The Zoo Train

This past Saturday our little family took a trip to the zoo.  Owen and I go to the zoo fairly often in good weather, but this was a special treat because Bryce usually doesn't get to go with us.  Since it was a special occasion, we decided to take a ride on the train that goes around the zoo.  Owen was excited, since he LOVES trains, and the first picture here is him playing while we waited in line to board the train.

Owen didn't seem to mind posing for a picture with Daddy, but didn't want to stay still to take a picture with Mommy, so we did the best we could.

 Here is a close up showing how happy Owen was to be riding the train with Mommy and Daddy. 

Here is all three of us riding the train together.  Owen was playing peek-a-boo with the lady that took the picture for us.

Random Thoughts

Do you ever get the urge to sit down and write something, but don't know what it is?  That's the mood that I am in right now.  I don't have anything profound to say, nothing overly fun or interesting to relate, but I just want to write whatever comes into my head - so here it goes.  In the background, Bryce is watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (the cartoon series from Nickelodeon).  We are working on watching the series for at least the 3rd time in the past 6 months.  The series starts out a bit slow and corny, but by the end of the first season and on through the second and third the characters seem to reach out and relate to you.  As we watch Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph and others try to win the war against Firelord Ozai (voice talents of Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker) and his children, Zuko and Azula, we watch the children overcome many obstacles and learn many important life lessons.  I know it may be strange, but this is one of my favorite shows of all time.

I have been working on a couple of projects over the past couple of weeks.  One, I have started a queen sized afghan.  I've made many baby afghans, but I have never attempted anything this large before.  I'm 1/3 to 1/2 of the way done - so if I keep up the same pace that I've been working at, it will probably take me another month or so to complete.  I am not sure whether I will keep it when I am done or give it away as a gift, but based on how it looks right now, it should be a very nice blanket.

Another project that I've been working on is working on our family tree at ancestry.com.  Using the PAF files that I have been given, I have entered my family back 6 generations and Bryce's family back 5.  I have quite a bit more information for my family, but I'm nearing a point for some of the lines on Bryce's side that I will need site to start doing some real research to find family information.  I have been using the church's FamilySearch.org to verify birth and death dates and have been able to find several important facts, but if I get much further I may look at taking a trip to our church history library for a little help from someone that actually knows what they are doing.

Here are a couple more projects that I haven't been working on, but that I need to:  One (as always) - fold my mountain of laundry.  I had been doing well for a little while at keeping the folding caught up with the washing, but I got behind again so I have a mountain to work on.  Two - organize my 6-8 boxes of papers from our 5 moves and file them so I can find things when I look for them.  After organizing, I need to box up older files and keep current ones accessible. Three - I need to sort through our room full of boxes and either store them away in an organized manner in our basement, or open them and put their contents away.  I want to have this room emptied before we leave for Utah this summer.

On top of these projects I have all of my normal daily activities and a cute little boy that I get to play with and keep busy.  He is always full of energy and curiosity, and keeps both Bryce an I on our toes.  He's been learning how to match shapes, knows a few letters of his alphabet, and can count to 5 on his own.  He loves playing with his trains, racing his Hotwheel cars, and riding his large dump truck and tricycle either around the block or around the house if the weather is bad.  He also likes playing with his friends, going to Daddy's work, the Science Center, the Zoo, and Church (specifically nursery).  His favorite movies are "Cars," "Herbie Fully Loaded," and "Wall-E."  His favorite TV shows are "Dinosaur Train," "Thomas and Friends," "Little Einsteins," and "Chuggington."  His vocabulary is constantly growing and he loves big words and strange phrases.  Here are some of his favorites: "delicious," "scrumptious," "okey dokey," and "silly Daddy" (or Mommy, or Owen - depending on the situation and his mood).  He has also named all three of our baby guppies "Owen." He also loves looking at books and being read to.

Bryce has been keeping busy at SLU.  They just finished "Much Ado About Nothing" and after spring break they have two shows - "OTMA" and "Dead Man's Cell Phone" - to get built by sometime in April.  He loves teaching and doesn't mind most of the rest of his work.  He is going to be an Assistant Technical Director for the Utah Festival Opera in Logan, Utah again this summer and is working on lining up a couple of free-lance sound designs with St. Louis companies and with PCPA in Santa Maria, CA (where he completed his internship last spring).  He definitely keeps busy, but likes having most of his evenings home with his family.  His current project hobby is cross stitch (which he's really good at) and he is re-reading the Fablehaven book series.

I have been reading "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide the the Galaxy" and find it entertainingly confusing.  I have been able to follow most of the main plot, but the side plots and many of the varying descriptions and details keep losing me. I would give up reading it, but I still want to discover what the ultimate question is, so I keep at it, although I really can't read too much at once or else my brain feels like it is going to explode.

Anyway, I've rambled on for quite a while now, so if you've made it this far kudos to you.  I will close this rambling epistle by summing up our life.  We are happy, healthy (minus the occasional cold), and very blessed.  We are looking forward to our future and are very happy with our lot in life.  And lastly, we know that no matter what life throws at us - be it car troubles, tornadoes, stress, or whatever - Heavenly Father will take care of us - as long as we let him.

Owen Loves Music

Owen loves music - especially when he gets to play with his instruments.

His favorite is his Drum (a converted oatmeal container):

He insists on using his rhythm man as drumstick.

He also likes playing his recorder:

So far he has mastered 1 long continuous note.

He also likes playing the kazoo that he got for Christmas:

His favorite song to play on the Kazoo is "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

One of the noisiest - and therefore one of his favorites is his harmonica:

He hasn't learned any songs yet, but he has a good lung capacity.

Most importantly, Owen and I have fun playing music together.  Often I will play the piano and he will play a duet (for lack of a better word) on one of his instruments.  I love making music with my little boy.

Legos

So, most of my readers know Bryce is a huge Lego fan.  He has several large boxes of Legos and likes to collect Star Wars Lego sets.  Well, Owen isn't to the collecting phase yet, but he too loves Legos.  He was given a bunch of Lego Duplos from a friend of mine and they are one of his new favorite toys.  He likes to make towers, cars and trains.  He also loves to play Legos with his Daddy.  A couple of nights ago Bryce made him a rocket ship out of his Legos and he loved it instantly.  He even kept it mostly intact for about 5 days until it finally died when he dropped it this morning.  Here are some pictures of Owen with his Lego rocket ship:

A Normal Week for the Allen Family

I haven't taken any pictures this week, but I wanted to let all of you know what has been going on at our place anyway.  The weather has been cold, but we haven't had any new snow, so Owen and I have been able to get outside a few times this week.  On Monday we took a walk around the block with Owen riding his big wheel tricycle that Grandma & Grandpa Royer for Christmas.  He tried using the pedals a little bit, but lost patience pretty soon and ended up using his feet on the ground to move.  He'll figure it out eventually though - and we'll have fun learning together.  We also went for walks two other sunny days and enjoyed the exercise and and fresh air.

The rest of the week was pretty normal, but I've been trying really hard to fix good dinners for my family so we will want to eat at home rather than eat out. Here are a few of our meals from this week:  pork chops and sliced potatoes with a mushroom sauce and salad, orange beef with steamed rice, pork roast with rice and fruit, meat filled ravioli with a spinach mushroom sauce, and linguine with a sausage cream sauce.  To help make it healthier we added salad to each meal.  We then actually ate our leftovers for lunch (quite an accomplishment for us believe it or not). I feel that by focusing more on fixing my own meals and adding fruits and vegetables to our meals that we are going to be able to eat healthier and it will help me with my weight loss goals.

All things considered, we have had a really good week.  We have been having fun playing as a family in the mornings and evenings and Owen and I have fun playing during the day.  I feel so blessed to be able to have this time with my family.  I've also had a lot of fun helping my dad figure out his website and the time that I have spent helping him out with this project has helped me get to know him better.  Thanks Dad for letting me help you!!