Hiking

 

 On Veteran's Day I took the boys to hike Old Rag.  It has been on my bucket list for years and now that the boys are older and can do more 'grown up' things, the time had come.  We stayed at this awesome ranch that my friend lives on.  It is sweet!!  The boys loved it and keep asking "when can we go back?" 

 

  

My friends son put out this trap to catch a rabbit but caught this possum instead.  When he went to tell his dad what he caught the dad said they'd shoot it later.  The eyes on my boys head went wide and asked if they could stay to see that!  The answer was no, we'd be hiking but they kept asking along the hike if I thought they killed it yet.  Such boys!

 Off to hike!

  It was a good/tough climb.  Things I heard along the trail:

"Why are we doing this?"

"Why did we even come here?"

"When are the bears coming out?"

"How much further?"

"I can't believe we haven't seen any bears yet?"

"This is great!"

"This is so fun!"

"This is AWESOME!"

"Do you think we will see bears on the way down?"

 The trail had these huge rocks all over.  It was boy heaven.  

They didn't really care so much for the hiking.  

They just loved climbing the rocks.

 

 

 

It was fun trying to squeeze through and pull yourself up and over all the rocks.

  Definitely the boys favorite part.

 

 

 

Christian is trying to get a little inspiration.

Photo Bombed by Diego!

Poor Anthony was done by the end.  The whole hike was about 9miles round trip and he was pooped.  It didn't help that when we got to the bottom of the mountain we still had 2 1/2 miles to go to get to the car.  He cried a good mile.  All I could think was "Please let us see a bear...that would make Anthony so happy!"  He was the one who kept asking "When are the bears coming out?!"

 By the time we got back in the car we were all pooped. 

 It was a great day with great weather. 

 We plan on doing it again!

The next Bear Grylls

We are on a kick of watching survival shows here at our house.  Diego has figured out how to catch fish with a water bottle and little bits of bread.  He is quite good at it.  I have decided it would be ok to get stranded somewhere with Diego.  He knows his stuff.

Looking for the fish.

Attracting the fish with bread.

This is what I see as he's setting up his trap.

  I'm thinking I don't want to know what made all those holes.

 It's hard to tell but there are fish swimming all around the bottle.

He pushes the bottle down so the fish can swim in easier.

His catch!

  Earlier in the day he fed the ones he caught to his turtle.

Ohio Trip

 Two weeks ago the boys and I loaded up the van with my mom and niece and took off for Ohio.  The boys had been counting down the days until we left....they were excited!  It was such a laid-back fun trip. 

Anthony couldn't wait to get into this red car. 

 He talked about it all the time.

 It was one of the first things he looked for when we arrived.

 He loved driving Autumn around in it.

The boys couldn't wait to get on the trampoline either.  I gave it a go myself and it brought back a lot of memories of jumping on our friends growing up.  

Our first night brought us to this great park.  We came to do paddle boats but they were closed for renovations.  It had this great park though which the kids enjoyed.

 

 

 

 Before Monique left with Corinne to girls camp, I had told her that every time I try to make her rolls they never come out so she decided we were gonna make some right then.  They were great and the boys loved them. The next day I tried to make them on my own and it worked.  The dough doubled in size...the only problem was that I forgot the salt!  But I got the dough to rise and I was happy.  They weren't too bad but salt is important!

  

One of the days we went to Kings Island.  We did not do our annual Kings Dominion trip knowing we would hopefully go when we came to Ohio.  It was a lot of fun with cousins.  For the first part of the day it was me with all the kids.  We headed to the water park first and did a few water rides there and then the kids wanted to go ride the rides.  The older group when off and rode the rides Jayden and Anthony weren't tall enough for.  I took those two to Snoopy Land and realized (again) that Anthony is not a roller coaster fan.  The look on his face was priceless when we went on the mini-roller coaster.  He was gripping the handle bar so hard and his eyes, they were big!

Because my brother lives so close, we came home for dinner and went back in the evening with my brother to ride the really good ones.  We left the smaller kids home with my mom.  It was great! Since my nephew goes there frequently he knows where all the cameras are on the coasters and it was fun to look at the pics afterwards to see his funny pose.  He can be pretty creative!

This roller coaster was the worst one ever!  Hated it!!!  They lay you on your back as you go up the hill and then flip you right before you go down the big hill.  The second picture shows you how you ride the ride the whole time.  You are suppose to feel like you are a hawk.  Horrible!!  Closed my eyes the whole time because when I peaked once it looked like you were plummeting to your death.  Hated it!! Can you believe that Diego was in the front car with my brother and his son?  Crazy!!!

A must on the list was to go to "Jungle Jim's".  This weird grocery store was an experience.  They have food from all over the world.  My brother said that the deal was you had to pick something from a different country that you had never had before.  The hunt was on...  

Diego and Christian ended up getting something from the bakery.  They also got these drinks that you had to open by pushing the marble down into the bottle.  Anthony ended up getting a Lunchable.  Not very exotic but he's never had one from Ohio.

So these are the bathrooms in the grocery store.  Very unique.  

 It took some convincing to get Autumn to sit on "the throne."

One night we made S'mores.  Always a party.

 

 There had been several attempts to make "glow bottles" earlier in the week which had failed.  Gave it one last shot and just decided it is basically a glow stick in a water bottle.  Made for good laughs though.

 

 One highlight was the playing of FIFA.  There was lots of yelling which brought back many memories of my brothers and dad getting excited over some sport they were watching on tv.  Here is Jared taking on Diego in a rematch.