July 4th!

Happy BIRTHDAY, USA!!!

happy independence day!!

This is the official start of being off work for six regularly-scheduled work days! Sydni woke up talking about fireworks, rather disappointed that she had to wait aaaaaallllll day looooong to see them ;). Hahh.. To appease her, we took a little family trip up to Ault Park for a day of romping on the playground before making a stop at my office [yes, on my day off, go figure!] to make a copy of our passports, in the unlikely event we lose them overseas. We're hoping not, but as a preventative measure, we're pretty determined to come back after this trip ;)

family time! ♥

new buggy friends at the park ;)

So there was that, and then back home for a quick nap and decision on plans for the evening. Kalyn ended up joining us; we stopped off at Flip Daddy's for dinner and made our way back to Ault Park, where we set up camp on the lawn and waited for the fireworks.

girl time!

by day...

... and by night!

Tonight was a success, all the way around. We'll definitely be back next year, unless we find something else more enticing than a laid back vibe for the big show. Happy birthday, 'Merica. We love ya!

fireworks time!

Let the weekend BEGIN!

xo | cmd

Frankie's [Final] Farewell

Today was a beautiful day outside.

Marianne was still at the house when Rob & I headed out to work this morning.

yep. those are mare's keys.
.... it's tuesday.

Five and a half hours later, she and I were walking from my office to Chipotle for lunch. Haha. That's right, she was still here up until about 2pm, when she and I said goodbye for the 400th time. If I'm right, her last stop before she departed from Cinci was back down at the Coffee Emporium in East Hyde Park. We went there on Sunday before our great tattoo venture, and she went there on her own yesterday. Apparently, she ran into another Marianne, so they wrote Frankie on her cup and told her that was her name from here on out. I don't know if she had the heart to tell them today that she won't be back for... a while :(, but I do love that she's been in Cincinnati for about three days now and has already established herself at a coffee shop.

That being said,

GO HOME, FRANKIE!

 

And yes, I'm very much kidding; I wish she, along with Ali, Tim & Damanji, were residents of somewhere-right-around-the-corner, instead of other-places-around-the-U.S.-and-soon-to-be-Korea,-Tim... [*sad.face.]. I am in need of some recuperation still after the weekend rumpus with them all, but there is nothing more direct and satisfying than face-to-face time with your favorite people.

the quote is mare's original thought.
.. i'm blessed to be this part of her journey!

Like I said, today was beautiful. I had decided on my way to pick up Sydni that if she wanted, we'd take full advantage of the pretty weather before it relapses tomorrow into this wintery wackjob that it's been lately.

Since asking a 4-year-old if she wants to go play in the park is like asking me if I like... food, I really wasn't expecting anything other than a couple of hours at Stanbery to soak up the rest of the daylight.


"look mommy, i'm not touching the ground,
i'm not!"

my walking stick carrying, smizing super model tour guide :p

We even had a surprise guest, too. I thought Rob would be tied up at work for most of the evening, but his arrival was announced by the [beautiful] growl of his bike; looks like we were all trying to squeeze something out of the weather today!  

meet my world.

Quick Proud Parent Moment: I was reminded tonight that while Sydni is just 4, she is a fiercely loyal force with which not to be reckoned. Another little girl, seemingly around the same age, maybe a year older, unabashedly approached me and asked flatly, "What happened to your chest?!" She was of course referring to my keyloids, which is neither embarrassing nor aggravating to me anymore. Coming from a child, the question always amuses me more than anything else [especially as opposed to grown adults with no sense of personal space who feel it appropriate to just reach out and touch them while asking - that's a whooole different story, mis amigos..]. I opened my mouth to respond, but Sydni was quick to interject: tiny hands on her hips and all, "Those are my mommy's scars because her boy brothers threw a firework at her." She meant cousins, but it was so quickly delivered and direct that I stood there for a split second in silence, and, if I'm honest, a little bit of pride. My little girl can stand up for things. She also has a vault-like memory, as a side-and-cautionary note to myself. Hah.

Sydni tuckered herself out eventually, so we made our way back to the car to head home. The sun was setting, which gave me the perfect opportunity to capture Sydni carrying that big globe of light.

sunny girl (:

^ She thought that was the coolest thing; now I'll get to explain to other people why she's telling everyone she touched the sun ;)

It's unusually quiet around the house tonight; even though our company was only here for a few days, I'm a little... sad, if you will, that they're all gone now. Mare cleaned the place up before she left [thank you, even though you did not need to do that, haha], so we got to skip that part and go straight to dinner and some unwinding time.

We are some imperfect but blessed, happy people, around here. G'Nite ♥.

xo | cmd

Newport Aquarium & Stanbery Park

We had a blast today.
Between Nana & Pappy's visit with us to the Newport Aquarium, followed by lunch and a romp in the park, we are a tuckered-out little duo.

I gave the D90 some exercise today as we journied through the land of fishies, sharks & all things quirky at the aquarium.

Here's that story:


rawr.

^ We'll start with the first reason Sydni was excited to get to the NA today. Haha. My four-year-old wanted to see the sharks. I'm thankful that we're past the phase of being terrified by them swimming up to the glass, so I gladly embraced her request to stand in the water tunnels for ten minutes each. Hah.

shark rays

more sharks & shark-esque creatures..

We found some divers in the shark tanks..

up close & personal

.. so Sydni wanted to give it a whirl.

shark petting

^ Close enough. Haha. We'll take an actual dive with some swimmers when she gets the hang of the whole swimming thing herself. We're super close, but just not quite there yet.

lionfish

My personal favorites - pufferfish!

awhhh ;)

We found beautiful creatures everywhere. There were dots, spots, stripes, squiggles and all kinds of other patterns. 

spots & patterns everywhere!

And things that glowed in the dark..

jellyfish gardens!

And things that live in the dark... which, btw NA, you may want to move the No Flash Photography sign a bit lower... Luckily I knew this but there were plenty of folks today that certainly didn't see it. Poor octopus :/

octopus!

We saw some distant relatives, too - some who travel by land, and some by sea.

shelled beauties!

.. And some who do both (:


emperor penguins

taking a break to photograph a couple humans on the adventure

There's always of course at least one celebrity:

"mighty mike"

^ We found a sun-bathing groupie croc on the upper deck of Mighty Mike's tank; Mighty Mike is the 800-lb, 14-ft-long alligator who travels to various aquariums for us to admire. Sydni is about the size of his head. Crazy!

my girl ♥

I snagged at least one picture with mini before we called it a day at the aquarium. Our next stop was lunch at Bar Louie and then on home to unwind for a little bit before my parents had to head back home. The weather forecast has been buzzing with nothing but warnings for this impending winter storm, so Nana & Pappy made sure to get their driving out of the way before it all started to settle in. We'll see them again soon.

To ease the abrupt absence of Nana & Pappy, Sydni and I decided to squeeze just a little more juice out of the beautiful weather. We trekked the whole mile or so up the road to the park and spent the last few hours of daylight romping around the playground.

she's so busy!

love. those. smiles.

I have no complaints on the day, other than selfishly,  I wish Rob had been here to enjoy it all with us. There will be plenty of others, though. (:

From us to you, happy weekend!!!

i love you, forever & ever.

xo | cmd

Sydni Makes Sundays Fun ☑

Saying that today was a monumental improvement over yesterday is a gross understatement. Of course, that always puts a silver lining on any bad day, because really how do we know to appreciate "good days" without anything to which we can compare them?

Enough of that deep thought stuff, though.. today... was.. awesome.

awww :( .. bye friends...

The only un-awesome part of the day was at the very beginning, when we bid adieu to Ali & Melissa, who parted off after breakfast [the standard Drenn traditional breakfast, might I add... haha] to Illinois. It's gonna be a photo-kinda-entry, so here we go....

morning tradition (:

Once Ali and Melissa had gone and we got the house cleaned up, Sydni and I were ready to enjoy the SUNSHINE that fiiiinally made an appearance today. I can't tell you how gorgeous it was outside; sunny but not scorching hot, and an entire unchartered day for her and me. LOVE.

Photo highlights?
... But of course!

☑ | We're OFF! We couldn't wait to get in the car and go do something... anything.. to enjoy this rain-free day. Our final vote? The ever-faithful Eden Park. Definitely a good choice.

here we go!!

☑ | Mini horseshoe water fall! As soon as our feet left the car in the parking lot at the park, I asked Sydni what she wanted to do first. Her response was to go watch the ducks and fish swim, so we parked ourselves at the edge of this little spillover in the lower part of the park. We watched our fair share of the ducks and fish, just like she wanted, and even learned about the zero-traction property of that green fuzzy stuff in the water .. aka, moss. 

mini horseshoe waterfall | eden park - cinci, oh

☑ | Sandwiches for Sydni with SmartWater & Swissgear. Gosh, I love that little girl. She told me she wanted to eat her sandwich by the waterfall, so I snuck across the other side to snap a shot of her enjoying her lunch. She'd selected SmartWater [my daughter, whaaaaa?? haha] earlier and we stuffed everything into a Swissgear bag. She made sure I knew that all of those things, her included, start with S, so therefore by default they are all hers. "Okay, Mom?"

little lunch buddy... i hope i remember these moments forever

☑ | Get your feet wet!! Okay, so we didn't get soaking wet like the last time we played in a water outlet, but I couldn't help steal a shot of us sitting on the edge of the rocks, adventure feet ready for whatever we wanted to do today. Sydni's convinced that when she's a grown-up, she'll get toe shoes, too. Add that to the list of things that make me over-the-top proud of her. (: 

Vibram KSO's & mini Keen's. It's a good day, folks.

☑ | Take a hike. We were swinging on the playground when I spotted this cleared little hill off to the side. The upper part of Eden Park is at the top, with the famous Overlook, but I thought it'd be fun to try a little climb with Sydni. It's been raining here lately [in case I haven't griped enough about that.... ], so it was more mud than dirt, and fairly slick from others before us clearly traversing up and probably down, too. I must say though, despite her hesitation at getting dirt under her nails [we're working on that], she didn't do half bad and made it nearly to the very top without my help! Hello, proud mommy moment. I love.. my little nature bug.


future hikers of America.. hi monster ♥

☑ | SPENT! I just realized that when we look back on this, it's probably going to look like Sydni had narcolepsy as a toddler, from all of the pictures I have of her crashed out in various places. Haha. Oh well. I'm a camera addict with a cute kid, so she'll have to accept that and trust my half-serious promises to only display a few of these at events like graduation parties and her wedding ;) Haha... 



sure signs you're doing it right.... (: adventure success.

*Sigh. I kind of wished today wouldn't end, for a lot of reasons. She goes away again tomorrow for the week and of course tomorrow itself is Monday, so I'm okay putting those both off for a little while longer. Either way, we had an amazing day and are both ready to wind down. She's out, snoring [hehe], and I've got a quick Skype date with Rob, so we'll bid this blog goodnight.

ALLLL RIGHT, MONDAY, let's go..

xo | cmd

☼ SUNDAY WITH SYDNI!! ☼

Today was the best day overall that I've had in a very long time. To the core, I have next to zero complaints about the day, other than the fact that it's over.

First stop: Picking up Sydni and heading to breakfast! We have a thing for going to Taste of Belgium every time we're in town, so it only made sense to take Syd there for her first time. She definitely didn't mind a fruit waffle, and I definitely didn't mind having breakfast with two of my faaaavorites: Miss Sydni, and Mr. Rob. ;) 

taste of belgium | cincinnati, oh

After breakfast, we decided we'd go take some pictures and enjoy the goooorgeous day. It wasn't hard to pick the place; by default I toted us out to the one and only Eden Park, my all time favorite park in the area. It's served as my refuge since college, and I jump at the chance to take visitors up there. We had a blast. I figured I'd show it rather than tell it.... enjoy ♥ 

this little face... melts me, every time.

duck pond!

hangin out with mr. rob (:

mama & mini

she's suuuuuch a model! ;)

"mommy! look at me and mr. rob, we have monster faces!" - sydni

walking around the mirror pond .. and maybe splashing in the water ;)

with my two favorites ♥ ♥

*Sigh. I couldn't have asked for a better day. Like I said, my only real regret is that it's coming to a close. I had the opportunity to meet Joe's new girlfriend today, and have to say she's a sweet girl. It's been a long road, but I'll suffice to say that we all deserve to be happy, regardless of what we've done and where we've been.

Even the drive home was tolerable; I made some final touches on the decorations for Ali's birthday tomorrow, and spent most of the time just reveling in the amazing day we had. I caught the last few shots of the night on the drive back, and was reminded that I'm surrounded by beauty, from the smallest things to the bigger picture. 

God's canvass : aaaaabsolutely beautiful.

To sum up today: [a gift from my amazing friend Ali : lovelovelovelove her!!!!] This is what hangs now in my mirror and reminds me every mile of the way....

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

We're home now, after a stop off at the office to decorate for Ali's work birthday celebration; I'm preparing food for the office lunch and hanging out with this weirdo boyfriend I kiiiiinda adore. :p

Love & more Love, blogbots!

xo | cmd