The Bowens: June 2009

Friday, June 19, 2009

Where A Kid Can Be A Kid

Last Friday was Seth's 29th birthday! It has become a tradition that we go to Chuck E. Cheese each year for his birthday. So Saturday night, we braved the masses of ill-mannered children to have some pizza and play some games. I also attempted to make Seth a Charlie Brown birthday cake. For my first one, I thought it turned out pretty good! Although, we forgot to give poor Chuck a nose. :) Oops.

This was Eli's first Chuck E. Cheese experience.

And the first time the past few years that Chuck E. has made an appearance!

All in all, I think everyone had a pretty good time. Although, next year we will be avoiding the children and going on a week night!!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Spider Monkey in Action

My Brother the Spider Monkey

This past weekend was the Tennessee Valley Lineman Rodeo. My brother is an apprentice lineman for Jackson Energy Authority back home, so this year he decided to compete in the rodeo along with many other guys that he works with. The rodeo was held in Huntsville this year, so Seth and I were able to go watch Adam compete. Adam participated in four different events, against lineman from two dozen other utility companies. He did great in all of them! He won 1st in one event and 2nd in another. He ended up winning 3rd overall!! (1st and 2nd place went to two of his co-workers!) Here are a few pictures from the day...

Rescuing the 175 pound dummy! How's that for life-like?!

Adam, scaling the pole in an unusually fast way...Seth likened him to a spider monkey. :)

Adam and his beautiful wife, Ashley

The boys discussing strategy for the next event.

Getting the gear ready to go.

Accepting his well-deserved awards. We're very proud of Adam and all the hard work he does keeping the lights on in West TN!

Smile for the Camera!

Most of you who know me know that I am a picture taking maniac. I always have my camera with me. I snap photos of anything and everything that is going on...be it a birthday party, a baseball game, or just something that made me smile. I guess I figure someday I'll be old and senile and I want to be able to remember things that happened years ago.

About four or five years ago, my parents bought me a Kodak camera. It had an amazing zoom and great resolution. Since then, that camera has been everywhere with me. But here lately, its performance has been sub-par. Probably due to severe overuse, the focus has stopped working well. It has also always had trouble taking pics in low light, but that had even gotten worse lately. So, my wonderful husband, decided to get me an early anniversary present: a new camera!!

I knew I wanted a camera with a good zoom and a quick shutter speed, but I didn't want to mess with all the attachments that come with the SLR cameras. Sooo, after much research and multiple visits to Best Buy, we made a decision: the Sony H50.

This is actually last year's model. It was just recently discontinued and replaced with the new model. So, we had to purchase it directly from Sony. But we got a pretty good deal on it! So far, I am loving it! It has amazing quality! And, it has done excellent in low-light conditions. I will post some pictures soon that we took over the weekend!