October 18
In which we're handsome devils.
Okay, would you believe another computer outage? This time the thing was gone for a month! Seriously!
And a lot happened in that month. For starters, Donna, babysitter extraordinaire, took Owen on a weekend outing to celebrate his birthday. First they drove to New Hampshire to surprise Justin at his sleepover camp. Then, from there, they went to Storyland. Robin and I have never been, but we hear it's wonderful. Owen's stories when he came home corroborated.
If you ask him for specifics, however, he'll tell you that the most exciting part of the trip was getting carsick and throwing up in Donna's back seat.
Robin and I took advantage of the time to make a daytrip to Provincetown. We road the ferry from Boston and enjoyed one of the only warm days of the year sight-seeing along the beach. P-Town is famous for its... colorful inhabitants and both of us were looking forward to some spectacle. Sadly, we only got to see one elderly man dressed as a Catholic school girl.
Shortly after that, Grandma Gloria and Grandpa came to town to watch Owen in the week when there was no summer camp and no school. We made a daytrip up to Quincy to tour the homes of President John Adams.
That's the thing about New England: You're going to get your history whether you want it or not...
Summer gave way to the first day of school and Owen took to Kindergarten like a politician to a fundraiser. (Abuelito Paul, if you'll look closely, you'll see he's wearing the backpack you bought him in Paris. It's a little heavy for him, but he insists it is the only backpack he wants.)
The parents and teachers at school already call Owen "the mayor" because he walks the rows before the first bell introducing himself to everyone. This past weekend, Robin and I went to the PTA (they call it "PTO" here) dinner. It was a little unnerving to discover how many of the other parents knew Owen. Thank heavens he's as social as he is. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a single friend here!
In the evenings and on weekends, we enjoyed the 15 minutes of pleasant weather for the year with s'mores roasts on the back deck and the celebration of Justin's birthday. Aunt Lisa FINALLY came to visit us and we took her on sight-seeing junkets to Rockport, MA and Newport, RI.
Just a few days after saying goodbye to Lisa, we said hello again in Kansas City. Grandma Pat celebrated her 70th birthday with a nice shindig. The event happened to coincide with Mom's family reunion, so we got to see more relatives than we knew we had!
For her present, Mom asked if we would pose for family portraits. We did and, as part of the package, received CDs with copies of the pictures to do with as we wished. Owen, future super model that he is, enjoyed his photo shoot immensely. He even suggested that the photographer might want to take some additional poses of just him. I've posted a few for you to see.
Other than that, things are going smoothly. I've just wrapped up a weekly writing class with a terrific teacher. I'm on the list to join his next session and hope to pick that up in a few weeks. Robin's work continues to go wonderfully and one of her co-workers has promised to take us on an age appropriate tour of the live music venues in Cambridge.
We did have our first snowfall today, but we refuse to be depressed about it...
...much.
