Peach Picking

Eckert's is a produce farm in Illinois, about 25 minutes from our house. We LOVE this place because they have "pick-your-own" everything. In the fall we do apples and pumpkins, at Christmas we get our tree there-and they let you cut it down yourself too, and in the summer we pick peaches and blackberries. On Tuesday Ryan got of at 3:00 (a tiny little miracle) so we took advantage of the beautiful day and time with him and we took off to pick some peaches. At Eckert's you can eat as much as you want in the fields and only pay for what you take away. Ryan and I both ate 3-4 peaches each. They were amazing, juicy, and worth the drive! 

Tree Ripened....nothing quite like it! 

His first peach picking trip at 4 months.   

Sampling his first peach. This was originally Ryan's peach, but after taking one bite he held it out front and looked away. Owen nose-dived into the peach and wouldn't let Ryan take it back. He sucked that thing dry and wore it all down his front. Needless to say....he's a big fan of peaches. 

Not much has changed, but now he can hold it himself. 

And now he shares. 

My peach-lovin' boys. 

My grandfather (Da) would be so proud. 

The Big "D"

By now most of you all know, but for the sake of trying to use this blog as a bit of a diary of important things that have happened to our family, I will make the official announcement that we are moving to Dallas, TX next summer. (Well, really to Ft. Worth) My husband matched in a Facial Plastics and Reconstructive Surgery fellowship in Ft. Worth. We are TRILLED to be moving to Texas, and very excited about this fellowship program. He will be able to learn all about cleft surgery, which is the whole point of the extra year of training, but this program will teach him so much more too about reconstructive surgery. It is a great opportunity for him and his future career and we are so proud of him! It's going to be a tough year on the family, as he will be soooo busy and we won't get to see him much. So we welcome all visitors to come see us!

I recently picked up the t-shirt for Owen to get him prepared for the big move. He's already a big fan! 

You can't see it very well...but you can imagine that it says "Don't mess with Texas!"

Owen's First Camping Trip

2 weeks ago Ryan and I took Owen and our little brother (from Big Brothers Big Sisters) camping for the first time. We drove 2.5 hours (1 extra hour due to missing the turn) into rural Missouri and camped at the Johnson Shut-In's State Park. We did tent camping, however it definitely was not "roughing it" camping. There were real bathrooms within walking distance, a concrete slab to park on, a metal fire pit in the ground, a picnic table, and a nice flat mulch pad for our tents. Thanks to many generous families in our ward we were able to borrow all of the came necessities. We set up 2 tents but each was so small that we put a pack-n-play in one for Owen (if he slept with us, no one would sleep), and one for our little brother, and Ryan and I opted to "sleep out under the stars". It was my first time doing so, but it was quite nice--though our pillows and blankets were wet on top by the morning because of all the dew. It's good for my soul to get out of the city and be a part of nature every couple of months and this trip was just that!

In the morning we went to the Shut-In's, a shallow river that runs through a patch of rocks which make pools and rock slides to play in and rocks to climb over. It was so much fun! Owen loved it too. This is the perfect place to take young adventurous kids!!!

As sad as this sounds....I'm pretty sure it was the first time my child has ever seen/noticed the stars! We live in the middle of the city and there are way too many lights to be able to see the stars at night, and he was way to young to notice or care last summer when we were at the beach. Once they started coming out he immediately pointed to them and made some pretty excited sounds. He loved it. Tonight he saw the moon at dusk....very cool.
I wish I had more pictures of our trip, but we were so worried about getting the fire going, heating up the yummy dinner I made the night before and getting the tents set up before the sun went down that I forgot to take pictures. BUT.....I did take pictures of he most important aspect of camping.......

Perfection!!!

His first taste of ooey, gooey, yumminess that is a s'more. 

That's my boy....learning the art of making and eating s'mores at a young age! 

Family Pictures

In late May we got our first real family pictures taken by my dear talented friend Emily Southerland. We are thrilled with how they turned out. Here is some of her handiwork.  

Purina Farms

Because we live in the middle of a city, aren't able to make it back home to rural Virginia very often, and frequent the fabulous free zoo that is just 1.5 miles from our house, my child is much more familiar with the exotic animals of this world than the common cow and horse. So, we took a field trip today to Purina Farms, aka: Old McDonald's farm. Owen had a blast and was able to make all the appropriate sounds at just the right times. 

(it's not real, but life size)

In Owen's words: "eh, this is just OK"

In Owen's words: "Now this is more like it!"

We also got to see a dog diving competition between a herding dog and a retriever. They were jumping 25+ feet off the docks.  It was pretty impressive. 

A Sad Goodbye!

On Monday my sister and brother -in-law, Rachel & Reed, and their 6 kids moved to Utah to start a real job. Reed finished his medical residency in OBGYN. We are so proud of him. The last 4 years have been crazy busy for him, but now he's a bonafied doctor!!! I have become such good friends with Rachel--she's like a real sister. I'm so thankful that we were able to be here at the same time. It definitely made my move to St. Louis a lot easier to have family around. We are so happy that Sara and Aaron are still around. They will be sorely missed! But I must say, the only good thing about them moving is that I should automatically lose 10lbs. because we wont be having big family dinners all the time where we gorge ourselves on delicious white bread sticks smothered in butter and all those delicious cakes she makes. Sad, but my hips are happy! 

Good luck in Utah. 

Here are pictures from our last outing to the zoo together! Can't beat a free carousel ride.