How Owen Saved the Day
This week I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with our son’s family. My every-3-week visiting schedule had gotten off track, and so I squeezed this visit in, or the total time between my last visit and next visit would have been 5 weeks, which was unacceptable to me.
On Tuesday, Owen and Ella and I were going to do something fun together. Just the 3 of us. They had been to the Alameda County Fair with their parents over the weekend and wanted to go back. That worked for me, so we made our plans on Monday night to visit the fair on Tuesday. We packed snacks, laid out the appropriate clothes for the next day, and found our hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen.
When the kids woke up on Tuesday, the first question they asked was, “When do we get to go?” I told them the fair didn’t open until 11:00 and gave Owen my phone so he could watch for the two “1’s” to show up on the clock face. I think he looked at it every 5 minutes.
When 11:00 came, we piled into the car with all of our preparations. Once the kids were safely in their car seats, I opened my map program and entered “Alameda County Fairgrounds.” A map immediately opened, but then I also heard….”This site might not be open today.” What??? I went to the Fair site and checked the open dates. Yep. They were closed that day.
When I told Owen and Ella, they took it very well. They have been taught by their parents to be flexible. Owen tells me that being “flexible” means that you really want one thing but can’t have it, so you choose something else instead and have a good attitude about it. And they did.
So we decided to go to Ardenwood Historic Farm, where the kids could see different animals and farm equipment, and we could just have an enjoyable day walking the beautiful grounds.
Once we arrived, Owen immediately found a big stick and told me that he needed to “find the villains” in the park and “get rid of them” to keep me and his sister, Ella safe. He has a very active imagination and started running from bush to bush looking for villains and villain footprints. After a few minutes, I realized he had a whole story going on inside his head, and it really needed to be recorded.
I started taking pictures with my cell phone and making notes of his comments.
When I got home, it took me about 4-5 hours to put together the pictures and his story. I’ve embedded it below (in a PowerPoint presentation) in case you would like to take a look.
The characters mentioned in the book are from PJ Masks, Owen’s favorite characters right now.
I hope this book inspires you to create something for yourself. When I told Owen what I was going to do, he was very excited. He told me that the book was going to be kept in his bedroom and that he was going to read it EVERY NIGHT. (Emphasis his). What more could I ask for?
Comments (20)
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What a great idea. I can see why Owen would love the book and I understand why you didn’t want 5 weeks to lapse between your visits!
Thanks, Beatrice. Yes, 5 weeks is WAY too long!
That is so wonderful. He will treasure it always.
I hope so, Jean! That’s my goal! Living so far away and not being able to participate every day in his life, I want him to remember that I WAS there.
I LOVE this idea! Thank you so much for sharing so much of you and your beautiful family! ~Lexy
Thanks, Lexy!
Adorable! And what a good idea, Grandma Karen!
Thanks, Dona. It was very fun!
How kewl is that! He will love having that memory to show his children some day.. I am envious, my grandkids are now in their twenties… lol
Wow, what a fabulous idea Karen! I love it and I’m sure Owen does too.
Beautiful book, Karen! Owen is such a lucky little boy to have you for his grandma … what exciting adventures he has! & he has his grandma to record them!!
Thank you, Pam. Yes, Owen has quite the imagination, I will admit that!
That is adorable and what a keepsake for all of you!
Thank you, Steph! It was a lot of fun.
This is just wonderful!!! What a priceless treasure for Owen to have.
Thanks, DeLoris. Now I have to make one for Ella. She’s just into the I-can-do-it-by-myself phase, so I think that will be her story line. 🙂
WOWZERS!!! THAT is one VERY SPECIAL book!! The time spent on making that was worth every minute (I’m actually shocked you got all that done in such a short amount of time…SUPERB, Karen!!
Ahh, thanks, Glori! I can’t wait to get it back from Shutterfly and give it to Owen!