In the news

Campers Robbed At Gunpoint In State Park - News Story - WHIO Dayton

Scary . . . we camped here just a couple weeks ago. What would I have given the gunman, a smore? Oh wait, the raccoons already got those . . .

Seriously, why would you rob campers?

And in other news here's a blurb from Popular Mechanics magazine about X-51. (What John's lab's been working on at AFRL.)

Farmer John

So if you've talked to my hubby at all lately you would know that his pride and joy right now is his garden. He's got 16 tomato plants and 10 pepper plants growing in our backyard. Keep in mind we live in military housing that does not let us put a garden in the ground. So he has them all in pots and some in a large garden box. It really is quite the set up. I tease him that he loves his tomatoes more than he loves me and the kids since he checks on his garden when he gets home from work before even coming in the house to greet us! Well, all that TLC he's been giving those plants finally paid off - we have ripe tomatoes and peppers coming out of our ears! We canned 10 pints of salsa on Saturday and will probably have canning on our agenda for the next several weekends.



Not only has he been growing a garden, John's also been making compost in the backyard. After turning over the compost pile on Saturday he came in the house with a streak of brown on his finger and asked me to smell it. I smelled it. It smelled like poo. I told him that. He got really excited and said, "I know! I made horse poo!" That's EXACTLY what it smelled like (trust me I would know). Fantastic, there's horse poo in the backyard.

Zoomazing Day

Took the kids to the Columbus Zoo today. We were bored this morning and decided to just hop in the car and go. It was super hot, but we had a great day! While standing in line to buy our tickets I overheard the following conversation:

Kid: "Look! There's a bald eagle!"

Grandma: "That's not a bald eagle. That's a pelican. Wow, there's lots of them. You wouldn't want to stand underneath that many birds!"

At this point I turn to look at the pelicans. All I see are seagulls. Yep, seagulls.

Anyway, after passing the "seagulls" we saw more interesting animals once we were actually inside the zoo! The polar bears, tiger, and brown bears were among our favorites today!

Ohio Camping

We went camping on Friday night with our neighbors the Wahlquists.

Here's a few things I will always remember from this trip:

1. Camping in Ohio is different than camping in Utah. First thing I noticed you camp on grass, not dirt. A plus in my book - camping isn't nearly as dirty. Fires are extremely hard to start when everything is wet from the extreme humidity. John and Joseph ended up using the pumps for our air mattresses to blow air on the fire to get it going, and even with that it never did really take off.
2. Raccoons stole my cookies and licorice! John chased them down and got my licorice back. (Don't worry I don't have rabies, it was still sealed.) However, the cookies were a complete loss. Very sad.
3. Hot and humid Ohio weather, combined with raccoons outside our tent, and an air mattress that launches your partner to the moon every time you change sleeping positions make for a poor nights sleep. John and I felt like we didn't sleep at all so we decided to come home first thing in the morning instead of hiking and canoeing as planned.
4. I caught the cutest little frog on Saturday morning. In fact I almost stepped on him because I thought he was a bug at first. The kids thought it was super cool to have a pet frog in their bucket before we released him back into the wild!

Thanks Wahlquist family for sharing this fun adventure with us!

End note: we got home, showered, ate some lunch, and ALL of us enjoyed a two hour nap. It was heavenly!

Damn Skunk

This past week has been an emotional one. Our best friends & next door neighbors moved to Mississippi on Monday. I can't even describe how much I am going to miss them. I have cried so much this past week it's ridiculous. Today I decided I needed to get out of the house and get my mind off this. I told Gabe I needed to break the funk I was in. He asked why we needed to kill the skunk. Same thing. Anyway, we're back in the house now and I'm in tears again. The empty driveway next door did it to me. I thought I would sit down and reminisce about some of my favorite memories with our friends.

• Dana and I being pregnant at the same time - Zach and Porter were born six weeks apart.
• Trip to Chattanooga
• Running - Dana got me running and in shape after having Porter. I never would have done this on my own. I remember the first two miles I ran after having Porter and I thought I was going to die. She motivated me to finish a 10k, a Half Marathon, and three triathlons, as well as numerous smaller races.
• John and Josh golfing together.
• Game nights of Killer Bunnies and Ticket to Ride. Let's not forget Risk.
• Sunday dinners. Seriously almost every Sunday in the summer time we would get together for dinner outside in between our two houses. Sometimes it was just us, sometimes it was the whole neighborhood, and it was always fun!
• John escorting Josh through the temple to receive his endowment.
• Being able to hold Zachary at the altar while he and his parents were sealed together as an eternal family.
• Deb's visits (Dana's mom). Gabe knows her as well as he knows his own grandparents. He always looked forward to seeing Deb!
• 4th of July - John and Josh had a lot of fun with their fireworks!
• Dana getting my van stuck in the mud : )
• Going out to dinner or out for icecream
• Shopping trips to Outlets and GAP

There are so many things I know I'm forgetting, but you get the idea. We did EVERYTHING with these guys! On Monday for Family Night we hung up a map of the United States so we could show Gabe where Josh and Dana were going. I have always wanted a map to mark our travels on, but Dana gave me the great idea of tracking where our family and friends are too. So we made our friends and family the black dots. All the places Gabe has been are white dots. We look forward to tracking all of our Air Force friends on this map (we have a world map too, since Gabe already has a friend in Japan)! Oh, the joy and heartbreak the Air Force brings us! I don't think the skunk is dead quite yet. I went to Dairy Queen last night and thought of you guys. If I do that every time I miss you I'll be the size of a blimp. We gotta find that skunk. I have a feeling it's going to take a while though. Thanks for being such great friends, we miss you!

Caesar Creek Triathlon

Saturday morning I competed in my first swimming triathlon. This was a girls only sprint triathlon and it was a ton of fun! Here's April, Shersti, and I just before getting in the water.

Don't we look so cool?

April and I starting our swim.

(April had a baby just three months ago and she rocked this triathlon!)

Me swimming.

Me biking.

See the old lady behind me in pink?

She totally passed me on the bike portion of the race!

I didn't like that, so I kept up with her for the remainder of the bike ride and then totally wasted her on the run, but seriously that granny kicked butt on the bike!

Finishing the run portion and waving to my fan club!

The finish line is such a happy place!

Rose, April, Shersti, Me, and Amanda at the finish line.

After the triathlon we stayed and played on the beach at the lake.

What an awesome way to spend a Saturday morning!

Hocking Hills

We ended our fantastic holiday weekend by visiting Hocking Hills State Park on Monday. We had been hearing a lot about this place, so we decided to check it out. And WOW, such a beautiful place! We took the kids on three short hikes and we were all exhausted by the end of the day!

What's more American than

getting outdoors and enjoying

the land of the free?

Check out Hocking Hills here.