A Colorado Wedding

At the end of June we hopped on a plane in Lousville and headed for the Rocky Mountains. It was time for the celebration of Suzy and Brian's wedding. And while our checked bag decided to take a side trip to Dallas, we didn't miss a beat and got up to Winter Park in plenty of time to enjoy all the weekend had to offer.


Our first event was a Bowes family dinner at Alberto's. It was good Italian cuisine and our table of twelve enjoyed it immensely. Of course the company was better than the food, and Callie was particularly happy to be in between Michael and Brendan (in Callie's terms, "my cousins!")



The parents of the bride started beaming the moment they saw Suzy and didn't stop the whole weekend long. They were impressed, as were we all, with all of the effort Suzy and Brian put into the preparations for their wedding. Indeed, our car on the ride up to the mountains contained our bags, a wedding dress, boxes of self-grown wheat grass, origami flowers, and much more. Needless to say, it was filled up with all sorts of goodies the bride and groom had put together for the occasion.




Taffy and Jay weren't the only ones beaming. Suzy looked absolutely fabulous as she walked down the aisle. It was fitting to see Suzy in a wedding dress in the great outdoors and the setting was truly beautiful. Unfortunately, the weather did not fully cooperate with the wedding plans. Although Suzy and Brian can endure quite a bit, as the rain began to fall they decided that it was best to take the ceremony inside.



It is not everyone who can say they had an outdoor-indoor wedding. And honestly, the change of venue did not disrupt the magic of the day at all. Everyone took it in stride and understood that the day was about Suzy and Brian, and the temperamental Colorado weather couldn't take that away. The ceremony was wonderful, and before you could say I do, they did, and they were married!



As you can see from this picture, Suzy and Brian make a very attractive and photogenic couple. And if you look closely into their eyes, you can also see that they are ready to dance and live it up!



The best man (Micah) and the matron of honor (our very own Katie Balestracci) gave funny and touching toasts, Suzy and Brian showed off the results of their dancing lessons, and everyone got to partake of the sundae bar. And then the party really began.


Callie enjoyed some one on one time with her Aunt Suzy throughout the festivities. Unfortunately Callie was unwilling to fully let loose on the dance floor. But she wanted to watch everyone else boogie down. It might take a while for Callie to show her dancing skills in public, which is too bad, because she does have some moves.




Although the ceremony made it official that Brian is now a part of our family, we can honestly say that he joined our crazy crew last Christmas when he made his first appearance at the annual sibling dinner in Connecticut. And we must admit that his presence helped lead to the very first sibling dinner "after party" at the Balestracci residence.



And the above pictures only provides some of the highlights from a great weekend of family and fun. We had an amazing time meeting Suzy and Brian's friends, and Brian's family in particular. It is too bad the party had to finally come to an end.


However, when one party ends you have to start planning for the next one. Pictured here, for all the world to see, is John's Uncle Tommy making a pinky-swear promise with Sarah. What is that promise, you may ask. Well, after years of dropping not so subtle hints, we decided to get Tommy and Terry to commit to a visit to horse country. Or at the very least, we got Tommy to commit to a very public promise that we will remind him of as often as possible until he makes his first appearance in the Bluegrass.

Fun in the Sun

May 2010 was a big moment in time for Callie. She successfully transitioned from her crib to a big girl bed and has enjoyed the new set up of her bedroom. Although she has been interested in using the potty for some time now, May marked the real thing. She started wearing big girl underwear every day by the end of the month and hasn't looked back. And we are happy to report (knock on wood) there have been very few accidents. Just as important in some respects, on May 31 Callie took her last dose of antibiotics. Because she had been taking a daily dose since she was 2 days old this was a very big deal. But there was also a developmental milestone in May that was not quite as positive. Callie one day at dinner told John he was a "stinky butt". The moment took a little while to sink in, but after a few giggles we made it clear that this was not exactly acceptable behavior.

All of this meant that Callie entered June with some substantial momentum on a variety of fronts. She was fired up and ready to take on the summer.


Fortunately, we had just the right activity planned. We hopped in the car and headed down to Richmond to hang out with our friends the Richters. They had the inflatable pool all ready for Callie and their sons Jackson and Eli. Callie didn't waste any time and made herself at home.




Callie really enjoyed running around with all of the boys, including her Dad. And when Jackson and Eli taught Callie how to use the sprinkler as a weapon, she was more than happy to gang up on John. From this picture you can see where Callie gets her glowing white skin. Nothing screams sunscreen like these two ivory figures.



Squirting John wasn't the only thing that Jackson and Eli taught Callie on that sunny day. We always knew Callie was a mixture of her two parents - risk-taker meets Captain Caution. Fortunately, on that day the risk-taker led the way. Take a peek at what we mean.





She didn't go the full lengths that Jackson did, but she took some solid jumps and we were quite impressed with the athleticism displayed. Overall it was a lot of fun and we hope to see the Richters again soon. In the meantime, however, June also means blueberries at Reed Valley Orchard. We didn't want to waste any time and headed up there the following weekend.





We must admit that Callie wasn't as excited about picking blueberries as she was last year. But she did have a great time pointing out all of the bugs on the ground, the beetles on the plants, and the rotting berries. So at least there was something that still sparked her interest.


And at the end of our picking session we still came away with almost five pounds of blueberries. Callie was also quick to point out that Mom picked more than Dad. But what really made the day was when we all left the main building holding berry slushies in addition to our picked produce. This year we did not have to share because we each had our own cup. It was fantastic.



The day after we picked blueberries was another special day. Callie had worked hard in daycare the previous week and was ready to show off her efforts for Dad. It's crazy to think that this year Callie is starting to grasp the concept of holidays like these and is excited to participate. Next year John expects her to prepare an entire breakfast in bed.


Our final picture is both cute and a preview of a future post. Here we see John and Callie in the airport as we prepared to head to Denver, Colorado for Suzy and Brian's big day.




The wedding post will have to wait, but it will be a good one. We have nearly 300 pictures to choose from, so get ready. Until then, have a great Fourth of July weekend.

Countdown to Suzy's Big Day

The biggest event of Memorial Day weekend was the bridal shower for John's sister Suzy. It has been super cute to hear Callie talk about how Suzy and Brian are getting married in Colorado. So the event was a great way to show Callie all the bells and whistles that go along with a wedding. Callie enjoyed being in the middle of it all, and especially enjoyed any chance she had to share the limelight with the star of the show, bride-to-be Aunt Suzy.



The actual event was held at the Balestracci residence, a home normally infested with boys. But fortunately, John had arranged for all the guys to spend the afternoon at a pool party across town. So while they made themselves scarce, the ladies showered Suzy with food, gifts, and laughter.


Two of those in attendance were Alison Skonieczny Zanardi and Melanie Skonieczny Loeber. They are sisters, by the way, and not just two women who have eerily similar middle names. It was great to catch up with both of them. The focus of our conversations were pregnancy, since Melanie is now officially 12 weeks, and when we could eat, since Mel and Sarah were trying to battle first trimester nausea. It will be fun to expand the Skonieczny-Bowes clans by two this winter.


it was also wonderful to see John's cousin Emily and Aunt Debbie, pictured here with Katie. They drove down from Vermont for the event and we will also get a chance to see them in Colorado at the wedding. Emily is going to be in attendance with her boyfriend Eli, and we have already given her fair warning that he should be prepared for a proper grilling by, among others, Chris and Sarah. While they are gentle and kind about it, Chris and Sarah have a way of learning a lot about you in a short period of time.


Also making the drive to Guilford for the event were John's Aunt Pat and cousin Barbara. It was great to have them there since we don't get to see them often enough. Barb looked especially radiant on that day...wink-wink, hi Barb! (We have to give a shout out to someone we know reads the blog besides our parents!) On a serious note, it was great to get a chance to talk and hopefully the future will provide more opportunities to hang out. For instance, perhaps Ryan would like to take a look at the University of Kentucky. Rumor has it we have some good sports teams - basketball, football, baseball. We're just throwing some ideas out there.


Finally, we have a picture of the original Bowes girls. Don't they look fantastic. Unfortunately we don't have a photo from a few decades ago to compare. But trust us, they have only gotten cuter.



Katie, Taffy, and Suzy's friend Heather put on a fabulous shower and truly got us revved for the celebration to come. We are looking forward to Colorado in less than two weeks. The countdown is on for Suzy and Brian's big day!!! Don't worry, we may take a few pictures to share.

May Travels

May was a tough month for us. As we shared with you a few posts ago, the Halloran family left Lexington and headed for Salt Lake City. The good news is that they are doing great in SLC. The bad news is that they weren't the only ones leaving Lexington. At the end of the month our friends Neil and Karen packed their bags and headed for New York. Like the Hallorans, this move was because of an awesome opportunity that they couldn't pass up.

Fortunately, we had the chance to spend a weekend with Neil and Karen before they departed. We rented a cabin at Jenny Wiley State Park and got in some good old fashioned nature and relaxation time. Pictured below is part of the nature encounter - ducks aplenty.



Okay, so there are no ducks in the picture above. But we were feeding the ducks. Callie enjoyed it, once John a.k.a. Captain Caution, allowed her to walk past the large hissing drake. That's a male duck, by the way. Don't feel bad - we had to google it. This was yet another example of Sarah and John's contrasting parenting styles, because Sarah thought she might be able to tame that bad boy by riding him across the lake.


Despite the parental craziness, Callie was willing to pose with one of the signs that confirms there were actually ducks on the premises. One wonders if her willingness to pose for such pictures will diminish or increase as the years go by. We are having to bribe her more often to obtain pictures like these. (If you look closer at the picture you will see a fine pair of legs behind the sign - but you don't see the candy held behind the sign)


One of the best parts of the weekend was taking an easy hike on the lakeside trail while Neil a.k.a. The Tree Man, pointed out the variety of plant life and gave us juicy tidbits about the age, diversity, and lushness of the forest around us. At the end of the hike, we weren't sure whether to tip him, prepare for a quiz, or just get dinner ready. As you can see, we have to work on Callie's ability to stay awake in class. This behavior would not fly in Neil or John's classroom.


We will definitely miss Neil and Karen and hope that we see them soon in the future. Of course, that may be difficult as Karen will be spending the next year doing research in Israel while Neil spends several months studying the forests of Mongolia. And no, we are not making any of that up. You thought we traveled alot. At least we stay on the same continent.

Speaking of travel, the last weekend of May brought us to Connecticut for a number of events. The first order of business was John's 15th Yale reunion. Callie spent most of the weekend with Nana Banana, Sport, Suzy, Chris, Katie, Michael, and Brendan, while we lived it up in New Haven. John walked around and caught up with classmates he hadn't seen for years, while Sarah scoped out the members of her favorite reunion class, the men of '45W. Those are the guys who initially enrolled with the class of '45 and then went to fight in WWII. Though they graduated later they are designated '45W. They were celebrating their 65th and were looking good!

In any case, Callie did come into the city to hang out with us for a couple of hours on Saturday. She ran around with the other kids and took part in the little festival Yale put together. They are just trying to recruit early. Personally, John thinks she looks pretty good in the Yale hat she has on below. Although to be fair, she would probably look just as cute in a UC-Santa Barbara hat.



It pains me (John) to say that another picture that could have gone in this spot just didn't make the cut. But for the record, we do have a couple of pictures of John and Callie at the front door of the Master's House of Jonathan Edwards College. With any luck, and over Sarah's registered protest, this will be the front door to our house. Yes, Sarah is shaking her head as I type this.


The last picture for this post finds Nana Banana, Brendan, and Callie posing with the man of the hour, Michael. He had just finished playing his trombone and marching with the Adams Middle School Band in Guilford's Memorial Day parade. Everyone agreed that his band was far better than the high school band. It is also important to note that we intended to have pictures of Michael marching and playing. However, due to John's fine camera work, we ended up with multiple shots of a fine young boy named Tony Penza. He does play the trombone, but is not Michael. Such is life.

Of course there was one more very big reason for our trip. But that deserves a post all its own.

Call a Timeout! We Need a New Defense!

That's right folks, the time has come for us to shift to a man-to-man defense on the homefront. And for our non sport-loving friends and family, we are excited to announce that Team Bowes is expanding. Our official due date is December 6, 2010. Last week we went to the doctor to make sure that everything was looking good and that we are on track for another healthy baby. At this point the baby is ten weeks old so we have thirty weeks to go.





It is amazing how it doesn't feel real until you get the opportunity to see a little blob on a fuzzy screen and hear a heartbeat. The little one has been dubbed, Peanut, and Callie is slowly starting to understand that Baby Peanut will eventually join our family. However, she tells us that she also has a Baby Peanut in her belly. It frightens John and makes Sarah giggle. All in all we are doing well and are super excited about having another child in our family. Fortunately we have managed to forget most of the sleep deprived elements of Callie's infancy, so we are still able to look forward with anticipation to December. Let the games begin!

The RV Comes to Town

At the beginning of April, Ron and Teri Lucas began a magical adventure. They left Rancho Murietta in northern California with a spring in their step and a gleam in their eye. Their mission - to arrive in Utica, NY for a wedding on May 22. In that six week span they planned on taking their RV to some of the wonderful places across this great nation and experiencing all that the United States has to offer....things like tornadoes, floods, April snowstorms in the Rockies, etc.

We were lucky to have a chance to see them shortly after they avoided floating down the Ohio River because of flash floods in Paducah, Kentucky. What is remarkable is that after all they had experienced the spring and the gleam were still there.

This is very evident in the picture below. We try to make sure that Callie has a good understanding of who her immediate family is, and Teri has made it even easier by making an I-spy quilt with pictures of all those family members. And we were happy to see that our efforts paid off, as it took only two minutes or less for Callie to warm up to both Ron and Teri. She even spent a full day with them just hanging out and being spoiled while the parents were at work.



What's also great about Ron and Teri is their willingness to check out anything and everything. The picture above is taken at the Thoroughbred Horse Park in downtown Lexington, a park we have driven by countless times in the past four years but never visited. It's very cool.


That Saturday we all got the opportunity to stop by Mayfest, the downtown crafts fair that kicks off a summer of art festivals and other celebrations around here. Here we see Teri trying to pass on some of her handiness by showing Callie how to make her own bracelet. These are the types of skills that the whole Kentucky Bowes clan would benefit from. Callie also enjoyed a moon bounce and some kettle corn. It was a fun day that ended with a campfire beside the RV at the Kentucky Horse Park.


To make things easier for all involved, Great Uncle Ron and Great Aunt Teri have been given the names of GU (pronounced gee-you) and GA (pronounced gee-ya). It was cute listening to Callie call them by their new names. And while we still hold out hope that they might stop by Lexington on their way back to California, rumor has it they are taking a more northern route. So anyone reading this blog who lives along the I-90 corridor might want to look out for some crazy weather in late May and early June.

The Multiple Joys of Spring

I know it is hard to imagine, but a lot has happened in the past month or so. But we have to start with something that had its origins in Callie's second birthday. Now Callie has received quite a few packages in the mail in her two and a half years on this earth, but no package has journeyed so far as the one pictured below. Sarah's cousin Haley had to send this particular package three different times from California due to address mix-ups, misunderstandings with the UPS folks, and other assorted issues.

Despite all of the troubles, we are happy to report that the four horses and their beautiful barn made it to Lexington in time for the Derby and are one of Callie's favorite toys.



Thanks again to Haley, Ryan, and Skyler for such a thoughtful gift. You can never have enough horses in this neck of the woods. Speaking of woods, our next little episode involves a dead tree and a friendly neighbor.

In the three years we have lived in our house there has been a tree in the backyard that has bothered the two of us immensely. It was dead when we moved in and somehow managed to look deader every year. John, aka Captain Caution, was wary about dealing with it because it nestled against the power line leading to the house. But one sunny day our neighbor Marcus informed us that was hogwash, brought over his axe, and went to town.



Fortunately for all involved, Marcus is handy with an axe and has good aim. In a matter of minutes the tree was down, hacked up into smaller pieces, and stuck into our yard bin. It is amazing how the elimination of one dead tree can brighten a whole backyard. And with that task accomplished perhaps we will get around to fixing the screen door that is still torn from the efforts of the previous owner's dog.


Next we have a picture of Team Bowes on the morning of the Heart Walk, a 5k walk to raise awareness and money for the American Heart Association. It may not be the best picture of us, but it proves to our generous supporters that we did in fact show up and walk.



Our heartfelt (get it) thanks go to all of you who responded generously to Sarah's email and donated money in support of Team Bowes. You will be happy to know that we raised $575 for the cause. We hope to do more events like this in the future, especially as Callie gets older and has a better understanding of what we are doing.


This spring Callie has discovered what some might call, the joy of dance. Many times she insists that her parents sit on the floor and "Watch me dance!" Her particular influences and styles are somewhat undefined. Sarah thinks it's the Bowes genes. But take a look and you decide.



And for those of you wondering, she is dancing to the Grateful Dead. But she has been known to get her boogie on to just about anything. Like her parents, she has an eclectic taste in music.


Unfortunately, we have to end this post on what is truly a sad note. As of this past Tuesday, the Halloran family are no longer residents of Lexington. They have set off on a new adventure in the state of Utah. Fiona got an opportunity she couldn't pass up and while we already miss them tremendously we know that they are excited and happy about what lies ahead. Of course, Callie has asked about Iain every day since they have left, and it is going to be a difficult adjustment not having her best friend around. But Utah isn't that far away and who knows when we'll feel the need to go skiing in Park City.

We are on a roll, so more posts to follow soon!