Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Kingwood Center Gardens (photo heavy)

On Friday we took a family day to celebrate my 39th birthday. We headed out to Mansfield to see the "big bugs" at Kingwood Center Gardens. I love nature and looking at flowers, etc., but I knew that Bill and the kids wouldn't want to just look at flowers. When I saw that the Kingwood Center also had a "Big Bug" exhibit I thought this might be the perfect, low cost, family activity (our admission would be $10 for the family). We headed up to Mansfield to check it out.

The Gardens are beautiful and the kids enjoyed finding the 10 big bugs throughout the gardens. They also enjoyed seeing the wildlife that calls the gardens home-- we saw a peacock, turtles, ducks and real bugs. 























Overall, it was a very nice visit. When we left, I even got Bill to say that he had more fun than he thought he would have considering it was a garden. I call that a win in my book. :) 




Monday, July 30, 2018

My first annual 39th "bithday"

Saturday was my first annual 39th birthday. We have a joke going around that it was my "bithday" as that was what was written on my cake. (More on that in a minute)…


For my birthday, we took a family day on Friday and did what I wanted (for the most part). Bill had the day off and I had no tutoring sessions scheduled so we went up to the Mansfield area for the day. We went to the Kingwood Center Gardens, The Ohio Bird Sanctuary, the Buckeye Express Diner for lunch and then played mini-golf at Der Dutchman. (I will review each of these later this week)We got home later in the afternoon and I just made frozen pizzas for the kids for dinner as Bill and I were both still stuffed from lunch. The kids watched "Mr. Popper's Penguins" for their movie night, while Bill and I had a chat. He had been in a mood all day and we had a heart-to-heart about some things. 

On Saturday, my actual birthday,  Bill worked in the morning and was really feeling off for most of the day. He had a situation at work that really threw him for the loop and was really stressful for everyone including me. It made the day have a cloud over it. However, I wasn't going to let it spoil my day. 

In the afternoon, we packed up and headed out to my parents house for a tent campout and cookout. The weather was perfect. Warm but not too warm, not humid. Overall just a nice night. Funny story...my sister was home from college and we decided that we needed to do a shot of Bailey's together. So we get our shots and drink, and just as I go to swallow my mom and sister started talking about something online and let's just say that I started laughing and showered my sister's white shirt with Baileys. LOL 


We had a nice cookout- hamburgers, hot dogs, fruit, chips and lots of alcohol. LOL. My parents had gotten me a cake from Kroger and they asked the deli person to write on it. Well, apparently this little old lady was working and she was so excited because she had never written on a cake before. She did a great job, except she forgot the r in birthday. My mom said that she noticed immediately, but didn't want to ruin this worker's excitement so it became my 39th "bithday." I had no problem with it! I didn't even have a problem blowing out all the candles! LOL



My sister got me chocolate and booze for my birthday. 



My parents got me chocolate and booze for my birthday as well! LOL



I think they were trying to tell me that I need to relax a little. 

Soon it was time for smores over the firepit and just having fun. We were all in our tents by 1 AM.






Sunday, we stayed long enough to take down the tents and clean up. We headed home around 1 and stopped and got Wendy's for lunch to bring home. Then I took a shower and ended up taking a 3 hour nap. I guess I needed it. LOL 

Overall, it was a very good birthday and a great way to celebrate my first annual 39th birthday!  

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Nature photos from this week

Happy Sunday! My first Sunday as a 39 year old! Yesterday was my birthday and we spent it camping out at my parents house. What a way to spend the day and night. LOL  To say that I am tired would be an understatement. So I am going to cut this short for today. Hopefully I will post more this coming week. 

Photos from July 24, 2018 at Ariel-Foundation Park
Took a walk with Bill and the kids and saw this heron going after the geese and then looking for dinner in the pond. It was a beautiful, albeit hot and humid evening in between rain clouds. 












July 26, 2018 My backyard-- I was sitting talking to my neighbor while my kiddos and her "grandson" were playing in the yard and this little beauty landed on my dress and kept coming back to it. Made me smile! 




For more nature scenes you can check out my other nature posts:


Have a great Sunday and a great week! 




Monday, July 23, 2018

Randomness:: Camps, Ghosts, Weirdness, Shark Week

Waiting on meatballs to bake so I thought I would hop on here for a few minutes...this will probably some sort of random post. :)



After 2 weeks of day camps for the kids, I am happy that this week we are kind of back to normal- with whatever normal is. LOL. Speaking of camps, Jacob had his last week and he loved it. His was called "Simple Machines" and they learned about machines like pulleys and levers, etc. He came home everyday describing what they had built and ready to show Ben and Rebecca how they worked.

On Friday night, we went out to our friends' horse farm for what was supposed to be an overnight campout. However, that turned into a sleepover as there we got some rain overnight. It was all good though. The most memorable things that happened were that Jacob and our friends daughter both got stung by a wasp as we were heading out to make smores around the campfire. Jacob got stung in the eyelid and on his hand. Audrey got stung on her hand. Thankfully, they were both okay with only a little swelling. Needless to say smores were enjoyed inside!

Also that night I heard their ghost. They live in a very old house that once was a railroad building. The railroad ran right behind their house. Around 3AM, I was awoken because the sounds of the bugs had completely stopped. (They live out in the country so it is loud with nature at night and they don't have a/c so all the windows were open) Then there was a rhythmic tap, tap, tap sound that continued for several minutes like metal upon metal. At first it was weird and I thought if it was something bad that the horses would start whining or their dog would go nuts. However, other than being curious I was never scared. After a few minutes it stopped, then started up again for several more minutes. Then it stopped and the bug sounds started up again. That morning, I figured out it was the "railroad ghost" and mentioned it to my friend. She said she wasn't surprised and that he usually made himself known when he was happy that there was life and love in the house. She was happy that I had heard him. :)

Today has been kind of an off day for me. I have just felt...blah but wanting to get something done but not really knowing what direction to take. It has been weird.

This week is "Shark Week" and Discovery Channel and I LOVE shark shows. I watched some last night....I did not like their premiere with Shaq. It was awful. I turned it off after 15 minutes. It was stupid and just bad. I turned the TV back on about an hour later, to see the fighter Ronda Rousey training to swim with sharks and to "face off" with a Mako. That was more interesting to me. The kids want to watch the show tonight that features a couple football players.

Well the oven just beeped so I will wrap this up. Hope everyone is having a good Monday!

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Nature Scenes for July 22, 2018

Happy Sunday everyone! It is hard to believe that July is almost over and that school starts back here in less than a month! This past week was crazy with lots of up and down emotions in a lot of different aspects of life....marriage, day-to-day life, pre-teen hormones from Rebecca, etc. It was a tiring week. 

We capped last week off by staying the night at a friend's house Friday night into Saturday. It was supposed to be a campout at their horse farm, however Mother Nature had other plans. Rain = sleepover instead of campout. It was a fun evening, even if Rebecca was crying at one point however she didn't know what was wrong and Jacob got stung by a wasp on his eyelid. 

Today, I am hoping to get some things done as Saturday when we came home I crashed and took a 2 hour nap and then felt groggy the rest of the evening and only did the bare minimum. I have to get some things set up for this coming week, laundry, some cleaning, etc. First though I wanted to share the few photos I took this past week! 

Photos from July 19, 2018 at Brown Family Environmental Center














For more nature scenes you can check out my other nature posts:



Have a great Sunday and a great week!