one week later

The weather turned back to Spring this weekend. We had sunshine both days and warm temperatures. Richard convinced Owen to pick a new bike helmet. We've been working on this for almost a year now- Owen can't ride his bike outside of the garage without a helmet, but he hated his old helmet. Whenever we'd go to the store to try on new ones, Owen would just cry until we left. Saturday morning they went to the bike shop and Owen chose this new one- it has fish on it- big surprise- and its bigger than his last one.

Saturday afternoon we took the bikes down to Central Park to give the new helmet a try. This was Owen's first time biking outside of the garage since his second birthday. Since riding in the garage involves constant turning, we found out Owen is very good at steering. He stayed on the path the entire time, and had a lot of fun.

spruce goose

After the snow melted off our car this morning (2 inches last night!) we drove to the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, which houses the Spruce Goose. You can see Richard and Owen in front of it in both pictures if you look close (hint- click on the picture and it will get bigger).

April showers, April snowstorms...

We had snow this morning- the lawn was covered when we woke up, and continued to fall while we had breakfast. Then the sun came out and the snow melted. Then we had hail. Then more sun. And now rain. Oregon in the spring!

Here are some pictures of sunnier days, at the park with Valerie (photo credit to Valerie's grandma, Pat), and Owen and Richard playing ball in the front yard.

Laurel turns two

My parents came out for the first week of April, in time for Laurel's 2nd birthday. We celebrated Laurel's birthday Thursday night with dinner, cake and presents (including a trike that Owen is very excited about). Owen and I took Friday and Monday off of school and work to have a long grandparents weekend. Friday we went to the Gilbert center to play. Saturday we had Laurel's birthday party. Sunday and Monday we recovered. Luckily we had a few nice days for weather while my parents were here.

Couple of stories about Owen- He and Richard played hide and seek, with Owen telling Richard where exactly to hide. After a few rounds of that Richard actually began hiding in different places, once going under the blanket on Owen's bed. Owen could not find him, so I had him climb up on his bed to keep looking. He still couldn't find him, but asked, what was under the covers (as he was sitting on Richard, who was shaking from laughing so hard).

Owen is very interested in the solar system right now. We have a book from the library about the planets, which Owen can now recite. He's been giving us planetarium shows with our solar system model in the playroom, pointing out each planet and telling us the appropriate factoid about it. In our house, we are keeping Pluto as a planet. Hopefully that won't cause a problem during elementary school...