Campers For Life

This weekend Chad and Charlotte are going camping for the first time in 2015. They have big plans for the rest of the year--and the years to come--in terms of camping.

Chad found a cool looking map of Ohio that he had blown up to 16X20. He framed it and then spent a ton of time locating every single state and national park in the state and marking them on the map with a black dot.

Then he marked with star stickers the places they've already camped. The goal is to mark every black dot with a star by the time she is eighteen (or until our youngest is eighteen, since she still be part of this project in a few years, too).

They went out this weekend and bought all of their camping food and snacks, and then set up the tent to celebrate (this weekend they'll be cabin camping but tents are still fun).

Almost as fun as new "big girl" swings.

Happy Camping.

~Stacy

The Best of Winter

Winter 2014/2015 does not have a lot of "Greatest Hits" in my book. We've been over my hatred of it, but even I have to admit that there were parts that were pretty. I didn't photograph much of anything this winter until the end so there wasn't much to choose from, but here are the best of the worst photos of the year (kidding, kind of):

And the best photo ended up being a shot I took on my phone out the car window (don't worry, I stopped and made sure there was no traffic):

And that's all she wrote about this winter. The best part about this winter is that it ended last week :)

Happy Spring!!

~Stacy

Well That Escalated Quickly

Snow in November is usually somewhat surprising--at least, snow that sticks is. I can only remember a few times where we had heavy snow accumulate and hang around this early but I think this past weekend takes the cake.

It all started Thursday with some cute little flurries flying around. They were sweet and I watched them fly around for a bit and then I went back to work and forgot all about it.

Things settled down after awhile, and then I came home from work and was making dinner as Charlotte kept exclaiming "snow!! Wow, mommy, look at all that snow!" and when I looked out the window it was white. By the time dinner was over, there was enough to build a snowman and shovel--which she and Chad did both.

Then Friday happened, and things got a little out of hand.

Charlotte was so excited she could hardly stand it--this girl loves her some snow. She couldn't wait to use to her sled, so we did the only thing that made sense during a blizzard at dark: took her on a sled ride up to the corner deli to get ice cream.

I feel like I should be wishing you all a Merry Christmas, or Happy-middle-of-January, but no. Happy Not Yet Thanksgiving...

~Stacy

Birthday B&B

Chad turned the big 3-0 last week (which means I've now known him over half his life...which is both cool and horrifying). To celebrate, we went to a bed & breakfast for the weekend called The Inn at Brandywine Falls. You'd never guess from the name, but it's located right near Brandywine Falls in Northfield (about 40 minutes southeast from us). Our hope was that the fall leaves would be bursting with color and while they were certainly colorful they were also almost entirely on the ground. Ah well, it was still gorgeous. And we had perfect weather, so we were able to hike around Cuyahoga Valley National Park all day.

We visited Hale Farm (right near Peninsula), Peninsula, the Falls, some covered bridges, many hiking trails, and Country Maid Homemade Ice Cream. We also saw a movie, in a theater, something we haven't done together in about a year (we saw St. Vincent, which was good but I'd suggest you wait for Netflix).

So without further ado, here are some photos:

~Stacy

Lakeside

This seems to be the summer of discovering new places that are less than an hour away that leave me scratching my head and wondering why I've never visited them before.

Enter: Lakeside.

We drove to Lakeside this past Saturday. If you've never been there (or never heard of it) it's right by Marblehead except it's much more of a hidden and enclosed area. Literally. You have to pay to enter--and it's not cheap, so plan ahead and I strongly suggest parking at the South Gate and taking the shuttle. Two reasons for that: it's much cheaper and you don't have to find a parking spot. Finding a parking spot on Lakeside during a summer Saturday is mostly impossible.

That being said, don't mistake the lack of parking options for an overly crowded place--it was far from that. There were plenty of people there but it never felt crowded at all (and this is coming from someone who is more sensitive to crowds than most. As in, I hate them.)

We drove in since we didn't know any better, but now we know for future visits. And I'm sure there will be plenty of future visits.

This place is gorgeous, sparkling clean, and quiet. It's full of cute little shops and restaurants (all located by the beach; everything is walkable) and the streets are lined with beach cottages galore. They don't allow tobacco or alcohol in Lakeside, which makes it a nice place to take a kid. We'd love to take Charlotte to Put-In-Bay on weekend, but given the drunken debauchery that PIB is known for it makes it a turnoff.

There was a children's pool and splash pad overlooking the beach, and the pool had a maximum depth of 1.5 feet--so we could let Charlotte play without us hovering over her every move.

After dinner and dessert of warm, freshly baked donuts and a little shopping we headed back home and I can't wait to go back. If you haven't gone, go! You'll love it.

~Stacy

Future Reference

This post is for the winter months, so I can refer back to remind myself of why I haven't moved away yet.

Rocky River Park ~ 8/7/2014.

~Stacy