Grab Bag 3

The last weekend in July we went on our annual family camp out. I was nervous about going this year because Meredith was more mobile than on our last camp out. Regardless of what you might think, taking an infant is so much easier than taking a 1-year-old! Fortunately, my mom has a "cage" that was a big help. Meredith was able to be part of the action, but we could limit was she was exposed to (i.e. rocks that she wants to put in her mouth; hills to fall down; cars that want to run over kids). What was neat was that it was the cool place to hang out for the older kids. They all took turns getting in there and playing with her. Meredith was in heaven!

The kids and I went up on Thursday, after the boys' swim lessons. My parents were going up that day, as well as my aunt and uncle. I hated to leave Kevin at home, but it's such a hike for him to go from our campsite to work that it really isn't worth it. The rest of the group would come after work on Friday.

Did you know that Charlie had a black eye? Amazingly enough, his brothers had nothing to do with that. He fell into our coffee table an instantly looked like the offspring of Rocky. Here, it is a few days old and looking quite a bit better.

My dad had to go into work on Friday so Mom and I took the kids on a hike. The boys are extremely into hiking and exploring these days. The trail wasn't very intense, which was good because I had Meredith hanging off the front of me while I was taking pictures and hiking. I'm pretty sure I was chewing gum, too, so we are lucky that no major catastrophes occurred!


I didn't get the camera out the rest of the weekend. I can't remember why. The days were filled with playing games, riding bikes, and swimming at the pool. At night we stargazed and sat around the campfire. This is the stuff that summers are made of and I wish we would have done more of it this summer!

Hidden Treasures of Our City

We had another wonderful outing today with Amanda, Owen and Eli. I have been wanting to explore Spring Grove Cemetery for a while now and it just worked out that today would be the day that we'd do it.


Forecasters predicted thunderstorms, but Amanda and I have been planning for outings for long enough that we now know to go ahead and do what we want and figure out what to do if the weather wants to change plans. Good thing we've gotten to this point because it was a gorgeous day!


I wasn't sure what the boys would think of running around a cemetery, but they along with Owen and Eli quickly fell in love with the immense amount of open space, trees and gravestones. They spent a lot of time trying to find names they recognized and dates that matched their birthdays.


We plan to bring paper and crayons next time to do grave rubbings because many were so old that it was difficult to make out what they said. The boys are excited about that.


I'm not so sure how "hidden" this treasure was to anyone but me, but I am so glad that we went. It definitely will be a place that this family will visit many times in the future!

A Lovely Afternoon

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous so we decided to take the kids to go fly kites. In the past we've gone to Lunken Airport and Ault Park, so this year we went to French Park and we'll definitely being going back soon!

French Park is a place that I spent a lot of time at growing up. It has a lot of land with both wide open space and wooded areas, playgrounds and shelters. We found an open area in front of the old mansion and started put the kites together. Being on top of a hill, it was easy to get the kites up, even the boys could (kinda) get them up themselves.

Unfortunately, I only thought to take pictures of the kite flying, which may be the most difficult thing in the world to photograph, but I tried. The really great shots would have been of the hike we took afterward. I strapped Meredith into her Snugli and we took off down a hill to the creek. The boys were all wearing their boots so they were able to walk through the creek, which was a lot of fun for them! It was neat to watch them having fun, doing something I remember so vividly from my childhood. The exploring, the discovering, the enjoying the sunny day in the woods, seemingly far from civilization. It was such a fun day, one of those ones that I know will be burned into my memory for a long time. One of those days that when I think back to my kids' childhood, it will stick out for me.

Presidents' Day Eve

In other words, Jungle Jim Day for our family!

Each February my aunts, uncles and cousins make the trek out to Route 4 to find the oddest ingredients to make up some pretty good recipes. This was Meredith's first experience out at Jungle Jim's and I have to say that she rather enjoyed it, if only because she walked away with a special biscuit treat from the UK. Yum!

Some highlights of the menu:

• stuffed clams
• rotisserie-style pork heart (it was Valentine's Day!)
• baby squid salad
  
• crickets (dead, sans chocolate)
• broiled eel
• Blue-Point oysters
• more kim chee
• something that I was not able to identify (I'm guessing I don't want to know)

(The heart--I wasn't kidding.)

Some things are made more for shock-value, to see who is willing to put it into their bodies, but there were many "normal" things made as well. For instance, Aunt Jane made bruschetta, which isn't so exotic, but it tastes so much better when made with fresh basil, tomatoes and mozzarella from this great market! (Jungle Jim's makes many of their own cheeses in house.)

Cousins Susie, Jill and Denny
(They made a delicious guacamole and a I'll-have-to-get-the-recipe creamy cheesy corn dip)

Our main contribution was "wonton bowls." I wanted to do something for the Chinese New Year (year of the tiger--rarr!), but I'm thinking that the recipe might be a little more Japanese than Chinese. Regardless, it was very easy to make and I think I might make it again. What was great is that I could try it out on everyone there, get honest reviews, and next time I'll be able to perfect it. (There was too much ginger in the beef mixture and not enough wasabi powder in the mayo.)

A Small World

The baseball game stopped for a few minutes when the Charlie discovered a caterpillar climbing up the blue chair. The boys were so fascinated by this little crawly creature. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it, but Charlie was the first one to touch it, allowing it to climb onto this finger. No fear! Louie went over and got a stick. After a few minutes we had a talk about how we shouldn't torment creatures who were smaller than us. They tried to imagine what it would be like to be that small, and had three boys screaming in its face and poking at it. I'm not sure if the empathy worked, or if they were ready to go back to playing baseball.

Jungle Jim's Field Trip

Each year our family does a Jungle Jim outing. Not that we don't go out there other times during the year, but this is when all my aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, grandpa and parents meet at the Starbucks counter at noon, then we go through the different sections of the building together, looking for crazy delicacies to take home.

Afterward, we go to my parents and cook up what we found. Some of the highlights were: seafood stirfry (with nice chunky squid); deer chili; duck head soup; wildebeest meat; kimchee (fermented cabbage); fish balls; bamboo shoots; and chicken feet. Yes, chicken feet. Complete with toe nails!

It's amazing what people will put in their mouths! I guess things that seem completely bizarre to us is just as common as burgers and fries elsewhere in the world. There was a plate with the chicken feet on it and the boys immediately saw it when the came in from playing outside. Like it was a chip or some sort of snack, Ben came over, picked one up and started chomping on it.

My first reaction was to stop him, but then I realized that it wasn't going to kill him (unless he eats a toe nail and it gets lodged somewhere in him). And I can't keep them from doing things that freak me out. Charlie followed suit. When Lou came in a few minutes later and took part in his brothers' snack. You may think that they just didn't know what they were eating. They did. When each had one the plate was empty and Lou asks, "Mom, are there anymore chicken feet?"

Don't believe me? Here's proof:



Joanie and Josh got Charlie this adorable outfit for Christmas. Unfortunately, we don't have any weddings or other events to dress up for, so he got to wear his crushed velvet sports coat, pin-striped oxford and tweed pants to Jungle Jim Day!

Ten Minutes in the Snow

Finally! We're ready to go. I was right, though, no gloves. Louie wore mine, Benny wore Louie's (which are too big for Lou), and Charlie started out with no gloves, but I ended up finding some in the van for him.

It was not good snow for packing, but great for making snow angels! I don't know how he did this--it looked too cold! They wore their pajama pants with two pairs of sweatpants over that and a few pairs of socks under their boots. (In addition to the winter coat, scarf and sweatshirts and T-shirts over pajama shirt.) I really need to look into stocking up on winter gear.

Once again, another great hand-me-down from Aunt Robin. This is one of those flexible gliders, the old wooden sled with metal bars that probably works great going down hills, but was very slow in our backyard.

For whatever reason the boys' hats kept falling in their eyes. That probably bothered them more than the cold snow!

Ben wanted hot chocolate, Lou had to go to the bathroom, and Charlie looked like Audrey in Christmas Vacation when the went to cut down a tree. I swear his eyes were frozen. So it may have been a bit longer than ten minutes, but not by much! It was totally worth the 45 minutes we took to get ready ;)

Fresh Air

The week is quickly turning cold and this day was predicted to be the nicest. Even though we have oh-so-much packing to do we decided to get ourselves some fresh air by heading out to Sharon Woods.

Warm, muddy days

Monday's temperature was perfect! On Sunday I saw that Aldi's was having a sale on rain boots and so after breakfast we headed to the super saver store and purchased a pair for each of the boys. The ones they picked out in the ad weren't available in their sizes, but amazingly they were completely fine with the ones they chose.

We headed to Glenwood Gardens for some good ol' fashioned puddle jumping. I had them in old sweats and with the mild weather it was going to be a fun day. There weren't as many puddles there as I thought there'd be. We met Grandma R. there and she brought a big blue bouncy ball and we kicked it around the field.

When they grew tiresome of that we took a walk and that's when their prayers were answered: small patches of snow. They stomped on the snow, stirred it with sticks, and got what they wanted--a mud puddle!! You should have seen the look of joy on their faces while they hopped up and down in that itty-bitty puddle of their own creation.