Summer fun

Roby's parents visited us for two months during the summer, and Owen loved having his grandparents around! He started calling them "Umma" and "Uppa," which they were tickled with because usually when referring to them he only makes a silly sound that reminds him of Malayalam. By the end of their stay, he was calling them Ammachy and Appachan like a pro! He still points to airplanes and says "Plane, Appachan, poi," meaning "Grandpa went away on the plane." So cute, but sad...he certainly does miss them! They spoiled him with love, attention, winnie the pooh critters, Indian food & baby blankets. (Mummy and I were knitting fiends during her stay...she showed me the basics of crochet, and i taught her a few new knitting patterns for baby blankets. So she made him three!) We made many fond memories.

Some of Owen's antics during their stay: We quickly discovered Owen's affinity for Mummy's biryani (sort of an Indian version of fried rice with chicken, peas, and spices.) To this day he asks for "spicy rice," but mine just isn't as good as hers of course!
I had been tracking each new word he started saying every month, but while they were here he started speaking so much, I had to give up writing them all down!
He also learned to pray with us at the dinner table, folding his hands and closing his eyes (every once in awhile he would open them to see if we were almost done...Roby and Pappa tend to say long prayers :) When we said Amen he would loudly repeat, "Amen!" Several times when we began eating without praying he would remind us, "Pray!" and fold his hands. Cuters.
Once while Mummy and I were driving somewhere in the rain, I turned on the back window wipers, which make an annoyingly loud, grating noise against the glass. We laughed so hard and couldn't stop when Owen started saying "bless you" each time the wiper made the noise behind him. Hard to explain, but I assure you very funny at the time. Owen always is saying or doing something to make us smile and chuckle. He also would stand on top of my recipe box and loudly babble to an invisible audience...perhaps he's preaching? :)
Mummy pointed out several of Owen's habits that Roby had when he was little, like choosing to call cats "meows," even though he can say cat, and running around on his tiptoes. There were several more, but I can't recall them right now, but I thought it was cute that Owen's traits were reminding Mummy of Roby as a baby.

During their stay we celebrated a bunch of occasions: Pappa's birthday, our four-year wedding anniversary, father's day and Roby's 30th birthday! We also visited the aquarium, took O to Coolidge park downtown, went to the drive-in movies, enjoyed a visit from our friends the Newtons, traveled to Atlanta to see some friends from Philly who were visiting relatives, helped Owen garden & did some landscaping and hardscaping. Actually, Pappa did most of the work, but with some of Roby's help at night and on weekends, they were able to complete a brick and gravel path leading from our back porch slab to the patio that my brother Jason helped Roby lay last year. (pics to come in a post shortly). We started planting our shade garden (but it will take awhile for the ferns to get big and spread) and watched Owen's little wildflower garden grow out front (complete with miniature sunflowers that were his height). Owen *loves* to help water flowers with his little fishy watering can and always squats down to give them a good sniff!

Here are pictures from Mummy and Pappa's stay and our summer in (hot, hot, hot!) Chattanooga.

We celebrated Pappa's birthday at a local Mexican restaurant, where he was quite surprised when they presented him with a sombrero and sang to him!

May 31st marked our fourth year of marriage (and seventh year together!)
Mummy and Pappa watched O while we went to the movies & The Bonefish Grill (try the bang bang shrimp and yummo steaks with gorgonzola butter sauce). We can't believe four years have passed since we said "I Do" in California. We *love* marriage and continue to grow as we face together all the adventures unfolding before us!

Three generations of Isaacs on father's day!

Owen evidently loved the 30 candles adorning Roby's birthday cake. After the party, when all but one piece of cake was left, we caught Owen taking all of the candles and placing them in the last piece. Once he accomplished his mission, he proudly blew on all of them and proclaimed, "Happy, Happy, Dada!"

Owen loves exploring at the aquarium!

When Mummy announced she had finished Owen's blanket, he promptly climbed up on the coffee table and laid down on it!

We had a wonderful visit with our friends Buck and Jesseca Newton and their kids Brennen, Gabby and Caelan! I worked with Jess in CA, and they have since moved to Iowa. They were on a roadtrip home from New York, and we were happy they stopped during their travels to spend the day with us. Owen and Brennen are the same age, so it was cute to see them interact. We wish we lived closer together so they could play together more often.
Buck and Jess are expecting a little one TODAY!

Could the girls BE any cuter!?!

Future (and already talented) photographer Caelan snapped this picture of us!

This is Owen proudly looking at the 17-block tower he built all by himself.

Quite a feat!

Owen being a little monkey at the park

(I am beginning to think he has some of my gymnastic genes in him!)