Random stuff

Owen has been a ball of energy the past few weekends, which has prompted some more creative outlets for doing stuff.

Last weekend, we spent some time digging out the tent and setting it up in the yard. After we ate lunch, he wanted so bad to take his afternoon nap in it.. so we tried. He lasted about a hour before he came in and told me he wanted to go up to his bedroom because it was hot outside. Poor little guy... he was a total sweat monkey.

And then we had a sighting of the very elusive bag man. He's a curious creature that laughs a lot and runs around waving his hands. I cornered him in the living room and got a picture before he raced off again.

Before we cut-up the watermelon, Owen insisted that I take his picture with it.

Big Toe's and cantaloupe

It was a beautiful day today. Started out the morning early with a visit to the podiatrist to get my big toe hacked up. It's a long story, but I jammed it changing tires on my car last winter and ended up losing a nail. It regrew, but with a twisted mind of it's own..... hey let's grow over here around the corner..... Please stop laughing, because it's just not funny. It was the best when Owen would jump on my foot for a ride around the kitchen.

Anyhow, as I'm chatting with the doc about what I do, my wonderful family, where we live, what's going on in life, he's jabbing this 8" needle in my toe to numb it. The cold spray helps, but not that much. So I'm white knuckling on the chair arms staring at the ceiling tiles... and there's that feeling. At this point I'm PO'd because I was actually interested to see what he was going to do, but hey, how can you pay attention when you're sweating bullets trying to maintain consciousness. It brought back some bad memories of an experience in a vet office in Binghamton. 5 minutes later, problem solved. Chemical is in place to correct my misbehaving nail forever more and I'm off to work harboring the secret that I'm sporting a sexy purple bandage behind that shoe.

When Owen strolled into the house tonight he announced big plans to search out the cricket in the garage that was making noise. We found it. It was fish bait big..

I suggested to Owen that we find a saddle to ride it around and he told me I was silly, then like any self respecting 3-1/2 year old boy, he tried to squish it...... I intervened as the great and powerful protector of crickets.... Our large singing friend would live to see another day.

The garden itself isn't very pretty right now, but what's coming out of it has been.

The Roma plants are producing like crazy. We picked up another 1/2 peck over at Weavers this past weekend to complement our own and Allison made the best batch of sauce ever. My watermelon hill only produced one melon, but it looks great. The cantaloupe plant produced two. This one was ripe today...

The numbness is almost gone... off to find the advil.

Rough & Tumble 2008

This past Saturday Owen and I went to the annual Thresherman's reunion at Rough & Tumble in Kinzers. Owen's friend Jacob and his parents came along to enjoy the morning.

It's really a little boy's paradise. Garden tractor pulls, farm tractor displays as far as the eye can see... trains, trucks, dozers, cranes, hit & miss engines and lots of other stuff that puffs smoke, whistles and toots.

Here's the boys hanging out in a Rumley Oil Pull tractor wheel.

Mark is pointing out the coals under the burner box in this pumper.


The boys on the Martin's tractor train.

Riding the Little Toot Railroad!

The very popular Corn box... we made a pit stop here before AND after lunch.

Out in one of the back fields, they had an area set-up to play with vintage earth moving equipment. This was our last stop before we left for the day, but I think the boys would have stayed here for another hour if we let them.

It's definitely something to check out if you get the chance. They have an event calendar on their website: http://www.roughandtumble.org/

Mom & Dad Visit

Mom and Dad came to visit for the weekend of the 8th. We really appreciated the help getting some things done around the house. Owen had a positively wonderful time with Grandma & Grandpa. It was one of those weekends that I didn't get the camera out much, but I wish I had.

Dad and I finished a bunch of stuff on the basement and he mowed the lawn and helped us load up a new table and chair set for the deck. Our old set blew over this spring and shattered. No glass this time... it was the end of the season, so Lowes had their stuff 50% off. They had everything in stock except the umbrella, which was sold out everywhere... I'll have to search later.

Mom helped clean up the garden which I've shamefully let turn into a jungle. She used our monster zucchini to make bread with Owen. Here's a picture of the little kitchen helper. He's quite the expert stirrer.

As usual, Grandma had all sorts of great and wonderful things to do with Owen and he just loved it!

Grandma's Birthday

July 27th Allison's dad had a surprise 60th birthday party for her mom. It was a great party with many friends and family in attendance. Allison's brother and sister and cousins were there with their families, so Owen got some great play-time with his cousins and friends.

Grandpa arranged to borrow the neighbors barrel train to give rides with the tractor. As always it was a huge hit and we made many.... many... many laps around the lawn. #1 request from the boys was always to GO FASTER uncle Josh!!!



Here's Owen climbing in the Allis Chalmers barrel. He's usually obsessive about the green John Deere barrel... I guess this day was just an orange day.



Here Owen had brought a chair over by the pool to "watch" kreepy krauly clean the pool. He spent several minutes making sure kreepy was doing a good job cruising around in the deep end.

And here's a cute picture with his cousin. I forget if it had started to sprinkle or if they were just setting up the umbrella between them. Either way, there was an awful lot of giggling going on... :)