Friday, August 28, 2009

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.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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