Bellview Street

Our wonderful neighbors next door (Sarah March and Eric) through us (the Mezgers and the Ketches) a going away block party on Friday night. It was SOOOOO much fun. The entire street came more or less. The food was wondeful and the company was even better. It was yet another reminder of how extremely blessed we have been here in Winston-Salem. And good ecouragement to make the effort to get to know our neighbors, even in our rent house.

Here is Owen, Lauren and David just hanging out before dinner and the surprise festivies began.



Owen and David finishing some dinner...and watching our entertainment...
Surprise! Owen's front-row seat of our entertainment...a band of drummers/dancers from Rwanda (orphans of the genocide) who happened to be staying w/ Sarah March and Eric the weekend of the party. It was such a special treat to hear them play and see them dance--we couldn't have had better entertainment! (The bar has been set pretty high for any future going away parties we have...)

Some of the drummers.

Party party party! Dance dance dance!

Owen got to try his hand at drumming and really enjoyed himself!

So, the farewell continues. Still feels pretty surreal, the move and all, mostly because our house looks exactly the same (since we have packers/movers--yea!--nothing is packed). A lot is going to happen in the next two weeks...

While Momma is away...

It was a big weekend for the Mezger family. First a praise: we have a house in Austin! My mom and I literally combed every street in the greater central Austin area for 2 days (with the help of MLS listings, craigslist, etc.), and well, our options were slim. We didn't expect it to be so hard--you would think that in this (down) market it would be easy to find plenty of rental properties. And there ARE plenty of rental properties, but very very few in the price range we wanted, in one of the areas we wanted, with the space we needed. But on the 3rd (and last) full day of my trip, a new house came on the MLS and it was pretty much perfect. Not exactly where we wanted, but close enough. Plenty of space, nice yard, and well within our budget. It was a photo-finish to get the paperwork in (we knew there was competition) but we got it! The house was actually built in 1966 and has had 1 owner, never rented. It's a really sweet "old lady house" that will be just perfect for us for the next year or two while we get settled. So, yea!

Before I left, Owen had been battling a fever. No other symptoms really, just a decently high fever (103ish) which made him tired and fussy. I felt bad leaving Kyle all alone w/ him, but they prevailed...as the progression in these photos/videos will attest to.

This video is almost mean...but Kyle did go put him right to bed after taking it.



Looking pretty pitiful with his pedialyte.


He started feeling a lot better by Sunday, so they went to Tanglewood Park (where the nays and choo choo are). There is also a big lake/pond with ducks. Here is Owen in hot pursuit of a duck (notice he's carrying his blankie). (We have another video where Owen gets a little too close for the duck's comfort and the duck starts hissing at him.)

Lunch on the choo choo. He'll actually leave his hat on for 10-15 minutes now!

The other news we have is sort of a bummer: Owen had an appointment Tuesday with a peds allergist and they confirmed that he does have a peanut allergy. Kyle took him (I was flying back to NC) so he got to ask lots of questions. For now, we're just going to keep peanuts, peanut butter and ethic (specifically Thai) food out of his diet. If we need to get more extreme (and we hope not) we will, but we're going to try to not go overboard with restricting his diet. We will, however, be prepared at all times w/ an Epi pin (1-dose syringe/needle w/ epinephrine) in case of emergencies. Once we get settled in Austin, he'll get tested for tree nuts as well. There is a 20% chance he'll grow out of the peanut allergy, but we're not getting our hopes up. The good news is that 1) he was also tested for strawberries (because his bad reaction was to a PB&J w/ strawberry jelly) and he's not allergic to them, and 2) peanut oil doesn't have the protein that causes the allergic reaction so we can still eat at Chick-fil-A! :)

Overall, a very productive weekend!

Nana and the Zoo

So, we had a great weekend last weekend--Owen's Nana (Kyle's mom) came to visit. Somehow he managed to keep straight the difference between his two Nanas (grandma and banana). We pretty much just hung around the house and played, except for one big outing to the NC Zoo in Ashboro which was a major hit. Here are some pics from the weekend...

Peekaboo from behind our big tree in the backyard.

We're trying not to encourage this, but Owen's ability to climb has started to speed up. Here he is on the picnic table w/ one of his trucks.

Here they are reading "boootz" together. Nana said that Owen's attention span was sometimes longer than hers! Also, he prefers to read rather than be read to--this means he wants to turn the pages and point out all the things he knows, whether it is an animal, letter (out of a repertoire of 6 or 7), or an action like someone going nigh-nigh or draaaaw(ing).

Okay, here we are at the zoo. I think Nana and Owen are both mooing at something in this photo--something that was most definitely not a cow but looked like one from far away.

I think Kyle was trying to get Owen to pay attention to the giraffes ("raffs") in the distance. Owen's favorite were probably the zebras (Naaaays) and flamingos (ming-mos).

One highlight of the weekend was Nana teaching Owen what a flashlight was (from one of his books). So we brought out an old (huge) mag light for them to play with. When you adjust the bulb a certain way there is a little crescent shaped shadow at the center that looks like a tiny moon surrounded by light. Owen went crazy over this and every time he went into (or near) Nana's room he would ask to see the moon.

Here are a few photos from the week before Nana's visit. Owen just rolled over on his back and started to "read". Doesn't look very comfortable to me, but then again, he wasn't there very long.

I was fixing lunch as quickly as humanly possible but he just couldn't make it...(I think his other leg is underneath him.)

Playing outside w/ Dada and the hose.

Owen's verbal skills continue to amaze us. He's starting to put 2 words together a lot, like "miwk peeeese" and "nigh nigh dada" and he's also learned to ask for help "hep" which is, well, helpful and say excuse me (meeuu me) which is just cute!

He's also making good use of "No" to the point where we need to start being careful what we say around him...tonight before bedtime I said, "Owen, do you want to go take a bath?" to which he responded "No". Okay, so I know not to ask a toddler a question you're not prepared to accept the answer to (even if it's no) but quite honeslty I didn't think he really would understand that. He's smarter than I think! Kyle and I were both laughing about it so to test his understanding (mistake #2) Kyle said, "Owen, do you want some ice cream?" to which Owen responded "peese, peese, peese!". Okay, he understands. We (hopefully) won't make that mistake again.

Oooh--this is big--he's telling us when he poops! (If you have/had kids, you understand what a big deal this is.) He says "boop" and pats his bottom after he goes. It's awesome!

FYI: I'm headed to Austin this weekend to find us a (rent) house and Kyle and Owen will be here having some quality father-son time. You can pray for us all! :)