Catch up time ... again!

Sorry again for the multiple week delay in posting something to the blog. It's been a very busy time the past few weeks.

Here are the highlights:

• One of us got older
• We enjoyed the final days of summer
• We sat in a bunch of fire trucks
• We played in the water
• Someone began a new job

And Dad went to a conference, coming home just in time for shows to begin at his theater, which means our schedules have changed even more.

Happy birthday, Amy!

Amy turned 33 on September 12. Both sets of grandparents drove into town, joining us and Auntie Pam, who lives just down the way, for a day of celebration. I actually had to join the party late as the 12th was also the day I flew home from the Arts Midwest conference in St. Paul.

But it was a fun birthday nonetheless. It was filled with cake ...

presents ...

and party favors ...

... especially for the two grandpas, who Maya delighted in bringing every acorn in a centerpiece candle bowl Amy got as a gift. There must have been 50 of the little things, and Maya went back and forth to the bowl, delivering one at a time until each grandpa's hand was filled to overflowing.

Maya has been using many more words lately. She is an expert at "Owen," "Daddy," and "Mommy," and has taken great interest in our well-being. Now when she wakes up, one of the first things she does is ask about whoever isn't in the room at that moment, wondering what they're doing and making sure everything is OK.

Open House

The Normal Fire Department held an open house the following weekend, on Sept. 19. Regular visitors to the station, I headed up with Owen and Maya thinking we'd probably seen everything already ... but we hadn't even scratched the surface.

It was a marvelous day! Owen got to spray a fire hose ...

... and sit in every engine the city owns, as they trucked all of their other trucks in for the day.

The highlight for Owen, though, was taking a long, close look at his beloved Snorkel 10.

10 is the oldest truck in the fleet, but is definitely Owen's favorite. It's nearly 30 years old and will likely be decommissioned soon. Every time we visit, we tell the firemen that Owen will gladly take it off their hands and are told to "Make an offer," as no reasonable offer to drive the truck away would probably be refused.

I'm all for it. Put 10 in the back yard and there we'll not only be the most popular house on the street for the kids, but I'll have considerably less mowing to do ...

Here are a couple more pictures from the day. You can see Owen was in heaven!

Bye, bye, summer!

The weather in the final days of summer actually felt like summer, a surprise in our unseasonably cool year. Owen and Maya both got sick at the end of the month, leading to a trip to the ER for Owen as his seasonal bout with croup returned, and several days off school for both.

Fortunately, everyone's energy returned for the weekend and we were all ready to get out and enjoy the spectacular weather.

We returned to a favorite play area, Tipton Park, a great area with a spray park and lots of playground equipment. I think this was Maya's first trip to the spray park and she had a great time. We walked through little fountains taller than she was and she laughed every time, quickly turning around and grabbing my hand again so that we could go back through.

We stayed and played for quite a while ...

Then returned home in time to watch Iowa go 3-0 with a win over Arizona. Indeed, fall has arrived!

Lastly, Amy began a new job on the 14th. She is now a social worker for Passages Hospice, and so far she seems to be enjoying it very much. She will be providing social work care to hospice patients throughout the region, but primarily in the Peoria area. The company has taken great care to make sure she has all of the tools she needs to do her job well, and Amy is delighted that she can finally focus on the patients instead of the profits.

She has been quite busy learning all she needs to to do the job well, but I have already noticed a change in reduced tension and increased happiness.

Labor Day Weekend

With everything that's been going on this summer, we haven't really had much chance for a vacation of any sort. The three-day Labor Day weekend gave us a good chance to get out a little and do a few activities for our very nice kids.


Before we get into the holiday weekend rundown, here's a picture of Owen imitating an ad he saw in his mom's magazine. She was looking through it when he was having a snack. After showing him the picture, he was quickly up out of his chair and rummaging through the cabinet.


It's nice when you don't have to stage these things.

Day 1: Saturday -- Tanners Orchard

We drove up to Tanners Orchard on Saturday. A family favorite destination, Tanners has all sorts of fun activities for kids, terrific fresh apples and baked goods, and is always a good time.

Owen rode a pony (Maya would have nothing to do with them), we played on the hay bales, admired the flowers, and panned for precious stones.

The best part of the day, though, was the tractor ride. The kids got into their cider barrel cars and were pulled through the orchard. Maya and Owen rode together. Owen proudly steered his car the same directions the driver took. Meanwhile, Maya waved and waved at anyone who would look her way. (They're in the last populated car of the train.)

Day 2: Sunday - Nana and Grandpas

Then it was off to Nana and Grandpas. Nana begins her chemo and radiation treatments, so it was nice to squeeze in an extra visit. We had a wonderful time playing in the park and around the house, reading books and cheering the Hawkeyes narrow season-opening victory.

We then drove home and had a final trip to the pool for the summer. It was a great way to end the year. Owen met a very nice little girl named Kaleen who was seven and quickly took it upon herself to give him a swimming lesson. He's always been a bit timid around water, but with her guidance he was paddling back and forth across the pool, going wherever she would lead him.

Maya and I, meanwhile, played around and splashed like crazy. So far she seems very easy in the water. She planted her face right in several times trying to see what was on the other side of the surface.

Day 3: Monday - Monticello Railway Museum

Like many boys, Owen loves trains. Looking around for things to do in the area, we found this train museum about an hour's drive from home. The museum has many vintage trains, with cars set up so that you can walk through and see what things were like. It also has a working diesel engine with two passenger cars and a caboose that you can ride on from the museum site to downtown Monticello and back again.

We rode in the caboose on the way into town. Sitting up top where we could look out the windows over the top of the car, we had a great view and a fun ride.

Once in Monticello, we had lunch and played in a wonderful city park while we waited for the train to make its run to the museum and back. It was a wonderful summer-like day and we all had lots of fun.

The kids were both exhausted afterward. Maya (who managed not to nap on the drive back to Normal) laid down on a seat on our train trip back. Owen (who napped like crazy on the drive home) looked out the window and soaked it all in.

There was even a yellow train to look at when we got back. This was very good, because when you ask Owen what kind of train is his favorite, he always answers "Yellow ones."

Elevation

We love our little monkey.

This is actually a fairly simple story to tell. Owen just started climbing the basketball hoop one day. He goes up and down it several times a night ... much to the delight of the neighbor kids, who can't seem to master the trick.

He'll just hang up there, slide down, climb back up.

The view is apparently pretty good. He'll tell you about the spider webs behind the backboard, and about the bird poop on the roof of your car.

Fortunately, it's a trick that requires bare feet ... Which is good, because as the weather is getting cooler it means Owen's grandmas shouldn't have to worry about this much longer.

FABULOUS!

Maya had her first haircut last weekend. No "Bend-and-Snap" moments, but it was a definite day of beauty for our little sweetheart.

The look took a bit getting used to for her mom and dad, but we ended up loving the cut as her hair had been covering her eyebrows before, and with them visible her face took on a whole new dimension of expressiveness.

... although it's a bit hard to see here. She was VERY tired!

And watching the Teletubbies (see above).

Honestly, Mr. Fallwell, Tinkie-Winkie is the least of this show's problems ...

Shifting gears, albeit slightly, I have to confess my disappointment in my wife a week ago. She drives the kids to school, but we usually talk once or twice a day, as was the case a week ago Thursday. That was the day I went to school and as I was picking up Maya her teacher told me: "She kept her stocking on all day."

Indeed, Maya was wearing some hosiery the other day. Amy was putting on her stockings for work and Maya thought they were pretty neat. So she ended up with one of them on ... all day ... and through two conversations this somehow never warranted any notification.

To Amy, I would like to tell you this story. When I was in high school and Daniel was off to college, a kid in my school who we both knew and told lots of stories about, because he was that kind of kid, came to school one day with a perm. Less than a month later Daniel came home for the holiday and ran into this young man and his head of tight curls in the mall. As memory serves, Daniel came home and slugged me (with affection), but promising me I'd be in big trouble if I left him to discover something like that on his own ever again.

I mean, I could have stopped to pick the camera up on the way to school ...