Owen Day 2010

Tomorrow is our 6th Annual Owen Day.  Is it possible that it has been 6 years since we spent 3 precious hours with our sweet Owen baby?  We love to celebrate the impact he has made on all of our lives and all that he has done for others in just a short time.  We took the kids to the Disney movie, Tangled, today, and the King and Queen and their village would release floating lanterns on Rapunzels birthday every year.  It was a magical way to honor her, but it showed the King and Queen looking into each other's eyes remembering her with a tear streaming down their face prior to releasing the lantern.  It was very touching and appropriate as we think about Dec. 13 every year.
As the kids get older, we are able to let them choose what they want to do for Owen Day.  This year, Aiden wanted to plant trees in memory of Owen.  We will do that in the spring as Dec is not prime tree planting time.  Mary S. Young park does tree planting in the spring, and we'll be there!  We also painted an old garden box in which we will plant flowers of all types of the kids choosing.  How beautiful it will be with the kids artwork on the outside and wildflowers on the inside!  This year also celebrates reading.  We LOVE our library and check out books at least 1x/week.  Books are so important in our lives, and we cannot imagine not having them.  G&G Stieber donated books to their library this year, and G&G Moore donated to ECHO and G&G Neudeck donated to Watson Children's Center in his memory.  We decided to do a book donation with a local organization in Portland called Childrens Book Bank.  We bought hundreds of books to donate.  We also had planned on volunteering there tomorrow from 4-6pm to help clean up recycled books until they told us we couldn't bring Ava since she is not 6 or older.  With that in mind, I will get off work early to pick up the kids, and we will deliver the books together and volunteer when Ava is 6!  Here is a little bit about the organization:

"With nearly one in five urban preschoolers living below the federal poverty level, the need for books is huge. Tens of thousands of books are needed to surround our most vulnerable children with books during their early years of development. Gathering 100,000 picture books from the community would provide 5,000 young children with twenty books to call their own and would give parents the tools they need to help their children develop the early literacy skills needed to become successful readers and learners.
We believe children need to be surrounded by books at home. The Children’s Book Bank doesn’t give away a book here and a book there. Instead, each child we serve receives a bag full of a variety of books to experience and enjoy including a mix of concept books, picture books, story books, and books about the world around us." - Children's Book Bank

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! – Dr. Seuss



Owen Day - 2010