April 2008 - The Big 40

April arrived and so did another set of adventures for our family. The first one, on April 2^nd, just 2 weeks after his first birthday, Kelan started walking. He loves his new skill and is enjoying walking around and exploring things from a new perspective. Oweghn is so proud of him. He loves to make sure we all see Kelan every time he walks. All month long, whenver Kelan walked, Oweghn would yell, "Look Mommy and Daddy, Kelan is walking all by himself!" What a great big brother. Kelan loves him so much and tries to follow him everyone. When he can't keep up, Oweghn is always willing to take him for a ride...in the wagon, on the bike, in the dumptruck...wherever.




Kelan also started to say 'Thank you'...which we all think is so cute that we had to include video on this. Check it out. Such a polite baby...it's pretty funny.



Other very exciting news this month…Oweghn and Kelan have their first cousin on the Egusa side of the family. Claire Marie Egusa arrived very early on April 6^th. She is beautiful and we are so excited to meet her in person. Thanks to Skype, we’ve been able to see quite a bit of her, but it will be so nice to be able to hold her and see her up close. Congrats to Erin and Brett…the proud parents!

We also had a visit from Aunt Shelly and Cousin Hannah in April. Shelly came up for a work conference and stayed the weekend with us. Oweghn loved playing with his cousin Hannah. We got a lot of quality time together and everyone enjoyed it. We’re looking forward to another visit soon. Perhaps next we’ll head to sunny Arizona.

We finished off our busy month with a big surprise birthday bash for Sean’s 40^th. It was a surprise party held at a wine bar downtown on the waterfront. The weather was perfect and we were able to spend some time outside. Sean thought that he and I were going on a date and when we arrived at the restaurant, his family and some friends were there waiting to have dinner with them. He assumed this was his party, but in actuality, his party was forming in the party room next door during our dinner. We walked into the party room and there were about 40 people there to yell “Surprise”. It was great so see so many friends and family members there! Oweghn and Kelan were there for the first 45 minutes or so to join the party and then they left with Grandma and Grandpa on the farm to head home and go to bed. It was a fantastic night of wine, dessert, fun and friends.

We spent the next day, Sean’s actual birthday having breakfast with Sean’s out of town party guests…Kim DiGiulio and Grandma and Grandpa from Seattle. After breakfast we headed to a park in North Portland where Sean, Kelan and I were filmed for a campaign commercial for Sho Dozono who was running for Mayor of Portland. Later in the day, we had some quality family time at the park…flying Sean’s new remote controlled airplane that the boys got him for his birthday. For dinner we had pizza and for Sean’s birthday dessert, we had brownies. We finished off the night by watching a movie together before heading to bed. Sean had a great birthday weekend. Happy 40^th!

We had lots of little activities this month…a baby shower, a friend’s 40^th birthday party and a 5 year old birthday party. We went to a new pizza and play place, to the Children’s Museum, to the Pittock Mansion and the bookstore. We had a weekend of 80+ degree weather to enjoy the outdoors and the following weekend we had snow.

The boys continue to enjoy swim class. Oweghn is doing really well with swimming. He is able to swim about 10 feet across the pool under water. He has no fear and it’s so fun to watch his skills improving. Kelan continues to love being in the water with Daddy for his class. He loves blowing bubbles in the pool and in the bath.

April seemed to go even faster than March. We are looking forward to what May will bring.