Sunday, July 18, 2010

My lovely LG

I got my new phone on Thursday and activated it yesterday. Move over Randall there's a new love in my life!

My LG

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Lessons Learned While Picking Berries

1. The birds don't care if it rains or is too hot, they will still eat the berries.

2. Be careful when wearing a hat in the rain.

3. Don't let the hat and the dripping water distract you from the large bamboo pole sticking out of the ground.

4. Look at what's in front of you before bending down to look for berries.

5. Watch out for the bamboo pole sticking out of the ground.

6. Try not to poke your eye with the bamboo pole while bending over.

7. Bamboo poles hurt when they poke you in the eye.

8. Wear safety glasses when picking berries in the rain.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Jesse Jackson needs to shut his mouth because he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.

Monday, July 5, 2010

4th of July Weekend

This year we tried to have a relaxing 4th weekend at home. Saturday we went to Ballantrae Fountains so the kids could run around and stay cool. When we got home we had a s'more party at John, Dana, Mackenna, and Ian's house. The kids had a blast playing with sparklers and watching Randall and John set things on fire.




Sunday we stuck around the house so the kids could get a nap, or in Corbin's case some quiet time before we went to Roger Reynolds Park for the Festival and Fireworks. While they were resting I was busy trying to pack dinner and supplies for the park. Since this was the first year in awhile we've had great weather we knew it would be crowded, so we wanted to get to our site early. We "camp out" at the back end of the park on the soccer field, it's not so crowded there because everyone is either at the baseball diamonds or on the hill. It's also close, but not too close to all the rides, games, and LOUD music. The kids couldn't ride the rides last year because of the rain, so I thought they would want to this year . . . nope . . . they wanted to play on the playground that they play at every week. Corbin told me he wanted to wait until the fair to ride so he could do it with Mackenna.

Nora and Randall were getting frustrated with all the crowds, so we headed back to our camp site for dinner. The kids then spent the rest of the night running around the field until the fireworks started.

I have to say that this year was the best year in a long time! The past few years the weather has been so wet or unpredictable that they have to shoot of all the rockets as quickly as possible to beat the rain or wind. But this year they really went for it! The show was long, big, and it had two grand finales! You could hear the excitement from every corner of the park and when everyone thought it was over people were clapping and cheering and then and even bigger display finished off the night. Nora and Corbin were so tickled by the whole thing. Nora had to point out the color of every firework, and Corbin gave commentary on the size and shape of each one.

It was such a fantastic end to a great weekend!


Playground at R. Reynolds Park

Corbin trying to pour water on Nora


Randall and Corbin relaxing






Saturday, July 3, 2010

Glacier Ridge

Today we went to Glacier Ridge Metro Park. They have a nice playground and Corbin loves walking through the wooded areas.





Randall and I also did some location scouting for the fireworks on Sunday. I want to go to Roger Reynolds Park, because that is where all the rides and activities are leading up to the fireworks, but we would have to get there early (around 5pm) in order to find a parking space. Randall thinks if we go that early the kids will fall apart before the fireworks, so he wants to go to the HOSA fields because they won't be as crowded and it will be easier to get out afterward. We'll see . . .

Friday, July 2, 2010

Cook-out with Papa

On Wednesday we went to my dad's house for some swimming and ribs on the grill. Corbin was so excited to go in the pool and show off what he has been learning. Nora just wanted to relax by the pool. But both of them had a good time playing with my dad, my sister, and my step-mom.









Note: yes, that is my 13 year-old sister wearing a tiny bikini. And yes, I wonder why my parents let her buy that thing.

Swimming Lessons for Nora

I can't believe I'm writing this, but Nora loved swim lessons! She did so well and was able to almost everything the teacher asked her to do. I was so proud of her! Randall took her to the first two lessons without me so she would get acclimated and not rely on me to get her through it. I was able to watch her last two classes and she did really well with me there. The only issue we had was she didn't want to do much swimming on her own on Thursday, but I blame that on her being tired from swimming at my dad's house the night before and I blame Randall, my dad, and my step-mom for pushing her too much to swim. I think she just wanted to sit on the steps and watch everyone, but Randall was determined to get her to show off, which just made her cranky.

She still has some fear swimming by herself, so Miss Amanda recommended she take PS1 again so she can spend more time getting comfortable. Corbin is ready to go back for more lessons, but I think we are going to take a break this month and start up again in August before soccer starts.




Chihuly at CMA

I know I am being completely lazy about updating my blog this week, so the following posts will be a recap of our week.

On Sunday, we went to the Columbus Museum of Art to see "Chihuly Illuminated". I wanted to go see it before the exhibit leaves July 4th and Sunday is also Family Day, so admission is FREE. If you've never seen Chihuly's work you are missing out on some of the most beautiful glasswork out there. The exhibit was smaller than I thought it would be, and most of the pieces were reconfigurations of projects he's done before, so I was a little disappointed. I really liked that they had an entire wall of his paintings, which are just as unique as his glasswork. I also loved that he used neon gas in one of the displays, it was probably the only thing I haven't seen him use before.










The kids were well behaved, they usually do pretty well at the museum, so this wasn't a surprise. As usual CMA did a great job making the exhibit family friendly, along the wall were little shelves with "Glow Boards" for the kids to draw on. They were a big hit with Corbin and Nora.




The other exhibit I wanted to see while we were there was a giant chess set featuring "Alice in Wonderland" sculpted by Joan Wobst. She based her sculptures from original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel, and as many of my friends know I am a huge fan of anything related to "Alice in Wonderland", especially anything related to Tenniel's illustrations.






Sunday, June 27, 2010

Inniswood

Since it was such a beautiful day yesterday we went to Inniswood Gardens. Randall had never been there and it had been a while since I had been there. It was just as gorgeous as I remembered! All of us had a great time strolling through the gardens. The kids loved the "Sisters Garden", which was the park's childrens garden. I think we'll add that to the list of parks we regularly go to.












Indian Lake

Friday afternoon the kids and I went up to Indian Lake to visit my grandparents and play on the beach. It was the first time they've been there and I was really excited to show them all the places I used to go and play when I was little. Corbin, as usual, loved everything about the park and the beach. He had a blast playing in the sand and the water and wants to go back really soon. Nora was not so pleased with the beach, she pretty much cried and whined the entire time.







However she cheered up when we got back to my grandparents camper. She spent the rest of the afternoon running up and down the length of the camper. The rest of the family came in for a cookout, even my dad and stepmom came up! It was a good introduction to camping for the kids since we plan on doing a lot of it next summer.