Tall as a Giraffe

The Artist

Grandpa fixed Owen's easle when he visited over the weekend and Owen has been creating masterpieces non stop. He brought his little chair over so he could really get comfortable while he was in the zone.

Last Days of Summer

As the days of summer get shorter and shorter we have to take advantage of the warm weather while we can. And this kid's favorite activity might just be running through the water park. I hope is gets this excited next summer!

He is a natural

Disc golf is one of our favorite pastimes to get outdoors and does not cost much. Our Elk Grove Park has a small course and is well manicured. So it is perfect for Owen to get his throw perfected. He is a natural, mosty throws forearm and his longest toss to date is 12 feet. But he really liked putting the discs in the basket (he can be on mommy's team next time).

Too close to the edge

Maybe Owen will learn his lesson better when he actually experiences the results of his actions. Adam asked him to step back from the edge of the koi pond at Uncle Mark's house but he just would not listen and eventualy fell in. He sat in the water up to his waist and looked up at Adam. But there was no sympanthy from dad and Owen just climbed out drenching wet. He had to ride home in just a diaper. I think Owen found it all to be pretty funny.

Melting water at 11,000 feet

The things you have to do to get water in the desert... sometimes that means hiking up to the glacier to melt ice down for drinking water. But the benefit to that is sometimes you will find that elusive buck just over that glacier. The monster mule deer were above 10,000 feet so Adam and Keith backpacked in outside of Bishop and camped at 9,500. It was one of Adams best hunting trips. They were seeing at least seven bucks a day, some chuckar and grouse. When they were there two weeks before they also saw a black bear that came up pretty close to camp. They stalked a huge 30 inch wide 4x3 for two days and had to really take their time getting near him. Adam got close to taking him with his archery bow, but just missed. The boys were exhausted and stinky when they got home but they had a great time and maybe next time they will bring back some meat.

 

Spontaneous Weekend

It is really rare that we have a weekend when we are both home and do not have any plans. In fact, I really cannot think of the last time we did. But there we were on Friday night with our car packed up and we were off for our weekend adventure. We started it off right, in Saint Helena at a friends for a delicious bbq dinner. That night we got very little sleep, thanks to some rowdy boys and a toddler who was feeling left out of the action and kept asking to go play with his friends.
Saturday we were in Calistoga with our friends Jess and Hossein who graciously let us stay at their condo and bring along my sister too. There are not a lot of people I could call up/text and ask if we can come and stay with only one day notice. Adam got to go golfing with Hossein (his first time this year) and Jess, Aunt Jess, Owen and I went wine tasting along the beach. We walked to the beach and you can see the white tents where we are wine tasting in Capitola Village.

Afterwards Owen really needed to get out of the stroller and run on the beach. I think the ocean just makes people happy.

On Sunday morning we took Owen to the farm - Jess' parents' house that has a huge garden/orchard. Owen had so much fun feeding the Koi fish and the chickens, collecting eggs and picking apples, strawberries, carrots and tomatoes.

The entire weekend we never had more than an hour ahead planned out at a time. It was so spontaneous, I do not think we could reproduce that weekend if we tried again.

American Idol Here I Come

My mom is always giving Owen children's music. But he has much better tastes than most 2 year olds. Mumford & Sons is one of his favorites, along with Florence and the Machines, oh and Adelle.

My little gentleman

Making friends at the park...

Chicago Skyline from Lake Michigan

Back to back trips are exhausting. Owen and I got home Sunday and I had to leave on the 6 am flight Tuesday, which was my choice over leaving on Monday and missing one extra night at home. However it makes for a really long day when you get up at 3:45 am, take a 4 hour flight, get to the hotel just 20 minutes before the conference starts, sit for 4 hours, then head to dinner on the booze cruise. But this time I actually got to see some of Chicago from our ship. Two more days of meetings and then fly home on Friday and I was spent. Thankfully there is a long weekend to recover.