Niagara Falls

We had another fun couple of days during Jack's break and went to Niagara Falls with some of our good friends from Michigan. Thanks Rachel and Chris for such a fun time!
It was only a 4 hour drive to Niagara Falls from our place and Jaxon did pretty well in the car.
Our very first view of the falls.
Jaxon's first view of the Falls.
Exploring around Niagara Falls.
The area around the Falls (Clifton Hill) was kind of "Vegas" like to us, with lots of attractions, TONS of haunted houses and wax museums and lots of lights, food, and sounds. It was fun walking around.We got to do a couple of the Niagara Falls Experience type things too. Our favorite by far was the Maid of the Mist boat ride. In the picture below, you can see how close these boats get to the falls.Here's us getting ready to board the boat. I was impressed they even had little kid size rain ponchos for Jaxon.
Unfortunately, the rain ponchos didn't do much to keep the spray of the falls off of us and we ended up getting soaked. You can barely see Jack and Chris behind all the other tourists in the spray of the falls.But it was pretty cool to get so close to the falls.
We also did the Walk Behind the Falls.
All in all, it was a FABULOUS vacation. What a fun get away that really wasn't too far away. We got to enjoy some good food and great weather too. Sorry for all the pictures, but if you didn't get enough, we have more here. :o)

Zoo Day

We've been having so much fun with Jack home during his break. Btw, wanted to say I am sooooo proud of Jack for being a great hard working student. He has worked SOOOO HARD this past year and has done well and gotten through it! Hooooray!
Anyhow, so we've been trying to cram as much into this week as possible. So more posts to come with more fun activities.
We started off the week at the Cleveland Zoo, which is free for us to go on Mondays all year round, which is TERRIFIC for us!
Here's a bunch of pictures from the FABULOUS day we had.
We had an early start and so did many other students! :o)
It was fun bumping into so many people we knew at the zoo.
First animal we got to see was the lion. It was so exciting to have Jaxon actually react to the animals we got to see. One of my personal favorites was the koalas. We got to see them so up close and they were soooo cute.
Jaxon's favorite was probably the monkeys. He would just laugh and laugh while they swung around and jumped around their cage.
The aquarium was also really neat and we got to see lots of cool fishes and of course some sharks.
The Australian part was fun too. Especially for Jack, who got to try out some kangaroo ears. :o)
We were a little too far away from the real ones to really interest Jaxon though.
There was also a "petting zoo" type area where you could get right up to the farm animals. Jaxon got to pet some of the animals and thought it was pretty cool.
Here are just some animal shots of some of the things we got to see.
All in all it was a fantastic day and I loved every minute of it.
It's such a fabulous experience experiencing all these new things with Jaxon. I LOVE IT!
Oh, and an update on camera situation in case you're all probably wondering how we have all these pictures. Well, knowing that we were going to have a whole week of fun and activity with Jack home, we just ended up buying a new one. And getting all these great shots was well worth it, eh? :o) And if you couldn't tell, we had a lot of fun trying out the new camera, so if any of you want to see even more of our fun zoo day, click here.

Sad Camera Story

So Jack is finally done with finals--can we get a whoop, whoop!!--so we all decided to go to the park and enjoy the beautiful warm weather we've been having. It was soooo nice to have Jack around and Jaxon loved running around the park. We got some great shots on our camera and I was so excited to go home and try some more PW photoshop edits on them.
Well, we ended up going out to eat after the park and then out for ice-cream...the perfect ending to the perfect day...and when we got to the ice cream place and one of our friends pulled out her camera, my heart sunk as I all of a sudden realized I did not have our camera on me.
Jack says he thinks he saw a kid over by our things while we had been at the park, but needless to say, when we went back to the park to look for it, it was no where to be found. I am absolutely devastated! We had soooo many pictures on our 8GB card and I had foolishly not backed them up yet. I had planned on doing it as soon as we had gotten home. So, not the best way to start off our big break. Anyhow, just wanted to get this off my chest so I won't think about it anymore. It still kills me to think about what we've lost, so much more than just the camera...I had so many pictures that will never be seen. Thanks for listening. :o)

Photoshop Fun

I've recently discovered the Pioneer Woman site and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! I found her Photoshop Elements tutorials on there this week and decided to give some things a try. Don't laugh at these pics, I will freely admit I am a BEGINNER at this stuff, but I am just so excited that there are actually things I CAN do in Photoshop Elements. I had been so used to working with actual Photoshop at work that I was really kind of thinking Elements would never really work for me, but thanks to pioneer woman, I am finally realizing the potential of elements. :o)
Anyhow, here are just some fun pics of Jaxon.
Oh, and as I mentioned in my last post, here are some fun projects I've been working on. I've been very inspired from great websites over the past little bit. Almost all of these ideas came from the Make it and Love it blog.
This is a cute grocery bag holder that I was able to get some super fun material for.
Then I got to do some fun girly things for some baby showers. Made me want a girl soooo bad! :o) This is a little giraffe lovey...which can also double as a llama. :o)
And I even got to do some cute headbands. Shhh, don't tell Jack, but I totally tried them on Jaxon. :o)
I also made a little CD cover case to go over the visor in the car and a car trash bag. So, needless to say, I've been keeping up with my sewing skills. It's been fun to have more time to do some projects here and there though.

Birthday Fun!

Well, I turned the big 2-8 this past weekend and well, I don't feel any older. :o) We celebrated by going out to eat at Lonestar Steakhouse because we had a great coupon for a free birthday meal. It was yummy food and soooo nice to go out to eat.
Here are some pics from dinner. Jaxon was so excited to get out of the house and be with daddy for a bit. Jack's been super busy with finals so we haven't seen him as much as we'd like, but he's being a good student and we're so proud of his hard work.
Here, Jaxon grabbed one of the lemons from off the table...he was so excited he got it...and the fact that we didn't take it away from him. As good parents, we were willing to let Jaxon learn from his own mistakes...
Which happened when he stuck it in his mouth.
It was the perfect birthday present to go out to dinner.
I got some pretty fantastic presents this year from some amazing friends out here in Ohio. We have truly been soooo richly blessed to have met so many kind and wonderful people out here. Makes it just a little easier to be so far away from our families.
This gift was EXACTLY what I had wanted for a little bit now and I was sooooo excited to receive it.
It's been soooo helpful to have since I have started working on some more sewing projects lately...more pics in a later post to come...and I was quick to fill it up with my sewing essentials. I just LOVE this. Thanks again Melissa!!
Next came a pampering gift that was totally perfect for me--nail polish! Lindsey, you know me too well! :o) I love the bright, fun colors you chose. As soon as it gets warm, my feet are in sandals just about 100% of the time, so many of you know I ALWAYS have my toes painted in the summer time. :o)
This gift was a perfect addition to one of my end tables that was lacking a table topper and it's totally perfect for it. It's such a wonderful addition to our home. Thanks Laura!
On Sunday-day of birthday, Jack got up with Jaxon so I could sleep in and then made me a fabulous breakfast for lunch with all the works. It was sooooo yummy! Later that day, I got a surprise birthday "party" from Dave and Melissa. Dave made a scrumptious homemade, from scratch, chocolate cake and it was divine! I'm not usually a cake fan...but probably because all my cakes are from the box. It was such a treat to have a made from scratch cake and you could totally tell the difference. It was super yum!
Unfortunately 28 candles was too many for me to blow out and I didn't quite make it.
Thanks Char for the birthday card and gift...I'll let you know what I end up getting with it. And thank you, thank you, thank you to all for the well wishes. It was so nice to feel so special. Yeah for birthdays!!