Beautiful Beaches, Sites, and a Baby in Ohio...

Our trip to Marblehead was amazing despite some crazy weather. In the morning I had a photoshoot of an amazing couple Eric and Sami. We met at Bay Point Yacht Club where they keep two boats and stay there a few days a week during the summer. They knew that I was going to make this a mini vacation with my family so they had a three day guest pass for the club and beach for us as well as some toys ready for my daughter to pay on the beach with. My daughter was more than thrilled. The Beach at Bay Point Yacht Club was beautiful and clean. My daughter had a wonderful time playing with the sand and jumping in the water with her daddy. You could even see Cedar Point from the waterbreak. In the picture to the right if you enlarge it you can see some of the rides at Cedar Point in the background. I can only imagine the view on a clear day. The photoshoot took place on the beach, water break, and then down to the Marblehead lighthouse. And with a little luck the weather held up.

The last time Dave and I have been to the Marblehead Lighthouse was during one of our whim explorations when we thought that we found this little hidden treasure since no one was there. This time there were practically tour busses and company picnics going on at the location. Who would had guessed for a Thursday! It made the photoshoot a little more difficult, but I guess it's nothing that a little photoshop work can't fix. But it is quite the site to see all the same. Plus you can't argue since it's free to the public. My daughter looked to have a good time running around. Although this place gives you direct access to the water where there are just rocks and rather large waves. Not a place to let a little one run wild.
We wrapped up the photoshoot and decided to drive along the lake shore to find lunch. The town of Marblehead is really cute. Everyone raves about the little icecream shop out there. Plus there are a ton of art galleries. The area is a pretty popular vacation area where people (especially from Ohio) have small cabins up there that they go to during the weekends. There are a bunch of bed and breakfast places as well as ads all over for "Fishing Cabins"? I am not sure why they do not just say cabins, it makes me almost feel as if those places are not as nice and that they are just trying to set up some expectation management. Who knows. Maybe one day I will look into that since they also seem quite a bit cheaper, and hey, I love fishing!

We kept driving a long the shore up towards the Putt n Bay ferry on Catawba Island (even though on the map it looks more like a penninsula). We contemplated going to Putt n Bay, but with the weather looming the way it was we figured that we would stay on the mainland. We found a place to eat called Rudders Deli and Cafe. It was really cute although the more we were there the more we realized that it must cater to the tourist going up to Put N Bay. They have a gift shop, a market place, as well as a bakery and deli. They do not have a website though and when I looked it up on Yahoo Local, it considers it in Port Clinton. Rudders Gift Shop and Market Yahoo Local . David had the roast beef and I had the ham with spicy mustard. They also had a children's meal with a hotdog (mind you, the hot dog they advertised as "The best hot dog in Chicago!" good to know when you are in OHIO). The food was decent. All three meals with drinks came up to around 16.00. We ended up going back for a dessert each since they also advertised homemade baked goods. I had the brownie and my husband had the apple bar. The brownie was mediocre at best, but that apple bar was delicious! I wanted to steal it from my husband! My daughter could care less about the hotdog but found the giant cookie in the bag and tried to run off with it! It was a nice visit.

We continued along the Lake Erie lakefront. We kept running into whitout rain so we would slow down or stop for a while. We stopped at Lakeview Metro Park in Lorain for a while. Unfortunately the beach was closed. So we just made it a diaper change pit stop and kept moving. We caught up with the rain again and decided to start heading back the way we came. We didn't realize that there was also a storm coming up behind us. The wind blew feircely and we were in whiteout rain again. The thunder and lightening were intense. I thought for sure that our daughter was going to be scared, but there she was clapping her hands and laughing pointing around. We slowed the car down since we couldn't see what was going on and as fast as it came it went away. As we could see again we started to drive back down the road we came from we were shocked. Trees were down, cars under trees, debris everywhere, powerlines down. The emergency crews flying down the roads and people all over the place surveying the damage. We needed to make another pit stop so we waited to get back to the Metro Park. Trees were down there as well and all of the lifeguard stands were blown over. It was crazy to see all of this!

Following the wind with a baby

Admittedly, it has become significantly more difficult to travel on a whim with a baby. For our first year most of our trips were to go see family members. It involved me being a crazy mother packing 4 bags, a stroller and a pack-n-play...just for my daughter. Dave became a pack mule having to lug all of these things to the car and try to figure out how to fit everything. It would take me another two hours to get out of the house and then we would stop about two times along the way. Don't even have me start on how I would get car sick just because I would keep looking back into the mirror to make sure our daughter was alright. Mind you, she would usually sleep throughout the entire trip. By time we would get to our destination I would be exhausted.
Yesterday my daughter turned 18 months and things have gotten better. We are down to two bags, and closer to an hour late. I figure that at this rate in another 6 months we should be down to one bag... and about on time??
Now that my daughter is a toddler I focus more on clothing since she seems to be able to find a way to get messy in no time. So one bag is devoted to that and the other is supplied with food, drinks, diapers, wipes, and other supplies. So far so good. The only problem now is the fact that she doesn't want to sleep on the trip anymore, she wants to see what is going on and gets restless after a while in the car. So we need to stop a little more often. But, this has become a blessing in disguise! We get to follow the wind in a whole new way. Instead of just stopping anywhere we look for something different. If it is time to eat then we look for a cute little place to eat at. If we just need to get out and walk a little we look for parks or little attractions. We have now been able to see even more this way!
So granted even though it takes us a little more motivation and time to get out of the house, once we are out we are getting to see things on a whim in a whole new way! This was the case with our Marblehead trip last week. Actually, thanks to her, we missed being in a huge storm! That will be explained more in the next posting.

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Summer Heat and Way Too much Zucchini!

It is rather hot in the house today. The air conditioner doesn't seem to be cutting it. Due to my office being finally set up in the house, I have started getting my things together and finally getting some organization in place. One of the things I have been wanting to do especially with trying to earn my Domestic Goddess title is to plan out dinners a week in advance. I tried to take this to the next level with also trying to look up recipes to use up our garden crops. There must be a lot of people out there trying to get rid of their zucchini, because there are sooooo many "creative" zucchini recipes out there. From appetizers to desserts! This week we tried two new recipes Corn & Avocado salsa with beef wheat tacos, and Black Bean Chili with Fried Polenta squares. Wow, these were some great dishes and have been great leftovers as well. I added sliced zucchini to each of these dishes which worked out well too. I will put some links to these recipes below.

Today I dreaded cooking dinner. I wanted to stick to my schedule (at least for one week!) but I was so tempted to pick up the phone and just order out to avoid making the house hotter than it already is. On today's menu we have Ginger Garlic Chicken with eggplant, bell pepper and (you guessed it) zucchini! Half way thru cooking I decided that I wanted to add another starch (great idea when you are trying to stay cool right? cough) And started boiling a pot of Asian noodles. I came up with this idea for a dinner so I just kept throwing things in. The vegatables in the dish wasn't cooking quick enough for me, I was just dying in the kitchen of heat. So I added a cup of water to see if that would cook them down quicker. This just added a huge haze in the kitchen and made me even more miserable to be in the middle of. The noodles were done, rinsed and drained so I decided to throw them into the pot with the veggies and chicken. The dish ended up looking more like a soup than anything else. I took a spoonful and it was quite tasty. I called my husband to dinner, he took one look at it and said "Wow, that dish looks like it's a few key ingredients short of being able to go out for Halloween." I asked him to explain himself and he responded with "I'm just saying that it looks scary." ... ... ... ... ...

Soooooo, here I sit still fuming. Mind you, this is the man that said that he was going to make chili with garbonzo beans, refried beans, baked beans, grilln' beans, and tomato basil soup!
Since this incident this evening, he has told me how good this dish is and what a great cook I am...yep

We had a great few days. We went to the Ashland Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I just love going there. It says that it starts at 9am, but if you are not there by 8am you are missing out! Talking about a competitive market! Saturday night two of my best friends from high school came to visit. Christina had her daughter a month before I had mine. This was the first time the girls were able to get together and play. She is so cute! Poor Christina, this was the first time she had traveled this much with her daughter (who also started to get a cold) and she was about to loose it! We had to assure her that it is completely acceptable when traveling like that to be 2 hours late and to pack up an entire car for a two day stay. My parents live 3 hours away north and my husband's parents live 3 hours west. So we travel quite a bit at least in those directions. We are starting to get packing with a baby down to a science. I guess its all about practice and experience. Isn't her daughter adorable!?

Tomorrow the wind will bring us to Marblehead, Ohio. I have a photoshoot up there and figured to make it a family trip. Dave has the next two days off and we plan on camping and finding places around there. I will be taking pictures as we go and post our mini adventures when I get back!

Black Bean Chili
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Black-Bean-Chili/Detail.aspx
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Avocado and Corn Salsa
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Corn-and-Avocado-Salsa/Detail.aspx

Making a Baby Too Cute Tutu!

I was playing around with some tulle I had laying around the house and decided to make a tutu for my daughter a while ago, I figured that all I had to do was take tulle and sew it to the elastic. I found out that when you do that, it stretches out the elastic and made the tutu way too big for her. So I put it away. The past few days we have been working on the house and arranged my office so that I can look after my daughter while getting work done. My dear daughter (DD) found the tutu out of all of the confusion and put it on. She is almost 17 months, but I found this genius! She looked sooo cute! I couldn't help but bring her outside to take some pictures.
I have learned how to make tutus since this trial. There are all different ways. But the easiest I found was taking 3" wide by double whatever length you want the tutu to be. Get a nice thick ribbon, cut it by making sure you have enough to go around your child and tie into a bow. Take the tulle strips by the middle and tie them to the ribbon. Keep tying the tulle strips to the ribbon until your desired fullness. You can mix and match tulle colors to get some great effects! Tulle is so cheap as well so this is a fun and inexpensive project for you and your little ones!
Papermart has some great deals on tulle and all sorts of packaging products!
http://www.papermart.com/Product%20Pages/Product.aspx?GroupID=10850&SubGroupID=10851&ParentGroupID=19005#10851

What to do with your in season Zucchini and Corn!

This was a serious recipe! I was going to cream the corn I had left over from the farmers market this weekend. But who knew, there is cream in creamed corn...yeah. I just thought that was a term for blending the corn into a cream. Hey, I said I was a Domestic Goddess IN TRAINING didn't I? So I was on AllRecipes.com and found a section devoted to corn since it's in season. I found this awesome recipe. Warning: This recipe is not for the faint of heart...no really, I mean it, you cook in bacon fat. Someone could have a heart attack on this dish! They would have a smile on their face while having it, but hey...you have been warned.
I took this recipe and also added some of the bell peppers that I have been stock piling, about one cup. I then served it with a side of brown rice. Everyone loved it!

Here is the recipe: Corn and Zucchini Medley
Here is the article on corn recipes: http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Corn-in-the-USA/Detail.aspx

Don't have any of these seasonal goodies? Support your local farmers market. So much fresher and usually so much cheaper than the grocery.

Adventure runs in our blood

We had the privilage to visit with Dave's brother Lucas and sister-in-law Alex. They are back in The States for a little bit to say hi and bye to everyone as they get ready to leave for two years with the Peace Corps in Vanuatu. This past year they were in Antarctica at McMurdo Station, then they honeymooned in New Zealand and Australia for a few months. What can I say, everyone on both sides of this family are travelers! You can check out their blog at http://ourantarctica.blogspot.com . We had a great visit. They got to play with their neice, we took them to a picnic in Amish Country, went blueberry picking in Lexington, Ohio, we lived off of our garden coming up with all sorts of recipes like fried zucchini patties and kale pesto. And of course, living in Ashland, Ohio it was only proper to take them to Brookside Park and the Merry-Go-Round to get a huge serving of ice cream. The only place to be on a Sunday Evening! We also had an opportunity to take a picture of them with the quilt Grandma made for him. Aunte Connie is writing a book about her life and all of the quilts she has made for each of her 19 children, 35 grandchildren, and lets not even get started on great grandchildren. She has won tons of awards for her quilts, they are amazing! This picture of the two of them really shows the quilt along with Alex and Lucas wonderfully. We also have a picture of Dave's quilt. Both of the quilts have eagles on them since both Lucas and Dave are Eagle Scouts. All in all it was great to take them around Ashland, not have to spend much at all, and have a really wonderful visit!


If you are in Ashland, Ohio, it is a must that you stop by The Merry-Go-Round. It is down by brookside park. There are a bunch of baseball diamonds, a golf course, mini golf, a pool, tennis courts, and more. There is also the bandshell where during the summer we have performances on Thursdays and Sundays. So this ice cream place is in the right location. They are so inexpensive for what you get. Even the baby cone looked like what you would get as a regular cone at other place. They have a list of flavors on an ice cream sign that is at least seven feet tall. And the ice cream is delicious!! Usually Dave and I only spend about 5.00 for the two of us. This time around for 4 adults and one baby we spent 9.00. How can you beat that. Unfortunately they are only open during the summer between Memorial Day and Labor day. So it is quite the big deal when they open! They do not have a website but you can get more information here. http://www.yelp.com/biz/merry-go-round-ashland

set up blog on phone. now we are mobile!

Kingwood Center

Kingwood Center and Gardens in Mansfield, Ohio is a beautiful place we like to visit about 3 times a year to see the different landscapes and get some great pictures. They aslo have sweet greenhouse. This year it was particularly fun. Our daughter is now walking pretty well on her own and its great to see her explore new things. The excitement that she shows in her face just warms you up inside. So much so, we even paid the twenty-five cents to get a little handful of food for her to feed the ducks and fish. She had a great time. We were terrified a few times that she may pick one of their plants, but she actually helped them out by picking the weeds. She needs to do that in my garden!
Here are some of our pictures from that trip. If you are in the area you really need to visit Kingwood. It is free to the public and is close to a number of nice little places to eat at if you wanted to make it more of an outing. http://www.kingwoodcenter.org/

Oh baby it's Hot outside!

Today has been a rather lazy day. Probably because it is so hot outside right now. I decided to start a blog about how my family and I take these small and inexpensive trips around Ohio that have given us such joy.
Growing up my father traveled a lot with his business. We were lucky to have such an involved father who wanted to be with us as much as he could. He never missed a game, a play, or any other event in our lives. So when he had to go and we could either get out of school or were on vacation or had the weekend free, it wasn't uncommon for him to come home from work and tell us to pack we were going to head out that same night! My mother was an expert packer. Having two daughters and a cockapoo to figure out what we needed for x number of days, it was amazing how we would be able to get everything together and head out the door with little confusion. Every time was exciting. We did have certain demands of our father though, we always wanted to stay at a Holiday Inn "Holidome" where they would have a pool, games, and other activities to do there at the hotel while we would wait for our Dad as he did is business. These trips took us all over the country and even different countries. On the way to and from our destination was the true spirit of travel. We would stop and quaint places to eat, and see random billboards about attractions coming up. Some were awesome and became favorites, while others we still can laugh at to this day (a petting zoo with over 1000 animals...turned out to be 995 deer and 5 baby osteraches). We would stop at little historical sites and small festivals all over. It was thanks to my parents I got this type of travel bug.
When I left for college it was a whole new world for me. I grew up in Michigan and then attended Ohio State. I had traveled to Columbus before and all over Ohio so I wasn't ready for such a culture shock. But I got a great job at the Schottenstien Center/Value City Arena on campus and made some awesome friends. It was here where I met Dave. We became fast and furious friends and worked together quite often. I thought that it was hilarious that he was going into Animal Science specializing in Poultry and Natural Resources. And his hobbies included showing chickens at competitions! But I also found out what an adventurous spirit he has and knew that we would have a great time together. He didn't know what was good to see or do in Columbus even though he had been attending OSU for two years longer than me. So I challenged him to explore with me. Horribly early one Saturday where a campus of over fifty thousand people looks like a ghost town, he picked me up to go explore. I had about ten dollars on me and he had about the same. He asked me where we were going and I asked him "which way is the wind blowing?". He laughed thinking that I was joking until I openned the window to find out. "Really?" he asked, "Really." I responded and we took off. We came home with money in our pockets, bellies full, and a whole day of fun. We felt like we had a whole vacation. We have been traveling like this ever since. Granted, over the past 10 years we have made some modifications with getting a dog, getting married, buying a house, getting a second dog, and having a baby....but the concept has still been the same. We are still learning how to travel like this with our daughter.