Family Cabin Weekend in Instagram

This weekend my parents, sister, brother-in-law, Antoine, and I went to Hocking Hills for our annual Thanksgiving cabin weekend.  It's a weekend of fun, food and wii dance battles.  Good times!

Before I woke up Antoine on Saturday to get ready and hit the road, I snapped this photo of Gui being adorable!

What's the first thing we did when we got to the cabin, after putting the turkey in the oven, Antoine and I whipped up a batch of potent margaritas!  Delicious.

My sis was very happy that it started snowing, though it was only a dusting.

After our early Thanksgiving feast and more margaritas we had a wii dance battle and I took a picture of the ceiling...that's where the rest of the night was headed.  But it was good times.

Surprisingly I woke up Sunday without a hangover, by some miracle.  Antoine and I whipped up some breakfast and then we headed over to the cabin owners farm to play with his barn cats and check out his assortment of animals, which was tons of fun.  Then the kids all went for a little hike in Hocking Hills State Park while my parents took it easy.  For dinner we had leftover Thanksgiving sandwiches...

...followed by some more margaritas.  Antoine and I then decided to do a couple shots of tequila because I never head before.  I'm a fan!  Love the combination of the salt and lime with the tequila.

We finished off the night with more Just Dance and bowling on the wii.  Then Monday morning we packed up and all headed home.

I spent the last bit of my day off making scones for a work party. (Made with jams that I've made and canned myself!)

And of course I had to snuggle up on the couch with Cheese, while enjoying my favorite ginger ale!

That was my weekend!  How was your weekend?

Light Through the Trees

Happy Friday everyone!  I am so glad it's Friday because I've got a long weekend ahead of me, my family's annual cabin weekend, and a long to-do list.  Though my list is considerably shorter now that my wonderful boyfriend decided to clean half of the house, bathe the dog and do the dishes last night while I was seeing Catching Fire with the girls.  Seriously Antoine, you are the best!

Before I start packing for this (hopefully) fun, chaotic weekend ahead I wanted to share the last of my photos from Mohican State Park.  As my sister and I were walking through the woods, the light was cascading through the trees in the most beautiful way.  And although I tried, I really wasn't able to capture just how spectacular it was, but I'll share the photos I took anyway...

Oh Fall, I love you!  Those sometimes subtle, sometimes vibrant shades of gold, amber and crimson against the still green leaves is just so beautiful.  Like I said, I'm definitely going to make a point to visiting Mohican once it starts to warm up.  Every time I visit and explore a new park, especially a state park, I realize just how much beauty there is in Ohio that I just haven't experienced before even though I've lived here my whole life.  Do you have any favorite parks in Ohio?  I'm always looking for suggestions.  Some of my favorites that I've visited so far have been Hocking Hills and Cuyahoga Valley National Park (which I need to explore more)!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Mohican State Park

After our little walk through Wellington, my parents, my sister and I grabbed a late breakfast before Michelle and I hit the road.  After breakfast, instead of heading straight to Cincinnati, Michelle and I decided to take a little detour and do a little bit a hiking in Mohican State Park.  Mohican is only an hour away from where I grew up, but for some reason we never really went there.  I think I've only been there once or twice before my sis and I went, and that was to go canoeing.  It's definitely a place I want to check out again when I go to visit my parents, especially once the weather gets nicer.  

The covered bridge right by the hiking trail we took...unfortunately I could get a very good photo of it because people and cars kept getting in my way.

On either side of the bridge there was a little pedestrian walkway, this is the one my sister and I took.  It was very scary and very creaky.  On our way back to the car we decided to walk through the tunnel on the pavement, just to be safe.

Like I said it was a short walk, but I have a little collection of photos from the same hike that I'll be sharing tomorrow.  So I'll see you then.

A Walk in Wellington

Back at the beginning of November, my sister and I went traveled to northern Ohio to visit our parents and grandparents.  We got into my parents late Friday night, it's about a three and a half hour drive from Cincinnati.  Saturday morning we woke up early and went to the local butcher slaughterhouse to stock up on meat to take back home.  I know that sounds weird, but growing up we always went there (either to have an animal slaughtered and processed when we had a farm or to buy good meat when we didn't).  It's a great little family owned and operated place that supplies their meat from their own family-run farms.  And in this era of factory farming, it's a place I've come to really respect and admire.  Plus their meat is affordable and delicious!  Seriously, their bacon is insane...thick cut and not at all fatty.  Mmm, now I want bacon.

Anyway, back to visiting my parents...after Turks, we headed over to my grandparents to sit and visit with them.  Then we grabbed an late lunch/early dinner with Amanda and Aaron at Melt in Cleveland Heights.  It was a busy day of driving around and visiting, but it was great!  On Sunday, before hitting the road, my parents, sister and I headed into Wellington to get some coffee and take a walk.  See, my parents live in the middle of nowhere, so the nearest real town (Wellingon, or Ashland if you go south) is about 15 minutes down the road.  Wellington is always a town I've loved, because of it's beautiful homes and quaint charm, and it's so pretty in the Fall!

I've never noticed that this building says "cheese" on it, it made me love the town even more than I already did!

The Town Hall

Like I said, one of the most intriguing aspects of Wellington are the gorgeous homes that line the streets.  Here's some of my favorites...

I've got a bunch more Autumnal northern Ohio photos to share later this week so stay tuned!

Nearly the End of Autumn

Fall is by far my favorite season.  It's true that I go absolutely bananas in the Springtime when everything starts to bloom.  I do love flowers, probably a little too much, but as far as whole seasons go Autumn wins it for me.  The colors, the weather, the smell in the air.  The cider, the crunch of leaves, and the sweatshirts, sweaters and hoodies.  Oh, and the pumpkins!  Pumpkins are one of my most favorite things ever.  Picking them, carving them, the different sizes and shapes.  I'm just nuts about them and about Fall!  I know I'm not the only one.  And I'm sure I won't be the only one to say the Fall seemed to fly by this year, in the blink of an eye.  One minute we were still sweating in the summer heat and then BOOM! nearly all the leaves had fallen off the trees.  It's not cool.  But in the end, it just makes me appreciate it all the more.

Last weekend Antoine and I took Cheese to French Park for a little walk through the woods, one last hooray before Fall was officially gone.  Here's some of the photos I snapped while we were there...

I loved how these leaves were almost a coral-pink color.

Cheesy loves our little adventures in the woods, and French Park always seems to make his nose go crazy.  He never gets tired of that place, and neither do we!

Hopefully next year Fall decides to stick around just a little bit longer.  That would be awesome!  Someone get on that, okay?

The Basset Hound and the Leaf

Happy Friday, everyone!  I'm home sick with some nasty cold thing, but I thought I'd share some cute gifs of Cheese trying to eat a leaf.  He's so silly, I don't know why he thought the leaf was food?  Even after he got a hold of it the first time and realized it wasn't something delicious, he continued to go after it!  Oh, Cheese.

Long Weekend in Instagram

I've been feeling crappy lately, so excuse me for taking so long to post.  And I apologize that all I have for you are some Instagram photos, but that's that.  Anyway, it was a nice long weekend for us since we had Veteran's day off from work, so here we go...

It started off with some basset-snuggling.  Cheese has been glued to my lap lately.  It might be because he loves me, or it could be the heated blanket I've had draped over my lap lately.  Hmm, I wonder?

I woke up early on Saturday, so while Antoine was still snoozing away Cheese snuggled with me while I read.

After Antoine woke up we made breakfast together and then got ready for a day of running errands.

Sunday morning I helped Antoine whip up some sausage gravy, and he was nice enough to make me a egg and cheese sandwich (with a little sausage gravy on top).

Sunday was a lazy day.  I hung out with the animals (Gui got in some snuggling time of his own) and that evening whipped up a batch of Montreal-style bagels. 

Monday morning I made a quick stop by Spring Grove to use up some film and enjoy the lovely golden Ginkgo trees.

Then I headed over to a friend/coworker's house, where she taught a little bookbinding workshop for some of the ladies I work with.  We also ate some delicious food and chatted, it was wonderful.

This is commonly known as a Secret Belgium Binding.  I made two during  the workshop, this butterfly one and a dog one.

After the workshop, Antoine and I headed over to the new(ish) movie theater near our house to finally see Gravity.  They were only showing it in 3D (which I'm generally not crazy about because I'm always worried it is going to give me a headache), but it was great!  So suspenseful and beautiful, we both really enjoyed it!  And that was our weekend!  How was your weekend?!