Cedar Point: August 15th

We decided to celebrate Dj's taking the board and Becky taking the GRE by riding some major coasters at Cedar Point, aka, becoming ride warriors. We got to the park 30 minutes before the rides opened and kept going all day. We really felt our age! Remeber the day when you could ride rollercoaster after rollercoaster, the faster and higher the better? Yeah, our adrenaline ran out around 3pm. Old age.... We are determined to go back and ride all the coasters that we missed someday.

MaxAir: Becky's favorite ride

Raptor: Dj's favorite ride

OH: August 14th

We decided to take a little trip before Dj had to head back to school, plus I had some comp time to use up. We decided to visit OHIO. Ohio surprised us by being so pretty. We enjoyed the rolling hills driving up I-77. Dj really enjoyed the lumber mills. Everything was run by water power: only 2 inches of water were needed to get the water wheel pumping.
Next to the lumber mill is the ashery. Here they would turn ashes into riches, no joke. They would dump the ashes in the top of this funnel and heat until a black solid was left. Then they would take the black "rock" and heat it in this oven until it turned white. The white rock was then used for china and other things.

Boo and her Rose

Today, Kathleen gave everyone a red rose. I came home and Boo went crazy for it. She woke up from her nap and out of nowhere became my best friend. I put it up and she was heartbroken. So, now it is Boo's rose. She purred and cuddled with it all day.

Went blueberry picking today and this is a picture of our plentiful harvest, six quarts to be exact. I have never picked fresh blueberries before so this was quite an adventure. The guy that owned the farm was a nice fellow who let us pick his brain on how to grow and harvest our own blueberries someday. He also let us eat a few berries off the tree while we were picking, Becky loved that. I don't think that guy new what he was getting into. After eating twice the amount depicted above I thought Becky was going to look like the person depicted below and roll down the hillside. I finally wrestler her away from the field and dried her crying eyes as she exclaimed "Now I know what Heaven will be like".... It was a pretty good day.

Black Raspberries

Well, the black raspberry season has finally ended for us. We had a sizeable harvest this year: five fresh cobblers, seven quarts of whole berries, and eight pints of preserves, not to mention the millions eaten right off the vine. We had some adventures this year in our collecting. It seemed to rain everyday, and Dj and I repeatedly fell down the hillside on our butts every time we harvested. We have no pictures of the battle scars, just the canning.

Virginia for the 4th

We took a road trip with the "old people" to Keysville, VA over the 4th of July weekend. We had a quiet visit with Dj's great-grandma; she seemed such a charming, Southern belle with some personality! On the way back to WV, we stopped at Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson. George W. gave a speech there the day before, and somehow the crowds stuck around. In all of our pictures, there is always someone else croc'ing in the corner! We had to wait a couple hours, but were finally able to tour the house.
My favorite part of Monticello were the gardens and fruit trees. The garden was 1000 feet long and filled with all types of yummy things. The orchards contained peach, apricot, cherry, and apple trees at least. We could not resist and helped ourselves to some delicious cherries and apricots straight off the tree. Jefferson added a bunch of personal touches and inventions to his estate; the above sundial is just one of the many. Probably only Jefferson knows how it works... Monticello really is a unique place, from the stables and the kitchens, to the maps hanging on the walls and all weather passage. I recommend going on a non-holiday weekend.

Gone Fishin

My sister and her family recently came to town for a little family reunion. One of the activities on the to do list was to go fishing. I decided that I would taken them to my top secret fishing hole where you can catch a huge bass guarantied. I was the first to wrestle one to shore but I forgot that I had the camera with me so you'll have to miss out on the 20 pound bass I caught. next was the little man. AKA Thomas.

He said it put up a good fight but was no match for his bulging biceps. The next person to catch a fish was Becky but she lost it back to the river before we could take a picture. After that it was my Mom, now this was a momentous occasion being that this was the first bass my mom had ever caught and has been a life long dream of hers. If you look real close you can just make out a tear falling from her eye.

Among the hundreds of fish I caught that day I finally remembered that I had the camera on me and took a picture of this one. not as big and the first one. But if you could imagine me standing like I am in this picture that fish's tail fin would have been thrashing around in the water. Apart for the one that I forgot to take a picture of it was a pretty good day over all. (And no, we didn't just pass the same fish around and take pictures of it.)