July 24, 2016

IMG_7995Family Fun Friday night at the Bay! We began our weekend with a couple of hours at Zoombeezi and daddy came along this time! Finn loves to take Kevin to all of his favorite places. This night we spent most of our time in the lazy river and the big wave pool. IMG_7994It’s been VERY warm, like typical summer, July, hot. What a better time to plant trees, right?! We purchased a Crimson King Norway Maple, Forest Pansy (purple) Redbud, and a Rising Sun (chartreuse) Redbud over the last couple of weeks. Since Kevin is on the Design Review Committee for our neighborhood (and you are supposed to get the ok to make changes to your houses/yards/landscaping) we felt we should go through the proper process.  So that took a bit of time and then we spoke with our neighbors to ensure they are ok with our new trees and the playhouse that Kevin is going to build for Finn. So…..once we got all the okays it just so happened we had two Saturday’s left before vacation to get them in the ground. So we woke up Saturday morning and headed outdoors. The first one, the Rising Sun Redbud, was really easy. A smaller tree (read as a smaller hole to dig, lol) was in pretty quick. The purple maple on the other hand went into the area where we used to have a few evergreen spruces and Kevin ran in to a lot of old and large roots.  So he broke out the sawzaw and was able to get them out. The purple redbud we put near the corner of our house. We are excited to see them grow! Griffin is in many of the pictures for scale 🙂 Mom and Dad also gave us a ‘Megan’s Angel’ hosta, which we were excited to receive. We planted it inside our fence to protect it from our deer predators!IMG_7998 IMG_7997 IMG_8001 IMG_8002 IMG_8003 IMG_8004 IMG_8008 IMG_8012 IMG_8013 IMG_8017 IMG_8019 IMG_8028 IMG_8030I took the photo of the Arborvitae that we planted in 2013 so I can go back and compare it to the size they were then. This year we’ve noticed the ones to the north (fence) are somewhat brown so we’ve been giving them extra water and some fertilizer spikes hoping they don’t croak!IMG_8024And here are a few others from our week. IMG_7935 IMG_7938 IMG_7953 IMG_7954 IMG_7955 IMG_7991 IMG_7990This weekend we took in the movie Ice Age at the Dublin theater. It was a nice retreat after having been outside all day planting trees on a hot and humid day. After the movie, we headed to Mellow Mushroom with the Bethunes and met up with Sammy and Debbie. Sam has been at his dad’s for a few weeks so Finn and Sam were able to see each other for a bit.
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And Mom came down and treated us to lunch at Freshii. It was yummers! Afterward Mom, Finn, and I headed to the new outlet malls in Sunbury for a short stint of shopping! IMG_7941 IMG_7945And date night this week was dinner downtown at Nada followed by the new Ghostbusters movie.  IMG_7936

July 17, 2016

IMG_7813It’s summertime, which means blueberry picking! We headed out on Saturday morning to a new place, Blue Sky Farms, in Marysville and met up with the Bethune’s. It is a 5-acre patch in the backyard of a family’s home and the entire patch is enclosed in netting! That’s the first time I’d seen that! It was a pretty warm morning, but we were able to pick just over 5 pounds of blueberries (Chandler and Draper varieties). I had high hopes of picking like 20 pounds which wasn’t really possible there as their plants are pretty young still. Although what we did pick were super yummy and pretty big! IMG_7803 IMG_7805 IMG_7806 IMG_7808 IMG_7809 IMG_7816 IMG_7819 IMG_7832Since I had high hopes of picking major quantities of blueberries, we carried on to another blueberry farm south of Columbus in South Bloomfield called Blueberry Valley. This one was entirely enclosed in netting too – and from the highway we were super excited that they would have more fruit to pick. We were sorely disappointed and didn’t pick anything! Most of the fruit wasn’t yet ripe and the workers were weeding the rows (tossing all the large weeds into the grass rows!). So we took some photos, bought a few things from the roadside veggie stand, and headed to Enon. We had a “roadtrip” on our summer bucket list, so we turned this day into that and on our way to Enon looked up other blueberry farms that we could go to en route to Grandma and Grandpa Armstrongs. It wasn’t meant to be though, as the three or four places I found were all closed to allow for ripening.  Booooo!!IMG_7841 IMG_7844 IMG_7839So we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong and checked out the progress they are making on remodeling their new home. It’s looking great! Finn played some baseball in the driveway and we enjoyed a pizza dinner before heading to Young’s Jersey Dairy for some ice cream dessert. IMG_7850 IMG_7854 IMG_7872 IMG_7877 IMG_7884 IMG_7890 IMG_7891 IMG_7894 IMG_7897 IMG_7898 IMG_7903Sunday was a busy day too with a birthday party for Finn’s friend Owen, followed by a small group social day at our house. It was planned for a friends house, but she came down with a bug and rather than cancelling we just decided to host. I didn’t snap too many photos, but Kevin  setup the water table, mini pool, bounce house, and tee-ball for the kiddos to play. We were exhausted by the end of the night!IMG_7906 IMG_7910 IMG_7913 IMG_7921 IMG_7925During the week Finn and I headed to Zoombeezi on my day off. This time we arrived when they opened at 10:30 and were there until 7. Wowzer! We packed a lunch and got a nice chair in the shade this time so we could rest a bit. My plan was for Finn to fall asleep in the car on the way home and go right to sleep – but that didn’t work! He was a tired boy though as we had been in the sun and water all day long. IMG_7726 IMG_7775 IMG_7777 IMG_7780 IMG_7781 IMG_7785 IMG_7786 IMG_7787 IMG_7793 IMG_7796 IMG_7799Finn may turn into a fish – as he also got to go down to the Fountains this week downtown with Debbie. In keeping with the water theme he made “Nemo’ and a crab. Kevin and Finn also caught lightning bugs (see if you can find them in our video) and let our last two butterflies go this week. IMG_7744 IMG_7719 IMG_7718 IMG_7733 IMG_7731IMG_7723This week Millcreek exhibited at the Cultivate’16 Trade Show in downtown Columbus at the Convention center. It is one of the largest conventions for the Green Industry in the US. Lucky for me, the convention center is across the street from the North Market, so I was luck to meet up with Kevin for lunch. We had deliciousness from The Little Eater (http://littleeater.com), a vegetarian eatery that makes the most amazing and tasty dishes. I would eat there every day if I could…..
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July 10, 2016

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Having fun in the kitchen and knocking another item off our summer bucket list: make a pie! Finn and I made our first blueberry pie of the season this week to take to the Pilgrim’s for the 4th of July festivities at their house. Yummers.  I still need to perfect the baking – this time it turned out a bit soupy, but still delish. We enjoyed hanging out with friends (and family, ha!) at the Pilgrim’s and were also able to walk to Coffman High School for the Dublin 4th festivities which include a million bounce houses for the kids to burn some serious energy!IMG_7597 IMG_7564 IMG_7565 IMG_7567 IMG_7569 IMG_7571 IMG_7573 IMG_7583 IMG_7598Earlier in the morning we started the day by building and then destroying a “downtown big city” building. IMG_7547

Finn went down to the Columbus Commons for Kids on Friday with Debbie. There are a lot of fun activities, including baseball, hockey, and planting seeds (oh, and free ice cream sandwiches!). Here Finn planted a bean and watermelon seed. He also ventured to the zoo where he continues to enjoy the fun of having a Gold Membership so he can feed the giraffes and ride ponies, camels, and rides for “free”. IMG_7606 img IMG_7605 IMG_7607 IMG_7610 IMG_7608 IMG_7609

Kevin and I have been lucky enough to enjoy date nights lately. I had arranged with Debbie to stay late one night a week while her son is away at his dads for several weeks this summer. So we headed to Aab India and enjoyed some yummy Indian food. When they brought out our food they called this one the “tv dinner”, ha! Even Finn got to enjoy some leftovers the next day as we saved the round, donut-looking ball for him. Apparently it was delish! IMG_7612

On Saturday we made a late in the day decision to head to the Clippers game. Kevin had rented a trailer to bring home some trees we purchased for our front yard. Those two picked up our trees and brought them home and it was perfect timing that I got home from Millcreek (we were on the Cultivate’16 Grower Tour this year) in order to have an evening of fun. It was a hot night, but a fun one! IMG_7640 IMG_7641 IMG_7644 IMG_7646 IMG_7647 IMG_7651 IMG_7658 IMG_7660 IMG_7665 We had on our summer bucket list to attend 3 outdoor concerts – I think we’ve already surpassed that! Going back to our dating days Kevin and I have always enjoying hanging out listening to live music and since we’ve had Finn we’ve always taken him along. He likes to dance and be silly. We were joined by the Bethune’s, Eilerman’s, and Manning’s this week so we had a nice fun crowd. IMG_7683 IMG_7685 IMG_7707 IMG_7708 IMG_7703 IMG_7710 IMG_7704

And remember our caterpillars? After what seemed like forever, on Saturday the first one emerged as a butterfly! After watching it for a day Kevin and Finn released it on Sunday. Then a bit later when Kevin and Finn were mowing the yard they found a baby toad!IMG_7637 IMG_7672 IMG_7674 IMG_7679 IMG_7681