Big Truck Day on the Sturbridge Common

In mid-September they had Big Truck Day. The town common was full of every truck and big boy machine imaginable... fire trucks, a tank, police vehicles, dump trucks, a school bus, lots of military vehicles and construction work trucks. Among them was this Flag Truck, used to transport these enormous US flags that tour the country. They had a neat little ceremony where everyone participated in unrolling the flag on the town common, (which is the photo below). It gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes to see that huge flag out and waving (everyone moved their arms up and down to make it wave). I'm proud to be an American!

The largest American flag I've ever seen. If I remember correctly, I believe this flag flew over the nation's capital at one point.

Of course we had to get a motorcycle picture. Here's Jonah on the local police bike.

And Merrik, waving to his fans.

Old Sturbridge Village

This picture sums up our time here in Sturbridge! Since we moved here in May, we've spend 372 hours visiting Old Sturbridge Village! This is a historical, working village and farm that is minutes from our house. The boys love it there. We've made a habit of going every Friday. They're open all year long so we're still going. It's gotten to the point that the people who work there know Jonah and Merrik by name. These two "farmer guys" in the photo especially. They let them help feed the animals and corral the sheep and all sorts of fun stuff.

Here's Merrik in front of the pen with the baby cows. You can't really see the cows too clearly but we were at the farm the day one of them was born (earlier in the spring) and just days after the second one was born so we've gotten to watch them get bigger as the months have passed. They're very cute.

My Picasso's

Merrik - alone with his masterpiece. He kept putting colors on top of each other, so eventually the page was full of this blue-purplish color.

Jonah takes his art work very seriously. :) And his picture turned out really cool.

Family Pix

Jared, Merrik (1 & 1/2), Alli, & Jonah (3 & 3/4). This photo is from Christmas last year but it's one of the few existing good photos of all of us together.

And here's the tan version of all of us. :) Here we are at Cape Cod in July. (at Jared's mom & step-dad's house)

The Cowden Blog is Back! (take two)

This is my second attempt at blogging. You can see the first attempt at cowdencorner.blogspot.com. I don't know what happened but Blogger didn't like my email address anymore and wanted me to sign in with a google address. When I did, it didn't let me link to my old blog like it said it would. So I decided to stop wasting time playing with it and just start over. Which isn't a bad thing. Maybe with a fresh start, I can be more consistent. So, here goes...