We Can Have Fun Here, Too!

While Liv is in Alaska, our lives continue here at home.  She can't be the only one having fun!

Tuesday afternoon, Heather, Joie, and I took in Epic at the movie theater.  It's the second time we saw it, but it is a cute movie.

On Wednesday, I went back to work.  Heather and Jo went to the Zoo with Grandma, Aunt Jessica, and cousin Gigi.

Thursday, nothing exciting happened, unless you count playing card games, playing toss outside, organizing shelves, and planning next year's school year exciting.

On Friday, Heather and Jo went to the farm where we volunteer.  After working there for a couple of hours, they headed home to pack for our campout that weekend.  Since it was with the American Heritage Girls troop, we got to learn about fire building and safety, cooking on the fire, and "leave no trace".  We also enjoyed s'mores, skits, and songs and got to participate in a flag burning ceremony.  The weather over the weekend was less than ideal, but we had a good time despite all the rain.

On Saturday, we hiked a trail and did a scavenger hunt.  We got soaked on the way back to camp in one of the deluges we experienced that day.  The girls played some games, did a craft, and cooked dessert on the fire.  We ended the night with a presentation at the Cincinnati Astronomical Society.  Unfortunately, it was still too cloudy to use the telescopes.  :-(  We definitely need to go back there when the sky is clear!  We decided to head home that night to get a good night's sleep (and we did).

We are also keeping an eye on our buckets of vegetables on the deck.  Not bad, considering these all started with organic soil and seeds.  We've got the following:

• 6 Sungold Cherry Tomato plants
• 3 Pink & Green Tie-Dyed Tomato plants
• 5 Dill Plants
• 4 Thyme plants
• 3 Basil Plants + one still left over from last year (we kept in the kitchen over the winter)
• 1 Sweet Banana Pepper Plant

More fun planned for this week, too!

Spring Break 2009

What a week we had! We decided to do Spring Break last week and had something planned for nearly every day. Here is how the week unfolded:

Saturday: I cut down three trees and tilled a new garden for the girls. Livvi and Heather went to see the Hannah Montana movie

Sunday: After church and a Mexican Fiesta, we went to Kings Island for my company's Associate Appreciation Day. Got quite wet, but had fun!

Monday: Livvi got her "black" belt, then went to her American Heritage Girls meeting

Tuesday: We visited the Creation Museum and Livvi had swim lessons that evening

Wednesday: We went to the Cincinnati Zoo. Great weather!

Thursday: We went to Great Wolf Lodge to swim and spend the night. My lifeguard training (now expired by almost 25 years) was seemingly needed within the first hour of us being there. More on that later.

Friday: Livvi and I swam some more while Heather took Joie to an area to do crafts, etc. We then left for home shortly after lunch

Saturday: We celebrated Livvi's black belt at Panera Bread. I cut down three more trees while the girls planted flowers in their new garden.

As for the lifeguard incident, Liv and I were in the wave pool and I was wading in. I had lost sight of her for just a few seconds, when I saw the lifeguard point in the direction of the opposite corner of the pool in the deeper section by the wave machine. She then jumped in. I tried to locate Livvi and did so immediately. I couldn't see what the lifeguard saw, yet, but I started running towards that corner, then swimming when the water was too deep to run in. I stopped to take a look at what was in the corner and saw what I thought was a toddler face down in the pool. My heart was racing beyond belief, now. I kept swimming until I saw a Great Wolf Lodge associate standing on the side of the pool over where the "child" was. He was telling me to hold up. The lifeguard was about there when I stood up and noticed the "child" was a dummy, possibly used for training. I'm not sure if this was some training session or if they were just messing with the lifeguard on duty. Nevertheless, it freaked me out. For the record, though, I'd like to think I would have been able to save that kid!

We had a great time as a family! I hope we get to do a lot of stuff together for many, many years to come! I included a few photos below, but if you want to see the nearly 200 pictures from our fun month of April, click here.

Zoo on Earth Day

Wednesday, we visited the world-famous Cincinnati Zoo. We absolutely love the zoo. On more than one occasion that day, Livvi said "it stinks" in reference to the smell. I told her it was the ZOO! It is supposed to stink!

The weather was absolutely beautiful for "Earth Day". It is the best the weather's been all week. We saw the beautiful tulips throughout the zoo, the gorillas, tigers and other cats, insects, reptiles, elephants, giraffes, a condor, a rhinoceros, flamingos, monkeys, wolves, etc. There were things for the kids to do as well. If you haven't been to the Zoo in a while, you need to go again. They are always improving it and making it nicer! However, after years of going and figuring out how to get around without a map, they are moving the entrance to the other side of the park on Vine Street and changing some of the paths. I may need a map for next year!