Hocking Hills

We took the opportunity to visit one of the mountainous areas in Ohio. Hocking Hills is exactly that. A region of hills that the Wolverine area hills would dwarf. But the scenery was beautiful. It made us feel like we were walking the Elven paths in Lord of the Rings. Green and lush with ferns and hardwood trees surrounding us. We went in Mid May so the spring water flows were still high. The waterfalls were amazing.

The first four pictures are from Old Man's cave. The area is sandstone and the caves have been carved out by the stream. We took Mike, Jess and Hannah with us a month or so later and as Hannah can attest there are allot of stairs.

Upper Falls are about 20 yards from the parking lot. You could miss them if you didn't know they were there. We started at Old Mans Cave and walked the entire loop and were surprised by how close we were to the truck at the upper falls.

Bath Tub. It truly looks like an old fashion round bath tub. It looks friendly enough but the sign says that it is deeper than it looks and very dangerous.

This is the trail to lower falls. There were many bridges and as you know Mom likes bridges. The moss covered allot of the stone work and the bridges were a little slick. But very cool.

Below is the trail to the rock house. Rock house is a small cave, Well about the size of our apartment. This was one of the scarier trails. Several of the carved out staircases did not have safety rails.

Inside the rock house

Inside the Rock House looking back down at the trail we had to climb to get here. Many people have carved their names in the sandstone. Many crazy people did it very close to the edge.

Conkles Hollow is supposed to be one of the best fall color spots in all of Ohio. There are two paths. One is handicap accessible and the other is one of the most dangerous walks in the park. As we had been walking for two days straight we took the easier path. It was amazing. There were so many ferns. It reminded me of the Redwood forest and the trip our family took several years ago. There were waterfalls along the way and a waterfall and pool at the end of the canyon.

Cantwell cliffs were Dad's favorite hike. We took pictures of fat ladies squeeze which is a narrow stair case at the start of the hike. Dad's favorite part was that he and Mom were the only ones on the trail for most of the walk. It was so quiet and peaceful. And of course he was with his favorite person.

As stated above there were many bridges and Mom got pictures of them all.

You would never believe it but Mom loves to see wild mushrooms growing. She would stop and take pictures. Have to admit they were pretty cool. The middle photo on the top row we called the outdoor toilet seat. It even had a soft cover. This is really a fallen tree stump with moss growing around the rim.

This is one of the many, many, many staircases in the park. I believe this is called the stairway to heaven. It is part of the trail in Conkles Hollow that is so dangerous. It takes you around the rim of the canyon. Every year people fall from this trail to the canyon below.

It was an amazing weekend. Our legs were very sore for several days after because of the many, many staircases. But the next weekend we wished we were back.

Fun With Hannah

Hannah loves to build with Legos and wouldn't you know it there is a Lego Game. You draw a card and it gives you four choices of something to build. You build the object of your choice, while the rest of the players try to guess. We played in teams and of course our team won. (Hannah, Grandpa, and Nana)

Second Leg

Saturday was Tyler's birthday and he wanted to go to the rock gym. Tyler, Brianne, and

her Tyler had all been before, but this was Tonys and my first time. It was much harder than it looked. We climbed for about an hour before everyone was exhausted.







That night we went to Whitewater Grill for sushi. Tyler's favorite. I wish that I would have remembered my camera to get pictures of the food. Tyler had some pretty interesting looking stuff. It was a great day with the kids.
Sunday morning we went to my moms and watched conference, then we went to visit Tonys mom. Then back to my moms to watch conference and have Tyler's birthday desert. He wanted fruit pizza and 7 layer dip. Afterwards we headed back to our house to hang out for the rest of the day.
Monday Tyler and Brianne came to the airport, we had breakfast together and then we were off to Phoenix .

Trip Home - Leg One

Tony and I left Wed. March 30th to go home for Tyler's birthday. Our first stop, Phoenix for two days. Thursday morning we went for a hike on Lookout Mountain. This is one of Hannah's favorite places to hike. It was a little warm, but it felt so good after the cold of Columbus.


That afternoon we went to the aquarium. Hannah was studying sea life at school and she had been there a few weeks before. She was a great guide telling us about all the stuff she had learned. It was really hard to get any good pictures, but here are a few.


Hannah is reading chapter books now. It looks like Grandpa is sleeping but he really is listening. Hannahs new interest is Legos. She and Grandpa spent the morning building away.

That evening we went to a barbeque place to eat. Hannah was in quite a mood.





Friday morning we headed to the Mesa airport to go to Idaho Falls. We arrived at 7:00am for a 8:30am departure, at 3:30pm we started boarding the plane. 8 hours in an airport wasn't exactly what we had in mind for the day. There was a leak in the cockpit window and we had to wait for a new window to be shipped in and then installed.

Ice Storms

This post is really late, but oh well. We had heard about the ice storms here in Columbus so we were excited to see one. In March we got our wish. It is hard to grasp that when the temperatures are freezing that it can be raining instead of snowing. This is the little bush outside our apt. at about 11:00p.m. I couldn't get good pictures so I decided to wait until morning to get better ones, but it had all melted. I got up at about 1:00a.m. to see what had been happening and the ice was doubled and the branches were touching the ground.

Missionaries

Tony and I have been going out with the sister missionaries a few times a week, since shortly after we moved. We met them at the ward Christmas party. (they sat across from us) We fell in love with them immediately. They came to visit us Christmas Day, we offered to help them in any way that they needed and the rest is history. Sis. Pettigrew is from Colorado and Sis. Cash is from Utah. (Sandy to be exact) Sis. Cash had only been out 6 weeks when we met. Sis. Pettigrew went home in April. We miss her alot! Both girls are so wonderful and they have such an amazing spirit and testimony of the gospel. We have had some great missionary moments and met some really fun people. We now have a brand new sister from California, Sis. Cooper.

Orchids Everywhere

A while back Tony and I went to the Franklin Observatory for the orchid display. There were so many beautiful varieties.



In addition to the orchids they had different rooms with different eco systems. (rain forest, desert, etc.) It was fun to see the banana tree. I wish that the flower would have been in full bloom. There were many different types of plants and flowers.



On of the best displays they had was the Disney Carousel. It was on a turntable and had a train that wound around the little characters.




In addition to the plants they had these amazing glass sculptures spread around in different areas to enhance the plants. The bottom picture is looking up at a glass ceiling as you walked through a small tunnel. These glass pieces are the work of artist Dale Chihuly.