Father's Day

 

Elaine and Owen gave me the game 'Rock Band' for Father's Day, and Owen has decided he loves to play it with Daddy. He likes pretending to play along with the guitar, and he really likes grabbing the microphone and singing. So far his favorite song is 'Biltzkrieg Bob', especially the "Hey Ho, Let's Go!" part, but as soon as the song is over he wants to play, "Hey Ho, Wait For Me!" Aside from all the rocking out, we celebrated Father's day with a trip to the pool with Brad, Marlo, Mia, and baby Ben. Owen and Mia had a great time playing with the killer whale torpedo (which Brad and Allen also found fascinating), and Elaine enjoyed relaxing in the water and not feeling the full weight of baby number two. We also finally got to see the finished product of the great Brown family home renovation, and we were of course suitably impressed.

Night at Mom Mom's

Friday night was the 75th birthday celebration for the National Archives, and Mom Mom and Grandpa Don decided that it would be fun to celebrate the occasion by taking Owen to the Archives birthday picnic so Elaine and I could go out to dinner and celebrate our sixth anniversary a few days early. To cap it all off, after the picnic Owen spent the night at Mom Mom and Grandpa Don's house, his first night away from Mommy since he was seven months old. By all accounts, Owen had a great time at the Archives picnic, and with all the excitement of staying at Mom Mom's house, he didn't miss Mommy and Daddy at all (though I'm not sure we can claim the converse is true, even if we did have a lovely dinner ;-)

(click here to see all the Archives pictures)

Iowa

We did it. 28 hours round-trip in a car with a potty-training 2 1/2 year old and a 7 months pregnant woman. This was not a roadtrip for the meek or for those that can't handle listening to multiple readings of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. No accidents (either vehicular or urinary), no speeding tickets, and Allen even managed to take a conference call despite Owen belting out "Step in Time" while watching Mary Poppins in the back seat with Mom Mom. And it was worth it for an all too brief a visit to the homeland. We had two nights in Cleveland where Owen was able to release some pent up energy with Aunt Katherine and Uncle L. We managed to get in a trip to Des Moines to see Ethel (sans Allen who had to work). Shared some quality Pond time both with Owen's and Allen's cousins. Had all sorts of fun with Grandpa and Grandma Z. Owen had lots of play time on the farm (he even got to drive the tractor, though that almost ended disastrously and reaffirmed Iowa's good sense to not issue licenses to the under-3 crowd) and got to feed Kendra's horses. We even convinced Uncle Bernie to make a trip down to see us in order to get some adorable Owen time (which we neglected to capture on film since Allen was working again) and for Elaine to beat him in a Russian Bank grudge match. We're thinking that next summer we'll try and coordinate the baby's baptism with the Fawcett Sweet Corn Festival and make it a two week stay. Until then, feel free to enjoy all the pics here.

 

Hi Baby, I'm Your Big Brother