Summer Love

It's been summer vacation for me (kind of) for a couple of weeks since I've just been subbing on and off (more off). During that time I've also been crafty and had some adventures. So bear with this picture-laden post and you'll see my last couple of weeks.

Jewelry Making
I spent a couple of hours one afternoon making some jewelry. My uncle gave me a bunch of beads a couple of Christmases ago, including these shell beads, which I wasn't sure how to use. Well I figured out how to use them while also trying out a three stranded necklace technique. Whatcha think?

The Zoo
A few of us, including Miss Ellaneous, went to the zoo on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. There were a lot of people there, but there were also more animals out than last time I was at Cincinnati Zoo. I was super excited to find a sloth. Did you know a sloth only poops once a week while a goose poops every twelve minutes?

House Sitting
This week I am housesitting for my pastor who is on vacation in Florida. He has a beautiful log house sort of out in the country but still close enough to town that there are neighbors. You can actually see his house from certain parts of the Pinnacle. That's creepy now that I think about it...there could be people on the Pinnacle looking at this house right now.

There are five dogs and three chickens here right now that I'm taking care of. I don't know all of the names of the dogs but I do know Piper who loves to jump and tries to escape. In fact, earlier I had to lock her in the back part of the fence so that I could close the doggy door that goes in to the house. She's just a bit hyper and easily excited. In the pictures, she's the one that looks sort of like Hetty.

One cool thing about living here is that they have strawberries growing that they said I could pick. This morning I picked some and made a strawberry smoothie. I got the recipe here. The only thing I changed was that I used milk instead of soy milk. It was pretty good and definitely filled me up for breakfast. I probably should have used quick oats instead of whole oats, but that's what I had. Some people might not like it because it has quite a bit of texture. I think I did need more strawberries for more flavor.

Well that's it for now.  Maybe I'll make another post after I finish re-reading The Poisonwood Bible.

I love summer.

Granny Eyre

Cincinnati

In between studying for my test on Thursday I'm going to update you on the eventful weekend I had...
My beau and I had been thinking about taking a trip to Cincinnati for a couple of months now and we finally were able to go! So..we made it a three day weekend, and stayed with my Aunt & Uncle who live in the country near Cincinnati.

Day 1: We visited the quaint and very hilly city of Mt. Adams on Friday afternoon. We'd already eaten lunch, so we just walked around the city and up the well-known stairs at Holy-Cross Immaculata Church. We walked down through the main part of this area where there was a strip of bars, restaurants and a coffee shop. We ended up in one of the them, playing a game of pool before we took off for dinner with my Aunt & Uncle.

Day 2: We made Saturday a big day..first stop was Belterra Casino. Neither one of us had ever been in a casino..we were amazed at the age group of basically all the gamblers. We were, by far, the youngest people in the place. It was sad to watch the gamblers at the machine..little old ladies, not even hesitating to press the button. We played at a couple of the machines just to see what it was like. Overall we lost (of course), but only a couple of dollars. We ate lunch in the casino at their buffet. It was amazing! It was a really nice restaurant, with a large variety of food: basic American fare, Asian, a special Oktoberfest (German) food area, salad bar and delicious fresh bakery dessert items! It was all a good meal but I was probably most excited about the dessert because they even had a case of about 10 flavors of gelato. Mmmmm....mmmm!!
After lunch, we went outside the casino to the horse racing. We enjoyed placing some small bets on a couple of the horse races and we won and lost some again. Now I want to go to Keenland sometime! We traveled downtown after this and checked out Oktoberfest. The crowds were so large, we couldn't enjoy it. People were really packed in like sardines. We did get a pretzel though and a drink, but then we got out of there. Lastly, since it was only about 6:30, and we didn't want to go back to the house yet, we drove to Kenwood Mall to walk around and shop. Overall, a fun and tiring day!

Day 3: On Sunday, after going to church with my aunt, we drove to Bass Pro Shops and Jungle Jim's and enjoyed some Mexican food for lunch. We had a fun afternoon, shopping and walking around and got some good deals.
We had a really great trip!

At Bass Pro Shops

On a separate note, I'd love to see my friends again soon!!
The Farmer's Daughter