5 year anniversary

For our 5 year anniversary Jeff surprised me with a hot air balloon ride. It is something that I have always wanted to do but never really had the reason to spend the money to do it. We drove to Topeka and arrived there at 5:30. They were starting to set up the balloon. We were in the air by 6 o'clock. The weather could not have been more perfect. It was about 70 degrees and sunny. Unfortunately about 20-25 minutes into our ride the wind decided to stop blowing so we were at a standstill over a field. We had to land because without wind it is kind of hard for a hot air balloon to travel anywhere. I was disappointed that the ride was so short, but I can't make there be a nice gently wind. On our way home we stopped at a Mexican restaurant for some dinner. Owen stayed home with Aunt Pam, Uncle Chris and grandma and grandpa while were gone. He always has fun getting attention from so many people!

Pumpkin patch

On Sunday we decided to have some family fun and headed to the apple orchard at Weston Red Barn Farm. We originally went to pick apples, but we were apparantly too late in the season because there were no good looking apples left on the trees. Thankfully there were other fun things to do at the farm. Owen is really like daddy in the sense that he loves pumpkins. We were picking out a few pumpkins and Owen kept loading small pumpkins into the wheel barrel. I think he would have taken home the whole patch if we would have let him. We saw geese, chickens goats and ponies. Owen also got to climb on a pile of hay and ride on a pony.

Enjoy the little things...

Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

Every day Owen does something that makes me laugh. These are a few of the little everyday things that Owen does that I will never forget.

One day for snack he wanted to eat a "ball" aka plum. He was very impatient for me to cut it up, so I thought I would let him eat it whole. I took out the camera to take his picture and he looked at me and said "cheese." I don't ever remember telling him to say "cheese" so I am not quite sure where he learned that. I was taken by surprise and thought it was so funny!


One day Owen was playing with his stuffed lion and eating a cookie. He dropped his cookie on the floor and I told him he better pick the cookie up before lion eats it. He surprises me everyday at what he understands. He picked the cookie up and tried to feed it to his lion...and then his "hop" aka bunny. About a week later he came running to me in the kitchen with his lion and was saying "cookie...cookie" Quite the memory he has!

Colts vs Giants

Jeff's coworker Mike called us and had two extra tickets to the Colts vs Giants game on Sunday Sept 19th. Jeff has always been a huge Colts fan, so I got someone at work to switch shifts with me so we could go to the game. We flew Sunday morning to Indianapolis and flew back Monday morning. We were only in Indianapolis for about 22 hours, but we had a great time. Owen was on his best behavior on the plane. He loves to fly! He watches everything out the window. We spent Sunday afternoon with Mike's family and when we left for the game Owen stayed at Mike's house with his wife Elizabeth and 4 year old son Andrew. Our seats at the game were awesome! We were on the 35 yard line 16 rows back from the field!!!!! Eli Manning's wife was 4 seats from us. I took a picture of her but it is not very good. I was trying to snap it without her knowing. Unfortunately you can't see her wedding ring in the picture. I swear it must be 10 carats! We thought it would be a close game but the Colts smoked the Giants! The game was never close! The final score was 38-14.

Minnesoooota

Its hard to believe we moved from Minnesota 15 months ago already. For a place that I never wanted to move to in the first place, I sure do miss it. We have been talking about making a trip to Minnesota for awhile, and thought what better time than during the State Fair. We left on saturday morning and braved the 6 hour drive with the toddler. Thanks to the portible DVD player he was very good for the car ride. After we checked in to the hotel we decided to head straight to the fair. Owen decided that he did not want to sit in the stroller after sitting in the car for 6 plus hours, and was very restless at the fair. It is an ok thing that the battery in my camera was dead, because I defently would not have got any pictures of him smiling. Needless to say that trip to the fair was short lived and we headed back to the hotel for an early bed time for Owen.

On Sunday Jeff and his friend Scott went golfing and then to the Twins game. This left Owen and I free for the day. We went to my old patient Hailey's house for brunch. Owen had fun playing with Hailey's toys, although he was a bit crabby from not sleeping great in the hotel crib.




After playing at Hailey's house we went back to the hotel for Owen to take a nap. After taking a nap we decided to go see our old neighborhood, Dancing Waters. I figured that I payed association dues there long enough that it would be okay if Owen and I played at the playground for awhile. Owen decided that he plays on playgrounds all the time and it would be much more fun to play in the sand from the sand volleyball court. He was completely covered with sand!





After playing at the playground Owen and I met up with my friend Jennifer and her two boys for dinner. It was great to see them but Jennifer and I did not get to catch up much with 2 toddlers and a baby at the table with us! We left that waitress with quite a mess!

On Monday morning we woke up and headed back to the fair. It was great weather and a much more enjoyable trip than Saturday. We saw some animals at the Miracle of Life barn. Owen got to pet a baby duck which made him very happy! We also saw baby pigs, cows, and goats.

We let Owen ride some rides which he thought was awesome. His favorite was the big Pirate ship that he rode with daddy. He had a huge smile on his face every time the ship came back down.








It would not be a day at the fair without some fair food. We bought Owen a bag of Kettle corn that was practically as big as him. I'm pretty sure that popcorn is probably a choking hazard for a 1 year old, but he sure does love it! We then bought our favorite grilled corn. I thought Owen would love it but he did not eat much because he thought it was too hot. Jeff bought a piece of Turkey jerky which Owen quickly claimed as his own!







At the fair many people had balloons from booths. Owen wanted a "boop" or balloon very badly. We walked by the Minnesota republican booth and got Owen a balloon. It was a great morning at the fair but we had to head back to the hotel for nap time.


After nap time we headed to Wisconsin to see one of my old patients Braylan and his family. Owen and Braylan had a blast! They were crazy little monkeys! It is hard for me to think that I met Hailey and Braylan when they only weighed one pound and now they are healthy little kids!




We ended our trip on Tuesday with breakfast at Woodbury Cafe with my friend Megan. Owen was on far from his best behavior so it was not the most enjoyable breakfast. After we had breakfast we headed back to Kansas City. The drive went pretty well.