Fancy dinners and Haunted Inns

Every year we make it a point to go away for a night for our anniversary, our actual anniversary isn't until June 30th but we always try to celebrate it earlier due to schedule conflicts.

This year we decided to stay relatively close to home and go to the Inn of Chagrin, an old cottage style bed and breakfast nestled in the heart of beautiful Chagrin Falls.

Of course we always have to take a photo of our selves :) I joked with Bill that this photo looks like the ones you see of elderly people in the obituary ads....morbid i know lol

easily the best hot tub ever. it even had shutters that opened up so you could see the tv!! We laid in the tub and watch Harold and Kumar escape guantanamo bay lol

cute pup guarding a really nicely done old truck

Ice Cream by the falls!

Chagrin Falls :)

I don't know why you would WANT Uncle Joes Mint balls, but apparently...they "Keep you all aglow"

 Lemon Falls cafe where we stopped for coffee, cute place....bad service :(

Pair of Vivienne Westwood shoes I got for a steal in one of the boutique shops!! SERIOUSLY I nearly peed my pants when I saw them! I even kissed them goodnight last night lol

One more pic before dinner

When I made my reservation at the restaurant, I mentioned it was our anniversary, and they sat us at a table overlooking the falls, decorated with rose petals and a card from entire staff!! They also compt our dessert!!! We truly were astonished and felt so very important :)

Bills New York Strip Steak 

My prime rib

Chocolate Truffle Bomb

 After dinner at Jeykls, we went out for drinks at The Little Bar

My Double Dirty Martini, Bills Watermelon Mojito

When we got BACK to the Inn is where it got weird, (spoooooky)
we went to bed and we were only sleeping for about an hour or so when the light over the jacuzzi went on, like THE SWITCH FLIPPED ON, we heard the noise then saw the blindingly bright light, my husband and i looked at each other like WHOA. So Bill jokingly says "ok ha ha Mr. Ghost very funny turn it off now" but obviously nothing happend, so he got up to check the switch, and it was flipped to the on position!!!!!! I dont know if you believe in ghosts , but we sure do, and that had to be a spirit, the next morning I sheepishly asked the lady at the front desk if anyone had ever reported any weird happenings, and she said that actually there was a room on the bottom floor (number 13) that has frequent strange activity and the night auditor said there has been alot of activity in the parlor over the years, so she doesn't doubt they have ghosts, (fyi the place was built over 100 years ago)

The lady at the desk said "well im glad they didn't scare you out last night" I told her that we are used to things like that living in a century house ourselves and having strange things occur over the course of the time we have lived there,....but if something last night would have flown across the room we would have been GONE lol.
Such a good time anyways lol....now.....off to bed because I am DONE lol

Have a great week! xoxoxo

Seeing when I'm blind

Life can be trying at times, and I feel that statement only gets truer when you become a parent,

you go about life just minding your own business, thinking the world revolves around you, then BAM you have a child and suddenly you are thrown into this alternate universe,you have NO IDEA what your doing and you hope to god you are making the right decisions and not screwing your kids up for eternity.

 

I remember leaving the hospital with my son thinking "holy crap your letting me take this human being home?? " It was then that i realized that I was being entrusted with another persons life and well being other than my own...and my gosh that was scary.

 

Since then there has been long nights, lots of phone calls to my mother (and even still now that she is gone lots of prayers) and just hoping you don't kill them.

 

Then the storms clear and you realize that hey you really can do this and actually your pretty good at it!I know I have made the right choices for my child and have done a good job when people tell me how well adjusted he is and how polite he is.

 

Sometimes yes, you do have to be the bad guy, you do have to make them cry and tell them the hard truth, that's what being a parent is all about. I just know when we have a second one, things will be alot easier and there wont be as much fear. or panic.

Being a parent is an amazing amazing thing, and I think it's something that my hubby and I are starting to really get a knack for :)

 

 



 

Quality time with my little guy

We are having anew phone system installed at work this week, and it's creating so much havoc that I can't get any work done, so I decided to take the day off work today. So where else do you go on a day off with your kiddo?....Memphis Kiddie Park of course!

It's a small children's amusement park in a suburb of Cleveland,it's been around for ages, and I'm really happy to see it is still open :) Hudson gets so excited every time we go .

This kid loves any ride that spins,.... definitely not his fathers son in that respect lol

Mr. Championship Golf.......a game that he beat me at........yes im 35 and I got beat by a 3 yr old...

A family on the little dipper, don't let the "little" fool you, this thing is a rough ride lol

Pickin up random chicks in cars......

So proud of him, it was this first time he ever rode by himself ;/

it was just a busy day filled with fun ;)

Parade the Circle

This past weekend, the family and I went to see Parade The Circle, it's an art parade and festival that happens every year in Cleveland, the whole community gets involved and makes their own costumes, it sort of mirrors "CARNIVAL" celebrations in South America, every year they pick a different theme and have tribal dancers and folk bands playing music, as well as crafts for the kids. 

This years theme was recycling and making old things into art. I have been going to the parade since my art school days, but this was the third time I took my husband and son.

Last year it was 90 degrees and like 80 percent humidity, but this year was overcast and in the 70's, just perfect weather for the festivities :)

Decorating our own recycled lunch bag

Stilt walkers galore

it gets more and more packed every year

Hope your weekend was spectacular!!

xoxoxoxox

Puppy Lickins

These two guys......are one half of my heart

 

 

 

(taken with a Cannon DS-3000)

Veggie Garden Time!

I love me some veggies! And thankfully I did not inherit my mothers black thumb lol.

Growing up I was always exposed to fresh veggies from my uncle and my dads garden.

My dad pretty much showed me everything I know about cultivating my own food.

Our garden this year

 

It was and still is his passion to work out in the yard, and I am so thankful that I still have him here today to answer all my questions.

 

This will be our fourth year of growing our own veggies,the first two years we planted a small garden in back of our carriage house, the soil was very rich back there, (it used to be a place where people would compost their garbage, so the soil was ridiculously fertile and rich.

We started with a few tomato, some cilantro and some peppers. Over the years we have added more and More veggies as we learn what grows best in our climate.

 

Last year my wonderful husband decided to build me a raised garden bed, this one is much much bigger, we planted cucumbers, tomato and peppers, some things worked and some didn't, but this year I'm learning more about minerals and soil testing. Since we made a raised garden bed, we had to move the actual garden and get fill soil installed in it, the problem is,this soil is devoid of most nutrients, so we will have to work for years so enrich the soil, but that doesn't mean we can't grow anything, just that we will need to feed the plants more often.

 

This year I decided to make the most room of my garden that i possibly could, I bought some garden twine, and made a grid of plantable areas. I also added some containers in the middle of plants that I wanted to grow but are invasive in nature, meaning i need to keep them contained.

 

So far we have, 4 pepper plants (2 Hungarian wax, 2 sweet hot banana peppers) 5 cucumber plants, 2 Genovese basil, 1 raspberry bush,loose leaf lettuce,  4 cherry tomato plants, and Mint, spearmint,lavender and Kale in containers. PHEW!

Rocket lettuce we planted

Growing a garden is easier than you think,if you are interested in starting an out door garden, I highly recommend a soil test, you can pick one up at the store for like 4.99 and it will be the best investment you make, we winged it the first few years and didn't test it because the soil was rich and you could see it, but with the raised garden, we found that a few plants did real well last year and few really didn't do so well, testing was necessary to get to the bottom of why certain things never took off. Come to find out, our solid is alkaline (excellent for growing lettuce and cucumbers) but devoid of Acid (real bad for growing peppers and raspberries) I spoke ot my dad who suggested we feed the acid loving plants with Miracid and the non acid loving ones with  regular 10-10-10 fertilizer.

 

Hopefully that helps us grow more productive crops this year.

 

 

If you have a small apartment or just want to start out small, I highly recommend container gardening, you can even buy soil that has all the nutrients already in it! And you can grow practically anything in a container, give it a try! Its the easiest way to get started.

 

We just planted everything this weekend, except for the lettuce which I planted in late winter from seed, that's already coming up, so far none of the veggies I planted have keeled over yet lol. So lets pray this is a fantastic growing season! Ill keep you updated!