Winter trip to San Diego

This past January Eric attended a conference on Coronado Island near San Diego. This is actually a very respected conference and he'll probably get to attend every year...which works out great for us!

We had a blast hanging out with family in the few days before the conference started. We went to the wild animal park, beach and Owen and his cousin Brynn had a blast at a huge indoor  bounce house.

And even more exciting we got to meet baby Blake for the first time!

Later in the week Eric and I went down to his conference and enjoyed some time just the two of us. The resort and weather were amazing. Everyone joined us that Friday and we had fun swimming and playing for the rest of the weekend. You can't beat hanging out by the pool in January!

In other news, this was about the time that Owen really started talking in complete sentences. The first time he strung several sentences together was in the week after we got back from California. This boy loves his play-dough. We were all sitting around the table playing with it and Owen spoke up, "No momma, don't touch. I do it. I push hard!"

Eric and I both stared at each other amazed. Our baby boy was definitely growing up!

Christmas ... 2011

Yes this blog is woefully behind - almost a year behind. I'm going to do my best to quickly update it with the major events from the past year.

First up - Christmas 2011 - our first Christmas just the three of us at home. We tried to start a few family traditions we'll hopefully be able to keep in the years to come.

Christmas Eve night we had a yummy dinner of raspberry chipotle pork loin, roasted butternut squash and green beans. Then we went out to look at Christmas lights. There are a few displays in town where you can get out and walk among them. Owen really enjoyed his up-close look!

Once we got home we got in our Christmas PJs (at least Owen did) and opened gifts from family. Owen got a tool set and Dr. kit that he loved!

The next morning things did not go as planned. Eric got called out at 6am (he did psyc evals at hospitals) and didn't get home until 1pm. Needless to say I was not happy to be spending Christmas morning alone.

One good thing about Owen's age is that he doesn't know Santa comes on Christmas morning. So Santa came after his nap instead. (He was a little grumpy after his nap.)

That night we had the Texas traditional tamales - even Californian Eric enjoyed them and agreed it should be a tradition!

A few days later we headed to Amarillo to celebrate with the extended Burns family. On our designated Christmas morning Owen woke up to ANOTHER stocking. This one had lots of goodies - his favorites were some toy planes and sidewalk chalk!

But his favorite even of the morning was putting snow on the Christmas tree.

Later that night we opened gifts, but Owen just wanted to throw tissue paper in the air.

Owen did really enjoy loving on his cousin Graham. I love these two pictures of the boys.

The holiday did have a sad ending. Right before new years my mom got a phone call that her dad had passed away suddenly. I was so thankful that the whole family was there when she got the news. We were able to take all the Christmas stuff down in a few hours and then Owen and I drove with my parents to Oklahoma for the funeral.

My PaPa was a Colonel in the Army and was buried with full military honors, including an 18 gun salute. I'm thankful he got to meet Owen (Thanksgiving 2010) before he passed away.