The Metro Gardens

My mom came out for a visit over the weekend. She needed to get her Eli fix which is totally understandable since he is by far one of the coolest 2 year old's out there. After Elijah's nap and a little bit of shopping we headed out to the Innis Woods Metro Garden. We've never been there before and I have to say that I can't believe we haven't. (We're a pretty big fan of our Metro Parks) It was really nice. We strolled through the gardens for a while before it started to rain on us. While we didn't take our camera on Saturday, the three of us went back on Sunday afternoon to walk the other side and took pictures then. Here are a few:


They actually are called Mickey Mouse Ears. We're going to look up the growing conditions on these to see if we can plant some at our house!




This was a cool little area to sit and watch the waterfall. Elijah of course had fun running around the rocks and looking in the water.


It actually took me a few minutes to get him to sit there. He kind of freaked out about the running water behind him.


That's one of the frogs we found hanging out in another area of the park. Definitely one of the boy's favorites!

A Walk in the Creek

Since the weather has been kind of unpredictable lately we try to get outside as much as we can. Today we decided to hit up Creekside after we did a little shoe shopping. (Eli needed new shoes since Samson decided to eat a sandal.)(He's up for adoption by the way. Samson, that is.)(Don't tell Mike.) Eli is absolutely captivated by water and ducks. We probably spent about 45 minutes hanging out by the creek, but with the boy that's never enough.





Mike and Eli spent a lot of time picking out rocks to throw in the water. Mike was able to find some good ones to skip across the creek. Eli pretty much just threw them right in front of himself. They didn't really get that far! Since he had his flip flops on, we let him walk in the water just along the edge. Guess what happens when you tell a 2 year old to be careful and not fall in? He slips and falls in. Here he is, just after:



But of course you take it all in stride. This wasn't the first time he rode home in just a diaper. It tends to be a theme when we visit the creek!

Boys Will Be Boys

An occasional Thursday brings with it a game night for Mike and some friends. So, while he goes out to hang with the guys I have the opportunity to chill with the boy. I usually take snacks and drinks with me when I pick him up from daycare so we can go do something immediately. Usually we go to the park and play but as of late he has something else that he likes to do. While he's into all modes of transportation: cars, school buses etc. his favorite right now is the airplane. Well, second favorite. Cars are still number 1.

So it has somewhat become a ritual for us to go see the airplanes on these Thursdays. We live pretty close to the airport and there is a viewing area at the end of one of the runways.



We take our snacks and drinks and watch them take off and land. And he loves it! Some days we don't see that many, but sometimes we see a ton. He seems to have eagle eyes when we are out there. He can see a plane coming from way off in the distance. Here are a few pics of him from yesterday:







It's great to take him out there and see how excited he gets with every single plane that goes by. The only problem with it is that every time he gets in the car he wants to go see the airplanes! Or watch a movie. He's seen a lot of movies.

Happy 4th! (even though it's now the 6th)

It was a pretty good weekend here in Columbus. We pretty much stuck around here for the holiday, which was fine because there was plenty to do.

We started Friday out with a bike ride on the Westerville bike path. We didn't do the whole 12 miles, maybe 5 or 6 at most. Mike's dad picked up a bike trailer for us at a garage sale last summer and we've been using it like crazy this year. Eli really seems to enjoy it, once we get going. As long as he has a snack and a drink, he's good to go.

Later that afternoon I saw a movie with my friend Amanda: The Proposal. It was super cute. A definite chick flick. It may have been a little predictable, but it had Ryan Reynolds in it and he is hot so that made everything OK.

Friday night we headed downtown for Red, White and Boom. After driving around for a half hour trying to figure out the best place to park, we finally found a lot. Ended up being pretty close to where we watched the fireworks so we were lucky. It's crazy the amount of people that ended up downtown as well for about 20 minutes of fireworks. We picked out a spot on a little grass hill and spent the next 45 minutes watching Elijah roll or run down it. He was happy so, whatever. When it got darker I was able to persuade Mike to let me buy a glow necklace for the boy. I secretly wanted one myself, so I bought Eli two. It was a little difficult to get good pictures because he kept moving so much, but here are a couple.



I'm pretty sure that he liked the fireworks once they started. He got a little freaked out at first but eventually lifted his head off my shoulder to watch them. We were standing next to the firetruck so he was a little preoccupied with that as well. (those are his thing right now!) We had about a 10 minute walk back to the car and he fell asleep on the way. It was definitely past his bedtime, but worth it!



Saturday morning we went to uptown Gahanna to watch the parade. Most of the participants threw candy out to the kids that were watching so the boy made out with a little stash. There were a couple of older kids by us so he didn't quite get as much as he would have liked, but he had fun running out there trying to get it. Here are a few pics from that:






The day got a little cloudy and rainy towards the afternoon, so we weren't able to do much more outside. Eventually it ended up being just a drizzle and we went to the festival that the church next to us was putting on. Eli got to ride a pony and jump in a bounce house. He was super excited about each. Once it started to rain a little harder we headed home. Luckily it's within walking distance so we didn't have to worry about finding parking again. We were going to let him stay up and watch the fireworks again, but at 9:30 he said he was ready for bed. No arguing here! He was obviously tired. We didn't hear a peep from him even when the fireworks started a half hour later. Mike and I were able to watch them from the back patio through a nice little break in the trees.

The excitement pretty much ended there. Sunday was for grocery shopping and cleaning up the front yard. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Third Time's a Charm!

I've been feeling a little random lately. Like there is a ton of stuff going on in my head that needs to come out in some form. Hopefully this is the platform that I'm looking for. Many family members and friends are always wondering what I and my family are up to and I figure that this could be the solve to that problem. (We're not so good with the phone.) There will probably be tons posted about the boy, a.k.a. bug, little man, squirt, squirtastic, or Eli punkin pie, and a little bit of what else is going on with the hubby and me. Or as I said, just random thoughts whenever they happen to come up.

So, here it goes. Another attempt at a blog. I've had 2 so far, but neither have quite turned out the way I had hoped. Let's see if I can make this one work.