21 months

With summer in full swing, and not much going on besides family time for me, the camera has been in heavy use. Also, the boys talk in sentences all the time now—constantly narrating their day—and it's really cute. Thus, there are a LOT of photos and videos from this month!

Liz took these photos after spiking the boys' hair when it was wet.

This one and the next one aren't exactly flattering, but they do convey being a twin dad pretty well...

They requested spiky hair the next day, too. Jonah kept getting very upset that it wasn't staying up, so I think she used a little gel this time...

A video of Owen playing chef (and Jonah getting frustrated with a bead toy on a step stool in the background... he was trying to fit it in the storage step, but it was too big--very upsetting).

The weekend of June 27, we went to Liz's grandmother's family's bi-annual reunion back in Western Massachusetts. Her grandmother is one of NINE sisters, and they all had a number of children, who then had a number of children... and some of them have had children too. Thus, despite a pretty low attendance this year, there were about 120 people there. We didn't even know most of them.

A few minutes from where we were spending the night (at one of Liz's mother's uncle and aunt's house), we pulled over to let the boys look at this double rainbow!

Liz giving some love to Jonah in the next two pictures. He probably said one of his best phrases: "How 'bout some hugs."

Here's Owen hanging out with one of his favorite people... "Papa"!

Someone had brought a tractor, which the boys LOVED playing on. Here's Jonah getting oriented.

Adjusting the lights...

Working the shovel...

Testing the steering...

And practicing the dismount!

Then they both got a ride from Papa!

Perhaps their favorite "toy" of the day was the bouncy houses that were set up (advantages of a huge family, I guess). A rotating army of relatives volunteered to take the boys for numerous trips to the bouncy houses. Here is aunt Danielle playing catcher at the far end.

Jonah running down the track (and aunt Danielle getting bowled over by Owen).

Owen adjusting his helmet (and again, aunt Danielle in the ready stance).

Continued helmet difficulty... (and the aftermath of Jonah's latest run).

These last two show pretty well just how exciting the bouncy house was...

During the same trip, we visited lots of old friends from when we lived in the Pioneer Valley, including a brief stop to see our friends Josh and Erica, and their baby son Toby (or "baby Toe-baby", as Owen sometimes says).

Then back at home for a while, we took a few videos...

A couple of videos of some typical chatting at home (I never can catch the best phrases!). They love to narrate everything they are doing all day, and know enough words to talk about most of it pretty well!

Next are two videos of them "playing microwave". They're actually extremely good at not pushing buttons... they try to break just about every rule we set these days (terrible twos starting early?), but for some reason "no pushing buttons on the microwave" has been just fine with them!

First Owen's turn... then Jonah's.

Here are some photos of Jonah at home, wearing Liz's shoes

I like that in the second one, you can see Owen trying to put the lens cap back on my camera!

Here is a series of a trip to the beach with daddy. It's a mile walk to the medical school building where I have class, and just under half a mile to the beach from there! Owen in the red hat, Jonah in the blue.

I guess they like to ride with their feet up!

Jonah versus the ocean... They both didn't like the "waves"—which barely even crashed and only came up a few feet—on their feet very much, and seemed a little afraid of them for a while. We'll have to work on that!

Owen was clinging to my leg to hide from the waves, and I told him to look up at the sky, so I could get a photo of his face.

Notice that Jonah is trying to wear my sandals in all the of the next photos, and getting pretty frustrated (frustration not so apparent without the soundtrack). I'm not sure how Owen's hat got so askew, or why he didn't ask me to fix it!

A couple more videos from home:

In July, we went camping in Acadia National Park for a weekend with some of my medical school friends.

While we were getting ready, we realized the lantern didn't work. Liz went out to get batteries and a few other supplies with Jonah, and Owen stayed home with me. He was very excited to get the lantern fixed!

And in the end, the batteries didn't help... as it turned out, it just needed some aluminum foil and electrical tape to patch a broken connection inside it (I don't have a soldering iron).

Here are some photos of the boys from the actual trip (my photos from the trip are on my flickr site).

The first day (Friday), Liz took Owen into town to get some groceries, and Jonah and I stayed at the campsite. After we walked to the bathrooms to fill up our water cooler, he seemed really sluggish on the way back to the site. When we got back, I noticed he had a fever and was shivering. When I asked if he was cold he said, "Need some hugs." I put warmer clothes on him and we lay down in the tent, and he was asleep pretty quickly. He slept it off until Owen came back, saw him in there, and thought it was funny. Jonah was pretty quiet and tired the rest of the day, but the fever was better and he was back to himself the next morning.

Owen and our friends' 4-year-old daughter Caeden are best buddies. I didn't get any photos of them walking all the way between our campsites and back holding hands. Owen had on the biggest, most contented smile as she led him over rocks and down the path.

On Saturday, the boys napped on the bus on our way to the beach to have lunch and spend the day. I went hiking with Michelle, Caeden's mother (see photos here), and Liz and the kids went with the rest of our friends to see Thunder Hole. I somehow crossed paths with Liz when I got back, and she had a long and difficult journey with the boys, a backpack, and a cooler getting back to the site before I found her.

Next are just some photos of the boys in our landlords' pool. I think this was the day we got back from Acadia, actually (it rained over night and the boys were cranky, so we packed up and left the park in the morning). It was also just two days before I left on my backpacking trip.

Jonah riding a whale.

Owen riding in the swimming sling that Liz made.