within the limits you set, so that you can enjoy your money and be generous to others. A few minutes later, Tim joined me at the door as we chatted with one of the expectant couples a few extra minutes after everyone else had left. At one point Tim looked at me and said, "She doesn't like the word budget." 😶 

I meant every word I said, but admittedly the subject has not always been a favorite of mine, especially if I look back ten or fifteen years. As with anything else in life that requires discipline, it's much easier to talk the talk than walk the walk.

I might be back to teach my next class, we'll see.😆

One last thing, happy birthday to my dad and brother, Scott Sr and Scott Jr! 

Boone trip

We took a little trip last month to Boone, NC, to see Delaney. We stayed in this house, along with Tim's parents and his sisters Sam and Karen, and loved it. It's right off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We did some sightseeing around the town and school, a little bit of hiking, celebrated Tim's birthday, and watched Delaney perform with the Appalachian State marching band. Tim, Tim Sr, and his sisters went to the football game too.

We arrived at the house that first day just as the sun was starting to set, and it was so dreamy inside and out. Most of my pictures are terrible; you should see the VRBO listing. This cute little porch was the first sight to greet us.

We went out to lunch a couple times, but with the area as crazy as it is (it's a tourist attraction both for the school and just leaf-peeping in the mountains), the best meals were the ones we shared at the big table in the house. Lucky for us, Tim enjoys cooking. And we all enjoy not having to creep up and down the busy streets looking for a parking spot, or have to wait a long time in a restaurant with some fidgety little kids.

We really didn't know what to expect, going into a whole Saturday spent hanging around App State on a football game day. But it turned out to be my favorite day of the trip. We had a big area to spread out in, and the boys could run around without us having to worry. I took my Birkenstocks off and put my feet in the grass, and took in the atmosphere of a college campus on a fall day. Delaney and the rest of the Marching Mountaineers made their way over from practice, and her section (clarinets) did its own practice right in the same spot we'd been parked in for hours. Then they moved to the field with the others to put on the same show they would later do at halftime. It was fantastic! Delaney is having the best time, I can tell, and I'm so happy for her.

Sam's t-shirt says, "I'm here for the band." She was in her college marching band too. 

After the band performance, I left with Carolyn and the boys. We had a quick Chick-Fil-A dinner back at the house, and then got ready and left for Mass. It was a busy end to an already long day, but the boys were mostly good for us. I think all the barefoot outside time that day had mellowed me out pretty well too.

We saw this on the way back to the house. 

 Tim and his dad and sisters went to the game, and here are some pictures they took.

As for me, instead of a football game, this was my view at the end of the day, and it wasn't too bad. 

Tim and I agreed that with all the hustle and bustle of our days in Boone, we could have used an extra couple days to just hang out at the house and enjoy nature more. The crowds and the traffic were so thick in Boone and Blowing Rock. Maybe next year we can do this same weekend, but make it a little longer. We'll see.

The view from the deck on Sunday morning; it went from warm and sunny to cold and rainy just like that.

Remembering Aunt Miriam

My mother was the tenth of Robert and Miriam Franer's thirteen children, and the oldest of her siblings was their mother's namesake, Miriam Julia. My grandmother had a new baby every year, and so it was inevitable that the siblings grew up incredibly close, one another's best friends and defenders; and the older ones helped raise the younger ones. Together they celebrated milestones, mourned deaths, and stopped by one another's houses for no reason at all and usually without calling. I know my mom's door was always open, and there was cold pop (that's Coke or Pepsi for all you non-Midwesterners!) in the fridge for whoever was stopping by. There's no telling how many godchildren each of the siblings has. Their closeness and number ensured that their kids grew up with an experience that's becoming increasingly scarce in America--that of growing up in a village.

Miriam and her husband Jack lived a few miles away from our first home, with their two kids: Sam (Samuel), who was two years older than me, and Nancy, who was a year younger than me. My mom and her sisters would meet up often at one of their houses or another when we were little, and they'd all sit around the kitchen table while we cousins ran around. As a little girl who was at the table some of the time, I would enjoy the snacks, absorb as much of the adult conversation as I could, and snuggle my doll in imitation of the way Mom and Connie cared for their babies. It was during one of our visits at her house that she told her sisters she wanted to be known as the "beneficent aunt." If I had to guess the context, it was probably a child getting a treat that perhaps her mother didn't feel was warranted at the time.

A few of the Franer sisters on vacation in Florida in 1985, left-right: Miriam, Amy (my mom, pregnant with Anna), Liz, Ann, Connie, and my grumpy photo bomb.

I remember hiding behind the furniture in their living room, waiting to surprise my mom when she arrived from the hospital, accompanied by my aunt Maggie, with my new baby sister Anna.

When I say we vacationed together, I really do mean together--a single beach house might contain three or four siblings and their families. I have a memory of a bunch of us cousins in the loft of a beach house, and Miriam reading Nancy and me the Grimm's fairy tale Our Lady's Child at bedtime. No silly princess stories for us--it was life and death, good and evil!

My cousin Nancy and I grew up as close friends, and I slept over many times at the Flicks'. We had as much candy and snacks as we wanted, slept on air mattresses in the family room, watched scary movies, and ate Kraft macaroni and cheese at 10:00 at night. In the morning there was eggs and bacon, Cap'n Crunch, and pineapple orange juice. I remember Miriam always in a long button-down pinstripe shirt, bookish and serious, and listening to news radio in the kitchen as she worked. She said things like "cease and desist" when she wanted someone to knock it off. She would take us to Arby's, and she would go in through the church parking lot in order to avoid the Arby's intersection. Once she took Nancy and me to Joanne Fabrics when we were in our friendship bracelet-making stage, and bought us each a nice organizer that we filled with our choice of 30 rolls of embroidery floss. Life was grand!

Before we could Google things, if it couldn't be found in our old encyclopedia set, my mom would say, "Call Miriam and ask her." She probably knew.

Once, I believe it was while she was working toward her master's degree in education, she sat me down for battery of reading tests. She asked me to define reading, and she seemed inexplicably pleased by what I came up with: "It's looking at the words, and letting your eyes follow along." 

Nancy's and my Confirmation day in 1994, l-r: our cousin Sr. Marie Cecile (then Erin), Donna, Don (mom and Miriam's brother), my mom, me, my dad, Nancy, Miriam and Jack.

There was never any such thing as small talk with Miriam. Conversations were about big ideas, and every moment was a teachable one. Once, I accompanied the family on a trip to Chicago for a tour of Loyola University for Sam. I was brought along for Nancy, of course, and the two of us sat in the very back of their minivan giggling and eating Starbursts the whole way. The only thing better than sleeping over at the Flicks' was traveling with them. While we were out to dinner one night, the conversation turned political. I don't remember exactly what prompted me to say what I did, but I naively told her that I thought it would be fair if all wealth in the country was distributed equally to everyone. Who knows where I got that idea? No matter--whatever Communist leanings I might have had for five minutes, Miriam quickly set me straight. 

By the time I was a teen, my family had moved to the same neighborhood, so we saw a lot more of one another, naturally. Sometimes when there was tension at home or I was feeling misunderstood by my parents, I'd walk the half-mile or so to their house. Miriam would sympathize, but then help me understand that my parents had lot of stress in their life, with a big family and uncertainty with my dad's work. What a blessing it must have been to my parents to know that those times I stormed out of the house, I was with someone they could trust.

Another time, in a completely different sort of conversation, Miriam reassured me when I told her I don't feel like I get anything out of going to Mass; I just didn't feel anything when I was there. Miriam told me that she didn't feel things at church either, and that the absence or presence of feelings doesn't actually matter. We don't go to Mass because of whatever we feel we are "getting out of it." Of course she was not the only one to tell me this, but she had a way of putting it that maybe resonated more.

She was never again to play as prominent a role in my life as she did when I was growing up, but I never forgot everything she told me or the kindness she showed me. On Sunday, October 12, she passed away at 79, and was laid to rest the following Friday.

Ever since I got the news, I've been thinking about how being born into a family like the Franers is a form of abundance. It would take forever to list the gifts both tangible and intangible that I have received from my aunts, uncles and cousins, nearly all of whom still live in the Cincinnati area. The original village has split off into many new ones as the siblings' children have grown up and had their own families. When I visit mine, no matter how long it's been, I experience a unique feeling of belonging. My niece Elise once asked me, "How can you stand living so far away?" She was only maybe 6 at the time, and looking at me with her big brown eyes, it was like seeing her mother Grace completely unfiltered. I didn't even know how to answer. 

I pray for the repose of her soul and peace for her dear ones left behind; and I reflect with gratitude on how my life was immeasurably enriched by having an aunt like Miriam around when I was growing up.

The best of summer so far

 It's the dog days of summer, nauseatingly hot and sticky, when I tend to stay inside and just look out my windows a lot. The control panel of the pool chiller is broken, and as fixing it is not a priority, our pool is now a gigantic hot tub and the kids can't get enough of it. In late spring and early summer it was me you'd see floating blissfully around in the cold water and warm sun, the kids not so much.

It seems like a good time to look at the season's highlight reel. Delaney graduated high school in May. Was that really not even two months ago?!

We went on our annual Topsail vacation with my side of the family. We stayed in the same triplex as last year.

My mom and dad stayed at our house for a few days afterward.

We had a profusion of blooms after the rainiest June I can remember having here in eastern North Carolina.

Tim, Delaney, Annie and Joey went to Delaney's orientation at Appalachian State, and did some hiking too. 

We made our annual summer trek to visit Tim's parents and sisters in Massachusetts. It was kind of a whirlwind few days, with lots of memories made.

In front of Paul Revere's house

Alexa has been working and saving to buy her own house since she was 16. She's 21 now, and just closed on her home purchase a week or two before we arrived. It's a nice little house with a big back yard for her dog and all the others she takes care of with her own dog-sitting and boarding business. An entrepreneur and homeowner at 21--pretty impressive!

We gathered there for a housewarming, had sushi for dinner, and played bingo, per Grandma's request. It was fun. I think sushi and bingo at Alexa's should be a new tradition. 

The next morning we drove home. The three oldest kids flew both ways. 

Thomas has come a long way in his swimming. It's hard to believe this is the same kid who cried every lesson and asked to be done.

Usually by this point in the summer, we would have taken a family picture either at the beach or in Massachusetts, but for some reason we hadn't this year. I decided that for this summer, what better setting than our own backyard. I put it on the calendar, and on the appointed day at the appointed time we got a little dressed up and went outside for a photo with the camera on a tripod with a timer. I am grateful that everyone was so cooperative for me, and that we have this great photo before Delaney heads off to college. Sidenote: since when is Timmy taller than me?