Hoccckking Hills

ha, ha! Can't you just hear the big ol' loogey?! We went to this place in Ohio, Hocking Hills (comparable to Turkey Run, but better sights), on Wednesday and Thursday. We rented a cabin as a late birthday gift for me since I've been wanting to go to this place for a while now. Lots of hiking = lots of pictures so I'll just post a few of my favorites. I might add a slide show of more later.....I just need to get this up here since we're taking off on more trips tomorrow! That, of course, means more posts to come!
Appropriate!
A hocking we will go, a hocking we will go!

Can you see the sphinx head?

so strong!
Upper "Falls" @ Old Man's Cave
Ash Cave --the picture doesn't do this place justice! This place was really cool.
view from Conkle's Hollow -- again, the picture doesn't do this justice. Absolutely beautiful views. 2 1/2 mile hike around the RIM of the gorge (we are so sore today!) Oh, and Allie said something really cute here...as we were walking along the trail she said it was "too hairy". We were trying to figure out what she was talking about and then realized she was talking about all of the pine needles covering the ground! Too funny!
view from inside the rock house
I just have to mention this because it was one of the highlights of our trips (Well, Derek's anyway.) We stopped to eat a late lunch on the way home and I asked Avery for a kiss. She leaned in and just as she was about to kiss me she belched the loudest burp anyone of her size could possible do! It was disgustinly hilarious!

Gymnastics and a Few Other Things

Yesterday was Allie's first day of gymnastics!! She was really shy at first, but once her friend Adeline got there she was ready to go.

Over Labor Day weekend my family came for a visit and we headed to the beach for the day. It wasn't quite as hot as it has been lately and the water was pretty chilly.....but that didn't stop most of us from getting in (I didn't get in because I had a cold).



On our way home we stopped by Young's Jersey for a BIG bowl of ice cream. So yummy! We passed this awesome field of sunflowers on the way.......
Pretty, huh!?
It was a great weekend.....thanks for visiting us guys...you know we love it when you visit!
Allie was exhausted after the busy weekend. This is how I found her shortly after everyone left:
Speaking of Allie, this weekend we found a lump on the back of her neck. So, of course, I got her in to the doctor as soon as I could. Basically, after lots of poking and prodding and tons of questions the doctor finally said that it was either a bacterial infection or cancer. Great, way to put in bluntly! Of course, there were no tests done to rule out cancer or any other type of information given except to come back in two weeks if it was still there. I was like so I guess that means you think....or hope....it's just an infection and so if that's what it is then it will just go away on it's own.......no medicine. I guess so! Gotta love military doctors!

Avery ~ 13 months

Today Avery went to her 12 month well baby visit. I know, I'm behind....that's nothing new! Everything looks good. Avery was cracking the doctor up because she's so outgoing. She went straight up to him, grabbed his hands, and started dancing. Her stats show her in the 13% for weight (18.13 lb), 18% for height(28in), and I forget what it was for her head. She's staying right there on the tiny side for everything which we expect she'll always be that way......just like Allie.

She's a very accomplished walker now. She flies across the room!! It's so fun and WEIRD to see Avery chasing Allie. It's so fun and WEIRD to see them play at their play kitchen together. For the most part, they get along great.

Avery has two new obsessions.....babies and dogs, especially dogs. When she was getting her one year pictures taken over at the Barkers all she wanted to do was go get Chloe. Whenever she hears a dog bark she gets so excited and start barking right along with them!

As far as her vocab, she's really just addeded.....baby and dog..GO FIGURE!! She does like to point a lot now though, which is pretty cute. It's cute because she has crooked fingers like her momma!

That's really about it. I'm sure she is happy to have this doctor's visit over with since she had to get 4 shots AND blood drawn! It was so sad because it took her forever to catch her breath after the shots and then she went and did the same thing with the blood being drawn :( Not looking forward to her 15 month shots!

28

Man, I'm getting old! In a few years I definitely won't want to be posting my age as the title! :)
Just wanted to share a picture of the flowers Derek got for me. I LOVE them! He never gets me flowers.......we both are kind of like what's the point...they are going to die anyway. So, that made these a total surprise and they are so beautiful!


We went to dinner at one of my fav restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory, while Kevin watched our girls (Thanks, Kev!) Derek also got me the nicest card and a new mp3 player that he already loaded up with some songs....all a subtle hint about, well you know (if I knew how to draw a fat cow here then that's what I'd draw so instead I'll draw my usual) ;)

(____)

( o o )

( - - )

U

Next week, we're going to Hocking Hills.......the plan is to get a cabin and hike around the area for a couple days. I'm very excited about it!!

The Past Week

We've actually been keeping pretty busy lately.

• We got Avery's one year pics taken by Nicole so you can check those out on her blog.
• We went to the base pool once again (wish I would have taken pics b/c Avery had the cutest swimsuit on).
• We also played frisbee golf, which we hadn't done in over a year, so that was a lot of fun.
• Derek, Abe and Kevin installed the tower on the boat and now Derek...I mean we... are anxious to get it out.
• Derek's sister, Louise, and her family visited the past two days. It had been at least 5 years, if not more, since we had seen them last. We had a little BBQ here at our house, went hiking and to the AF museum.

• Today the girls and I did another favorite pastime of ours (again, probably a year since we've done it).....geocaching! I finally figured out how to upload the waypoints straight onto my GPS, which made it a lot easier to try and find the "treasure." That's what I had to call it to entice Allie to search with me. Otherwise she just wanted to play at the playground. The first cache was full of junk, but the second one had "There's a Wocket in My Pocket" and a dinosaur book so the girls were happy with those!

Fun N' Sun

Orchardly Park ~ check!!! Base pool ~ check!!!

As you can see, we were able to check a couple more things off of our to do list. We went to the pool yesterday and it was perfect. Everything about it.......the weather......the company.....having the pool to ourselves (since school is back in session)....it was all just great. Allie didn't want to hold on to me this time so she spent basically the whole time "swimming" around the pool by herself! I'm so glad she has friends and cousins her age to be such a good example for her. Avery was loving the water too......she was really loving to splash (but didn't like to BE splashed).

Today we went to Orchardly Park. Allie didn't get to do everything that she would have liked to have done because she had got into some trouble earlier. It was our first time to this park and it was pretty neat. There are a few different playgrounds, a good sized sand area with a water table sort of thing and a splash pad.

I didn't get pics at the pool, but here are a few from Orchardly Park.

Coney Island

As summer is coming to an end we're trying to fit in all of the fun things that we've wanted to do that we never actually got around to doing. A lot of these things will be closing on Labor Day so we have a lot of unchecked items on the to do list to hit up! Should be a busy couple of weeks!

One of the things on my list was Coney Island, or Coneyville as Abby called it. I had read about this place in a book about fun things to do with kids in Ohio and it was one of the top 10 things to do in this area. It's in Cincinnati, right along the Ohio river and the border of Kentucky. So, sort of last minute, we decided to head there Friday afternoon. Was it worth it? It's hard to say. For the price and drive, i would say no......but the girls had an absolute blast AND there weren't a lot of people there so they didn't have to wait in any lines for the rides and if they wanted to stay on to ride again....they could! That may have made it worth it, but it's only a one time thing in this household : ) I think it could have been more worth it if we would have spent the entire day there and taken advantage of the water park as well (it was about the same price if you included it). Or we were right by Newport, KY and it would have been fun to go the the aquarium there....still one thing we have to do before we move (yet another to do list that I have!)
It's funny because I made one of these lists when we were at Scott and we waited until the last few months to try to do everything then too. We've really got to start now!!!

Here are the pics from Coney Island (there are a lot....so many good ones it was too hard to choose which ones to post!)

There was a kids town at the park and all of the girls really enjoyed their very own pint sized town!





There were actually a lot of rides just their size. I think their favorite ride where they could ride by themselves was probably the airplanes (least favorite, at least for Allie.....the frog hopper) I have a video and she was saying "done"! Their favorite overall ride was the giant slide, which they had to go on with an adult. We didn't get any pics of that b/c our awesome camera's batteries had already died.

Goodbye to a FUN day!!!

Monkey Joe's & Tropicanoe Cove

Since we were going back to Indiana for Avery's birthday anyway my Mom called and asked if we'd like to spend a whole week there either before or after the party. We decided to go the week before and it worked out great since Derek was gone at Scout Camp. (Derek even sold the jet skis and other boating stuff while we were gone, yay we have room in the garage now!)

Well, Derek's truck hasn't been running all that great lately and since he would need to get to Indiana later on in the week he needed the van. So....we met my parents just over the Indiana/Ohio state line at the World's Largest Candle (Warm Glow Candle Factory) and then we were off for a week of fun.

The week we were there was probably the busiest I've ever been while there and I didn't even have my car! My Mom took a day off and let me have her car a few days....so we were always on the GO.

The highlights of the week, besides Avery's b-day party, were visiting w/ GG, aunts & cousins and going to Monkey Joe's, Tropicanoe Cove, and Columbian Park.

At Tropicanoe Cove, Allie headed straight for this dolphin slide. I was so surprised! She loved it.

yelling @ the kid behind her b/c he's too close
Avery had a lot of fun too! She mainly just wanted to walk around, but it was a zero entry pool so she would walk right into the water. So cute!



Trenton, Jenna, Carma and Jon all joined us at the waterpark. Allie LOVED having Trenton there to play with her. Jon was so good with the kids!
Unfortunately, this was the only pic I got of them since my camera was acting up

Now on to Monkey Joe's. This was the first time we've really ever been to anything like this. I know that we have something similar to it here in Ohio, but we've tried to get Allie into a bouncy house before and she didn't want anything to do with it so I just haven't bothered with taking her there. I was so surprised at how fast she took a liking to this. Adults aren't supposed to play on them BUT I did my share of "assisting" Allie. It was so much fun!


notice her skirt and hair.....these slides were super fast!
We always go to Columbian Park while we're in town. It has a really cool playground and it's also where Tropicanoe Cove, the zoo, and a few rides are. This was the first time we've been while Tropicanoe Cove and the rides were open. Well, the girls and I were getting ready to leave the park and we walked by the rides. Allie really wanted to go on them, but I didn't want to go buy tickets. She was in luck though.....I had some in my purse from like 2 years ago when I took Morgan & Mason!
I only had enough for one ride though