party time

Owen choose an airplane theme for his 7th birthday party.  Richard found the paperware online and Bursts made chocolate airplanes for the cupcakes.  We hung up planes over the table outside and I made a watermelon airplane bowl.  Richard came up with some games- flying planes through a hoop, make your own stomp rockets, and throwing parachute guys at a targets.

Owens friends from school came as well as our family friends.  Unfortunately Susie and Laurel were sick so they missed the party.   We all had a great time playing in the backyard, the playrooms and the new sandbox, throwing planes and parachutes.  The cupcakes made everyones faces and fingers a lovely shade of blue.  It was great for Owen to get to spend time with his school friends again, since they haven't seen each other since June.  All in all, a successful celebration to ring in a new year of Owen.

owen turns 7!

Yes, it has been 3 months since my last post, and lots has happened between end of April and end of July.  However, I'm going to post his birthday pictures, then I'll go backwards and post the rest of spring and early summer.  I was going to be so on top of things this year....

Owen turned seven on Friday.  He opened his gifts from family before breakfast.  I took the day off of work and the two of us went on the adventure of his choice: the Evergreen Aviation Museum and water park.  We spent the morning at the aviation museum, home of the Spruce Goose, and ate lunch there.  Then onto the water park for an afternoon of swimming in the wavepool.  After a few hours we were both wiped out and headed back home.  Richard and Ben met us at home and he got to open our gifts, have a pizza dinner, and ice cream cake desert with the Muhly's.

We had a wonderful day and are amazed at the growth of our little (and now not so little) boy.

Owen at 7, in his words:
Favorite color: Purple
Favorite Wii game: Wii sports resort and Pirates of the Caribbean
Favorite Food: Pepperoni Pizza
Favorite school subject: science
Favorite activity: playing wii and launching rockets
Favorite airplane: Boeing 747
Favorite place to visit: Virginia and Vermont
Favorite sport: biking
Favorite book: Owen
Favorite chapter book: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Owen at 7, in my words:
Owen continues to have his essential Owen-ness, and has grown a lot this year, being more outgoing and willing to try some new things.  He loves doing the Cub Scout activities- camping, canoeing, hiking, day camp.  He loves going on bike rides with his dad, helping in the garden and his swimming lessons.  He continues a 6 year obsession with airplanes and rockets.  He and Ben bicker over toys and rules but are also great friends, and Ben helps bring out his silly side.  Owen is always learning new and interesting things, asking questions until he figures things out and then remembers all the details.  Like his dad, he enjoys reading non-fiction, though he loved getting introduced to Raul Dahl this year.  He just lost 2 more teeth, with his front ones growing in and threatening a need for orthodontia.  He keeps growing, now in boys medium clothes and his first pair of tie sneakers (nike's).  Owen is our special 7 year old and we are always proud of him.

april flowers

I think I didn't mention that sometime in January Ben's day care teachers decided it was time to potty train him, so they did.  He started by wearing underwear during the time he was at school, then slowly that time extended to all day.  He has been doing great- very few accidents.  Last week he asked to wear underwear to bed instead of a diaper and was dry all night.  We are glad this was a relatively easy process and are thankful for awesome and tenacious day care teachers!

Easter came with beautiful daffodils and tulips and flowering cherry trees.  Corvallis is really amazing in April and May.  After a few weekends of work, Richard has the garden prepped, and already has a few starters planted and some seeds coming up in our laundry room.  He also has been re-landscaping the front of the house, in his never ending pursuit to find plants the deer won't destroy.  Our turkeys showed back up last weekend- we hadn't seen the for a while and it's nice to have them back.  They are less destructive and more interesting than the deer.

spring break

We thought we should do something for spring break this year- somewhere warmer and less rainy than Corvallis for a little break.

Houston sounded like the perfect McManus destination- not too far or expensive to fly to, and some great activities for the boys.

We stayed in the Museum District at a pretty fabulous boutique hotel called Hotel ZaZa.  Their shuttle cars had longhorn skulls on the front- which we took in the evenings for dinner.  You feel like a real Texan when you are driving around with a longhorn.

The first day we visited the Johnson Space Center.  They have a large museum with moon rocks, artifacts, and a Sky Lab mock up.  They also have a large play structure for the kids- not very space like but a good way to burn off kid energy.  The highlight is a tram tour inside of the Space Center.  We visited the astronaut training center which has mock ups of the ISS modules and a space shuttle which is sadly being dis-mantled.  We also saw a Saturn 5 rocket- what would have been Apollo 18, which didn't have the funding to be launched but was fully restored for display.  It was amazing to get to walk around it and really internalize the size of the rocket and the jets.  An Apollo engineer was our tour guide for that section.

That evening we drove to Galveston for dinner, and found a gulf front burger joint, where we got to watch the waves and the pelicans.  We walked on the gulf coast for a little while before returning to Houston.

The next morning we went to the Museum of Fine Art, and saw the touring King Tut exhibit.  We rented the audio tour so that Harrison Ford could talk us through the various displays.  It was very impressive, though we were a little disappointed that the big gold mask is no longer on tour (it's staying in Egypt).  We then went to the nearby Children's museum and the kids could have spent the rest of the week playing there- Owen loved a mini kid city and Ben liked the plumbing toys in the outside water area.  We took a brief break from the museum to swim in the hotel pool, but it had gotten too cold so we quickly gave up and returned to the kids museum.

Our final day we walked to the Houston Zoo.  Our timing was a little unfortunate, as that was the only day Houston had rain.  The good part about the rain was it emptied out the zoo.  Ben still really enjoyed all the animals and even was brave enough to feed lettuce to a giraffe.

end of winter

Owen's vision of himself at 100.

Flooded wetlands after heavy rains.

February and March brought more days of sunshine and more days of rain and more days of snow- including record rainfall that flooded Corvallis and ended in a "rain day" home from school, and record snowfall.

One weekend we took the Amtrak from Albany to Portland to watch the Globetrotters play at the Rose Garden.  The boys loved the train trip and all of us were entertained during the game.  I remember seeing the Globetrotters when I was Owen's age.

Owen and Richard continue to have fun with their Tiger Cub den.  Evan, Cole and Owen make a great team and Richard comes up with fun challenges and activities for them at their meetings.

Near the end of the ski season, Owen rented Wii Ski from the library and after a week of virtual skiing he decided he wanted to try it out for real.  The weekend before spring break Owen and Richard went to Willamette Pass and Owen took his first lesson.  He loved it and did great in the class.  They returned the following weekend where there was more falling and frustration than the first lesson, but Owen is resolved to go back next winter.