Water Park!

The next day of my visit on Braden's birthday weekend, we took him to the water park near Jill's house. This was one of the best city water parks I've ever been to. There was a huge pool with waterfalls, mushrooms, slides, and dumping water frogs. Also, there was a kiddie pool with a rubber bottom. (Although they didn't put much thought into putting cement water shooting whales and seals. Hello, trip and hit your head!) And last but not least they had a kiddie slide.


At first Braden was shy about the water park thing. He wasn't going in deep, and didn't want water to dump on him. Well, that didn't last long at all! Before we knew it, he wanted to go down the slide, get the frogs to dump on him, and amazingly, we went under the waterfall mushroom- a lot! He can even go underwater and not freak out! Once he got this comfortable, it was hard to keep up with him! No wonder Jill wanted to come with me. At almost 9 months pregnant, it wasn't easy to keep up with a 2 year old. So, I chased him around! We had a great time at the water park. It was perfect, because it was sweltering hot out! Afterwards, we went to Graeters for some blue ice cream. What a perfect day! I even go a little tan! :o)
How adorable is he in his shades, ready to play!
This is the soft kiddie pool area with cement whales! Genius.

This is the big pool, and if you look under the guard's chair, you can see the mushroom that we went under, again, and again, and again... It was fun to play peek-a-boo around the pole in the middle!

These are the dumping water frogs that we'd sit under.

Here's Braden, running away to get back in the water!

Empty water slide during break, but not for long!

Going down with mom!

Presents!!

After our fish dinner, and unlimited candle blowing out, it was time for presents!!

What was in the big box??

Braden had no problems opening it right up! I gave him his first tee ball set! I've played softball since I was very little, and thought that he was ready for a new sport! His new big boy room was decorated in sports, but I knew he needed to learn baseball. Brad, Jill's husband is big into soccer, and their family is big into football, so it only seemed fitting that someone needed to introduce baseball!

Here is Braden inspecting his new toy! So, here we are, learning how to swing. Braden is definitely right handed. I showed him how to hold the bat, swing sideways, and run to a base!
He is brilliant, and picked it up quickly! Soon, he was hitting them "outta the park!"

He loved it!

In this video, Braden really got the hang of swinging, and getting the ball on his tee.

This video Braden was smashing the ball "outta the park!"

Cake Time Videos

Sorry about the sideways video, I don't know how to change it. This is the beginning of the Happy Birthday Marathon!

Braden was having a good old time, blowing out his candle again and again, until Mommy blew out the candle for him! You can see by his face (hilarious) that he wasn't happy with this, and quickly said, "Braden's turn!" So cute!

Braden's Birthday- Cake Time!

(June 25th)

I can't believe that Little B is 2 already! I went down to Dayton to spend the weekend with Jill and him to celebrate his birthday! We had a wonderful weekend, and did lots of fun things. I got there Friday afternoon, which was Braden's actual birthday. We started celebrating by going to a few party stores to pick out party supplies for his party the following weekend. I had wanted to get him an Elmo balloon, and we found the perfect one! He loved it! Here is Braden, riding home with his new balloon! One of our stops was to Olive Garden for Jill craving of chocolate gelato. I have to admit, it was very good, so no complaints from me or Braden! Sadly, they were taking the gelato off the menu after they ran out. While we waited for our ice cream, I taught Braden to read the dessert menu. It's funny, because he's very good at remembering pictures and what they are. He learned some fancy Italian dessert names including gelato and tiramisu.

We went to make his requested birthday dinner of "fish". Braden woke up in the morning, and Jill asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner, and he said "fish." All day, we were laughing about it, because, every time we asked what he wanted he said "fish!" How funny that a 2 year old wants fish, so that's what a 2 year old got, and he ate every bite!

After dinner, it was decided that Braden needed a cake for his birthday, which I think he was very happy to have. Here we are, decorating his very own cake!And then the fun begins..( I have some hilarious videos that I'll do in the next post)

Braden had the best time blowing out his candle! I was impressed that he actually understood how to do it. We repeated this several times!

Little B and his cake!

Lighting it again!

What a nice cake! And yes, it tasted even better than it looked! Braden just jumped right in and took a big bite of cake! No forks required!

This pic is a little blurry, but I just love the mischievous grin on Braden's face after he bit the cake!

One big lick!

Here's Jill and her birthday boy!

This quickly became very fun for Braden to eat the cake just like this!

Here is Braden "licking" (eating) his candle!

One...

Big...

Bite!

Then we decided to cut him a real piece to enjoy! That cake was GOOD!

And then we blew out candles again, and again, and again.........to be continued with video!

Alicia's Baby Shower

My good friend at work Alicia, is having her first baby in a matter of days! She will have a little boy named Jordan! She is very excited as this is her first child ever! Good luck on your delivery Alicia! Can't wait to meet your little one!

Here's highlights from her baby shower back in June. Alicia and her family are Jamacian, so instead of it being a "girls only" event, the entire family gets together to celebrate! It was pretty fun! The food at her party was superbly authentic Jamacian cuisine. I ate delicious jerk chicken, peas and rice, and also curried goat! Everything was fantastic in celebration of little Jordan!

Alicia and her cakeSideways cake pictureMe and Alicia

All the fun presents!

She looks happy about this box!

And then the joke knit booties I got her... Alicia was joking at work and said that she was glad I was coming to her party because she really wanted my hand knit booties! I was like, "I don't knit! Why do you think I knit?" She just thought I looked like a knitter! Then we were lauging about it, and did a survery of the people at the office who thought I knit. 3/5 people thought I was capable of being a knitter! For the record, I am a failed knitter. I tried to knit once with a book, and made what turned out to be a scarf big enough to fit a cat, and never figured out how to tie the ends, so currently it's still on the sticks... So I had to find a pair of little boy knit booties to pretend was my creation for her! It was pretty funny.

Bahama Breeze

I was lucky enough that during the preparation for the garage sale that my good friend BriAnne was visiting Cleveland. She lives in Syracuse, NY now, but I became friends with her through work before she moved back to her home town. When she was here, she had time to sneak away to get lunch with me at our favorite restaurant, Bahama Breeze! We love everything about the place, especially the fabulous pina coladas! We had such a fun time! Miss you Bri!

They really know how to welcome you here! How did they know?... Bri caught me taking this picture... So very delicious! It's almost hard to eat food when there are drinks this good! We'll be back again! And again, and again, and again...

Strawberry Picking

Saturday morning of the garage sale, I left Robb in charge, and went off to pick whatever strawberries were left in Ohio. This was the last day of picking, and although I went the week before, I didn't think that we had enough, since I picked alone. I went to Patterson's Fruit Farm and managed to scrape up a box. Hopefully next year Robb can not work the strawberry picking Saturday, and we can get double amount in the first round.Patterson's BarnI thought I'd get at least 2 boxes.Strawberry fieldPeople picking

Apple trees, not ready yet!

All I got.

Only leaves left on these strawberry plants! Until next year!

The Garage Sale

We got a flyer in the beginning of June from a group of neighbors saying they were having a garage sale that we could join. Robb and I have been meaning to have a garage sale for years, and now we really needed to because our construction of our bedroom couldn't happen with all the stuff in it. Pretty much since we moved in, we've been putting things in the attic that we didn't know what to do with. This was the perfect motivation to clean out the attic, as more people usually come to a neighborhood garage sale, than to a single home sale. The first step was going through everything in the attic, and deciding if we wanted to keep, sell, or throw away. I think that this step was the most work, and time consuming. It took a whole weekend and a few days during the week.

Before, in the attic

Everything went into the living room, and then we took those loads to the garage

Not for sale!!

Look, we have hardwood floors up here!

The week before the garage sale, we got all of our tables, and moved out what we had in the garage onto the tables.I can't believe that we had this much stuff!The garage sale stretched 3/4 of our driveway!We put the tables in the garage, so they were ready to go in the morning.I worked from home Friday so I could sell, but Robb had to work. I had a lot of setting up to do before the 8 o'clock start time. (It really started at 9, but apparently old people garage sale shoppers don't care what you say, still come early, but we were warned of this.)The finished product!I sat at this table until about 10, when I got a fan and moved into the garage in the shade. It was really hot when we had our sale!

Having a garage sale was an interesting experience. People are so cheap it was insulting. Some stupid lady wanted to buy a new suitcase that was priced at $10, and I told her I'd sell it for $5. She goes, "can I get it for $3?" NO!!!! It was already half price, and she left!! Really, $5 for a brand new suitcase was a great deal, whatever.

Also, people were funny with our cherry tree. We have a huge cherry tree by our garage that was dropping cherries constantly on the sale table underneath it. I must've swept them at least 10 times throughout the day. The cherries themselves are little and we've never thought to eat them, cause we don't know what kind of tree it is. This random guy was shopping, and walked right up to our tree, plucked off a handful, and started eating them! I shouted at him to stop, since they might be poisonous, but he just kept popping them into his mouth, saying they were good! He told me that they were sour cherries, and he's eaten them since he was little. I tried one, and it was VERY sour. I have no clue what anyone would make with such a sour cherry! That same day, another lady did the same thing as the guy. Walked right up to our tree and started eating the cherries! Maybe, I should start selling these each year! What a weird bunch of people who shop garage sales.

All in all the sale was a huge success! We made a little money, made a huge tax deduction, and got rid of all of this stuff. It really makes turning our attic into our bedroom much more realistic! Amazingly, NOTHING, came back in the house!!