Fun at the Museum!

We recently enjoyed the "free day" at the Museum Center with my brother, Jeff and his children (except for Emme who was out of town with her mommy). It's too bad that we had never been there before since it's nearly in our back yard. They have some really neat exhibits - and we didn't even get to see them all.

The biggest tree I've ever seen!

Camen was a little scared in the Ice Age area. No wonder - it was cold and dark in there!

He did a little better once he could see all of us!

These animals looked a little too real for me, but Caleb and Kaley sure enjoyed them...

...but Camen wasn't too sure.

Camen was fascinated by the sand/water exhibit.

Have you hugged your refrigerator today?

We are STILL in the dark! I have never gone this long without electricity before and sure will be glad when the power comes back on. Who would have thought that here in Ohio we would experience part of the hurricane??!!

We took out 5 bags of trash from our refrigerator. It was so sad to simply throw your good food away, but of course you can't keep it without a way to keep it cold. Our dear friends Ron and Jennee did let us put some of our food in their freezer since they have power, and I was so thankful to be able to save the 3 full bags of chicken and 2 roasts I had just bought.

I am REALLY thankful for the hot water that we do have. I also have found a new appreciation for Downy spray. It's this handy little bottle that you can use to smooth out wrinkles from your clothes. It has actually worked quite well on Aaron's clothes this week since he still has to go to work and I can't iron.

I was having withdrawals from the internet and not being able to check my email for 5 days, so I headed out for the library today (glad they have power). So, this is probably my first post without pictures (gasp!). It feels so good to type! :-)

Church Kids

I haven't been blogging recently because I've been working very diligently on a directory for our church. I had no idea it would take this many hours and this long to do, but hopefully the end is in sight!

I loved taking all the photos of the great families in our church, although it was hard to track some of them down. In fact, a couple simply refused to be photographed, which makes me very sad. Pictures are wonderful - and such a great piece of history! Oh well, you can lead a horse to water, but . . .

We also have some really cute kids in our church and of course I couldn't pass up an opportunity to get some individual photographs of them as well. This is certainly not all the kids in our church, but here's a few . . .

Zachary Waits

Lauren Lambeth

Michael Lambeth

Caleb Lambeth

Emily Durkee

Kerianna & Parker Brown (inseparable brother/sister)

Nicholas Cassity

The Frederick kids - not really "kids" anymore - but still very cute siblings!

Hannah Welch

Weekend in Columbus

I really enjoy going to new places, seeing new things, and eating at new restaurants - and that's exactly what we did this weekend with Mark and Kristin. We decided to head to Columbus, OH and had a great time. We laughed way too much and ate way too much, but the memories we made were worth it!

ONLY because we had gift cards (thank you National City rewards points), we ate here...

And yes, I definitely agree with Sean Hannity. Ruth's Chris Steakhouse does have the absolute best tasting steak in the world! I'm sure it can't get any better than this.

And the dessert was to die for! Both of these items were some kind of chocolate concoction - the kind where the description of the dessert is quite a long paragraph.

And thanks to Mark's priceline.com efforts - we got a steal on a hotel room. We stayed at the Hyatt Place for only $35 per room - whoo hoo! And the rooms were super nice!! Plus, it was right across the street from Ruth's Chris!

On Saturday we went to COSI. I've heard a lot about this place and always thought it would be a neat place to visit. I was not disappointed. They have so many amazing things to do and see. We were there until they closed and still didn't see everything.

We took part in a "real" crime scene investigation geared like CSI. We were crime scene #3 and had to gather clues and investigate this desert crime.

Aaron was studying hard to determine what type of seeds were near the bones.

Kristin was comparing pollen types.

Mark and Kristin were determining which dog the hair belonged to that was found on the button of the jacket remains near the skeleton. We also researched the caliber of the bullet, looked at dental records, and X-rays. After we gathered all our clues, we discovered that it was indeed a murder and the suspect we named was the correct one! It was a lot of fun! :-)

This was a cool computer station - well, kind of. It took your picture and then "aged" you - and showed you what you would look like when you were really old. It was kind of scary actually.

This was really strange and I can't believe I actually watched this, but I did. It was Rat Basketball. They had trained rats to actually make baskets with these little balls. It was fascinating and gross at the same time. (I think the long tail is what gets me - shiver.)

Mark rode this unicycle on the tight rope. It was so funny to watch him.

Especially when the guy running the station would holler things out like, "no hands". . .

. . . and "can you do YMCA" - we were laughing so hard!

Then we went Under the Sea to visit the really cool "Ocean" exhibit.



This ledge was much skinner than it looked and I was having trouble staying on it!

The Little Mermaid (aka Kristin). :-)

All kinds of pipes to build with!



We all had to try something.

This was really neat too - if you balanced the ball on top of the water just right . . .

. . . you got this.

They even had outdoor exhibits. The giant lever that Aaron . . .

. . . and Mark were pulling down . . .

. . . was lifting this car.

So, if you haven't been to COSI - you should go. We loved it!

Amy - class of '09

Last week I took Amy Loper's senior pictures. We had a lot of fun traipsing through the park (and around ducks) to get some cool outdoor shots before we headed indoors. I couldn't have asked for a better subject - she was great! And the weather was absolutely perfect.