O-H!

We're pretty sure Elise is the cutest little Buckeye around. :) Here's proof:

(It's not completely obvious, but her headband is scarlet and gray. Go Bucks!)

photo update

It's time to throw some more pics on here.

(8/5/11) Brian and I went camping at the equestrian site in Alum Creek State Park.

(8/5/11) We found this while exploring. No idea what kind of animal it came from.

(8/29/11) We had a lot of trouble figuring out what to put on the big wall in our living room. Finally, I decided to buy canvases and paint so we could make our own art. :) This was an FHE project.

(8/29/11) Brian's spooky painting.

(8/29/11) My painting. I decided to call it "Window to the Imagination."

(9/14/11) Some friends and I went and picked Honeycrisp apples (aka "Honeycrack apples" according to one friend, haha). I made some yummy applesauce and then used some of it to make apple butter. My first attempt ever, and it turned out to be delicious! (I did can more applesauce later but didn't document it with photos.)

(9/18/11) Another lovely product of the apple bounty. Shhh...I used a store-bought crust. It doesn't look very pretty, but I assure you it tasted wonderful. :)

(10/15/11) A.W. Marion State Park - ward campout. This place was beautiful!

(10/15/11) A.W. Marion State park - ward campout.

(10/28/11) Brian and I decided to check out the Indian mounds at Highbanks Metropark. These aren't the mounds, but I love this picture! It was a beautiful evening and a great hike.

(10/22/11) "I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat." This is how we dressed up for our ward's Trunk or Treat/Chili Cook-off. All the adults thought it was great/hilarious - we even won the award for "Most Original Costumes." (We were trying to compete with our friends, the Carpers, for the "Best Couple" award. They won it with their Scrabble piece costumes, but we were happy with our originality award.) The kids were enthralled by the game but had no idea what Wheel of Fortune actually was (which made me feel old...and sad). Also, remind me never to go blonde.

(10/31/11) We went to a Halloween party but everyone had already seen our Wheel of Fortune costumes, so we had to switch it up. I'm an imaginary friend.

flowers

I've been meaning to edit and post these pictures for a while, but I make all sorts of excuses. All but the last picture are the dahlias (from seed) we planted for a fun little experiment, on a whim. I've actually already ripped them out (all but one, which we had previously relocated to our neighbor's plot, hehe) because they were so huge and crowding out everything, but I definitely had to get pictures first. The last one (a bunch of little white flowers) is actually from one of our onions. I thought it was interesting and cool.

Welcome to my lovely garden. :)

date night

Brian and I went on a date last night. One of his co-workers had recommended Cap City Diner, so we headed down to check it out. It seems to be pretty popular, because we had to wait for a bit (less than 20 minutes, I think). It was absolutely worth the wait! The service was fantastic - I swear they brought our food like 5 minutes after we ordered - and the food was delicious. We even splurged and got some peanut butter pie for dessert. Yum! :)

After dinner, we headed over to campus so Brian could show me some pretty trees. There's an arboretum right on the edge of campus, and we just parked and wandered around for a bit. OSU doesn't seem to have any free places to park, so we ended up paying at a lot right next to the arboretum. Funny story: It was $1.50 to park for an hour (not too bad), and Brian suddenly remembered the song "They Paved Paradise." (It was originally by Joni Mitchell, but he only knows the cover by Counting Crows.)

They took all the trees, and put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you got till it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot

OK, I'm not sure why that was so funny to us, but it was.

After we got all hot and sweaty from wandering outside (we live in a sauna!), we climbed back in the air-conditioned car and headed to the Park of Roses. Neither of us had been there before, and I'm not sure why it's taken us this long. It was getting dark, but it was still gorgeous. We'll have to go back in the daytime. I told Brian I like the yellow roses, especially the buds that haven't fully bloomed yet. He may have picked a small one for me (shh! don't tell!). I think I'll have to go back and take some pictures for practice with my camera. :)

a lovely garden

Anyone remember that song from Primary (I don't think it's in the Children's Songbook), "I Have a Garden?" My brothers ruined it for me a long time ago - I can't remember the words they made up, but it was something awful that boys would think is funny. Anyway, I thought of that song (the real one) as I was looking at the pictures I took of our garden. :) Enjoy!

These ones are from a week or two ago:

The whole garden - about a 2'x6' plot.

Garlic and red onions on the left, red (spicy) and sweet banana peppers on the right.

We're very proud of our little honeysuckle vine. :)

Rose of Sharon and more garlic and onions.

Happy little ice plant!

These ones are from a few days ago (it's been raining a lot):

The ice plant is spreading pretty well. :)

LOVE these flowers! We intentionally got the pink/red/orange ones.

We also have dahlias sprouting up here and there, but I don't have pictures of any of them. (It was an experiment - we just sprinkled seeds wherever there was room left over.) I'll take more when they start getting flowers. The Rose of Sharon has also grown a lot recently, but I was too excited about the ice plant to take pictures of anything else. :) (Brian was excited too - he called me a few days ago and said, "Guess how many flowers we have blooming right now!!" I believe the answer was 12.)

Oh, yeah. We planted a grapes and blueberries on this tiny strip of dirt next to the fence on the other side. They're kind of sad for now, but if anything happens I'll take pictures and post them.

Cleveland

In mid-April, we met the Wessmans (Brian's sister/family) in Cleveland because the National Collegiate Women's Gymnastics Championships were being held there. Mike and Marinda are really into the University of Utah gymnastics, and the team made it to nationals, so it was a good excuse to get together. I love watching gymnastics too, so I was excited to be able to see a meet in person. We went to the semifinals on Friday night, and Utah made it to the finals, so we all went again on Saturday night.

The Wessmans rented a house for the weekend instead of having to get a bunch of hotel rooms which was pretty cool. On Saturday morning, we headed out to Kirtland for a while to see some of the sites. Brian had never taken the temple tour or the tour of the historic sites, and he was almost giddy when he realized we could go inside the Whitney store and some of the other buildings. But enough talking...here are some pictures:

Brian outside the Kirtland temple. It rained a lot that day.

The Newel K. Whitney store in Kirtland. I know pictures are generally more interesting with people in them (at least the ones I take), but I couldn't resist taking this because the light was really cool.

Abby showing me the "pretty leaf" she found at historic Kirtland. I thought it was cute.

Briton at the gymnastics meet. He's such a cute little guy.

Brian and me at the house we stayed at for the weekend.

I'm realizing now that I didn't take any pictures of Mike and Marinda or Hannah. Meh.

don't be fooled

Ohio's weather is kinda weird. It was pretty warm for most of October, November, and December. (Believe me, I'm not complaining.) We've definitely had chilly days with biting wind, but it's been pretty nice for the most part.

Last week, it got very warm for this time of year. We got back from Michigan, and the next 2 or so days (I think) were in the 50s and 60s. My favorite was when it rained and melted all the snow. :)

I think the hardest thing for me to get used to (again) is that the sun can be out but the temp is still below freezing. The other day, I noticed that the sun was bright on the back of our house and decided not to wear a heavy coat as I was taking Brian to work (that's another story...his car is out of commission again for now). Silly Amy. Even though the back doorway was nice and warm, it was definitely cold outside. Same thing happened when we went running yesterday. We started out at the back of the house (I guess I could mention that it's a southern exposure), and Brian had to warn me that it was going to be much colder in the shade. Oh boy - come summer, I will definitely not miss that bitter, cold wind. (It was bad enough that we had to turn and run a different direction to avoid it as much as possible.)

Moral of the story: Don't let the sun fool you.


P.S. It snowed again today. I hope it doesn't last long...