July 2007

July was a very busy month for us! We had parties for the Fourth of July, for Michelle Willis' birthday, and for Cameron's birthday, plus trips to Virginia Beach and Ohio. I had 1100 pictures to look through! This may be the longest page of photos in the two-and-a-half-year history of Lily's website.


We went to the Willises for the Fourth of July and blew up some fireworks. Madeline was appropriately dressed for the occasion.


The girls climbed inside Madeline's toddler car -- it's meant for one toddler, but they both squeezed in. Cameron drove his cooler car around.


Madeline and Lily got soaking web squirting each other with the garden hose!


Lily and I had momentary fame on July 6th. On one of our many trips to the Children's Museum, a photographer had asked to take a picture of Lily with the museum's president, and it came out in an issue of Memphis Parents magazine on July 6th. We found out about it because Lily's day care center had the photo posted in the lobby. On the same day, a photo came out in my company's in-house newsletter of me showing off my iPhone!


We wanted to have another big party, so we used Michelle Willis' 33rd birthday as an excuse. This time we invited everyone to our house.


The festivities included big inflatable toys for the kids (and adults) to play on: a large slide and two moon bounces we rented for the day. One of the moon bounces has Dora on the front, since Lily is such a big fan.


The kids obviously enjoyed all the bouncing.


Lily was unfazed by the height of the slide and went on it over and over (I wasn't sure she would). Madeline went on it too, and of course the older kids Cameron and Madison were not afraid of it.


While the kids ran around in the 90-plus degree heat outside, many of the smarter grownups stayed in the cool air-conditioning.


It felt like our under-privileged daughter had gone too many months without some big toy purchase, so we bought her a purple convertible to drive around in the yard. At first I wasn't sure if she wanted it, but while I was putting it together she eagerly asked if it was ready and has been driving it around a lot since then. She's excited that she has her own car that's parked in the garage just like Mommy's car and Daddy's car. We asked her what the car's name was, and she said "Ken", so it's her Kenny car. (This should make her Papa happy, whose name is Ken! I don't think she knows his name is Ken though.)


Here's a movie of her driving Kenny, which ends abruptly as she's about to crash into my car in the driveway! Click the image to play it, or download the video here.


Some of the other kids at the party took turns driving Kenny around too. The first two pictures are Lily with Madison, and the third picture is Madeline with Reed (Madison's brother).


Lily, Madeline, and Cameron all crammed into Lily's small ball pit. We're trying to find a bigger ball pit somewhere, so she can swim around in it easily.


We've been cutting down Lily's time spent sucking a pacifier to just bedtime and car rides, but it might not be helping to curb her habit. In this picture, one pacifier is no longer enough for her!!


We have been looking forward to a beach vacation at Michelle's parents' time-share in Virginia Beach. I thought packing for it would be a snap -- a bathing suit, some flip-flops, and a few changes of clothes. My darling wife had other ideas though! One suitcase was just for SHOES (pictured here, and more shoes were added later). Michelle brought more shoes than there were days in the trip, and packed an excess of shoes for Lily too. I might have rebelled in the past, but my wife has lost 60 pounds this year, so now I don't care what else she does!!


We brought Lily's portable DVD player on the plane to help keep her entertained. This was her first time on a plane without a car seat, which worked out really well. She had more room in her seat to squirm around, didn't feel as confined, and it was a lot easier for us to move around the airport without having to lug a car seat everywhere. (We rented a car that came with a car seat.)


Here's Lily in one of the airports "hiding" from me by closing her eyes!


Lola and Papa Blackwell had been waiting eagerly to see Lily again. As with all people she doesn't see every day, it took her about 3-4 days to warm up to them again, but eventually she came around.


Also in keeping with past history, she always warms up to men first. Here's Pop playing with her on the couch in the hotel.


Here's a movie of Lily riding on her Papa's neck. Click to view, or download it here.


Lily spent more time attached to her Papa in the last few days of our vacation.


Lola also had some quality time with Lily. In the first picture she's answering Lily's request for a band-aid to put on a non-existent boo-boo.


I took a video of Lily climbing up the front of a rented 4-person bike. Lola stood nervously behind ready to catch her. Michelle was gone for a few minutes, which is good because she might not have approved.


Here's Lily modeling her bathing suit. And there's ... Madeline!! What's she doing in Virginia, you ask? Well, we invited the Willises to come join us on vacation. Cameron's in the third picture. It was great for Lily to have her closest friend there to play with.


The kids played on the beach several days, slathered up with sunscreen.


Michelle showed Lily how to make a sandcastle.


Bill and I carried our daughters into the ocean, and Lily liked having big waves splash against us. Other than that, she and Madeline didn't go into the ocean, but Cameron did a little (he's the boy facing away in the third picture).


There are three pools at the hotel, and Lily played in them a lot. Here we're in the kiddie pool. She always loves playing in water, except for putting her head under water.


We packed a lot of activity into our first full day at the beach (Sunday 7/15), and the girls conked out at our early dinner.


They were awake later for a night-time carnival, with a train ride and a huge slide Lily could not get enough of.


We ate at a small restaurant called Phil's. They didn't have enough chairs, so I had to sit on a bar stool, towering over everyone else. The other adults I was with looked like toddlers because they were sitting so low by comparison.


At Phil's, Lily really liked the lumpia appetizer (these are Filipino egg rolls). On another day she eagerly devoured more Filipino food, so we'll try to find something similar near our house. She has inherited her Lola's taste buds! (She's normally a very picky eater.)


At a buffet restaurant, Lily ate corn on the cob for the first time, and liked it.


She also ate all the powdered donuts in this box before the end of the week.


Here are pictures of us on the balcony of the hotel room.


This is the great view from the balcony.


On our last full day at the beach, we took the kids putt-putting. Cameron was old enough to enjoy it, but we had to break the rules a lot for the two girls so we wouldn't keep the other families waiting!


Here's a cute picture of Michelle with her parents.


The seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series was released at midnight on Friday 7/20. Michelle and I have been following the story for years. It was my job to show up at a local Wal-Mart at midnight and get the book. Here's the line of other people waiting for it. Michelle's job was to spend Saturday and Sunday reading the whole thing and telling me all the good parts. I'll be listening to it on CD for the next month while I drive to work.


A couple days after our return from Virginia, we took an unscheduled trip to my parents' house in Ohio. My Grandpa Obenauer had died. Not many people are as fortunate as I am, but I made it to age 39 with four living grandparents. On the positive side, he was 92 and had lived a long, full life. My mom, my sister Tina, and Michelle all helped make this collage of photographs from different times of Grandpa's life, and displayed it at the funeral.


We stayed in my parents' house. At Grandma's house, Lily got to see her cousin Becca, and they played on a slide on my parents' porch.


My sister Carrie and her husband Frank have a second daughter on the way, named Gretchen. She's expected around October, the same month her sister Becca was born.


Here are some rare photos of Michelle and I in formal clothes.


The good aspect of the funeral is that it gave me a chance to see family and friends that are normally far away. I got to see my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Donna, their daughter Dorian, and their son David with his girlfriend Alicia.


Dennis and Donna's other daughter Demarie is here with her son Andrew, older son Christopher, and Dorian's son Cody. All of Demarie's and Dorian's children are in the fourth picture, including Demarie's daughter Josie.


Michelle spent lots of time talking to Josie. Josie's cute behavior as a 2-year-old helped persuade me to have a child, so she has a special place in our family history.


This is my Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Pete, their son Steve, and their daughter Beth (center, with her daughters Rachel on the left and Becca on the right).


We drove to Ohio rather than flying in order to save money. Lily's DVD player played a critical role in making the 11-hour drive each way bearable. We stopped at a McDonald's on the way back, and Lily climbed up the big overhead tunnel playground they had there. This is a first. She's normally afraid to go in, but Michelle went with her (fourth picture). I went up with her later, but was feeling claustrophobic in there, so I was happy when we got to leave.


The morning after our return home from Ohio, we had a chance to sleep in. Here are Lily and Mommy waking up.


We couldn't sleep in too long, though, because we wanted to make it to Cameron's birthday party. He had it at a bowling alley, with bumpers in the gutters for the kids. We got him some Transformer robots (as did several other guests) and a skateboard, which he seemed interested in. If there's an Emergency Room visit coming soon, well, then we'll apologize for giving him the skateboard! When it was time for cake we all sang Happy Birthday, but Cameron didn't like having everyone's attention focused on him and wouldn't blow out his birthday candles.


Lily did some bowling at the beginning, and we watched her ball very slowly make its way down the lane. One time it went so slow it stopped before reaching the pins, so I walked down and retrieved it. Michelle photographed a sign above the lanes to make fun of me ("Positively No One Allowed Beyond Foul Line"), and an angry bowling lane staff member had some words with me when I returned.


Lily is known for being a Daddy's girl, but she was even clingier than usual at the bowling alley, holding my leg or my shirt so that I could not physically get more than a few feet from her most of the time. She stopped bowling after about five times and didn't want to be around all the other people anymore. I took her into a small video game room for a while, and later we went outside, just walking up and down the sidewalk. I think her schedule was so disrupted for the past two weeks with our Virginia vacation and our long drive to and from Ohio that she could not handle any more changes to her routine.