A trip to the Cleveland Zoo!

While in Ohio we took a trip to the Cleveland Zoo. If you ever find yourself in Cleveland and are looking for something to do (weather permitting) check out the Cleveland Zoo. It is my favorite zoo next to The National Zoo in Washington DC. Matthew (my brother), Sara (my sister), my dad, my niece, Mia, all went with us. It was a HOT day (very few that we had in July) but lots of fun. The animals were very cooperative with the camera and I think I got some good shots of them.

Here is Grandpa Yogi and Emily riding the tram.

One of my favorite animals to see at the zoo!!

Here are the girls cooling off in the Rainforest. I was playing around with the settings on my camera. Wanted to see some black and white photos.

Here are three exhausted girls getting ready to leave the zoo.

Uncle Matthew and Emily riding the tram up to the top of the hill to see the gorillas.

Mia and Callie on the tram.

Once at the top and after going through the primate house we had a picnic lunch near a playground. Here is Mia and me sitting on a (not real) camel. She kept calling the camel Sally from the song that Barney sings. Something about Sally had one hump....

Here are all the girls with "Sally".

It was a fun day and we were all tired when we got back to the car. I couldn't find a Starbucks fast enough so I could have an iced coffee. Mmmmmm...it tasted great!!

Here is my friend, The ostrich. He/she was a bit intimidating but I loved watching these creatures. They are huge!!

The snow leopard. A favorite with my girls. He/she was sleeping and very far away. I zoomed as much as I could and I think I got a pretty good shot. I thought for sure it would be blurry.

The leopard. We watched this guy for a LONG time. He prowled around his area and was very cooperative with the camera. I got a lot of pics of him.

This was one grumpy guy. We watched him throw this sack over top of his head. He was fun to watch.

The koala sleeping. Very cute.

Isn't this a beautiful animal?

And, of course, the zebra.

That is all for now. More to come from our Ohio trip.

Lunch at Miss Molly's

Our visit to Ohio was not without a trip to Miss Molly's Tea Room. It is a quaint little restaurant in Medina. I have been taking Emily there since she was just a baby in my arms. Mama Rachel, Mama Ann, Auntie Allison, Aunt Boo Boo and Mom came with us. It was a fun afternoon!! The lunches are yummy and light and even the kids get their own teapot and tea cup no matter what they order to drink. They have an adorable gift shop and we always end the visit with a trip across the hallway to a fabulous toy store.

Our table at Miss Molly's

Here is Mom and Mama Rachel. Can you tell they are mother and daughter? It was so much fun to have Mama Rachel with us. We played rummy for hours and hours and laughed a lot!! Lots of belly laughs!!

My niece, Mia, with her teapot and tea.

Here I am with my wonderful mother in law, Mama Ann, and my sister in law, Auntie Allison. Allison, Todd's little sister, just graduated from high school and is heading to Ohio University on a full academic scholarship. Way to go Allison....We love you!!!

Here are the girls with Aunt Boo Boo, my beautiful sister!!! We always enjoy our time with Sara.

Emily, Callie and Mia in the toy store.

Here are the girls with my fabulous grandmother, Mama Rachel! They were saying goodbye to her as they were headed to Mama Ann's for a couple days. Always sad to say goodbye.

It was a great afternoon filled with chatting, laughter and beautiful, wonderful women!!!

Ohio Trip Part 1

Our Ohio trip is coming to an end. Todd flies back tomorrow and we will head home on Sunday. We have had a lot of fun and have stayed very busy. I am blogging at my parents house and I am not able to move my photos around for some reason so they are out of order.

We started our trip out in Medina at my parents house. We were greeted by my family and enjoyed a great dinner with them. The next day we headed to Kent to have lunch at Rays. Rays is one of the places that Todd and I went to when we went to Kent State. It is a great place to eat lunch and at night becomes a bar and a place for the locals and students to hang out. We enjoyed a great lunch there! Thankfully the food has not changed. Gertie's chili and the french fries tasted as good as they did back when we lived there. We chatted a bit with the owner while we were there. Same owner as when we were there. Lots of memories!! We left Rays and walked around the corner to see that Taco Tonto's has their own place now. I guess it is still a big hit around town.

We then got in the car and drove through campus retelling story after story. The girls listened quietly in the back seat. We then stopped at the May 4th memorial and told them the story of the shootings. It was a good history lesson and I think they enjoyed listening.

We then headed over to a surprise birthday party for Todd's cousin Jenny. A lot of Todd's family was there and it was great to see everyone. All the cousins and cousin's kids were there. The girls had a blast.

The next day we went to Tim and Sue's wedding. Tim is a good friend of Todd's from high school. It was outside and all their kids were involved. A very nice ceremony. After the wedding we headed back to Todd's mom's house for a big fourth of July party. More family and a lot more fun. The food was amazing as usual!!! Todd and his brother's (mostly Christopher) put on a great fireworks display as usual right in Ann's front yard!! It was loud but beautiful.

The next day we headed to Todd's dad's house for another big party. All the cousins, the pool, more fireworks and we all had a blast!!!

The next day we said goodbye to Todd as he had to head back to New Hampshire.

Since then we have met with old friends, went to the Cleveland Zoo (best zoo in my opinion), visited with my grandmother, swam, took a ride on the train to Cleveland, played a lot of rummy and so much more. It has been a great time with family and some friends. I don't get to see as many friends as I used to but I treasure the time I get with them when I do.

Here are some pictures (not in order) that I have taken. There are so many and I will post more later.

Here is Todd and the girls standing in front of Rays in Kent, Ohio.
We met up with my friend Tes and her kids. So good to see her. A great friend that I met while we were in the Air Force. They just happened to be in Cleveland the same time we were!!!

This picture was taken at Todd's Dad's party. This is all of Todd's Cousin's kids. Out of all these kids there is only two boys!!

Here is Mama Ann (Todd's mom) and Papa Bob with all four granddaughters. We had taken Allison's duck for a swim in a nearby pond.

Papa Bob, Callie, Mama Ann, Julia, Emily and Eleanor.

Julia and Eleanor are Jason (Todd's brother) and Colleen's girls.

Here is Callie, Mia (my niece) and Emily at the zoo.

Christopher (Todd's youngest brother) and his bride, Erin. They are getting married in September. Aren't they so cute!!!

I love this picture of Callie and Julia. So sweet!!

Thanks to Facebook, I have reconnected with my friend, Lisa. She and I were in Jr. High together and played flute together. So good to see her again and meet her family!! We could have talked for hours and hours.

This was taken at the zoo of my niece and me.

Old friends Emily and Jenny. Jenny is my friend, Tes' daughter. Emily and Jenny used to play together when they were preschoolers at Eglin AFB. They always just pick up where they left off. Love that!!

Callie, Mom, Mia, Mama Rachel (my grandmother) and Emily. We were waiting for the rapid to come to take us downtown to Tower City. A trip on the train is always a highlight for my girls.

Here are the Beard boy cousins. Christopher, Jeff, David, Todd and Jason at Jenny's party. Some handsome dudes!!!

This is my beautiful sister in law, Allison (Todd's little sister) and her duck, Krayzie!! We took the duck to a pond and Allison threw him into the water so he would learn to swim. He kept swiming right back to the grass. He wasn't into it at all that day. She also has some chickens and a rooster that she holds like they are cats. So cute!!

Here is my best friend, Sheryl, and our families together minus the husbands. Katie, Callie, Sheryl, TJ, me, Emily and Lacey. This was taken at Lacey's graduation party. She just graduated from Kent State!!!

Here are the girls with Tes' kids. Josh, Callie, Jenny, Emily and Maddie.

That is all for now. I will post more Ohio pics once we get back home to New Hampshire.

Spring Soccer highlights!!!

Well, I promised some that I would be updating my blog but my computer is having some problems and I can't seem to upload my pictures on here. So this entry will have to be pictureless.

Spring Soccer was so much fun this year! Both Emily and Callie played on teams. They were in the same league but not the same team. They both played awesome!! Scoring goals and making me scream on the sidelines!! I was a proud mom!!! Emily was an animal and scored several goals for her team and helped in scoring goals as well. Her game really improved this season. Callie scored goals as well and made it a habit of running the ball down the field several times!!! So much fun to watch these girls play and to see that they really enjoyed it.

Summer has finally arrived here in New England, at least on the calendar. We have had so much rainy weather here!! I think the girls have been in the pool once so far. Tomorrow we head to Ohio for three weeks. We are really looking forward to seeing our families there!!! Hopefully we will find some time to see some friends as well. I will try and post our adventures there as we go along.

I have to say, the blog doesn't seem as interesting without the pictures. :0(

Until next time.........

Spring Break 2009

I am way behind in posting things so I am trying to catch up today as I am home with Emily. She is sick with Strep throat....AGAIN. Below I have posted a lot of pictures from our Spring Break week back at the end of April. Sorry there are so many pictures but I couldn't just pick a few. I took a lot and I love them all. My Mom, Dad and Mia came to visit us during our week off. We had so much fun with them. We also got together with Aunt Margot, Brooke, Brady, Cameron and Jessica. Brooke and Jessica are my cousins that live about an hour from here as does my aunt. Brady and Cameron are Brooke's children and are so sweet and fun to be around. It is always a pleasure to see them and I am grateful that they are so close to us. So here is our week in pictures. I have so many more pictures that I didn't post but these are my favs.



We picked up my mom and Mia (my niece-Matthew's daughter) at the airport. As you can see by this picture above that they were so happy to be together again. My dad arrived the next day by car to join us. That afternoon Aunt Margot, Brooke, Brady and Cameron came up to visit. We had a nice lunch together. Mia and Brady were so cute and they both put a show on for us by singing. So precious. We have some video of it as well.

Here is Mia, Emily, Callie and Brady sitting in the wagon. They played outside together for a long time.

Cameron was a trouper but in the end couldn't fight the sleep anymore and fell asleep right before they left. Isn't she precious? Beautiful!!!

One day we drove up to Manchester and went to this beautiful park with a playground and a nice walking/hiking path around a small lake. Here I am with Mia when she got a bit tired of walking.

Here is Callie with Mia.

We stopped along the way several times to rest and enjoy the scenery. Here is my dad with his granddaughters.

Here is my mom and dad with their girls!!
Saturday was game day. Emily and Callie both had soccer games. So we packed everyone up and went out to the field. Aunt Margot and Jessica joined us. Above is Mia and Todd having a staring contest. Todd said something to her that she wasn't very happy with and she said, "I am just going to stare at him." And she did. Of course Todd played along.

Here is Todd, Dad, Aunt Margot, Jessica and Mom watching the game.

Emily and Mia snuggling during the game.

Mia watching the game.


Mia laughing about something. She is a happy kid!!

The weather turned a bit cooler but one night we decided to get out of the house and go to another park here in town. Here is Mia laughing so hard. She was sitting on something that the girls were jumping on which made Mia bounce up and down. She loved it!!

The three girls sliding together.


I took this picture looking up into an enclosed slide.

This park has a hiking trail as well. It takes you down to some waterfalls. Some of you might remember the pictures I posted of the Mother's Day floods a few years back. This area was completely flooded. You couldn't get near this area. The waterfalls and stream are behind the girls.

I love this picture!! They all look so happy and glad to be with each other!! Our week was great and we will always remember the fun we had.

Meanwhile...we are heading to the end of our school year. Because of all the snow days and ice storm days our last day isn't until June 23rd. We have had a lot of school functions happening. We had the Art Show at Callie's school and the Artfest at Emily's school. I will post pictures next of some of the art work. The Artfest at Em's school was quite an event. They had a book fair going on, art displayed all over the school, a hot dog dinner for all and a concert to end the night by the 5th and 6th grade bands and the Jazz band. During the hot dog dinner they asked the kids to do solos, duets, trios, etc with friends and/or family. Emily and I did two duets together on stage while people ate their hot dogs. I was so nervous but so glad we did it. I have posted a video of our duets. It is hard to hear as everyone is talking. We were the background music for the dinner as was many other kids and their parents.

Father/ Daughter Dance

I have not been very good about blogging lately. In fact I haven't blogged since the middle of March. Where did the time go? Well, here in New England Spring has finally come and right now the lilacs (New Hampshire's state flower) are in full bloom everywhere!! You can drive down just about any road in town and smell the beautiful smell of the lilacs. I am happy to say that my little lilac bush (that is really our neighbors) that I have been trying to keep alive bloomed more flowers this year than ever in the five years we have been here. Thankfully my other neighbor across the street gave me permission to cut her lilacs, because she has many, so I can bring the nice smell into my house.

I have so much to blog and can't possibly to it all in one posting but I wanted to post these great pictures of Callie and Todd when they went to the Father/Daughter dance. It is a fundraiser through the school and it is held in a ballroom dance studio here in town. As you may remember, Emily and Todd went last year. This year was Callie's turn. She looked absolutely beautiful and was so excited about going. Todd bought her a beautiful corsage that she wore on her wrist.

Here Todd is giving Callie her corsage.

Callie showing off her corsage.

Father and daughter! Very sweet!

Callie wanted me to straighten her hair for the dance but I reminded her that Daddy isn't a big fan of the straightening hair. So she agreed to let me do what I thought would be best. I LOVE this picture!! Great smile and look at those curls!!!

I will be blogging again soon. So check back soon!!