Long Weekend Rewind

We were so excited to remember Matt had Monday off!  As a teacher, I usually had President's Day off when I was working, but Matt has never had it off before.  Even though I know he's really busy at work with some deadlines and projects coming together, I think the extra family day came at a great time.  It was refreshing for me to have an extra day with him (and I KNOW Asa loved it!) before a hard core week of making deadlines this week.  It filled me up in preparation for the long hours that are likely ahead of us the next few days. :)

The weekend was not without its surprises, but we'll get to those in just a minute. ;)

Last week had some glorious days.  The highs sometimes made it out of the 30s!!!!  WOO HOOOO!  I never thought I'd be so happy to see temperatures in the 40s!  :)  Days on end of snow as far as you can see sure can change a (former Floridian's) person's perspective. ;)  In anticipation of the beautiful weather continuing through the weekend, I asked Matt about going to a park with Asa on Saturday and to some outlets on Monday.  The plan was set, and we didn't really anticipate any weather complications (yes, that's foreshadowing). :)

On Saturday afternoon, we went to a great park nearby.  It will be only 3 miles from the new house!  It has a sweet little kid playground, a GIANT amazing big kid playground, and lots of fields and trails for walking, running, and playing.  We just didn't expect the temperatures to drop and the wind to HOWL in.  Oh my!  It.was.so.cold.  Asa really enjoyed sliding on the little kid playground, but Matt and I were just about frozen stiff.  We knew he wanted to run around, so before calling it quits we walked over to see some geese and give him an opportunity to run around.  Thankfully, we went down a small hill that seemed to block much of the wind after we were on the other side!  Asa was intrigued by the geese and made lots of bird sounds at them, mostly "quacking,"... so I guess we need to work on duck vs. goose. ;)

 

  

We made our way back to the car where Asa was very, very sad to be leaving the park.  He was tired, he loves being outside, Daddy was with us.  Who would want to leave?!?  But we did, and I worked, somewhat successfully, to keep him awake on the short drive home.  I took him straight upstairs to bed when we arrived at home, and he took a short nap.  Asa had an early bedtime as result, but at least he napped enough to make it til then. ;)

On Sunday we attended Sunday school and church.  Asa's separation anxiety, particularly from me, is peaking significantly right now.  He cries if I am out of sight for even a moment, so I was concerned how dropping it off at the nursery would go.  He started to get upset, but the teachers know him well enough that they took him into the room and got him engaged with something he likes before he actually lost it.  Praise the Lord!

Monday was our other big adventure outing day.  I found out there was a Gymboree outlet not too far away, and they were having a baby sale + President's Day sale over the weekend.  We had not bought anything for Anna Reaghan, and I thought it would be fun to let Asa walk around the outlet mall and maybe find an outfit or two that we really liked.  When I checked the forecast, it started calling for several inches of snow.  I was so disappointed, but Matt said we'd go anyway and the forecast had been wrong even a day or two earlier.  Off we went.  We went to Gymboree first, and Matt almost immediately spotted an outfit he loved.  I suggested some matching hairbows, and it was a done deal. :) 

I continued to browse and found an outfit of my own choosing that I loved.  Several years ago, Gymboree had a girls' line of clothes with a goldfish theme that I thought was adorable.  I was excited to check out the outlet, because I *thought* they brought back a version of the goldfish line to sell at the outlets RIGHT NOW.  And they DID!  How sweet is that?!?

We ventured into a few other stores.  Asa loved the Carter's outlet.  He scurried this way and that, looking at this rack of clothes and that rack of clothes.  Squeezing into tiny spaces between racks like he was hiding.  It was really cute. :)  He also really liked some puzzles they had in the store... that he already has at home. ;)  We looked in more stores, ate some lunch, tried a couple more places, and then picked up a soft pretzel before heading out.  Asa tried my cinnamon and sugar pretzel, and he liked it!  I have no idea how the likely dairy ingredients will affect him today, but it was worth the special treat on our special extra day with Daddy. :)  Of course it DID start snowing while we were at the outlets.... and not just a dusting.  It was SNOWING.  It became harder and harder to see the cars on the highway running right past the outlet!

This is really just the beginning.  We have close to 6 inches now.

Matt wonderfully navigated the snowy highway--nothing was plowed yet.  Praise the Lord we got home safely AND when we did as the snow continued to pour down!  We got the most snow at once in the whole time we've lived here so far!  Matt figured the roads would be plowed by dinner time and went out to pick up a bite to eat for us to cap off the weekend, but nothing was plowed yet after all!  He ran into roads blocked by spun out cars almost every way he turned.  Thankfully when he gave up and headed home, he got behind a salt truck and made it back just fine. :)

We packed a lot into our weekend, but we had time to rest too.  I love weekends and family time! :)  And next weekend is the beginning of the big move, so it was an extra blessing to have a fun-filled weekend right now. :)

Children's Museum

Last week I met with a friend-of-a-friend (thank you for "introducing us," Ruthie!) at a children's museum.  We both bought discounted tickets from Groupon and thought it would be fun to meet there.  My impressions from the museum's website were that it was very child-friendly even down to kids Asa's age and that we would have a lot of fun. :)  I was right and can't wait to go back with Matt, too!

The first room we went into was themed upon Margaret Wise Brown's (of Goodnight Moon fame) book The Big Red barn.  It was great for even young toddlers like Ba-Basa.  There were fake corn stalks with felt pockets holding plastic ears of corn the kids could harvest and then take to giant silo!  I believe there was a hen house on that wall as well (every time I looked around, I noticed something new... even as we were leaving each section)!  They had a giant wagon filled with baskets and pails for collecting produce around the room.  There is a huge loft-style barn with steps to a second story with plexi-glass windows and various activities in the open first floor, a replica of a pick-up truck complete with turn-able steering wheel and a truck bed full of stuffed animals representing just about every farm animal you can think of--giant stuffed animals and big puppets!  Another wall had trees painted on it with big sections of velcro, and there were plastic yellow and red apples with corresponding velcro on them so you could "pick" apples from the tree.  Not to mention little tykes tractors, wagons, a bookshelf of farm-related books.... it was amazing!

Next we went to a water room.  There were activities about the water cycle around the perimeter of the room, but we headed straight for a huge, 3 level water table complete with spouts and all sorts of water toys.  They had smocks to help keep your child from totally drenching him or herself as well. :)  You KNOW Asa loved the water. ;)

The museum has a third section set up with familiar things around town... a city bus replica with real bus seats kids can sit on and a driver's seat with steering wheel, of course.  A train table (that was always busy!), a model car that even had an infant car seat bolted to it so kids could pretend to drive their family around town.  It had a house with 2 great play kitchens, a fridge, a broom and mop, dog, dog bed, and dog food bowls :), table and chairs, etc., and tons of pretend food and dishes.  THAT house was hopping too!  The section I didn't take Asa to that I think he will love, love, love when we go back with Daddy is set up like a little store--grocery cars and aisles of boxes and cans for kids to go shopping with!!

After we saw the first 3 areas, we took a break for our kids to eat.  Then my friend and her kids needed to head out to make it home for nap time.  We live farther away and I didn't think there was anyway I could prevent Asa from falling asleep on the way home no matter when I left (it was just over an hour away), so we went to the last area we hadn't explored yet.  My impression is that the theme of this area can change, and it is currently set up with an Egyptian theme.  They have made a GIANT sand pit.... probably at least 2 of our huge living room in Florida put together.  It's filled with very DRY sand, so it all shakes right off. ;)  They have tons of shovels and pails, a couple little tykes crocodile see-saws, a pyramid and tunnel kids can crawl through, and a giant sand sculpture of a sphinx!  Outside the sand pit were some benches and tables, a huge felt board with each letter of hieroglyphics laminated and stickable onto the felt board so children could spell things out (and then paper and pencils to record what they wrote), Egyptian themed rubbings (they had a couple metal plates you could place paper over and then make a crayon rubbing of)--Asa made one of pyramids.  I saw one little boy had made a "treasure" map and was burying various things in the sand and then pretending he was a treasure hunting, scoping out the sand pit and the map he made (with lot of "x marks the spots"), digging up the treasures he'd buried, and returning them victoriously to his mother and grandmother.  It was so neat to see kids of ALL ages engaging in such fun and imaginative ways.  The museum was really a place you could go over the course of several years as your child(ren) grow, and I think they would interact with each section in different ways as they get older.  Very cool.

Unfortunately, I accidentally left my camera in the car!  But I will be sure to take lots of pictures when we get a chance to go back with Matt. :)

Amish Country

We are trying to be much more intentional about family time on the weekends, and specifically going to DO something and MAKE memories on weekends (not just run errands, etc.).  We realized during our moving process that we didn't nearly take enough advantage of what our area of Florida had to offer.  The beach was 90 minutes away!  We should have gone SO much much.  We didn't go see the springs.  We didn't go down to see the manatees, never went to the Keys or the Everglades...  We are really trying not to make the same mistake in Ohio.

So on Saturday we loaded up for a little jaunt (about 45 minutes away) to Amish Country.  Trees are about at their peak color right now, so we were hoping for beautiful scenery, rolling countryside, and fun time together.  We could have found all those things at home or steps from our door (seriously, the corn fields are everywhere), but how fun to get to see something new and  make a memory.

There are some very touristy parts of Amish country.  It kind of felt Gatlinburg-esque in places.  There were some cute looking shops, but we were in search of a more rustic experience.  We drove through the more commercialized area and turned on a road that we hoped would take us "off the beaten path."  It did!  We saw many, many farms, lines of clothes hung out to dry, lots of livestock, harvested fields, fields being harvested while we drove by, and fields still awaiting harvesting, lots of horses and buggies, several bicycle riders, beauuuutiful farmland and foliage.  I'd hoped we could get out and walk around some, but we wanted to be respectful and not gawk and things were spaced a fair distance apart.  So we drove, and we took discrete pictures, and we talked, and we made our memory. :)

Here's to more weekend memories to come!

 leaves on the way up (much more vibrant in person!)

Corn! (what did I tell you?! :))

goats on the roof.... don't know any more than that!

 Need some hay?

Harvesting corn

Playground Time

After Asa's wonderful "fix it" job on my computer, I didn't get to share about our time at the playground!  So go back a couple weeks with me and enjoy this video of him going down the slide. :)

And here are some pictures of him on the slide. :)

Weekend Recap

We had a great weekend!  The weather was gorgeous and we got to take great advantage of that!

On Friday night we had our usual homemade pizza for dinner.  I tried making a bbq chicken pizza... it wasn't bad but it wasn't our favorite.  Matt topped it off with yummy ice cream from Handel's for dessert after Asa was asleep.  Dark chocolate peanut butter ripple is my current flavor of choice. :)  Matt had deep dish apple pie ice cream.  We relaxed with a few episodes of Dr. Quinn on dvd.  Yes, I do have the best husband in the world for watching that with me. :)

On Saturday we went to a craft show after lunch.  It was organized by the Lion's club and held at the local high school.  The artisans were really friendly and it was fun to see all the crafts.  I do enjoy a good art show, but I realllly like a good craft show.. you know, fun homespun kinds of things as opposed to expensive paintings and photograhpy.  Lots of Christmas decor, several things I sew for myself and gifts, and I always love getting new ideas (and I did walk away with a few).  We had fun and even picked up a couple Christmas presents.  After the craft show we treated ourselves to Taggert's ice cream (I know, 2 days in a row!).  If Mom had come to town, that was my plan for the day and I still wanted to keep the fun (minus Mom... Matt was a good stand-in, I do have to say).  Saturday night Asa and I joined Sammy and Matt for her evening walk.  Asa walked with me instead of riding in his stroller!  We finished up by going out onto the golf course.  We walked until we were a ways from the road and then I let go of Asa's hand and Matt gave Sammy plenty of line on her leash so they could run and play.  It was fun to see Asa walking all over and trying to figure out how to go up and down hills.  He also discovered a sand trap on the course.  You know he loved that. ;)  Lastly, before bed we let Asa try his new Aquadoodle.  He l.o.v.e.d it.  I think his next word will be "dot" because we taught him how to make them and say "dot dot dot" over and over.  He's definitely trying :), and he cried when we had to stop to get ready for bed.

On Sunday we were blessed to worship at the church we've been attending here.  I know I've worked hard to call the house in Florida "the" house in Florida and not "our" house, because it's not ours anymore and it helps me not feel like it is.  But I do have to say, when I think of "our" church the only thing that comes to mind is CCC in Florida.  I don't know when I'll be able to call the church here "our church."  So bear with me while I remains "the church we go to here." ;)  Asa had his usual sobs when I took him to the nursery, but he was playing alongside a buddy happy as a lark when we picked him up (praise the Lord!), and the caregiver seemed rather fond of him when she brought him to me (melt this momma's heart!). :)  After Asa's nap on Sunday we ventured to a new park.  We started on a small, little kid playground and then visited the big one.  Asa definitely went into "this is new, I am taking it all in" with very few smiles mode; my little introvert. :)  But he decided the slide was fun on about the 3rd try, and he loved feeling the different playground textures... mulch, gravel, sand, plants.  He was in explore mode... hunt and gather for new info.  Not only is he my little introvert, he has plenty of his daddy's engineering mind in him as well... always evaluating. :)  I'll post pics and a video from the park later this week, so stay tuned!

I'm so thankful we had such BEAUTIFUL weather to go OUT and play before winter really settles in.  We're told it could snow before the end of this month (!!), so an upswing to 82 degrees with clear skies was a perfect way to make some fall memories. :)

Goign to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo....

.... how about you, you, you?

On Saturday we made our first visit to the local zoo.  We had previously talked about visiting and purchasing a family membership, and the incredible weather on Saturday (high of 63!) made it THE day to do it. :)

The zoo has lovely landscaping and some beautiful architecture in the welcome building and a few others throughout the grounds.  It's not a HUGE zoo, but it's a great size for seeing the sights with a toddler and getting home by nap time. :)  We saw some penguins, tigers, rabbits, lions, snow leopards, flamingos, sloth bears, komodo dragons, sheep, goats, red pandas, and several kinds of birds.  There are little playground type stations spaced out around the campus for kids to take a break and play and benches for resting tired feet as needed (we didn't stop but saw plenty of other families using them :) ).  They have a little "frontier town" as well that is child sized and has 2 small houses with small furniture, a water pump, etc. for kids to play in.  Asa did try that out. :)  There is a new carousel and a train if you need a ride, too.

This was a penguin statue... I'm not sure why Matt zoomed in so much you can't tell it's a penguin. ;)

Again with the zoom (oops), but it's a lion from the new carousel

a real lion yawning

the tiger dog ;)

Asa looking at a barking deer

Trying out a saddle in frontier town

I like this bell!

Oh Mommy, this is so fun!

Ding, ding, ding!!

checking out an "old" cabin in frontier town

I think I will help Mommy with the laundry

There is one indoor exhibit that had the komodo dragon, some freshwater sting rays, and some other fish and frogs.  The zoo is currently hosting a jellyfish exhibit in that building as well, which we all enjoyed.  I didn't know some jellyfish could be sooooo tiny.  No matter their size, they were all incredibly graceful.

We even LEARNED something while we were at the zoo!  There was this crazy lemur looking thing that we found out lives in the SW United States!  Of course I cannot remember its name, but I never would have guessed it lives in the US (and Central and South America).  We laughed and wondered if it was introduced to the US kind of like the wild monkeys that live in the forests of north and central Florida (it's true! We've seen them!).

We really enjoyed our Saturday outing at the zoo and plan to return soon!

Six on Saturday

I missed yesterday, so here's a quick weekend update. :)

1.  We made it to our 2nd Bible study this week on Wednesday morning, and Asa did GREAT in the nursery again!  I think they had only 3 or 4 babies in his room again this week as well.

2.  I am almost done with a very overdue gift.  I just have 2 steps left.  I am excited that I'm almost done and hope the recipient likes it!  I'll post pics after it's been received on the other end. :)

3.  Asa and I went to the dollar store to scout crafting materials and hit the jackpot.  I'm most excited about a Christmas gift idea and buying cheeeeap board books to modge podge into personalized board books for Asa!!

4.  I pulled out my fall decorations boxes on Friday and it's so fun to have our fall things out.  Asa loves our leaf pumpkin and mini soft scarecrow the best.  It's so funny to think he was completely oblivious to these things a year ago, and now he notices each and every one!

5.  Our high on Friday jumped up to 90, but Saturday's high was 63!!  Welcome back, Fall!  It feels soooo nice outside. We've been enjoying lots of fun times like Asa's first chalk experience!

6.  Today we also took advantage of the glorious weather by visiting (and becoming members of) the Akron Zoo.  It is a very nice zoo (though much smaller than the one we go to in TN), but it's just the right size for a quick spin with our little guy.  The tigers were his favorite.  One was RIGHT in front of the glass panel, and Asa squealed with delight (and signed dog over and over and over again). :)