Bowling Party

Owen got to try out bowling a few weeks ago at a friends' birthday party. 

I didn't realize they made bowling shoes that small, but they do. He thought the whole thing was pretty fun and he enjoyed seeing any pins fall down.

A little added excitement was added to the party in the form of a power outage. Without backup lighting, the place was totally dark. People took out their cell phones and used various flashlight apps to shed some light on our group.

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My First Race

Owen ran his first race last week in Knoxville: The Little Gobbler, the kids run held in conjunction with the Autumnfest 8k. He ran the whole way (maybe 150 yards) by himself and seemed to have fun. Best part was he got a donut after the finish.

Thanksgiving trip to Knoxville

We had a wonderful week in Knoxville last week for Thanksgiving. Owen had a great time with James, Aunt Laura & Uncle Rick, Aunt Ju-Ju, and Mimi & Poppy. He took to calling the original Poppy "Poppy 2" and enjoyed several meals with him. And there were a lot of train-related activities, including the big thrill Owen had talked about for weeks - riding on an actual coal-powered steam train.

Owen also ran in his first race, the Little Gobbler 200 yard dash, part of the Knoxville Track Club's Autumnfest event. He got a blue ribbon and a donut after the finish and seemed to enjoy it and talked about it for a couple days.

(the vast majority of pics shown here are courtesy of Duffy a.k.a. Poppy)

Painted Face

Owen had his face pained one day last week at daycare. Just thought it was very cute.

October Flew By!

October was a great month. Great weather meant lots of time outside, a fun visit to the pumpkin patch that had a little train, and a few other outings.

Owen participated in his first pumpkin carving. And come Halloween, he was far more into trick-or-treating than last year. He had no fear going up to peoples' doors, and once he realized he was getting candy just by saying "trick or treat" that was it...it was "one more house, Dada" about 10 more times.

Here are some pics from the month.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

On Aug 19th, Owen turned 2! Or as he likes to say, "I'm two!!"

Mimi and Popop were visiting for the occasion, and we had a great time with them.

Owen got to first have a mini celebration with his daycare class where they had popsicles and sang happy birthday. Then at home, he got to open a lot of great presents, including an accordion (awesome!), train conductor's outfit, books, legos, and a big Thomas train set. He had more than he knew what to do with.

Cake and ice cream followed, including lighting candles which he blew out while we sang happy birthday. Then he wanted to do it again. So we did. Then again. So we did. Then again...We sang and let him blow out the candle 3 times before convincing him that he might enjoy actually eating the cake, which he did.

First Time Camping

We took Owen camping with friends Brian & Michelle and their daughter, Madeline. We went to an Oregon state forest campground about an hour west of Portland.

It was so much fun, and Owen did great. He seemed to really enjoy the whole camping experience, including sleeping in a tent with the see-through top open to the starry night sky. He loved the fire (who doesn't?) and running around the campsite, but what he liked the most was throwing rocks into the creek on our hike. We went twice on the hike down to the creek and each time, he stood and threw about 100 rocks.

Here are a few photos. Quality is not great because they were all taken with a phone which I had trouble holding steady.