Heading south...

Today we are leaving for Florida and our Disney vacation! Bill's golfing this AM and Morgan has his last day of soccer camp. Allie and I are going to pack the car and double check everything. My parents should arrive a little after noon then we're heading south I-75 most of the way! Here's a little photo from our last visit!

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More vacation preparations - we leave TOMORROW! Bill and the kids washed the car, mowed the grass, and got the outside looking great. I packed both kids and my bags - I still need to double check - make sure I didn't forget someone's underwear - picked up around the house, did laundry, etc. I actually have the kids car stuff already in the car. I emptied both memory cards for my D60 and coolpix so they are ready to capture all the Disney goodness. These are pics from the last two times we went as a family. (Jan 04 + Dec 05) I'm excited to experience it with them now. I think.... he's going to be all about the rides + she'll be all about the princesses!

you're invited to view Cherie's Snapshow!

Click here to view my Snapshow!

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Happy 3rd Anniversary Tracy + Matt!!
Here are a few pictures from that day!

We met them at Der Dutchman for dinner. YUM!

My new camera strap cover came - in time for vacation!! It's so cool + comfortable!

I actually have the kids bags packed!

Our Disney trip is almost here!

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Vacation preparations are in full swing...
car clean inside
tires rotated
oil changed
bags out
clothes in piles
snack bag ready
car stuff to do being chosen
laundry almost done
house cleaning
and more!

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Allison and I went to see Miss Renae to get haircuts (+color for me.) this morning while Morgan had his first day of soccer camp. We headed over to my parents in the afternoon to visit since they'd been in WVA for a few days. My dad's butterfly bush had 4 different large moths of butterflies hanging out near it. Pretty cool! Oh, and the kids played with grandma's ipod touch some more!

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More time in the pool at PHSC!

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Hunter tournament
Our last baseball tournament of the season. What a season! Our first experience with select baseball. It was an interesting experience for us as parents. Our son, had a blast!

We are a baseball family. My dad was an D-II All-American first baseman at Wittenberg University in 1972. My husband, a lead off hitting, second baseman, was All-OAC second team in 1995, then first team All-OAC in 1996 + 1997 and All-Mideast region in 1997. Bill still holds a few OAC tournament records - 5 hits in a tournament game + 2 doubles in a tournament game. (I was there - we started dating in the spring of 1995.)

That said we enjoy watching baseball. Bill is a big Yankee's fan - developed from growing up in Columbus watching the Clippers (then Yankee affiliated). He also watched as many College World series games as he can find on tv and every year tries to figure out how we could get out to Omaha for a few games. We now have the Dragon's in Dayton and go to at least a game a year. Our son has played t-ball, rec coach pitch, and now select coach pitch and we've made the 9U team for next year. That's when the boys start pitching.

In the pictures above from the tournament - he just connected on a ball that hit the fence and he got a double. After sliding into second he was all smiles. It was wet, muddy and he was having a ball. This year he's played in the outfield - mostly centerfield. At the start of the year he was down at the bottom of the line up, but worked his was to the 4 hole for about 60% of the season. He played 36 games this year and wow, how much he's developed. Looking forward to watching more baseball next year. Now ---- were on to soccer!

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Finally a pool day! Our weather in Ohio has been wacky cool this summer. We have frequented the pool way less because of it.

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They're back! They arrived home this afternoon after their visit + dental appointment!
I had lunch with friends from work today at Cheesecake factory! Yum!

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All day just me! It is weird to be home all alone. I have to admit I did kind of like it. Today I am getting my scrapbooking stuff reorganized, updating my Flickr photos, this blog, and photoblog + maybe some shoe shopping.
Bill + the kids went to Old Man's Cave with his sister + bro-in-law + kids.

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My family is away visiting Granny, Aunt Emily, Uncle Bret, Fletcher + Zane. I had a workshop to attend this morning about graphic novels + manga. Very interesting and there is such a wide range to stuff out there. Some reluctant readers should be attracted to these for sure! I spent the rest of the day shopping. I visited Target (2 of them), Kohls (3 of them!) and got a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie for dinner. It was fun to run around all over the place. This time of year looking for summer type clothes can be difficult. I wanted a few new things for our trip to Disney in less than 2 weeks!

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Just a summer day
we stopped at a park to play
while Bill had golf to play
and Morgan had some baseball to play
but we hung out at home most of the day
until they were on their way
to visit granny for a couple days

By the way...I do have all of my picture a day in my Project 365 album! Now I just need to get the journaling done, but that's easy because I have this blog! I hope to take a few pictures of some of the finished pages later this week.

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Cole Picnic

She and I headed to Crawford County, OH with my parents for the Cole picnic at a park in Shelby. This is my grandmother's side of the family. There were 6 brothers and sisters. My grandma, Miriam, and her brother Forrest have passed away. This year only Clarence and Marlin from that generation where there. My mom and all of her siblings were in attendance + quite a few of their cousins. As for my generation - just my cousins John and Kim + me. We drove past my grandparent's farm land on the way - my cousin Brad and his family bought their house. My uncle's both still farm along with my cousin Todd. After the picnic we made a stop at the Crawford County fair. Several of my cousins' kids had animals or projects in the fair. My parents both grew up there and graduated together - although didn't start dating until a summer during college. They ran into people they knew. Growing up my dad was in the National Guard and based out of Bucyrus so we always went up at least one weekend a month. My sister, mom, and I would also spend a week in the summer there too. The rest of our cousins grew up on farms, but Tracy + I were the city girls. We got a kick out of tractor rides and baby animals.

Oh and mom + dad had just gotten back from California where mom attended an Apple conference through the digital academy she is on the board for. Well as part of it she got an ipod touch and MacBook! So on the way there and the way home we played with the new toys. They are WAY cool!

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Jeans in July! The weather here in Ohio has been a bit cool this summer. We have had WAY less pool days than in summers past. I'm sure August will fix that.

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I was gone most of the day scrapbooking with some friends. Here they are looking on Ebay for kids golf shoes and new bigger kids golf clubs. Bill enjoyed searching ebay for running shoes, golf stuff, etc so Morgan will say let's check on ebay. Bill took them to Waffle House for dinner then golfing.

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Take me out to the ballgame....
We headed to Cincinnati today to see the Reds play the Brewers. We got great seats from a gal Bill works with - row H, very close to the field on the third base side! It was an awesome view of the game. She got her hand kissed by both mascots. We got to watch a bit of the Brewers batting practice which both boys enjoyed. They got ice cream of course!

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We made another trip to Cox today and did see more butterflies in the Butterfly house + bunches of caterpillars and I always like the flowers too!

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The boys went to watch a match of the Ohio Amateur at Moraine while the girls went to Hobby Lobby + Michaels. The kids and I then saw Monsters vs. Aliens for $1.75 each. They enjoyed it and I thought it was cute. We then met one of his friends and played at a local splash park. These pictures made me smile - just look that their faces - I think they had fun!

A scrapblog

Click here to go see a new scrapblog I created. Just playing around and seeing what it can do.

194/365 - July 13th

Bill and the kids headed out with our neighbor, Jack, to waterski + kneeboard. I worked on deep cleaning the baseboards upstairs. We're getting new carpet in our upstairs - 4 bedrooms of stuff we're going to move before they come - so we have a bit of work ahead.

Guess what else arrived today! Our Disney tickets!! Won't be long.

193/365 - July 12th

what a great summer day

church
a little family photo shoot (I didn't have a pic of the 4 of us together so far this summer!)
pool time
golf for Bill + the kiddos
scrapbooking (organizing pictures) for me

192/365 - July 11th

More hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa + Winnie and Pookie too. The kids each made pillows this time. He did almost all the sewing on his while Grandma did most of the sewing on hers.

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Took the kids to junior golf at Greene Country Club. They spent the rest of the day and then the night with Grandma + Grandpa. Bill golfed, waterskied while I hung out with them a while, then shopped a bit. Bill and I took advantage of the kid free night by going out to dinner at Elsa's then to see Angels and Demons at the $3 movies.

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The kids both had a little drop in play at the park supervised through our parks district. They both finished the first leg of the summer reading program through our library so we headed to Beef O Brady's with their coupons. They got coupons for miniature golf too. They played well. Allison got a hole in one on the 18th hole to tie her brother with a 59!

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Today we...
set up email accounts for the kids and had them email Grandma, Granny, + Aunt Tracy. They were stoked!

visited Wegerzyn Gardens - again. Very cool to see it in different seasons.

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Today we...
stayed in jammies until past 11am
played and played together
changed right into swimsuits
went to the pool with Daddy
watch a little tv (SpongeBob + iCarly)
hit some balls + fielded at CHS field with Joe
ate pasta for dinner
played outside
rode bikes
visited the park

187/365 - Cincinnati Zoo!

We took Grandma with us to the Cincinnati Zoo today. A visit to the zoo, either the Columbus or Cincinnati is always on our list of things to do in the summer so when I read that we could see the baby tigers I was excited! Baby animals, well babies of any kind are cute and fun to see. We went online and the zoo had a little video of them we could watch and the kids were just as excited as me! On the way we talked about what animals we wanted to make sure we saw - for me it was the tiger cubs, for her it was the elephants, and he wanted to see gorillas. We made our way around the zoo and ran into several volunteers with little animals out and about - really cool!

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More baseball today, but just one game. She opted to go to the pool with Daddy while he opted to stay home with me. He got a McFlurry + I got sweet tea. We went on a nice bike ride around the neighborhood and just hung out. After dinner we make a trek to Trader Joes to spend a gift card on some yummy stuff including Clif bars!

185/365 - Happy 4th of July!

How awesome is it to live in a place where we can ALL do whatever it is we WANT to each and every day!!


Whew!! What a great day!
We started out with the Americana parade that we watched and he walked in with his baseball team. We then had lunch at our house before headed to the Sting Summer Smash baseball tournament. He had two games. Made it through the first one with just sprinkles the whole time, but during the second one the rain became more steady. Then we headed to Grandma + Grandpa's to have dinner and hang out before the fireworks. Aunt Tracy + Uncle Matt brought sparklers + camping gear. We grilled out and made smores. Then watch the fireworks on the a patio.

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It's Friday - we lose sight of the days of the week in the summer. The kids and I headed to Cox Arboretum to check out the butterfly house today. The coolest creatures we saw were moths! We did see some tiny butterflies, caterpillars and cocoons + some pretty flowers too!

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Baking day...
One good
One not so good!

At school a mom brought in these chocolate chip cookies that just looked beautiful and tasted fine ( I only got one bite.) so she shared the recipe. I'm always looking for that perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe where they look beautiful and taste awesome. These looked great, but I didn't think they tasted great. The kids + my dad liked them fine. The recipe used oil instead of butter or Crisco shortening. I couldn't get over the consistency of the dough.

The others I modified my oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe to make a red, white, + blue version with crasins, chocolate chips, + sweetened dried blueberries. YUM!!

182/365 - Hello July!

More camp fun. Luckily this year it's been on the cooler side and you guys didn't just bake. But you were both a bit sad not to spend more time in the creek. She and I met Grandma for lunch at the Greene where we ran into this frog guy. Today I finally got a pedicure while you both were at camp + daddy golfed!