Ward Campout

Last weekend we had a fun ward campout. The turn out was huge and we all had lots of fun roasting marshmallows and exploring the woods around Allum creek. We didn’t stay the night because I had work the next morning, but we stayed for the dinner and festivities.

We had a beautiful big clearing enclosed in trees for the campsite.

There were yard games to play. A little Bocci, a little corn-hole here and there. Benj and some of his friends are playing bocci ball in the above and below pictures.

We had a really yummy dinner of grilled hamburgers and lots of sides and dessert. My favs were the coconut lime sugar cookies and the home made baked beans. AMAZING! Later that night we did roasted marshmallows, starbursts, and crescent dough. Yum! I didn’t really get a good picture of the campfire. Just this candid shot of people around the fire pit area.

Benj to a lot of pictures of plants and wildlife:

 

The following are all the different kinds of mushrooms and fungi that he found in the trees:

Yes, that’s fungi growing on that tree.

We love our ward and we love beautiful Ohio!

Highbanks Metro Park

About a week ago Benj and I drove about 15 minutes away to Highbanks metro park. Surrounding Columbus are about 20 or so metro parks, which are like big nature preserves with trails and trees and creeks. Its is 1,159 acres with 11 miles of trails and hikes. There are two Adena Indian burial mounds and prehistoric earthwork. There are also 100-foot high shale bluffs that tower over the Olentangy River and lots of deep ravines. We didn’t have much time to explore like we wanted to and we didn’t get a ton of great pictures, but we had a blast walking along one of the nature trails. We are for sure going back in once all the leaves turn red and orange.

We entered the nature trail through that little hole in the trees.

Benjamin took lots of pretty pictures of plants.

He had better luck getting pictures of plants than I had getting pictures of him. He was on one. I could not get him to make a normal face. He just likes to see me get flustered. He thinks I’m cute when I’m flustered. I love him. He should know by now that any pictures I get go straight to our blog for everyone to see. Haha.

 

Thanks for the handsome smile, babe (finally).

And just because I thought it wouldn’t be fair for me to post a bunch of crazy pictures of Benj, I thought I would even it out with a really really really bad picture of me. Just to make it even. I look scary!

We a saw a two deer and a frog. The pictures of the frog didn’t turn out very well, but it was a cute little green thing.

We will definitely be going back!

Fourth of July

I know that this post is almost 2 months late, but I still want  to post our adventures on the Fourth of July.

The night before the fourth, I was feeling kind of sad because I love the Fourth and I was sad that I was so far away from family. We were pretty much counting on spending our day watching Smallville episodes from the Library. But our neighbors came through again. We got a text late on the 3rd inviting us to Allum Creek Beach for a picnic, corn hole, and swimming. We went and had so much fun! We just keep finding cool places here in Columbus, that you wouldn’t expect to be here. It’s a lake that has a nice long sandy beach.

I know that Benjamin would not appreciate me posting a picture of him with out his shirt on, so I drew a little t-shirt on him.

Right when we got back from the beach, we went to a BBQ that was happening in the parking lot of our apartment complex with people from out ward.

Our neighbor, Brett, gave Benj some text books at the BBQ. Thanks Brett!!!

Later that night we all met up again and lit of some fireworks that we had smuggled in from Idaho. Even little fountains are illegal here in Ohio, but risked it and lit off a couple of small fountains. Right as we finished the fountains, the sky lit up with the Clintonville fireworks. We all walked across the street to a parking lot and watched a good 20 minutes of awesome fireworks that we could see perfectly.

It was a great day!