A Week with Cameron

Cameron stayed with us this week for his annual "summer visit." He played lots of computer games during the day while Aaron and I were at work and even helped me set up my photography equipment for a photo shoot one night. It's so nice that my job is just right across the street so I was able to come home and fix him lunch every day. I even took him to the Revolving Restaurant one day for their lunch buffet (which is really good food - and tastes even better since we have a diner card for 50 % off).

We tried to take him to some of our favorite places around Cincinnati - one of which is Teak - the BEST Thai food ever! Mr. Glick introduced Aaron and I to this great restaurant, and now we are addicted. Cameron loves it too!

We tried out our new grill - and broke it in well with T-Bone Steaks . . .

. . . and roasted corn! Delicious!

And of course, no summer is complete without homemade ice cream!

Cameron had never played dominoes before. I said it was high time a 14-year old boy learn how to play Dominoes!

It was a fun week. We're taking him back to Indiana today and he starts high school on Wednesday. Bye-bye summer!

A Must GO!

Yes, the Creation Museum is definitely all it's cracked up to be. If you haven't been - GO! We went Saturday with Aaron's parents and Cameron and we all enjoyed it immensely. The displays were very well done and the technology they use for the special effects theater and the planetarium was absolutely incredible. It was really crowded, but I am thrilled that they have been so busy.

The Cain and Abel display - the people look so real.

The ark was really neat! This is only the miniature display, but they had a whole room that showed how it was built and all the different areas.

Looking real enough to jump down from there and get us!

Even the grounds on the outside of the museum are amazing.
The lake is very pretty and has beautiful flowers and bridges around it.

Apparently, this girl thought it was a pretty place too - pretty enough for her wedding!
We walked out of the museum and were amazed to see a wedding going on. It would certainly be a great place for pictures!

In case you can't tell, I sure was impressed with the museum. :-)

8 years ago today . . .

. . . I became Mrs. Herring!

We celebrated with a lovely meal (and cool views) at the Revolving Restaurant!

Started out here - overlooking the park in Covington, KY.

Finished up here - the Cincinnati skyline.

And finished up our wonderful meal with incredible desserts! Yum!

Dayton Air Show!

We had a great time at the Dayton Air Show on Saturday with Matt and Erika! What a neat experience. They had incredible air shows and a lot of planes that you could tour and other things to see. The only bad part was the plane crash that I'm sure everyone has heard about by now. It was really sad. Matt and Aaron had just walked up closer to the runway and called back for Erika and I to bring the chairs and join them since the view was so much better. We were walking towards them when the crash occurred. There were 2 planes performing stunts simultaneously and I knew something was wrong when only one of them came back up after doing spirals toward the ground. There was a huge cloud of black smoke and it was evident that something dreadfully wrong had occurred. The pilot, Jim LeRoy, died. It was really sad - an eerie silence was over the huge crowd as everyone just stood there stunned. The rest of the show was canceled.

These 7 planes were amazing! They flew in from Brazil for the show.

The Stealth Bomber - ooohhhh!

A Vietnam era plane and the Stealth Fighter.
They looked really cool, and it was neat to get to see them fly.

Inside the huge DHL cargo plane.

This was the other plane that was flying with the one that crashed. As you can see, it is not a very big stunt plane at all.

Tired, sunburned, and ready to go home. :-)

Happy Birthday to Kristin, Happy Birthday to You!

Birthdays are good things - and we celebrated Kristin's tonight at Buca di Beppo's in Rookwood. I had never eaten there before and absolutely love trying new restaurants. The food was great and the fun we had was even better! We had 6:00 reservations, but we all stayed and talked (outside the restaurant and not tying up a table, of course) until after 10 PM!

Yes, we had their lasagna and it was very GOOD!


The server brought this to Kristin while we all sang. She blew out all 3 candles (apparently they didn't have 8 of these - she was turning 24)!

Congrats to Rhoda!

Congrats to my good friend, Rhoda Shulaw, who graduated from nursing school tonight! We were freshmen together at GBS and made tons of good memories in the dorm as well as our 7 AM English class!

The graduating class tonight was the largest class in the history of the school and is also the last graduating class from The Christ Hospital School of Nursing since they are changing to The Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences (supposedly it sounds more "collegiate"). Out of 135 gradutes, they gave out about 7-8 awards and Rhoda got one!! This award was voted on by the faculty, so this was definitely something to be proud of. Way to go, Rhoda!

The Most Beautiful Place Ever!

We're Back!!!!!!!!

I have returned to the States from the most beautiful place on earth I have ever been. I loved the Cayman Islands!! We had such a great time and made lots and lots of memories. Mark and Kristin were so much fun to travel with. We thought we were going to be home on July 4th, but after a loooong flight delay in Grand Cayman, our flight from Miami to Cincinnati had already left without us. So, we were stuck in Miami for the night and actually most of the next day. They did put us up in a nice hotel (with meal vouchers), and we were able to take a shuttle to the mall to kill a few hours before getting home really late that night.

I have so many pictures that I couldn't decide what to post. Here's just a fraction of them.

Yes, these sea turtles really are as big as they look. Some can weigh up to 500 pounds! Those are obviously not the ones in the "touch tank" or the ones we picked up. :-)

No, it wasn't all play and no work. We did have revival services each evening and twice on Sunday! The services went well and the people were very kind. We really enjoyed being with them.

On our way to Sting Ray City!

I had no idea that Sting Rays were so big - they were huge!


Yes, I really did snorkel! For those that know me - THIS is an accomplishment since I'm deathly scared of water AND I don't know how to swim. It was way worth it though and once I finally made myself relax, it paid off tremendously. The Barrier Reef was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Ever wonder why God put so much beauty UNDER the water? It was something right out of National Geographic - I really couldn't describe how beautiful it was, so I won't even attempt.

I had never seen a real starfish before! We walked right out into the ocean and just picked them up - they were so fascinating.

The sunsets were so beautiful!!


Our host and pastor - Rev. John Jefferson, Sr. - was such a nice man. We had a lot of laughs with him. He is also a chef, so we had very nice meals, too!

Bags all packed and packed in all the sun we could get - headin' home!

Headin' for the Islands!

I will be taking a short leave of absence from the blogging world - Aaron and I are headed for the Cayman Islands for a week!! Whoo hoo! It's actually not a "vacation" per se, but we definitely plan on enjoying as much of it as we can. The actual purpose of our trip is to hold a revival for a church over there. Mark and Kristin F. are going too and the four of us are responsible for all the music (specials, song leading, piano, etc.) and Jack H. is going to do the preaching. We have a great team and are all very excited about this incredible opportunity. Since we have to leave campus in about 6 short hours from now, I better get some much needed sleep! This is the picture we had someone snap to send to the people there.

I had this picture saved as "Herring and Foster" - I told Aaron it sounded like a line of clothing. He said it sounded more like a mattress company. I'm not sure which one is worse! :-)

Homearama!

Wow! What an incredible way to spend an evening - touring 10 homes featured in this year's Homearama - all valued at over $1 million! It was staggering - almost overwhelming - to see all this fancy stuff. I am definitely a country girl and definitely prefer the simple life; but, it was really neat to see how people decorated these homes and get a glimpse of life on the "other side of the tracks"! :-) Really, it is cool to see and to get ideas of colors, layout, and arrangements. (I thought of you, Martha C.) We had a great time with Mark and Kristin. Here are a few of my favorites.

Absolutely beautiful! I love the piano and the way the curtains hang.

This massive aquarium was. . . in the bathroom! Yes - right above a jacuzzi! I guess it would give you something to watch while you were relaxing! :-)

I thought this was such a neat idea! These mailboxes were next to the garage door and had each family member's name on the front. Very cute!
There were so many adorable kids' rooms! Really neat themes and colors.

I got kind of carried away taking so many pictures, but if you'd like to see more, click below. Enjoy!

Homearama

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the best dads ever:
Larry Englund and Darrel Herring!

Happy Birthday to Drew!

Happy 11th Birthday to my nephew, Andrew Englund! It's so hard to believe he is already 11 years old!

Drew is such a "little Jeff" - especially with this grin. :-)

I was going through some old pictures and thought this one was so cute! They are both Drew (Drew Englund with Drew Rehfeldt, a cousin) and both had on overalls. This was taken in 2000 at Kendall's graduation from Police Cadets.

Almost out of the woods...

It is so good to be home! The hospital is a wonderful place to be when you are sick, and very sick I was. My ulcerative colitis flared up again, which landed me in the hospital for a 4-day hospital stay. I am slowing regaining strength and gaining an appetite,which are wonderful things. I am tired of chicken broth, beef broth, mac and cheese, potato soup and other bland things. However, I am so grateful that I could eat even those things. I can't wait to be back to "normal" (whatever that is) and be able to read, study, work, do laundry, and clean house again. I have seen more doctors and PAs in the last week (I think I counted 17 total). They were all so nice and have given me a list of prescriptions a mile long that should get me going again.

One thing I really didn't care for while being hospitalized is the comments they made before drawing my blood. These 5 statements below were really told to me while I was in the hospital. I do not understand why they say things. For all you medical people out there, please remember to be a little more sensitive to your patients – especially things they have no control over, like the size of their veins!

Five things you should NEVER tell a patient before drawing blood:

1. “Your veins are SO small!” Thank you – I asked for small veins you do realize.
2. After much patting and tapping around on both of my arms, “I’ll give it a try, but I sure don’t know about this.” Now those are encouraging words!
3. “Girl, you have got to get re-hydrated so we can find your veins!” That IS one reason I am in this hospital bed – I didn’t choose to be dehydrated!
4. “I can’t seem to find any veins at all. I hate to do this to you, but I’m going to have to stick you right where they just took your IV out.” Great – go right ahead. Stick me wherever you want. At this point – it doesn’t matter.
5. “You know what, for some reason your blood just stopped. I am so sorry, but I’m going to have to try sticking you in a new place.” Just great – thank you for telling me that my blood has stopped flowing. That really makes me feel better. Is death on the horizon since no blood is flowing?

Despite the "vein issues" and bruised arms, I did have really nice people that took care of me and lots of friends/family that came to see me and/or sent flowers. Most of all, thanks to everyone for praying for me. That meant the most. The flowers and cards make my mantel at home a cheery place to look.