Conkle's Hollow State Nature Preserve

After our little visit to the farm my parents went back to the cabin because it was just too cold outside.  But us "kids" decided to head over to Conkle's Hollow for a very small hike, basically until we couldn't stand the cold anymore.  Michelle and I had been to Conkle's Hollow for the first time this past March when we had our girls weekend in Hocking Hills, but neither Christian or Antoine had been so it was an obvious choice!  On the way we stopped by the visitor center to use the restroom and check out the Pencil Sharpener Museum; seriously, it's a thing!  Just to give you an idea of how cold it was that November weekend in Ohio...

This was a small mill wheel outside the visitor's center that froze.  But at least it made for a pretty picture.

A tree outside the visitor's center.  Look at that crazy blue sky!

After our short little stop we headed toward Conkle's Hollow, which was just 15 minutes or so down the road.  The nice thing about Conkle's Hollow is, as a hiker, you have options.  You can either take the easy, paved 1 mile trail (wheelchair accessible) to the waterfall or the more complex, 2 1/2 mile rim trail.  Since it was so chilly we decided to stick with the easy trail, though I really really want to go back and do the rim trail sometime, the photos of it online look incredible (especially in the fall).

We had a nice little hike, but we were certainly happy to get out of the cold and back into the car.

Weekend in Instagram

I don't know about you, but I had a delightful snowy weekend.  It all started when my work closed at 1pm due to predicted snow in the forecast.  I ended up using the extra free time to address our holiday cards and finalize who's getting what for Christmas.  So, time well spent!  Then, on Friday evening Antoine and I took Cheese for a walk in the snow, which he loves.

His favorite is catching and eating snowballs!  It's so cute.

Our front porch may or may not still be adorned with pumpkins that are now covered in snow.

On Saturday I spent most of the day in the kitchen.  First, I made a batch of the Novice Chef's wonderful peanut butter dog biscuits to give as holiday gifts.

And lucky for Cheese I accidentally broke a couple of the biscuits during baking, so he got the broken bits.

After I was done with the dog biscuits, Antoine and I busted out our new Dyson that we got ourselves for Xmas this year!  We got a really great deal on it, thanks to a friend of his.  It's insane how much it picks up!  And it's so light and so easy to push, we love it!

After our fun with the Dyson, I whipped up a batch of these brown butter pecan sandies.  I was making them for a Christmas party we were supposed to on Sunday but ended up not going to because of the weather/roads.  But they turned out well and were quite tasty, so I was happy to have a couple extras to munch on!

Later on Sunday, after the roads were cleared, we decided to take Cheese to the dog park.  There weren't many people/dogs there, but he still ran around like a psychopath.  And of course Antoine made non-yellow snowballs to toss at him...and I lucked into this killer shot of him mid-devour!

We spent the evening watching Breaking Bad and relaxing.  The animals did the same.  I love this photo because it totally shows the hierarchy of the animals in the house.  Cheese might occasionally chase after Guillermo, but Gui is definitely calling the shots!

How was your weekend!  I gotta say, I love that we got snow before Christmas.  It always feels weird when Christmas comes and goes and we still haven't had snow.  Here's hoping for a white holiday, I'm a sucker for a snowy Xmas, even if I have to drive in it!

On the Farm

Snowmageddon, it's coming!  Apparently.  I was kind of hoping UC would close today so I could stay home and read all day, but it did not.  Still, here's hoping I get to go home early...before it gets too bad.  If it even gets that bad, you can never trust the forecast!

Anyway, back to Hocking Hills.  While my family was celebrating our early Thanksgiving there, my lovely sister sweet talked the friendly proprietor of the cabin we were renting into letting us come by his farm and moon over the animals.  My sis is like me and will take any opportunity to pet some cute farm animals!  So after filling up on a big breakfast we bundled up and headed over to the farm.  Lucky for us it was beautiful outside, well, minus the fact that it was freezing...

The goats came right over to us, but were disappointed when they realized that we didn't have any food for them.

On of the newest additions to the proprietor's farm was a group of eight alpacas.  They were still a little skittish around people, but made some pretty adorable/comical faces!

This one is my favorite...it cracks me up!

Of course there were some horses, though they didn't want to have too much to do with us for some reason.

By far the best part of the farm?  All the cats!  He had nine super affectionate cats that were following us around and were either being adorable/hysterical. 

These were some of my favorites, Snowball (top right), Fuzz (bottom right), and their mom (left), whose name I can't remember.  Fuzz was definitely Antoine and my favorite, though Snowball was pretty hilarious!

Oh, Fuzz!  I would have taken him home in a second if I could have.  He was so sweet!

Snowball was such a clown!  He was going around attacking the other cats' tails, and then he started chasing his own.  So cute!

Cuteness overload!

Alright, I think that's enough cute for one day!  I hope everyone has a killer Friday and a wonderful weekend!  Stay warm.

Butterfly

I know, I've been slacking on blogging again...as Antoine likes to remind me!  Things have just been busy and hectic lately, though I'll admit I didn't do anything over the long holiday weekend except watch Lost and snuggle up on the couch with Cheese.  But can you blame me?  It was chilly and technically I was on vacation.  Anyway, I'm still working on my photos from my family's weekend in Hocking Hills.  But to tide you over here's some shots of a monarch butterfly who decided to hang outside our house for a couple days in October.  We initially found him lounging around by our front porch looking a little wary, so I put him on a leaf and transported him to a safe, less windy portion of our porch.  Then after I took far too many photos of him, I moved him to the basil plant on our back porch.