Tag Archives: pool

June 2022

It’s summertime! And this summer we have a packed schedule more so than any I can recall in the last decade or more and for sure since having kids. And summertime means ice cream, right? Even a fun trip for Brutus to Graeters.

June started with a Cub Scout camping weekend for the whole family. Two nights in a tent with fun adventures during the day including fitness tests, hiking and learning about poisonous plants, s’mores and more! They both got to practice with BB guns at the shooting range too and they did well! And Griffin started his first fire! Camp ended with each den moving up, so Griffin has moved from Bear to Webelo!

A fun new thing for Griffin this summer is OYAA cross country. His soccer buddies Rowan and Caleb were running as well, which is why we did it actually. The kids practice at Alum Creek Dam and Highbanks Metro Park. They have a few meets throughout the summer too. I signed Griffin up for Liberty High School (ours) but he practiced with Olentangy High School coaches (so he/Rowan/Caleb could run together). At the first meet some people thought he was with the wrong group (as he was wearing the Liberty pinney) so after the first meet we picked up an Olentangy pinney for the remaining races.  Each race is 1 mile and his first race time was 8:12:26! He came in 41 out of 103 kids entering grades 3-6 (Griffin will be entering 4th). He did amazing!

Summer is also means graduation parties and here the boys wore their Derby outfits to attend Elizabeth Ackerman’s grad party in Dublin.

The boys and I made a trip to the outlet malls in Sunbury to do some school shopping. We hit up the Under Armor store and later at home enjoyed sundaes prepared by the boys. It’s literally their favorite thing to do.

Kevin and I went to the Chris Tomlin & Hillsong concert with Chris and Sarah at Nationwide. It was a great concert which had been postponed from February.

Summer is also pool time, right? We are so fortunate to have awesome neighbors Jane and Bryan Martin who open up their pool to our neighborhood crew each summer. We generally meetup with the Bolans and Duncans on Sunday afternoons. Jane is always such a gracious host and puts out all kinds of food and serves drinks on occasion too. We typically order pizza for everyone too. We enjoyed pool time at soccer buddy Brady’s house after the Braves Soccer camp one night and also are hitting up the Powell Pool for the first time this summer too.

Reid has been attending soccer classes at Locker Soccer in Powell (he even made their Instagram page, lol) and we also signed him up for Olentangy United Juniors program and he received a cute invite.

More soccer….this time the Crew Game where Griffin’s team had been invited to celebrate and be recognized amongst a myriad of youth soccer teams. They were able to go down “near” the field (but don’t touch the turf!) to get their photo taken with the Campeones Cup. Nearly Griffin’s entire team was there and the kiddos had a lot of fun together. We were also joined by Mom and Dad (their first time to Lower.com) and the Bethune crew.

After teammate Xander’s surgery our team family collected tons of fun activities and foodstuffs to lift Xanders spirits while he was home and had to have a low-activity recovery period. His Mom Heather sent us this awesome photo of him.

We got connected with a high school soccer player at Berlin High school, Aidan Ackermann, via Brady’s dad Danny Mount who coaches basketball at the high school. Aidan plays varsity soccer basketball and he worked with Griffin once a week for most weeks this summer on soccer skills. It was great fun for Griffin and Aidan was so polite and prepared bringing balls, cones, and all sorts of things for soccer drills. Griffin enjoyed it and we also were able to go see Aidan play at a home game at Berlin later in the summer.

Here is the gang at Caleb’s house to celebrate his birthday one evening after the Braves soccer camp which many of the boys attended together.

Next birthday celebration was for Dad. It’s always a day filled with giggles and sillies and Grandma and Grandpas house.

Dad was on a road trip in late May and early June. He’s getting used to using his upgraded iPhone though he did a couple of facetime butt-dials which resulted in lots of giggles for me and Mom. How he called both of us via facetime video is still undetermined, lol.

This year the weather was finally nice for the annual Powell Festival. We took in typical fair food and beverages, the kids played for hours in the kids area/bounce houses, and we listened to live music.

June is also wedding season, right? Though we’re beyond that season for our friends it seems we’ve moved into that season for our friends kids. That’s crazy, right, as we have a 5-year old. But nonetheless we enjoyed the wedding and reception for Emma Koehler. I also enjoyed a fun girls night out for my friend Claire’s birthday.

This kiddo sure does have a big personality. He loves all things small and loves to put things in things and carry them around. We can’t go anywhere without him asking to bring a toy and usually that is a small bag or container of other really small things.  Reid is also playing t-ball this summer on Saturday’s.

As we do every year on June 15, the day Nathan was born and passed, we visit the cemetery in Dublin as a family.

Trade Shows and Conferences are back and Kevin exhibited at one here (Interactive Customer Experience Summit) in town for Base22 with Joe. He was a panelist as well.

Build It or Buy It? What You Should Consider First

When going down the path to implementing interactive technology, organizations must ask themselves: does it make more sense for us to buy it or build it ourselves? Off-the-shelf software, for example, is generally a one-size-fits-all proposition, with some customization possible. Building your own app, for example, means it can have all the customized features you want, but building it out may be a long and expensive proposition. Some find that the answer may be a hybrid of the two approaches.

Panelists:

  • J Ackley | Vice President, Spark Technologies Development | Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants, Inc.
  • Kevin Armstrong | Chief Innovation Officer | Base22
  • Richard Bell | Senior Director of Enterprise Applications & Retail Systems | Krispy Kreme

Moderator:

  • Cherryh Cansler | Vice President of Events | Networld Media Group

Sponsored by Base22

Kevin Armstrong
Chief Innovation Officer | Base22
Kevin Armstrong is Base22’s Chief Innovation Officer. He has a twenty-five-year career leveraging his experience as a CTO, CIO, owner, and consultant. He successfully designs and implements business outcome-focused solutions while applying innovation methodologies to lead and support transformational enterprise initiatives for commercial and public clients.

July 1, 2018

For a little more than a month now Finn has been going to Aqua Tots Swim School for two lessons each week, one on Monday and the other on Tuesday. His first few lessons he was pretty timid in the water and not very confident. This week you can really tell how much progress he has made! Can you find him in the photo below? Yep, that’s him, completely submerged under the water. That’s a big deal for this kiddo who initially didn’t want to get anything more than his chin wet! He is doing GREAT! And yep, another trip to Graeter’s for me and this one. I mean, come on, when they release a summer “bonus” flavor that is peppermint ice cream with chocolate chips – how could we not go see if we liked it? Oh. my. word.  This one. Nearly everyday there is something about this kid that cracks me up. This particular day it was time to hop in the shower so I asked him to head up to get undressed. He usually puts his dirty clothes in our dirty clothes basket in our closet. When I went upstairs to get him started in the shower I saw this! This silly boy got a purse and some shoes of mine (in the closet where the hamper is) and was modeling for me, lol. Certainly these photos will be shown for years to come.  And then there is this one. He. loves. to. sleep. And he is really good at it too! And it makes him happy. Well, not always happy, but he’s usually happy to go take a nap! Jenn and Griffin had a fun rainy-day morning of making pancakes this week (including some with chocolate chips!). Yummers.  This year the  “spring celebration – yay we made it through another spring season” party was a Columbus Clippers game downtown at Huntington Park. As it turns out, it wasn’t a very popular (aka well-attended) event for our staff. I guess some don’t like baseball or to drive that far :(. Well, those of us that went had a great time! We even had our name on the monitor.  Uncle Andy and Aunt Amy invited us to go swimming this weekend. Unfortunately, Reid had been to the doctor on Friday and was diagnosed with enterovirus. So we didn’t feel it appropriate for him to go! Kevin stayed home with Reid and Finn and I headed to church to work in the nursery and then for an afternoon of pool fun. We haven’t been to the Dublin Pools before – they are a treat! You can tell Finn is gaining confidence in the water. Even from the beginning of our day to the end – he was far more adventurous in the pool. Thanks to Uncle Andy for snapping some pics.  Griffin is so happy to play with Reid and be a big brother. He’s enjoying helping him learn to walk too. 

July 1st marks my 20 year work anniversary at Millcreek. This year, prior to my annual review, I reviewed my entire employee file. As you can imagine it’s pretty thick after 20 years! There were lots of things in there that were fun to review, including my original application for employment (a paper application, gasp!) from 1998 as well as my resume. Check out my hourly wage for my high school and college jobs!

eek

March 6, 2017

Vacation continues! Kevin was gone for the first few days of this week, but we continued our daily trips to the beach where Finn loved making holes in the sand to fill with water (and splash of course) and various sand sculptures with Grandpa and Grandma (who did most of the work!). The weather continues to be perfect – warm and sunny.  Griffin snapped this pic during our walk for shells – I think it’s great! Even though you’d think vacation is full of rest – this boy did not take many naps! He did crash pretty hard a couple of days, or he’d fall asleep within two minutes of getting in the car to go to dinner a couple times! He’s been a big snuggler for quite awhile now, especially at night time but at naps too.  He just wants to “snuggle” for a bit before he gets into bed.  Warms my heart :).We continue to enjoy daily trips to the pool where Finn loves to float using the noodles and also jump in from the edge. I’ve included a few videos too. 

My friend Sarah’s parents have a house in Siesta Key, about 5 minutes from Mom and Dad’s condo. So I called Mrs. Huff and we arranged a meetup at their house. It was lots of fun – they had a spread of fruits and snacks for us and I think Griffin ate at least 3 plate fulls of fruit and crackers.  He is definitely growing. Finn loved playing with Bella too.  We ventured to Venice one afternoon for a bit of shopping and lunch. Afterwards we went to Casperson Beach, a beach that is known for being able to find Shark Teeth. While we didn’t find any ourselves (we didn’t have any real equipment that is best for shelling) a kind stranger gave us two she had found along with a piece that she said she’s read could be part of the jaw. Finn was super excited!  After a yummy lunch it’s back to our regular shenanigans of the beach and pool. 

Kevin returned very late on Wednesday night after a close call missing his connecting flight in Atlanta.  There were harsh thunderstorms and his flight from Columbus circled north of Atlanta for an hour! By the time they landed and jogged to his connecting flight and got on just in time to depart!  Whew! That also meant he got in just in time to pickup our rental car before the agency closed for the night.  Yay.  We headed out for breakfast on Thursday morning and then went on to Turtle Beach at the far end of Siesta Key. It is crazy to see how different the beaches are within the same island! This beach had larger shells and was much more shallow (from land to the water) and the water color was very different. It was a fun exploration. We then decided to head to check out where my Grandma Kirk used to live in Sarasota. We drove by her condo and through her old neighborhood. It all looks just as I remember (and I even remembered the address!). Then we headed for an ice cream treat at Albritton’s, the orchard and retail stop that we would frequent when we visited my Grandma. We’d always get the orange soft serve ice cream cone. Tasted the same now as it did then! Finn has recently become very interested in coloring, and more specifically coloring within the lines! He just kind of slipped the switch and colors amazingly well for his age (I think!). He is so proud when he is done! He’s also gotten quite good at spelling Finn 🙂 Finn loved playing with his scuba diver and shark that he got at the children’s store in Venice.  They were used as beach toys, shower toys, pool toys, they went everywhere with us! Our last trip to Siesta Beach on Friday called for the biggest sand castle yet! Complete with a moat, multiple stories, sand castle drippings, and bird feather top! On the last day of vacation Dad got his waterproof camera charged and working again so we were able to get some fun water pics.  Cheers to our last dinner with Mom and Dad at Carrabba’s! Saturday morning Mom and Dad headed home for Ohio bright and early at 5 am! We slept in a bit and then headed out ourselves, stopping first for breakfast at The Broken Egg. It was delish (I had Bananas Foster Pancakes!) and I bought the cute little mug as a keepsake too.   We drove north to Orlando for our Disneyworld adventure. We had only told Finn about it a day or two before so he was pretty excited. Kevin found an awesome deal online for our hotel – the advantage of waiting until 3 days before arriving to book a place! It turned out to be a great hotel. We filled up on a good lunch in our room and then headed downstairs to the awesome pool area. At 5 pm the hotel opens up a complimentary happy hour with drinks and snacks.  It even included cotton candy so Finn was super excited about that.  The next morning we were up and at ’em early. We had a tasty breakfast at the hotel and then got in our car to head to Disney’s Magic Kingdom which was about a 15 minute drive. We had excellent parking and walked to the monorail to get to Magic Kingdom. Finn was taking it all in! Our first ride at Magic Kingdom – It’s a Small World! Griffin loved it and throughout the day just kept asking if we could ride it again! Though you can’t hardly tell, the sign says “Goodbye Kevin & Megan” and then “goodbye Finn”. We had used our Fast Passes for the ride so I assume that’s how our name was on the board. We almost missed it!

Griffin was able to meet Mickey Mouse! Here we are waiting in line and then he got his own private turn with Mickey! He was pretty bashful but I think he enjoyed it. And he loved talking about it afterward.  We ended the evening with the fireworks show and then dinner. We nearly missed being able to buy Finn a keepsake as the Emporium was “closed” but fortunately Kevin found us a side door in and we were able to get Finn a toy. Of all the lovies he chose Lady, another dog, to take home! We rode the ferry back to the parking lot and then hopped in our car and headed to the hotel. It was late – almost 10:30 pm – and we all were exhausted!