Monthly Archives: August 2012

Birthday Weekend!

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On Saturday Ted turned the big 33 and on Sunday I had my golden birthday and turned 26. We started our birthday weekend off right on Friday with a trip to Valley Vineyards Winery for a relaxing evening of wine and steak. Saturday, on Ted’s birthday, we joined our friends out in the Williamsburg countryside for a rummage sale they were hosting…we had a few things we needed to part with as well! We made a few bucks, but more importantly, we had a really fun, relaxing morning just hanging out, eating fresh-from-the-oven cookies, picking tomatoes and peppers from the garden, and chatting with our friends outside in the cool morning air while selling some wares. In the afternoon we ran a few errands, grabbed dinner and a chocolate malt for the birthday boy, enjoyed a drink at our favorite little Mexican bar, and caught an evening showing of “Brave” at the theatre. It was such a fun movie and we had a really relaxing day, with no set agenda or schedule. When we came home Ted opened all of his wonderful birthday cards from our thoughtful friends and family and then Ted presented me with my/our birthday gift – tickets to Kings Island & Soak City – Cincinnati’s roller coaster and water slide theme park! We’ve been wanting to go since we moved to Cincinnati nearly two years ago, and thanks to a sweet friend who works there, Ted was able to secure us a pair of comp. tickets to spend the day riding roller coasters and slipping down water slides on my birthday!

I made Ted’s birthday cake using one of his favorite hobbies and his two favorite cake flavors – a bowling pin carrot cake and a pineapple upside-down bowling ball cake to celebrate his survival of 33 years on this planet. He loved it. :)

Sunday morning, my birthday, we arose bright and early to spend a day at King’s Island and Soak City. We rode some great roller coasters (loved the Firehawk!), slipped and slid down some really fun water slides until closing time, enjoyed tasty nachos, soft pretzels with cheese, and Dippin’ Dots ice cream throughout the day, hit up one of my favorite burger joints for a late night feast and drinks, and then finished off the day by opening all of my wonderful birthday cards from our thoughtful friends and family. It was the perfect golden birthday!

T&L birthday weekend = total success! :)

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Valley Vineyard

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Upon the excellent recommendation of some friends of ours we made a reservation to ring in our birthday weekend with a steak night at Valley Vineyard, a family-owned winery in Morrow, OH. Ted left work early Friday afternoon and we drove up to the vineyard for a relaxing date night to see the grapes, sample some wines, and grill up a steak!

It was a perfect evening in a truly beautiful location. We walked the grounds of the winery, toured the wine cellar where they press the grapes and bottle and store the wine, walked across the street to the vineyard to check out the grapes, sampled many of their home-brewed beers and delicious wines including reds, whites, champagne, honey mead, and dessert ice wine, seasoned and cooked our own savory steaks on the grill, and enjoyed a huge and tasty meal of salad, steak, baked potatoes, roasted veggies, corn on the cob, rice pilaf, a yummy selection of fantastic home-made cakes and pies for dessert, and two bottles of wine (champagne and pink catawba – our two faves!).

 

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It was a wonderful evening, really fun, completely relaxing, and the perfect start to a great birthday weekend!

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Dinner & The Game

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Last night our good friends Patti and Todd treated us to downtown birthday dinner at Izzy’s – a corned beef sandwich and potato pancakes place that is a native landmark establishment on the Cincy food scene – and joined us for the Packers v. Bengals pre-season game at Paul Brown Stadium. We, obviously, are Packer fans and Patti and Todd are Bengals fans, so a lot of fun was had by all. It was a Packer win (duh). The stadium was pretty evenly split Packer fans and Bengal fans, despite the fact that the game was in Cincinnati, which was great to see. Those crazy Packer fans are all over the place.

Football season is upon us!

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Good Clean Fun

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Because who couldn’t use a good mid-week laugh?

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6 Weeks Later

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I’m back!

It’s pretty remarkable how quickly 6 weeks can come and go. It seems like it’s been only a few days ago when I excitedly drove beneath the “Welcome to Michigan” state marker for the first time in two years and first peeked into my rustic cabin and promptly decided that I definitely was not going to survive 6 weeks alone in that cabin.

Well, I not only survived, but I thrived and had a wonderful time. For the first time in many years this summer actually felt like a true blue summer. You know, the summers of your childhood or the summers you always imagined would stick around forever – fireflies, sandy beaches, waves, ice cream cones, sprinklers, gorgeous sunsets over peaceful lakes, the scent of sunscreen and bugspray, walking to your friend’s house (well, cabin) totally unannounced to see if they can hang out, cookouts, swimming, campfires, s’mores, fireworks, naps, good books, making new friends, hikes through the woods, laughter so hard and frequent that you can hardly breathe, ice cream pie, long scenic shore-side drives, bike rides through the dunes, blankets on the grass, ice cold brews, drive-in movies, long hot days that stay light until 10 p.m. and short cool nights, the occasional big mid-summer thunderstorm, camping, a great job that doesn’t even feel like a job because you’re surrounded by music and Shakespeare and opera and dance and adults and kids with a deep and lasting love for the arts, camp songs and sing-alongs, talent shows, concerts, performances…it was the summer I’d been hoping for for years. A summer whose very existence I was beginning to question because surely those kind of magical summers are real to and exist only for children. I’m relieved to know that they exist for adults too. And they’re worth the wait.

But one 7.5 drive with a new camp friend along for the ride, beautiful ‘welcome home’ flowers from Ted, one great ‘car-and-everything-I-own’ sand-purging party, and four epic loads of laundry later, I am home. Back to Cincinnati, back to Ted, back to the crays, and back to our happy life together. For a short time. More on that later.

As I mentioned, a new camp faculty friend, who also lives in Cincy, accompanied me on the drive home and made the trip go by so much more quickly as we girl-talked through all of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. When I arrived home I was greeted with a huge hug, a vase of gorgeous flowers, ice cream, a beer, and my slippers ready and waiting – best. husband. ever. The next day I slept in for the first time in 6 weeks, was treated to a fantastic ‘welcome home’ Mexican dinner complete with a strong and tasty sangria margarita, and a night on an actual couch (real furniture!), with actual carpet (no more concrete floors!), and Hotel Hell, Hell’s Kitchen, and Master Chef on TV (GASP!). Surprisingly, I didn’t really miss these luxuries at all while I was at camp…though it was kind of fun to have them all back for one relaxing evening!

And, of course, while I was away our babies grew. The craybies have grown into full-blown porkchops. They’re hardly recognizable from the tiny little translucent specs they used to be. They’re looking more and more like sweet Mav every day.

Ace

Gigi

Ace is a girl and Gigi is a boy. Gigi is short for Gentle Giant, who was named before A) we knew that she was actually a he, and B) before he not-so-gently ripped a claw, leg, and two antennas off of poor Ace, prompting us to buy another tank with all the fixings so they can both live peacefully and separately, in our loving care. I apparently hadn’t gotten around to teaching the “it’s rude to eat your sister” lesson before I left for camp…craybie steps. Ace’s body parts will regenerate and in addition to being HUGE, they both appear to be happy and healthy. So we’re officially and happily a family of four.

Lots more updates to come later, so stay tuned!

How has your summer been so far? You’ve got two weeks left, get out there and enjoy it!

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Of Sun & Sand

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Although I am now back at camp for my third and final session at BLFAC for the 2012 season (and am currently nursing some seriously obnoxious allergies that can go away any time now, thanks to this wicked Michigan atmosphere that I am apparently no longer accustomed to), I did have an incredible three days off during session break. Mom and dad, my sister Kim, her husband, my two nephews, my Aunt Penny, our family friend Martha, and Ted all journeyed up to Muskegon (about a half hour away from where I’m staying) to stay a while in Martha’s lake house right on the shores of Lake Michigan for a relaxing vacation.

We had a great time sleeping in, taking lazy midday snoozes, dipping in the pool every afternoon, eating tasty seafood, indulging in ice cream and fresh picked blueberries, walking barefoot along the beach, touring BLFAC so everyone can see what I’ve been up to for the past month, visiting beautiful, historic lighthouses at sunset, browsing the submarine museum, exploring a real WWII submarine, reading novels, biking along the beach boardwalk, through wooded paths, and in the sand dunes, catching up on life, and just enjoying each other’s company. Ted and I even found a Tim Horton’s – our favorite little breakfast, doughnut, and hot apple cider joint we used to frequent all the time when we lived in Lansing. Our 7 mile bike trip along the beach was wonderfully picturesque, the weather perfect, cool, and breezy, and the company was outstanding ;)

Here’s a small selection of photos from our time together. More to come later when I get the rest from everyone else’s phones and cameras. As always, click to enlarge.

 

Can you even believe that it’s already a full week into August!? Summer has been whizzing by this year, but at least between work, vacations, fun activities and adventures, the great outdoors, and six weeks at camp it feels like a real, full, honest to goodness, movie-perfect summer. Couldn’t ask for more!

More really exciting things to come soon….stay tuned!

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Camp Roundup Part II

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Session 3 ended this morning we wonderful performances from some memorable kiddos….one more session to go! Ready for another two weeks in Michigan, then back home to my beloved Cincy. But, seriously, I could get used to good old fashioned summers like these!

1. Check out that glorious ocean-front deck with stairs that lead right down to a beachy firepit! I can move in next week.

2. Clouds rolling in over Lake Michigan

3. & 4. Sea-faring pups at play

5. Pekadill’s in Whitehall – home to delicious milkshakes and tasty (non-dining-hall!!! yesssssss) sandwich and wrap dates with my new friends and the theatre faculty

6. Came home to a soap note from my cabin-mate on our bathroom mirror after my Shakespeare performance in the Rose Theatre

7. – 10. A few friends and I headed into Montague for a nice long afternoon jog on the Montague/Whitehall trail but we were greeted by a great classic car parade instead!

11. – 15. A lighthouse and a beach-y, sand dune-y evening at the channel

16. & 17. Cabin-side campfires are a nightly camp tradition

18. An evening at the drive-in theatre!

19. Sand shark constructed outside one of the cabins using the limitless supply of sand that covers camp

20. & 21. Munching sour straws and laying on my belly reading at the beach is a perfect way to end a long day

22. & 23. Blessed sunsets

24. The Theatre Faculty Cookout of Awesomeness – corn, seasoned potatoes, and dogs and brats fresh off the grill! Throw in some fancy salad, s’mores, and a few beers….not bad for camping grub!

25. My fam came to stay at a beach house in Muskegon for a few days while I was teaching at camp and between sessions 3 and 4 – family cooking in the kitchen after an afternoon of wine, strolling the beaches, swimming in the pool, and gazing at lighthouses sounds like perfection to me!

26. An epic whitefish meal at the Bear Lake Tavern, love the presentation!

27. & 28. Sis, mom, and the nephews feeding the duckies

29. & 30. More gorgeous sunsets…so lucky!

31. – 37. The All-Faculty Beach-Bonfire night at Old Channel Beach….a colony of artists – we swam in the lake, cooked huge s’mores over open flame, shared stories and laughter on sandy beach blankets as the sun set and night fell, and were treated to a surprise fireworks show off the pier over the water! Perfection.

That’s what I’ve been up to! How about you?

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Ode to Friday

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There is a white rooster who frequents the camper side of camp.

His name is Friday.

For lunch on middle Friday the campers are served a “chicken patty” made of…????

No one is entirely sure. Processed meat, chicken, liver, beef, sheep, cod…rooster?

Poor Friday.

Friday has been, quite contentedly, pecking around camp for three middle Fridays this summer thus far and hasn’t found his way into a single “chicken patty” yet, so we’ll take this as an encouraging sign that Friday is not, in fact, doomed, but will have a long, happy life ahead of him.

He suffers from no shortage of attention or lack of food, that’s for sure.

I have been desperate to catch a glimpse of Friday since Day 1. Desperate. Ask Ted just how many times I have alluded to my epic searches in the wilderness for this rooster since I’ve been at camp.

Since he tends to frequent the girl’s side of camp and not faculty village, he remained elusive for nearly three weeks.

That sneak.

But lo and behold on middle Sunday morning he was up, bright and early, crowing away right smack outside the theatre building.

YES.

So I got my long-awaited, up-close-and-personal peek at beautiful Friday – who is pretty swell as far as roosters go – whilst walking my class to the Rose for some Renaissance-style choreography learnin’.

Totally worth the wait.

Onto the good stuff…

During session 2 a group of high school girls in one of my morning acting sections were behaving a little…squirrely.

After about fifteen minutes of general WTFness I finally inquired a friendly, “alright ladies, what’s up this morning?,” determined to get to the bottom of their unusual behavior.

…

Apparently, Friday parked himself beneath the foundation of one of the girls’ cabins and crowed his little lungs out from 6 a.m. until breakfast that morning.

…

Obviously, I like Friday.

I have already requested that Ted begin construction on a coop out back immediately.

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