Snow Covered Spring Grove Cemetery

This past Saturday, after the big snowfall we had received the night before, Antoine and I decided to bundle up and head over to Spring Grove Cemetery to take a walk and snap some pictures.  Neither of us had ever been to Spring Grove during the winter months and I'd been told by a friend and coworker how lovely it is blanketed in snow, so I was eager to check it out.  Since it was so snowy there were really many other people there, which was nice...though that proved to be a little bit of a problem after two hours of walking when we got ourselves lost.  Luckily after three hours of wandering around we were able to find our way back to our car, with the assistance of a map (which a nice security guard had given us earlier in our visit).  If it hadn't been for that map we probably would have been out there 4 or 5 hours.

Still, being lost has its advantages...we got to see parts of the grounds that we've never been to before.  I even stumbled across a new favorite grave stone/monument. Here's some of the photos from our little adventure...

My new favorite monument...

If you can't tell from the photo, she's a mermaid!  With fish swimming around her tail!  Isn't she beautiful!? 

I couldn't resist.  He's just so cute all bundled up!

Snow flowers!  Antoine actually spotted these in the midst of us being lost.  I love having him around when I'm taking pictures, he points out things that I don't always see.  In this case I was paying more attention to the gravestones/monuments at my eye-line and he was looking up!

Another new discovery (for us), this (and another) gravestone with a petrified log on top of it!  So cool to see up close, especially this large of a piece!

We also came across this nearly hidden mausoleum!  So neat.

After our little adventure we rewarded ourselves for finding out way out by ordering and devouring some tasty Dewey's pizza.  We were both pretty tired afterwards, but I'm so glad we went and explored.  Spring Grove is so gorgeous in the snow, I highly recommend checking it out sometime!

Life Lately (in Instagram)

My apologies for my absence lately, but frankly I've just been too lazy lately to blog.  A horrible excuse, I know, but it's hard to motivate yourself to take pictures and whatnot when it's cold outside!  But now I'm back and I've got some photos to share later this week!  Before I get to that though I thought I'd play catch-up with some Instagram photos so I can share with you what I've been up to lately.

First off, I've done my fair share of baking lately...

The newest member of our department, Ashleigh's, birthday was at the beginning of February so I made her this ginger-lime cake with marshmallow frosting.  I also made some candied ginger for a garnish, since she loves ginger so much!

To celebrate my 29th birthday I made this amazingly delicious pretzel, salted caramel cheesecake.  I actually made it the weekend before my birthday while my parents were in town and my oh my it was good!

If you live in or around Cincinnati you'll already know about the string of delays and closures in the past month for the University of Cincinnati.  For me this meant that there were a couple mornings, here and there, where I got to sleep in late, drink my coffee in bed, cuddle with the cat and watch Star Trek all day while wearing my pjs; it was awesome!

Oh, as if I hadn't been ingesting enough calories one night I decided to whip up some hand pies.  I made two kinds, strawberry nutella ones (left) and pulled pork ones (right).  Both were quite tasty!

This guy.  Not only does he always steal my seat on the couch when I get up, but he steals my pillows and positions himself under my blanket!  Oh, Cheese.

While my seat was being stolen by said basset, I was making banana pecan pancakes and bacon for Antoine and I!

For giggles, Cheese posing with my empty coffee cup!

For my actual birthday Antoine took me to the Palm Court downtown for their Sunday brunch buffet.  I'd heard about it but never been.  My goodness, it was amazing!!  The bread pudding rocked my world!  And afterwards I was so comatose that A and I had to go back home and take a nap.

After our nap I just couldn't get out of my pjs, they were too comfortable, so we decided to take it easy and watch Saving Mr. Banks.  And I made Cheesy pose for this picture with me.

Melting icicles.

Round three of my birthday celebration included an amazing night out with my sister, Michelle, and our friend, Helene.  We went to Cooper Hawk and did a wine tasting, got pretty tipsy, and then enjoyed a wonderful dinner.  What a wonderful night!

We got another round of snow this Friday, which Cheese was pretty happy about!  He loves playing around in the snow, especially when it's not below zero!

Guillermo, my furry stalker on cold nights.  He's perpetually glued to my lap in the evenings.

This past Saturday Antoine and I went to Spring Grove Cemetery since neither of us had ever been in the winter before.  It was so beautiful, but more on that later!

On Sunday we wanted to take Cheese to the dog park but once we got there we found out it was closed.  But we still took Cheese for a walk and threw snowballs to him!  He loves catching snowballs, it's his favorite winter hobby!

That's been my life lately, it's been pretty great if you ask me!  Stay tuned later this week for some snowy Spring Grove photos.

Snowy Wonderland

I loved all the beautiful snow we got last week, but sadly it didn't last long.  Now it's just frigid temps and practically no snow, and it's kind of bumming me out.  Especially when I look at these photos I took last Thursday and Friday after we got a couple inches of fluffy, white snow...

After it had been snowing all day on Thursday, I decided to leave work a bit early (fearing bad traffic/drivers) and then headed over to French Park with Cheese for a quick walk before it got dark.

Cheesy really wanted to play with the kids that were sledding!

I'm so used to going on these little outings with Antoine, so there's someone to hold onto Cheese while I snap away with my camera.  Trying to hold Cheese (who keeps pulling me in every direction) while I'm taking pictures proved to be trickier than I expected! Plus after about 10 minutes my hands felt like they were going to snap right off!  It was still a good time though.  

The following night I snapped a couple photos of our backyard when I got home from work, just as the sun was a about to set.

I looking forward to hopefully a little more snow this winter.  Antoine and I have high hopes of a possible sledding adventure with the Cheese-man, so we shall see.  I shouldn't complain too much about the lack of snow though, considering I just got two paid days off from work because the university closed. 

Fall on Film

Happy new year everyone!  My new year celebration was pretty mellow since I've never been a big new years person.  Antoine and I just lounged around and ate some homemade flan.  I spent most of my new years day off from work baking like a crazy person, because that's what I do!  Anyway, back to 35mm film...

Along with the roll of black & white I had developed, I also took in an ancient color roll with 36 exposures on it.  I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but I'm pretty pleased.  It's basically a hodgepodge of Fall pictures, some from Spring Grove Cemetery, some from French Park and some from Wellington, OH.

The ginkgo trees at Spring Grove.

Can you tell I have a thing for French Park?

Cheese's "Elvis" face!

Handsome man!

Mohican State Park.

One of the many fantastic old houses in Wellington.

These photos make me miss Fall.  I've hated this in-between weather we've been having lately.  I, unlike a lot of people out there, love the snow, so I'm very pleased to see the flakes falling this morning.  Stay safe and warm out there!