Awards Banquet

One of the many items on my calendar for the month of May - the annual high school Awards Banquet. We arrived promptly at 5:30 when the doors opened, secured some seats at a table that was not too far from the speakers, and not too far from the buffet line. We shared a table with Kelly's good friend RJ and her mom, and another family.

They got through the meal, awards and recognition in record time - we actually left the Convention Center while it was still daylight!

A Special Day

My niece was beautiful in her First Communion dress this past Sunday. She was running around barefoot when we arrived at her house, greeting the visitors and playing with the dogs. The girl does know how to ham it up for the camera!

When I asked "What kind of shoes did you wear?" she ran down to the front door and picked up one of her shoes to show me. Pretty!

Now Making An Appearance

One of my favorite spring garden events is underway - the purple iris are beginning to bloom! I just cut an armful to bring into the house. They're such majestic and beautiful flowers, it's too bad they last such a short time.

Too Much HGTV

Over the past couple of weekends I've dragged Chris into my grand plans for updating our back deck area. We've always enjoyed our backyard but I've been wanting to upgrade our look, so I've been scheming and dreaming, plotting and planning what I could do to give the deck a fresh start this spring. We started by removing all the stuff off the deck - and we do have a lot of stuff! - furniture, grills, gardening items, lawn chairs. It all went out in the grass while we scrubbed off the deck. We moved only the necessary items back when it dried, and came up with a new arrangement. We also headed over to SWM and bought a storage bench that looks much better than our old mismatched Rubbermaid tubs - very nice! - and splurged on a new glass-top table and 4 chairs at Lowe's.

I've re-painted a new "rug" on the floor, a medium blue with a dark brown border - easy to take care of, no vacuuming required. And I bought some inexpensive sheer curtains which we hung at the corners of the deck. The only projects left to do - repaint a couple of our garage-sale side tables a dark glossy brown to give them a new look, and sew a fabric skirt to cover the lower portion of my potting table (lots of gardening clutter under there).

It's amazing how different it feels in our outdoor room - our own little oasis! (Well, maybe that's a stretch ... but it's so fun to go out there now.)

Perfectly Normal Women ...

.. Do the strangest things at bridal showers. This is a game we played at Emily's bridal luncheon a few weeks back. We had to scoop cotton balls onto our heads, the goal being to keep as many as possible on board after we let go with the spoons. I believe the winner had 17?

Another game was a team competition, whereby a wedding gown was to be created using numerous rolls of toilet paper. While this was fun, I found myself on the losing end of the deal because I was the model, and my teammates were not destined to be the winning designers. The other 2 girls looked a whole heck of a lot better than I did when time was up. Kelly kind of looks like the Blessed Virgin Mary, don't you think? And I ended up looking like a geeky flapper of some sort.

Then and Now

Tyson got his summer haircut at the groomer last week! He looks so much better and must feel so much cooler. We've already had a couple of days in the upper 80's here, so we had this done just in time. Tandie's at the groomer right now - she's just getting a bath, a "comb out" and her nails trimmed - no shave for her.

Lost But Not Forgotten

My heart is very sad ... Baby Kitty has been missing now for 10 days, with no sign of her anywhere in the neighborhood. She's simply vanished. We made the mistake of leaving our back door wide open several different times during the weekend of March 31 - April 1st, because the weather was so very nice. The dogs were free to roam in and out, enjoying the terrific weekend. At some point, Baby Kitty (aka BK, or Pica) must have wandered outside onto the back deck. She's usually terrified of the great outdoors, rarely setting paw outside. Any loud noise scares her, and she usually is quick to bolt back inside into the safety of the house. Well, for some reason she ventured outside without being noticed, and must have become locked out when we closed the back door. And so she's gone. We've posted signs and talked to our neighbors, and I call out to her every day and every night, hoping she'll hear me and find her way home. I am sooo sad. I start crying every time I dwell on the situation, so I try to push it to the far back of my mind. I hope and pray she's safe and healthy, wherever she might be. Her big buddie Beanie misses her a lot, and so do we. Pray for a miracle to happen!

Hocking HIlls Weekend, Part 2

I must finish my tale of the Hocking Hills adventure before my tired mind starts to forget the details.

We finished our driving tour on Saturday afternoon and made our way back to the Inn, somehow navigating the hilly backroads and ending up in the right place. (Thanks, NavLady!) We checked into our room - simple but nice - and got dressed in our hiking gear. Layers of clothes, thick socks, hiking boots, hats, scarves, the works. And of course we grabbed the cameras before we hit the road. By this time the sun was dropping low in the sky, and we knew we had to be back in time for our 5:30 dinner reservation. We chose a short trail that was close to the Inn, the Cedar Falls trail. We were surprised to see quite a few other cars in the parking lot, and once we got into the woods and down into the gorge we realized why .... everywhere we looked, there were icicles - and I do mean everywhere. The cliffs are constantly dripping with ground water during the warm months, and because of the extended deep freeze that we've had, all the "drips" have now become enormous icicles and other incredible ice formations. Everywhere you looked, off into the woods, the cliffs and rocks and ledges were covered with huge icicles - some 3 or 4 feet long. I never imagined that you could see something like this in Ohio!

Hiking into Cedar Falls, late afteroon:

And so we went down, down into the gorge area, hiking along a snow covered trail, across a couple of small bridges (over a very frozen creek) and suddenly, around a bend, we came to the real treat: Cedar Falls, frozen solid, in all their glory. Wow. One of the other hikers said that the falls only freeze up like this about every 10 years, so we were lucky to have picked this weekend to be in Hocking HIlls. Just amazing. It was bitter cold (in the lower teens), and the sun was setting, but there were a number of other crazy hikers out there besides us. I was thoroughly chilled by the time we returned to the car about an hour later. Brrrr. Brrrrr.

On Sunday we walked down to the Inn for some breakfast then packed up, checked out and went to find the famous Old Mans Cave trail. There weren’t as many cars in the parking lot this time – it was mid-Sunday morning, and still freezing cold – all the smart people were warm at home. We crept down ice-covered stone steps (my favorite kind) into the gorge, hanging on for dear life, and made our way down the trail to the falls. Even though we were in awe of the icicles all around us, we knew better than to stop and take pictures of them this time – we knew that the real thrill would be the actual cave and the frozen falls. And we weren’t disappointed! There was quite a contrast between the brown dirt and rock of the caves, and the snow and ice. If you looked one direction (into the main cave) it probably looked much as it does every other season of the year. But if you turned to look into the falls or into the forest, the snow and ice were obviously the main attraction. Incredible. Just incredible! And we were even able to walk in behind some of the smaller falls that were frozen solid - crazy!

Hiking into Old Mans Cave:

While I was not originally real excited about this trip being in mid-February, I am so thankful that it worked out this way. It was an experience that we'll probably never have again, and I am thrilled that we had such a memorable weekend getaway. Thanks, Kim, for the gift certificate! And thanks be to God who created all the incredible beauty that we got to see - absolutely unforgettable!