Pics from our time in Louisiana

Here are more pics from our time in Louisiana.  We only have a few more days here and then we head to Virginia for 8 1/2 weeks.  I'm excited to actually be able to hang up my clothes.

Owen helped Pawpaw feed the horses 2 times everyday.  

We went to a blueberry farm one morning to pick blueberries.  Within 1 hour we had two huge buckets full of blueberries.  It took awhile for Owen to learn to only pick the blue ones, but by the end he had figured it out.  Needless to say, this past week we've had blueberry cake, blueberry french toast and blueberries on top of ice cream and cereal.  If anyone has any good blueberry recipes, send them our way :)

Downtown Shreveport has a great fountain for kids to play in.  Since this is one of Owen's favorite things to do, we took the whole family down to play one afternoon. 

Aunt Ta playing in the water

Uncle B is helping Owen play Duck Hunt on the Wii.  Owen also played Bowling which was hilarious.  The only way we could get him to release the button after swinging his arm was to tell him to drop the controller.  That quickly turned into the Wii controller fly across the living room.

Reading with Aunt Sassy

Owen played in the sprinklers one afternoon and thought he'd help out by watering the flowers and the horses.

Drinking milk with Uncle B

The picture above shows Owen taking a rest on the ball that he had been kicking around the yard for the past HOUR!  The kid has more energy than he knows what to do with.

A bunch of Ryan's college friends came out one night for dinner.  This is a pic of all of the kids playing with the horses.
Owen loves country living.  Where else can you play with horses, ride on tractors and catch frogs all in one day.

Where in the world are the Hammetts?

That's a good question!  Since leaving Arlington on June 26th with our truck and a 5 X 8 uhaul pulling everything we own, we have taken 2 15-hour road trips through 8 great states and Owen has slept in 6 different beds.  We spent 2 weeks in Iowa with my parents and are currently hanging out in Louisiana with Ryan's parents until we go to Richmond for our 8 week training. It's been a great month with our families and we are so thankful for their generous hospitality during our visits.  

So here are pics from our journeys this past month.  Check back often for regular updates.

Do we look like the Clampetts or what?  It was a bitter sweet time with our friends as they helped us load up and head out of town. 

Last supper at Mijos with the whole gang.  Just 5 years ago we were 8 adults and 1 child.  We've added 8 kiddos since then.

Birthday cake number 2.  Just as good as the first!  And this time on his real birthday.

Opening presents- "Mr. Taterhead" was a big hit!

As a treat for his birthday, we took Owen to the John Deere museum where he got to climb on all of the huge tractors.  Owen was especially excited about pushing the buttons labeled with the turtle and rabbit.

You've gotta love a small town 4th of July parade!

I'm not sure it's a very good idea to give a 2 year old a sparkler.  He was doing fine until it headed towards his mouth.

Uncle Benner bought Owen this light up ring while we waited for the fireworks.  It was late night for him, but he did great and LOVED his birthday fireworks :)

A nice evening walk along the Mississippi River.

Chillin with Great-Grandpa on the front porch

Reading with Grandma in his new Batman jammies

We went into Chicago to see a Cubs game and enjoy the city.  If you've never been to this great city, you've got to visit someday.  It's our favorite American city!

Riding with Grandpa on the train to the ballgame

Go Cubbies!

Can't go to Wrigley without eating a ballpark hotdog!

The first 5000 kids got a free Cubs lunchbox!  It's the great old-fashioned kind that we had as kids.  Owen held it in his lap the whole game.

The next day we walked around the city and visited the Field Museum of Natural Science which has the most incredible children's area full of hands on learning.  This is a picture of Ryan, Owen and Sue the giant T-Rex.

Coming Soon...

A new look family blog!

(We see you rolling your eyes! It's true! We're really going to start it back up...soon!)

Christmas 2008

Ok, we left our camera in Minnesota and just got it back. So I have a good reason for just now posting Christmas pics. We started our celebrations in Louisiana, came back to Arlington for a few days and then headed to my brother's house in Minnesota. Here are the pics from our Christmas adventures.

Christmas Eve in Louisiana

Setting out cookies for Santa

Christmas Morning-Look what Santa brought

Owen very quickly took advantage of his free reign on candy. You'd think he has had more "Christmas morning" experiences.

Louisiana Tech played in the Independence Bowl this year. Since this is the first time in many many years that Tech has made it to a bowl game, Ryan was very eager to participate in all of the festivities. This is a pep rally that they held in the Shreveport Convention Center.

Owen is learning how to bark like a bulldog!

Ryan went to the bowl game with his dad and sister.

The winning scoreboard

Ryan's pledge to his alma mater. Tech will always be "first" in his heart.

After spending 5 days in LA, we headed home for a few days before we were off again. While we were home, we had our own little Christmas. This picture captures only part of the excitment Owen exuded from opening presents that evening.

Owen is relishing in all of his new treasures.

After a quick stop at home, we headed to Minneapolis to celebrate Christmas and the New Year. Ben and Katie had a lot of fun things planned for the week, including making omlets in a bag.

Owen lounging in his Spiderman chair from Grandpa.

Sitting in Uncle Benner's lap with his new Cubs blanket that Grandma made for him.

Eating our "Fun"dou dinner

Owen is bundled up and ready to brave the cold. The weather in MN that week was in the teens, so we couldn't stay out for long, but we sure had a blast playing in the snow!!!"Oh, that white stuff is cold!"

Owen loved sledding down the hill in front of Uncle Benner's house.

How cute is he in his snowpants!

One evening we took a walk on a frozen creek that is decorated with tons of Christmas lights and opened to the public for ice skating and strolling. It was a gorgeous evening!

More "extreme" sledding!

Someone needs to tell this little Texas boy that you can't play at the park 365 days a year in all parts of the world.