Withrow Nature Preserve [We'll Be BACK!]

I don't know how he does it, but even being shy of 2 years here in Cincinnati, Rob manages continuously to uncover places I didn't know existed. That's more my fault for being oblivious, but there's no complaint here that he took us on a detour after church & lunch.

parks! :) 

Before we hit the park, it was church and lunch.

great day for ice cream! 

We treated ourselves, because Syd was well-deserving of a little pick-me-up. Plus, do you really need an excuse for free soft-serve? ;)

We spent our afternoon exploring the Withrow Nature Preserve, which we will absolutely be visiting again when it's warm outside.

sneak peak of the center! 

^ Oh yeah... THEY. HAVE. OWLS.
That one wasn't living, but they did have a little screech owl recovering from an injury onsite [adorbs] and apparently several others that inhabit the natural area. It was recommended by the sweet gal at the desk that we make it a point to come back in the Spring & Summer, when the kids activities are going strong & the weather is tolerable. That we will.. that we will!

Happy Sunday, folks - I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have!

xo | cmd

Memorial Day 2014

First things first:

To my cousin Jeremy, my other family in service, my friends back at Scott AFB in Illinois, and to the ranks of men & women before and after them who have laid or are unconditionally laying down everything to serve our country, THANK YOU. Today is for YOU, your families and the service you give to the rest of us.

thank you. thank you, thank you, thank.. you.

Our little family started the morning off with breakfast out, since nobody felt much like cooking.

little toes by little flowers out to breakfast!

After breakfast, we took our time deciding what to do for the afternoon. With it being Memorial Day, the possibility of canoeing was immediately nixed once we realized the rest of the city was out on the same mission and rentals were booked through tomorrow for the most part. We defaulted to the boat, which seemed to be the best alternative.

Brittany, Chad and Kalyn met us at East Fork, where we loaded up, dropped in and prepared to haul out for a day on the water.

That went just fine until about 10 minutes into the outing, when a part on the boat prop broke and left us floating in the middle of a wake zone. It seemed like it may have been a sad, premature end to our efforts, but then I was reassured that my friends are a lot like me in the spirit of attaching to the bright side of even the most annoying circumstances.

So what did we do? Well, we tossed anchor and hung out! Sydni had a blast swimming, showing off her crazy fish-like skills to the rest of us, and of course got to practice her casting with the fishing pole that has been repaired since the little hiccup two days ago with Papppy.

We laughed, we swam, we ate lunch and hung out. For having zero horsepower to move us through the water, I'd have to say it was nothing but a fun time and I'm not complaining!

love those girls!!!

All good things eventually do end, and when it came time for us to haul in, we managed to flag down a passing boat and grab a tow for the short ride back to the dock.

womp womp womp... haha

favorite girls!! ♥

Well, boat.. it was a good start to the summer, and this is just a hiccup. It's the end of the night now, and Rob's already got a tentative plan built as to how he's going to fix it [one of the many things I love about him!].

Today wasn't wasted, at all. After we hauled off the lake, dropped Sydni off for her week away from our home and tied up our poor dead boat, we headed to Brittany's for the most delicious veggie burger I've ever had. That, plus friends and Brittany's adorable dog Daisy, proved to be the best unwind for the day.

c'mon, aunt kalyn... just a bite?!

Happy Memorial Day to you, your family, and most importantly to the service men and women who have rightfully earned the praise due their way. We salute you!!

xo | cmd

So Domesticated.. And Schtuff...

Yep. Crockpot chicken.

It's like I'm an adult now! Well, that, or a bonified Pinterest addict.

yummmm!

You're welcome, family (:

xo | cmd

40 Day Lent Letters: Completed!

So, YAY!

Forty days ago, I committed to acknowledging Lent in a way that would be appropriate for me, a non-Catholic. I don't really have any must-have vices that I felt I needed to shelve for that time, so I borrowed Marianne's idea of sending just a simple note, once a day to a different person.

Remember this?

day 1 : march 5, 2014!

Well, today was the 40th and final day of these little letters. Strangely enough, I felt a little sad that I'm now done with these; I looked forward a little every day to the note I was about to write, and prayed that I would have the right words for whoever it would be. There's something about knowing a task but not knowing the recipient that makes something like this a little more fun (: 

Anyway, I am done. Lent Letter #40 is sealed up & ready to be mailed first thing tomorrow morning. Narrowing the list down to only 40 people was somewhat of a harrowing task, but I know there was a specific reason for each of these people. That being said, RECAP! 

days 1-8
jen v. | aunt toni & uncle norman g. | lu f. | jay w.
james g. | catie e. | rob s. | maricor j.

days 9 - 16
marianne s. | nalom v. | meagan g. | kortney b.
dave & nancy b. | dawne m. | dusty r. | dad

days 17 - 24
remy d. | nader s. | arley c. | ali l.
mo p. | kalyn p. | aunt cindy & uncle gary d. | kyle y.

days 25 - 32
jennica s. | trish b. | trish r. | becky s.
ms. ellen b. | mindi k. | matt l. | christine h.

days 33 - 40
steph & mark k. | mom | heidi vh. | marc & diana v.
laney p. | becky h. | olivia j. | gazelle d.

This.. was.. super fun. This reminded me very quickly that the power of a handwritten note should never, ever be underestimated. (:

********

In other news for today: Rob, Sydni and I started the day together with a solid message from SonRise, then made a pitstop for Rob to get his hair cut. Sydni and I ran a couple of errands and had a mini photo shoot to commemorate the beautiful day..

my favorite girl ♥♥♥♥

... & the rest of the reel ;)

Back at home, Rob started digging into the boat; it's time to wake that sleepy thing and get it ready for the season. Sydni took to her squirt guns and spent a couple hours assaulting everything from the front porch to the curb... us included (:. Kalyn invited us over for a bit to play some volleyball and grill out, so we of course obliged.

 

Kalyn's neighbors have a rather old pet rabbit named Dusty. Sydni made quick friends with Dusty... 

syd & dusty

I made a solo trip to Fairfield for soccer while Rob & Sydni stayed back at home. We narrowly missed pulling off a win, but in our defense, we were running a man short for the game since the rest of the team didn't make an appearance [womp womp....]. It was a nice workout, no less. I headed back home to find my three girls curled up on the new dog beds. Well, at least two of them were on there....

poor sasha... haha

^ Yep. Sydni had dragged the dog beds out to the living room and curled up next to Stella. Poor Sasha got jipped, but did what she could to at least have a pillow and make the best of an unfortunate [for her] situation ;)

I love this little family of mine. ♥♥♥♥♥

xo | cmd

[Satur]Day of Play!

Today's Highlight Reel:

1. Good morning, happy pup!!
>>> Stella is the stoic of the two, and since she rarely smiles to express herself, this was a rare glimpse of the cheesy face I love so much!

stella pittie!

2. Breakfast! Nom Nom Nom...
>>> I woke up with a craving for French Toast. So, I made French Toast.

delish!

3. Princess Cycling Gear.
>>> We broke out the bicycle for her first spin of the season at the house. We discovered some new parts of the neighboring areas and Syd proved she's just about ready for the training wheels to be weened away!

go go go!

4. Fields of Golden Flowers.
>>> Or, just our yard. While it certainly looks pretty, these little buddies will unfortunately disappear in the next couple of weeks when the lawn mower comes out. 

still kinda pretty ;)

 That meant some serenading [of the Frozen soundtrack, duh] from my theatrical little monster.. ♥

let it GOOO

candid running faces.. haha

more uh... jazz hands?

field of little flowers (:

5. The Scariest Donut I've Ever Seen.
>>> In a moment of extraordinary weakness, I caved and bought this disgusting star-shaped, overly-frosted, sprinkle & gummy crap-covered thing for Sydni. I had zero intentions of letting her eat this entire donut, but she was being good and caught me in a moment of generosity, so yeah. If you're wondering, I took one tiny bite of this thing and decided it was just as disgusting as it looks. I really don't know how people could eat these things all the time and not have heart attacks. Oh, well...

goooood grief.

6. My Family.
>>> These two are my everything.  Today it was team turquoise, apparently.. haha.

my little world ♥

7. Grilling Out With Becky!
>>> An impromptu visit from Becky, who joined us for dinner, suffered a gigantic foot splinter from our deck and still agreed to come back and dogsit for us. There rarely are better friends. (: Hopefully my bribing of homemade mac n' cheese along with Rob's perfectly-grilled chicken & potatoes were enough to alleviate the unfortunate 2.5" splinter that she had to remove from her foot.. haha.

best way to recover from giant splinters?
.... cloudgazing, apparently (:

So aside from gigantic fragments of our deck splintering off into our guest's foot, I suppose we have no complaints from today. Thankfully it was Becky, who is probably my most durable friend. Haha.

Splinter is gone, sun is fading and everyone's happy again. (:
That's a good Saturday!

xo | cmd

Towerview Fundraising Breakfast: Relay2012

Hey Sunday! Thanks for stopping by :)

Today started off a couple hours earlier than the average Sunday; I was out of the house with little monster and en route to the Tower an hour or so before the usual departure time. With two cases of homemade muffins in hand, I unloaded toddler, Bible, camera, and eventually muffins into the most appropriate resting spots downstairs in the fellowship hall [well, aside from the toddler; those things don't ever rest...]. I spent a few moments snapping pictures of the helping hands and attendees of what was purposed to be a fundraising breakfast for the church's Relay for Life.

greg. ron. margaret
our trusted cooks! :)

my mini muffin monster!

breakfast

It was a huge success! Not only did we have a sturdy set of helping hands on board to flip pancakes, serve drinks and clean up, but the crowd elicited so easily by food didn't disappoint! I'm not one to regularly emphasize the strengths of individual denominations, but for what it's worth as it's relevent here: Southern Baptists have absolutely no qualms with cooking up good food, and we'll show that same lack of dissent when it comes to eating it. We love food, we love hanging out with each other, and we love coming together for a common and important cause. That being said, hosting a pre-Sunday school breakfast was guaranteed to be the hit it was.

When it was all said and done, we had $230 to put towards our [revised!!] team goal of $3,000. Our original goal was set at $1,500, but after just a month or so of We are getting closer!!! :)

pancake patrollers | lara & cori

on our way home.. cakehead ;)

After another home run sermon from our pastor [sorry for the inside joke; you'll understand if you were there], our 40 Days in the Word group [remember us? Yardsale?] rallied together at Lonestar to discuss the allocation of our yardsale proceeds.... and of course eat... again :). We nailed down some details on our next step in our plan to service our community, and did it with the usual flair of hilarious moments and musical-chair children.

I don't remember the next three hours following lunch at Lonestar; I'm going to attribute that to the fact that I spent that time napping :). I rolled back out of bed just in time to make it back to church for choir practice before coming back home again and wrapping up the day.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the grill Joe brought home yesterday. He spent a large part of the afternoon cleaning and configuring his new toy, and we wasted very little time giving it some exercise. Jarod, Jason, Alex, Jimmy & Mo stopped by after choir practice for some late evening grilling: burgers and chicken. I'm pretty proud of Joe: He didn't do half bad! :)

*Yawn.. Something about today indicated to me that this is going to be a great week. If the week's got other plans, too bad; I'm bent on making this a good one - and I've got God on my side :).

G'Nite!

xo | cmd