Hocking Hills, Ohio

Before we left Ohio for Kentucky, Nicole took the kids hiking with the Milmore's neighbors (The Traceys, Micah's little friend, Parker) to a place called Hocking Hills State Park about 40 minutes from Chillicothe. The kids a fun time hiking around with their friends before we had to leave them. Hiking is our new family hobby.



















On his adventures Micah found a crawfish which he is showing off in the picture below. He also found a tree that looks as if it was designed to fit a Micah in the middle of it!





























A month after leaving Ohio we just had to go back. We went back with the Noels for a long Labor Day weekend since we had about four days off. This time we went hiking to Hocking Hills with the Milmores and Noels. This first picture is of the Noel's dog Addie who came with us.











The first set of pictures were taken at the Old Man's Cave trail. What's sort of humorous is that the trails have cave in their names when they are not really caves but overhanging rock. Nevertheless as the website states, "A mile-long gorge at Old Man's Cave displays a variety of geologic features, including waterfalls, sandstone cliffs and rock formations...Old Man's Cave is also home to the 149-foot-tall hemlock that's said to be the tallest tree in Ohio. The name Old Man's Cave refers to the rock shelter that was once the home of Richard Rowe, a 19th-century hermit who is said to be buried beneath a cave ledge on the premises."





















This second set of pictures were taken at Ash Cave trail. One part of the trail shown in the last picture was along the top edge of the rock about 90 feet high with absolutely no railing. I'm almost certain that there has been some Darwin awards given to people hiking on this part of the trail. According to the website Ash Cave "is perhaps the most awe-inspiring feature of Hocking Hills State Park. With a horseshoe-shaped rim that spans 700 feet, Ash Cave is, in a word, enormous. It measures 100 feet from front to back and 90 feet from the rim's edge to the floor below. Adding to the dramatic visual impact of Ash Cave is a waterfall that cascades over the rim of the cave."
















This was a cute little frog that we saw right before Micah got bitten/stung by a pesky fly/bee (as you can tell, we could not come to an agreement as to what it was that attached Micah).

Greetings from Paducah, Kentucky

As you might have realized, we have not been updating the blog lately very much. This is because we left Ohio at the beginning of August and moved to Paducah, Kentucky. This means that we have been without a home or internet for the past month. We lived with Derek and Emily Noel (co-worker/friend and his wife) for the first three weeks of the month while we searched for a place to stay that wasn't a hotel.

We found a nice, clean two bedroom townhome which we were able to fully furnish for under $300 (praise the Lord). We were able to borrow beds and washer and dryer from the Noel's and their friends and found furniture at yardsales (couch and loveseat for $50, table and six chairs for $90, coffee table for $7, TV stand and cupboard for $20, and then other miscellaneous items from Walmart).

For the next week I'll be trying to catch up with all of the pictures that we've been taking since our last post. Stay tuned!

Nicole in Little Rock

As I alluded to in my previous post, Nicole went to Little Rock, Arkansas last weekend to visit Kelly Simpson who was in town from El Salvador to visit her sister. She flew over on Friday morning and came back on Sunday night. They just hung out, played games, went shopping, and went geocaching.




Geocaching was a term that I had never heard before. Geocaching is "an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world." Anyway, the Sangsters are totally into it and I think we will start as well.

Nicole said it was really fun but they when they went they were unable to find the cache. But what they did find was this giant bug shown in the picture below. The last picture is the cache that they found after Nicole went home.

Dayton Air Show

Last weekend me and the kids went to see the Dayton Air Show while Nicole was in Little Rock visiting her friend Kelly Simpson while she was in the states to visit her sister Lisa. The air show, according to Wikipedia, "is an annual event at the Dayton International Airport in Dayton, Ohio...recognized as one of the country’s premier aviation events. It showcases the world's best known civilian and military pilots including the Blue Angels[3] with a variety of airplanes in the air and on the ground."

I think these first pictures are of the Warbirds. The show basically consisted of watching a bunch of airplanes that I didn't know the names of do a bunch of tricks and blow smoke out the back of it.






The hilight of the show was the F-22 Raptor demonstration. We met up Micah's friend Parker and his family who is totally into airplanes. They go to the Air Force museum at least once a month it seems. This plane was very fast and very loud and could do a lot of cool things in the air.

"The Raptor is the world's most advanced fighter aircraft and one of the most sought after demonstrations on the air show circuit. Its incredible maneuverability, aided by its computerized controls and powerful, thrust-vectoring jet engines make it an astonishing air show performance."

You can seem more of them here:

http://www.airshowbuzz.com/videos/view.php?v=8ec80b42
http://www.acc.af.mil/aerialevents/f22a/index.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor








These are some pictures of Micah with his friend Parker and Rebekkah. It was a very hot day and everything was very, very expensive. I blew through about $100 (including cost of tickets) in about 1 hour. It was fun to go but I don't think I'd ever go again. I just don't really care much about airplanes.

Ding Dong Song Remake

I was blogging one day and ended up on a friend's blog which directed me to his brother's blog and then his brother's MySpace page where I came across something absolutely hilarious. Now I used to have Thanksgiving dinner with this kid when he was about 6 years old and this is is what he's turned into! Seriously, Seth is in the Marines and has turned out great. Anyway, enjoy his entertaining remaking of Günther's eurotrash Ding Dong Song. He seriously looks exactly like him!

Pink Yarn

Freedom Center

Two weekends ago we went to Cincinnati to visit the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. It is a musuem based on the history of the Underground Railroad which, if you remember your history, "was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century Black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause."

This first picture was a reconstructed slave pen that was "used as a holding pen by Kentucky slave trader, Capt. John W. Anderson, to temporarily keep enslaved people being moved further south for sale."













This set of pictures is of us hiding in places similar to where slaves would hide in their attempt to escape to freedom.

















One thing we didn't realize before coming to the musuem was that the Ohio River and border to Kentucky was the boundary between South and North, and Slavery and Freedom.









This is a picture of the Ohio River from the Freedom Center.

COSI

Last weekend we went to Columbus to a science museum called COSI. The first pictures are of the outdoor science park where you could lift a car with a giant lever. There was also a centripetal ride that the kids just loved. I think Micah went on it about 6 times.
















The museum included exhibits that dealt with the subjects of space, ocean, life, technological progress, and gadgets. These pictures are in a horse carriage in the Progress exhibit. The last picture is of Micah volunteering for a presentation on weather. The presenter is going to demonstrate atmospheric pressure on Micah.

















For dinner we went to this awesome Greek restaurant called The Happy Greek. The kids had pastitsio (which is basically Greek lasagna) while Nicole and I had gyros. The nice thing about downtown Columbus on Sundays is that it is free to park.

Chillicothe 4th of July

For the 4th of July we went to the Milmore's house in Chillicothe and had what Ohioans call a "Cook-Out" (otherwise known as a BBQ in the NW). Nicole and kids tried to go look at fireworks and they were not allowed. The wierd thing about Ohio is that they will sell all kind of fireworks everywhere but you can only look and purchase if you supply them with a non-Ohio address where you will be letting them off. Needless to say we did not see many fireworks for the 4th.

We at hamburgers and hot dogs and just sat around until the evening when the city let off fireworks at Yoctangee Park, which we could see the very top off from the Milmore's. Here are the pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Waverly Wildlife

These are some pictures that have been piling up of wildlife in Waverly and Chillicothe. The first set are some intersting moths and a bug.

















This was a squirrel that basically walked right up to us and jumped on our table at the Chillicothe pool. It would not take the food we gave it (chips and bread) though it was about the friendliest squirrel I've ever seen.











These last pictures are of some other wildlife in Waverly that cannot be identified with complete certainty. The first one appears to be a dog of some sort but the second is a complete mystery.















Addendum: This last set was at the Old Canal Smokehouse in Chillicothe. It was a not-very-timid butterfly that landed on our plate and proceeded to lick it (that's his tongue in the second shot).