Engagement Pictures at Four Years

I never really mentioned that Benj and I celebrated our Fourth Anniversary in April. I was at the worst stage of mono, so all I did for him was say “Happy Anniversary” from my little bed on the couch. He brought me some pretty flowers, but we never really celebrated. A couple weeks ago, we went to the Park of Roses with our camera and tripod to take some family pictures. We had fun walking around looking at the fireflies and roses and snapping pictures.

After looking at them we realized how many cheesy ones we took. They reminded us of cheesy engagement pictures.  A lot of the time we were just being silly. So, as a warning, there are a lot of pictures and some of them are a little cheesy.

 

We also met some nice people in the park. A mother trying to take senior pictures of her beautiful daughter. They had a point and shoot and were having trouble getting some good pictures. She saw Benj with taking pictures and asked him how she could get a better picture. Benj offered to take some pictures for them and send them to her. They were so nice and appreciative of our help. Cierra, the daughter, wants to go to medical school.

She made this cute graduation announcement out of the pictures we took:

Good luck Cierra!

Arts Festival

Last week we went to the Columbus Arts Festival along the Olentangy River. We went with three other couples and walked around looking at  all the arts booths and the food booths. There were many amazing pieces of art, but I didn’t get any pictures of it.

But I did get pictures of:

Me and Kristin

Delicious Greek Gyro

This living bronze statue gave me the “come over here” finger. So I ran over and got a picture with him. He looks so still and like a real statue, and then he moves!

Asian Festival

Benj and I decided to explore the annual Asian Festival. Let me just tell you, it was quite an adventure. By the time it was over, I was glad to be home in my own house.

The adventure started on our way to the festival. We parked our car a couple of blocks away and started walking to Franklin Park. We saw a lady across the street and it seemed like she was choking. She was older and was hobbling on a cane, and Benj ran across the street to see if she was ok. I ran after him and we soon realized that she wasn’t choking, she was bawling with big fat tears rolling down her face. We asked her what was wrong and she said that she was diabetic and was out of food and money until a couple days later when she would get paid again. So I pulled out all the cash I had in my purse (about $7) and gave it to her. She was so grateful and walked over the a near by store to get some food. Once we got to the festival we realized that all the food booths, which smelled and looked amazing, only accepted cash. I had just given all my cash away!!! And I was starving! What to do? Benj decided to walk down the street and see if he could find some place with an ATM! Success! After walking a ways he was victorious! We got a spicy Korean chicken stick and shared it. Before we got more we decided to walk around and see all the booths first.

My favorite booth had really neat carved dragons:

And chopsticks:

I bought some chopsticks, hair pins, and a little wooden sauce bowl.

Then we saw these amazing athletes playing a game called Takraw, which is played in many parts of Asia. There are three players on each side of the net. The goal is to keep the ball in the air without using your hands. You get three hits before you have to send it over the net. It is like Volley ball without hands. These guys were phenomenal. They block with their feet. The do flips and spinning kicks to send the ball over the net.

 

 

This guys is doing a flip to kick the ball back over!

We also got to see a little bit of cultural dancing.

Things started to get a little weird at the festival. A crowd started forming randomly and then they all just started running in a stampede. Then it just stopped. The security guys were acting all nervous and I over heard one say ”…can’t control the fights…” We decided avoid conflict by entering one of the stages to watch some dancing and just steer clear of commotion.  As soon as we started walking into the building, another stampede started running into the building. The people in the building were forcing us out. It was a little scary. The stampede subsided and we decided to just get some more food and then leave. As we were paying for some yummy Laotian egg rolls and some Indian Samosa’s, a police got on the intercom and said, “This is officer so and so. Everyone needs to leave the park immediately. If you do not leave right away you will be violating such and such codes and will be arrested.” There were cop cars screaming in and a helicopter circling around above. We heard a cop telling a lady that there was a gang disturbance. We ran to our car and got to a safer part of town ASAP! It was a little scary, but we made it.

For all you back in Idaho, don’t worry about us being safe. This was a very random thing and usually we are never even close to the parts of town where violence happens. We live in a very safe part of Columbus.

Segway Tour of Columbus

Benj and I love Columbus, but we felt like we didn’t really know downtown very well. We have avoided it mostly because it is hard to find parking, but we knew there were some cool things to see. We didn’t know where to start and didn’t really want to wear ourselves out in the hot sun walking everywhere try to see everything. So we found cheap tickets for segway tours through OSU. It was a blast! It was a two hour guided tour on a segway all over downtown Columbus. It was an absolute blast! I recommend it to everyone living in Columbus!!!

We started with a 15 minute training period where we learned how to ride the segways. They are very easy to learn and control. To go forward, you lean forward. To stop or slow down, you lean back a little. And you just steer with the handles. It totally beats walking! The helmets we were wearing have speakers inside so we could hear the tour guide talking inside our helmets. We had a great tour guide! He was funny and nice and he even took our picture for us.

Here are some of the sights to see in downtown Columbus. Now, we couldn’t get pictures of everything because we were using both hands to drive the segway.

We started at the Convention Center:

Le Veque Tower. At night it lights up at the top. It’s been lit pink through May for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It’s really pretty at night:

 

The State House:

The Old Old Post Office. It was really cool looking and ornate. I can’t remember what it is used for now.

The Ohio Theatre. I have never been inside, but I have seen pictures. It is beautiful and very ornate with a huge chandelier and a huge organ. In the summer you can watch silent movies there and someone plays the organ to the fit the silent movie. I would like to try that out sometime.

Christopher Columbus statue

Santa Maria replica. They were have a Pirate Festival the day we drove by and everyone was dressed up like pirates and like the rich people in Pirates of the Caribbean. One man in costume yelled out to us, “Did not God give thee legs?” It was kind of funny.

There’s me following the tour guide along the river.

We traveled through the Arena District and saw all the big arena’s including Huntington Park, where we went for the Clipper’s game.

This huge arch used to be a part of the Union Train Station. Now it is a part of historical downtown.

This house was designed and inhabited by a circus master. Hence the circus tent-like roof. It is rumored that kept baby animals in that house and the one behind it until they were big enough for the circus. The park across the street had a pond with a fountain. On top of the fountain are two baby elephant statues that shoot water out their trunks. I couldn’t get a good picture of it, though. We also got to do some off-roading at the park. We were all shocked when the tour guide led us off the sidewalk and onto the grass.

When all was said and done, we were sunburned, but felt proud to be living in this great city. Over the years downtown has really been cleaned up and improved. Now, it is a beautiful place full of history, art, and fun. Some of the other things we saw but couldn’t get pictures of were: Veteran's Plaza, Planter’s Peanut Shoppe, Columbus Commons, William McKinly Statue, Battelle Riverfront Park, The Cap, The Short North, Sensenbrenner Park, Nationwide Arena and Plaza, Palace Theatre, Wyandotte Building, Victorian Village, Goodale Park, Cocoa Manor, and the Mona Lisa Mural.

Afterwards, we walked over to one of our favorite places, The North Market.

And of course we couldn’t resist getting some Jenni’s Splendid Ice Cream! It is our absolute favorite because it always has very unique flavors. One time I got one that had peanut butter, toasted coconut, and cayenne pepper. It was delicious, but spicy. A very strange sensation. This time we got four different flavors and shared it all. On top you can see black current and mango lassi ice cream. Underneath those two there is grapefruit and lemon curd with juniper.

I couldn’t resist getting one last shot of Benj running down the street to get to our car in the parking garage before we were charged for another hour. We were 5 minutes too late. Haha. Oh well.

If you live in Columbus or are just visiting, we highly recommend this tour. It is normally $55, but you can get $15 tickets through The Union at OSU. Click here to see the tour webpage.