Rock House & Old Man's Cave

 Since the weather was warm, for December, and sunny we decided to take a trip to Hocking Hills.
It was interesting seeing the caves in a different season.

Steve and CJ

A family portrait.

Hey, that kid looks like ours.

The Sphynx Rock

Christmas Morning

After getting caught twice sneaking downstairs, first at 11:30 and then at 3:30, it was finally Christmas morning.

As usual the adults had to have their coffee before present opening could begin. And maybe a little breakfast too! Poor CJ. Notice that it is still dark outside.

Dakota gives MaryKate a Christmas gift.

Finally!!!
And a glimpse of light outside.

Mark gets some help opening presents from the dogs.
Look at the beautiful sunrise!

MaryKate got lots of tools to help with her renovation projects.

Is it food?

 
Video game excitement.

It was a Flyers Christmas. Steve got a jersey, hoodie, t-shirt and license plate holder. I got a Winter Classic blanket and Old Time Hockey Flyers sweatshirt and hat.

Mark now has his own NCIS hat.

Christmas Eve

One of our Christmas Eve traditions is to watch A Christmas Story. This year we shared that tradition with MaryKate, Mark and the dogs. MaryKate didn't understand why we enjoy the movie and went to bed. The rest of us enjoyed the 24 hours of our favorite Christmas movie!

 

A Warm and Rainy December

It is our first day of winter break and we should be packing the truck and heading to Wisp to have a relaxing ski vacation before Christmas. Unfortunately everytime it cools down enough to make snow it then warms back up and rains.

Today it rained a mere .36 inches. That was enough to set a record for annual precipitation. And, the year isn't over yet.

According to the World Weather Post - The yearly rainfall total for Columbus now stands at 53.55 inches, surpassing the previous wettest year of 1990 and its 53.16 inches.

The Hunt for the Perfect Tree

 December 17th is the latest we have ever gone Christmas tree hunting. But between the never ending rain and other commitments that was our first available weekend.
The weather was chilly with a bit of wet snow falling.
It was a bit weird to having to dodge the mud puddles while walking through the snow.

We walked up and down the rows while Tucker explored every inch of the farm.

Finally we had it narrowed down to two trees.

This one was deemed 'the perfect tree'.

 

Can you see the mud caked into the soles of CJ's boots?

Tucker had to have a 'tubbie' when we got home. He had mud packed in between his toes and pretty much every where else.

Steve worked on the lights and CJ placed the tree skirt.

Then we all hung the ornaments.

England May Have Stonehenge...

Central Ohio has a field of concrete corn.
It's called art.

CJ and Richard pose with the corn.

Richard is a coworker of Steve's, based somewhere near London. He has been to our house a number of times and Steve has met & toured London with Richard and his family. Richard came to dinner Friday night and then we spent Saturday searching out the perfect Christmas gifts for his family. Richard did the searching, we just helped him spend his money! On the way back from Abercrombie we stopped to show Richard the cornfield.
Unlike Stonehenge we know exactly what our corn field is used for...making tourist shake their heads in disbelief.

Homemade Breakfast

It all started with the granola. Many of you have tasted it and declared it 'the best granola ever'. I think so to but it is nice to hear it from others.
Then, I came to be the owner of a big tub of cherries. So I made cherry butter. Don't know if it really classifies as a butter but it certainly isn't jelly or jam. What it is is yummy.
Then I ran across a recipe for crock pot yogurt and decided to give it a try. The first batch was yummy although a little thin. The second batch I picked up organic milk and didn't notice that it was ultra-pasteurized, it was okay but not quite right. For the third batch I strained off the whey. After the straining I had on jar of whey and one jar of yogurt. The yogurt still wasn't a thick as in the store but it is yummy. I feel guilty about straining off all that whey just to get a thicker consistency so for now I have been drinking a little bit of it each morning just before eating my homemade breakfast.

A Trip to Philly

 We left early, as usual, Tucker, CJ and I loaded our stuff and ourselves into the truck and headed east.  No we did not leave Steve at home. He spent the previous day working in Pittsburgh so our first stop was to pick him up at his hotel. After lots of loving from Tucker we were once again on the road. I was amazed at how well the truck did on the highway, and how comfortable it was the entire trip.

We visited with Mark & MaryKate and the dogs.
CJ didn't go back to PopPop's house with us.
He opted for a fun filled night with M & MK.

Mark really liked CJ's NCIS hat.

While Steve helped with renovations to MK's kitchen CJ & I went to visit Bunny.

Presents were piled around the tree.

Bunny started with her donut from 7-11.

Bunny and I posing with her new ice/snow scraper. It should be long enough to clean off the entire width of the car.

Testing out the new binoculars.

CJ was thrilled with his gift from Bunny. It was the final book of the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini. It was about 3.5 years between books.

 He spent quite a bit of the rest of the visit and the trip home reading it.
The book was worth every bit of the wait.

After our visit and present opening, we picked up Swati and headed over to the Morris Arboretum. It was a beautiful day and lots of other people were there too. Even saw someone in a OSU sweatshirt.

They have this giant structure, tree house, that includes a human size robin's nest, complete with eggs that need someone to sit on them, to incubate them of course.

.
CJ & Aunt Swati

I was the biggest kid playing on the ropes.

Ahhh...sunshine.

CJ and Bunny listening to the sounds of the creatures living in the woods.

The main attraction was the Christmas Railway!

We then met up with Dan who had been working on erecting new fencing in the Wissahickon.

We ate at a little deli/restaurant in the park. The sandwiches were yummy and they had small bags of sweet potato chips the were mmm,mmm, good. Wish we had them in C-bus.

For those of you who are skeptical about bamboo being a sustainable wood source. The tall green trees are bamboo. There are pockets of bamboo just like this all through out this area of Philly. Plant one stalk, get a wall of bamboo in no time at all.

On Saturday, Dan lead CJ and I through the park on one of the newly created trails (while Swati went for a run). This area had been a meadow and then was overrun by non native plants and trees. The Friends of the Wissahickon have worked hard to turn it back into a meadow.

The rock bench CJ & Dan are sitting on was placed there by Dan (and some helpers) as a place for weary hikers to rest. These two weren't weary, just getting out of the way of a couple of mountain bikers.

The stroll through the meadow was enjoyable. We made many stops to look at the rocks; quartz, mica, schist with garnets, and even an interesting mushroom.

 From here we could look down and see the creek, Forbidden Drive and the covered bridge.

 After a quick stop at PopPop's we were off to MK & M's house to see how the renovations were coming. Here you see CJ on guard duty. His job was to keep the dogs out of the mess of the kitchen.

He's doing an impressive job, don't you think!!!