Sick with a cold, but still happy to eat

Poor little guy has a fever and is fading between whimpering this miserable little cry to wrenching and screaming. (I have no idea where he gets this behavior from... I would never act like that if I were sick... yea right!) Then we dish out breakfast, and he makes a bee line to the chair. Once in, he is focused, happy, and well... I wonder... Elias is a little bit like me, isn't he.

Excavators or "Ecuagers"

I know I am totaly biased when I think that my boys are the cutest kids in the world. But the excitement that Owen has when it comes to tractors, cement mixers, and trucks just makes me smile so big.

Like most kids as they are learning how to talk have their own language for a while. One of Owen's favorite things to see around Los Cabos are excavators, and tractors. He'll almost go into a panic to make sure you see it to. It might take a while for us to get him to say it correctly, but he sure likes excavators.

Check out his attempt:

travel time

My Friend Anna had this on her blog and I thought it was pretty cool so I thought I needed to go make one for myself. I love to travel, though I haven't done too much of it lately with a one year old and a two and half year old. I look forward to the day when they can share in the excitement of traveling to new places.

If you haven't checked it out before we put together a website of our year long trip around the world http://journal360.com... every so often I take a trip down memory lane and relive our adventure. Hopefully someday we'll do it again with our kids.

watering our new palms...

We were given a couple of coco palms that Elias and Owen love to water...

a quick update

We had a flurry of visitors and activity in October, with Jeremiah's Mom and Dad in town for a week and a half and then a visit by the Pollards and the Rodgers. Thanks to all of you for making the trek down here to visit. We loved having each of you here.

Simon took some really fantastic photos of our family while he was here. Thanks Simon!!! Here's one of them.


Elias and especially Owen loved having Lily, Max, Oliver and Milo here. So much fun to have playmates his own age.





This last month has been especially exciting with the construction of our house in full force... All of the walls for the bottom floor have gone up and the rough plumbing and electrical are almost all in. We'll put up more on our construction blog http://casitaconstruction.blogspot.com to show the whole process, but here's where we are today with the walls:

a few of elias's firsts

Elias loved his birthday cupcake and couldn't eat it fast enough. Unlike Owen however, who had never had any sugar before his birthday, it certainly wasn't his first taste of sweets. Isn't it funny how we are so different with second children, so much more laid back about all the things the infamous "they" tell you to and not to do with your kids.



The other first for Elias last week was that he got his first hair cut. He looks so much more grown up with his short hair, here's a before and after shot for you to compare. The guy who cut his hair put product in it to make it spikey.

here's the before...


and the after...

Birthday Boys in Cabo

Blackwell Family in Cabo. Grandma and Pops came down for a visit. Pops and Elias had their birthday parties at "The Condo" It sure was nice to have everyone here. We do miss having all our family together. Maybe next time. =)

Owen Goes Racing

Owen goes racing for the first time. On Uncle Ryan's lap, they came in first place! Owen still goes to sleep with the flier for the Kart Center.

Boys are so great...

dirt, sticks, rocks, cement = SOOO MUCH FUN!!!

the important things

Construction on our house is moving forward fast and I find myself all too often envisioning what life in our own home will be like. Our life this last 18months has been really scattered and transient and I am learning and being reminded this world is not our home and that a home really isn't the walls we are surrounded by. I've been reading through some of our friends blogs lately because we just got internet to our trailer and am again reminded that I shouldn't be worried when we will have a home to move into. Some of you have had some pretty profound things to say, thanks for helping to keep my focus heavenward and on the meaningful things this side of heaven. Interestingly neither Owen or Elias seem to care we're in a trailer surrounded by dirt. In fact they love always being so close to us and as for the dirt, they can't seem to get enough. One of their favorite things to do is to play outside with their tractors and "dumpies".

E Man Walking

Elias caught on film WALKING!!!

The Wheels on the Bus

The wheels on the bus go round and round!

That is one of Owen's favorite songs right now. Elias is just trying to keep up. We're back living in the trailer on our lot... right in front of the construction. Owen LOVES it.

The Hurricane Dissolved

Well God sure did answer our prayers. Hurricane Ivo dissolved into nothing as it approached the coast.

It did prompt our workers to bust things out. We got the cement trucks to pour the foundation over the week end.

Photos to follow on the Casita Construction BLOG.

Hurricane Ivo

We pray that hurricane Ivo does not dump too much rain on us. We really don't need to have more of our dirt wall fall down before we get our retaining wall up.

One thing is for sure... we will likely get some GOOD surf from this storm. We'll keep you posted.

Jeremiah still likes to surf

Some tourist guys took this photo of Jeremiah surfing at shipwrecks.



This is one of the reasons we live here.

Surf Lessons for Owen

Yesterday was Owen's half birthday, and Uncle Ryan's Birthday. We spent the afternoon at Shipwrecks out on the East Cape. Mommy surfed, Daddy surfed, and Owen had his first surf lessons in the ocean. It took a little while, but he got the courage to leave the death grip on daddy and go for it. We were real proud of Owen. He didn't want to stop, in fact he kept asking to go outside and surf with Mommy. We figured since the sets were six to seven feet, that was not a real good idea.

Enjoy the Video and Photos!

Hope to stay in touch better!

I've decided to give this blog thing a go. I always wanted to keep a journal, I'd start off on the right track but then get side tracked by everything else in life. Not to mention I've never considered myself much of a writer and I often seem to agonize over wording (I suppose that's usually for scientific papers though, haven't done much free form writing in a long time) Anyhow I'm going to try this for a while and see how it goes. Besides I'm hoping it will help me to keep you all up to date as to the happenings in the Blackwell Household.

Most recently Owen, Elias and I were in California doing a bit of a road trip. A visit to San Diego, some time in the Central Coast, a weekend with the Brackett family in Tahoe and then down to Santa Barbara for my friend Mari's wedding. We had a fantastic trip, the only downfall was that Jeremiah was only with us for the first 5 days. He was holding down the fort here in Cabo and getting the construction on our house started. Towards the end of our trip I was starting to get a bit worried about coming back to Cabo, the heat this time of the year can be horrendous and I tend to lose my patience way too easily as well as the fact I was getting nervous about moving back into our travel trailer. (We put a trailer on our lot that we are living in while we are building). All that to say we made it home safely and so far all is well, the heat isn't unbearable, nor is the trailer (though we are housesitting for a friend right now) I am actually beginning to recognize the benefits of being in such close proximity, especially given Owen and Elias are so little. It's also a lot easier to cool such a small space down.

Due to the hurricane that hit about a week ago everything is beautifully green, it's so amazing to see the desert transform from such a dry brown landscape to fresh bright green in a matter of days.

A quick update on the kiddos...
Owen still loves tractors, dumpies, pretty much anything with wheels including trains and planes. He rode the train from ventura to Santa Barbara with his Grammie and continues to talk about going on the big train. One of his latest things is jumping , he really got into it jumping on Grandma and Pop's trampoline as well as the one at the Brackett's. Another new thing for him since we've been back is that he's asking to go surfing so Jeremiah's taken him out to paddle around a bit in the shallow stuff.

Elias is changing like wildfire, his hair is almost blonde and he is starting to wave. We were at the beach this evening and as Jeremiah was walking down the beach to go surfing Elias began to wave bye bye. It wasn't the first time, however it was completely unsolicited, he just knew it was the appropriate thing to do as his Dad walked away. Isn't it incredible how much our little ones understand, they are far more perceptive than we think.

Anyhow... I think I'll wrap this up for now. I am going to try to do this at least once a week, sorry no pictures this time but I'll try to get some up soon.