Sunday, December 25, 2005

The Christmas Balloon Tree


The Christmas Balloon Tree
Originally uploaded by rick loughery.
Owen at the first sight of the balloons around the Christmas tree.

Click - on the moving pictures to the right to see more.

Scroll down to the next post to see video clips.

Christmas Morning 2005



Owen's Christmas morning surprise - the balloon tree.

Click the video screen to the left or this link to see video number one - this is Owen walking down the hall at Christmas morning Owen's video.

Link number 2: this is Owen playing with the balloons.

Link number 3: this is Owen building with his blocks he got for Christmas

Sunday, December 11, 2005

winter beach wonderland


winter beach wonderland
Originally uploaded by rick loughery.

Getting the right picture


After only three photo sessions over a two day period - we were able to come up with just the right picture for the Christmas card. whew.

Here is one that didn't make the cut.

You can also see more recent pictures over at flickr - just click the small photos to the right.

Owen at the playgroundhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif


This weekend we were on the quest to get a "good" picture of Owen for the Christmas card.
It only took two days :-)
Here is some video of him at the playground walking around.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

It's been a long week or so....
















So I am very very long over due on the blog. Work again has been crazy and O has been under weather for a while now. Not to mention Rupert's run in with the skunk. He still stinks. Here is a pic from our annual trip to the pumpkin patch and one of Rupert getting a bath the night of the skunk.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Get your motors roll'n

the day started off right


The day started off the right way, nice Sunday morning hike with the whole family. Then I made the mistake of going into work... then we decided to go to Home Depot... then we decided to go to Best Buy. Ugh. Now I need to go back to Worst Buy tomorrow. I am never shopping there again, the worst customer service ever.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Proud Parents


Andy caught this picture, from the party. Pretty modern day... but the sentiment is still the same.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

birthday!

Wow - can't believe that it has been a full year.
Quite the day today for Mom and Dad. Between, a missed eye doctor's appointment, chaotic workday and one broken down jeep - we are determined to get to Owen's daycare by 3:30 to celebrate. Click on the flickr banner to the right - there are pics from Sunday's birthday bbq. Video and more pics to come.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Big Sur



Took a trip to Big Sur with the guys this weekend for a little camp and surf. This is the beach where we surfed and camped... that's my friend, Chi, on the wave.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Testing the water




Quick check of the water... not to hot. not to cold.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Owen's First Solo Steps


Sorry it took more than a week to post... but here is a quick clip of some of Owen's first solo steps. This clip is from back in Erie. Click the picture or this link.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Owen at Lake Erie


IMG_1243
Originally uploaded by rick loughery.
It took Owen a bit to get use to the warm lake water (as compared to the cold salty waters in Nor Cal) but he loved it. And as always he has fun in the sand.

Trip back to Erie


The trip back to Erie was a good one. The flights back and forth were pretty smooth, much to the relief of our fellow passengers. Owen managed to sleep for most of the flights, but we were not as lucky.

Owen had a jammed pack week of “firsts.” From his first trip to the zoo where he had his first train ride and his first ride on the carousel to practicing his walking by taking his first solo steps at grandmom’s house. I’ll post some video of the walking this week.

Click on Flickr badge to right (with moving pics of Owen) or this link to check out some photos of Owen’s trip. If you go to the main Flickr home page - just type in "owenloughery" (all one word) in the search bar.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Wild Kingdom

Saturday night was pretty much like a National Geographic show.... well maybe not quite that extreme. None the less - at one point we had two raccoons in the garage, one perched in the pair tree and one under the sliding board. Kim shined the flash light up the hill and there was tabby cat standing guard on the fence and a deer grazing in the brush.

You can only imagine that Rupert wasn't going to just sit by and watch.
Rupert went nuts,
the cat scrammed,
the deer darted and
Owen started crying.

A few of the raccoons retreated further into the neighbors yard but we weren’t sure if the raccoons in the garage had left.
We brought Rupert in to the garage to sniff out the situation. Sure enough he found them hiding in corner, under the workbench and behind the boxes. We dragged Rupert out and just decided to let the raccoons make their own way out.

All is back to normal on Sunday morning. What ever normal is.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Saturday morning ride.


The weather finally started breaking from the gray gloom.

It felt good to see the blue skies on the coast again.

Walking with some help


Owen's quickly picking up this walking thing... with a little help from the cart and motivation to chase Rupert. Click here or the screen shot for the movie.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Reading Time


Owen is definitely a fan of Brown Bear, Brown Bear...

Preparing for our trip back to Erie. We take a red eye on Wednesday night... should be quite the experience.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Time on the couch

Well we are putting away some of Owen's first pieces of furniture, like the "Bump and Jump" and "Hop-n-Pop." ah... they were good devices to keep him happy. But now he is motoring around, so being locked into one thing is not cutting it. Here is a pic of O on his first couch. If you go to Flickr there are some other picks. Just type in Owenloughery in the search bar.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Jack Johnson @ the Greek


Kim and I took a break from the grey weather on the coast to go to Bezerkeley to see Jack Johnson play on Saturday night.

Friday, August 19, 2005

The Glam Life


just to show you that Owen’s not always so Glam

Slow on blogs/busy at work

Been a pretty busy week at work.
Grey weather along the coast.
Sorry the blog is was slow this week.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Balloon Man short


Here is a quick video of Owen and his first balloon. (although it might take a little bit of time to load)

Below are a couple of pics.

(oh..by the way....the balloon didn't survive its first day home alone with Rupert)

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The Balloon Man




It was Noe's birthday today (the woman who watches Owen during the day). And she gave O a balloon to take home. Owen was pretty amazed by this blue thing. I believe this is Owen's first balloon - thankfully it didn't pop.... yet.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Under the weather


This weekend, I managed to get a little bit more work done outside to the fence but things kind of slow down as Owen came down with a fever of 104. We took him into the doctors and it looks like a typical cold. Needless to say it has been along weekend but we managed to sneak a few cat naps in.

Go to www.flickr.com and type in owenloughery (all one word) where it says "find a photo" to see a couple more pics from the weekend. (you don't need a username or password).


Thursday, August 04, 2005

Watching the videos


Okay so the windows world and the mac world just don't get along. #&@$!!
For folks on Windows PC, who don't have QuickTime - try downloading from the link below.

Note - You might want to select the version for Windows 98/ME because the other choice comes with iTunes and you might not need/want it. (see the picture to the left.) I tried this out on another Windows PC and it worked.

I am hoping to "upgrade" soon so we can avoid this problem. Let me know if you still have trouble with the video.

after you have downloaded QuickTime - you can watch the videos. the first video post "the walker" has a short video of Owen's first steps.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

Crawling

Party Tricks and Other Noises



One of our favorite things are the noises that Owen is making right now... he is doing a good job with the ma..ma..ma..ma.. and da..da..da..da.. but the growls are our favorite.

Click here for the video... or the picture.

Reminder if you don't have QuickTime click here... for instructions.

Ride A Wave

Although there is some element of truth (and even idyllic quality) to the stereo type - there is definitely more to surfing then the Spicoli-esque version. Here is an article from today’s San Francisco Chronicle about a nonprofit that I work with called Ride A Wave. The last couple of years I have only made a couple of the camps... but it is something that I have been doing for 4/5 years now and hope to continue to do for many more. I called this writer up to cover this event and I believe that he captured it perfectly.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/08/04/SPG46E2H4P1.DTL

Monday, August 01, 2005

3 is the magic number

This weekend, marked three years since Kim and I made it “official.” We celebrated by spending our first night away from Owen. While we both have had nights away from O, this was the first time the two of us were away from him.

Things went great, well almost. Owen did great but the real problem child proved to be Rupert (go figure). Rupert decided to protect the Kellers from the wild raccoons.

None the less, we had an amazing time. A great dinner and an excellent stay at the

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Better than it looked


the report, although kind of poetic, did not look to appealing but once you were out there it was actually a lot better than it looked. there was some fun waist high waves and even though i was sans longboard (see post below) the old G&S was probably a better board to have out there anyway. got some nice ones that connected all the way inside.

Saturday 7-30-05 at 6:27 AM PDT - from surfpulse
Small, lazy surf again. The ocean is very relaxed. Slow undulations rolling up onto the sand. Its pretty much too small to surf, though, I'm sure a few people will unsling their small wave boards and paddle around in the tiny shore break. I saw nobody out, but there were a few beaters in the parking lot with longboards strapped to their roofs, and shadowed, hooded faces sitting in the drivers seats staring at the hypnotic calm of this quiet Pacific sea. Its a calm, quiet morning out here at the beach. The sky is overcast, the air temperature is cool, and a few dedicated fisherman are casting out into the placid waters.



Friday, July 29, 2005

Frosting and Mayo

Frosting... it's the Mayo of the dessert world.
Thanks - Sheila

Thursday, July 28, 2005

scribble

My first scribbling on the blog.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Clean but flat

Some nice glassy ones but small.  Good for a log... See my last post.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Eulogy for a longboard

After almost 10 years the Freeline finally is done. It met its match on an outside sandbar this morning on a clean, shoulder-high wave at the north end of Linda Mar.

The first board that I ever had shaped for me was more than a great longboard, which was surfed at some of the finest longboard breaks along the Pacific from Costa Rica, Baja, La Jolla, San O, Malibu, out to Hanalei Bay and countless trips to Pleasure Point, The Hook and many a day at Lindy and RaW.

It was also a trusted floatation device :-) … bringing a Linus like dependence during some bigger days at OB and I seem to recall its usefulness as a tandem board at Tunitas.

The Freeline is now in two…
maybe I will try to shape a mini for O.

Monday, July 25, 2005

The Walker

another step closer to independence.
one small step for one small man.
going mobile.

We picked up a “little tikes walker” today for O and he was full steam ahead. Of course since he is only a bit past nine months he still needs some assistance but after he found his balance (or what would could pass for a drunken sailor’s balance) he was able to take a few giant steps on his own. Look for some video clips to come. You can’t help but see this as the first step to wanting the keys to the car. The grin that came across his face was wider than any one I have seen yet. He hasn’t quite figured out the crawl and we think he is going to skip right by that and go straight to walking... so the liberation he must have felt in taking those first steps was evident in that smile.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Hmm... Getting Started

I wonder how many blogs have started out this way.