Zucchini Fest & Easy Rider

Yesterday we went to the Zucchini Festival in Obetz, Ohio. There really weren't many things uniquely zucchini to report about...as a matter of fact, we got a bowl of zucchini chili for lunch and there wasn't a single piece of zucchini in it-HA! We mostly went because it was free and we knew Mitchell would like the rides (which weren't free, but we justified free admission as the trade-off).

There were two scary things about our visit to the Zucchini Festival:

1-when we arrived there was an outside Sunday church service going on. At first the minister was speaking in a soft, gentle tone, but it quickly became an evangelical, healer-type howl and yell. I was slightly frightened. Seriously. And a bit annoyed.

2-when we went to put Mitchell on his first ride Reese pointed out to me that the people who were running the rides were the same ones we saw earlier this summer at another county fair. So yep, that's right, we're officially fair groupies who have made friends with the fair roadies. Scary.

We decided that we'd go ahead and purchase a wristband for Mitchell so that he could ride as much as he'd like. Ride tickets are really expensive these days...$1.25 for individual tickets, or something like 12 tickets for $18. And most rides are 2-3 tickets! So we thought getting the wristband at $15 would be the way to go. Well, 3 rides later, Bubba was spent. So yep, that was $5 a ride. Not exactly the bargain we were hoping for. But here are some highlights of the whopping 3 rides that he did enjoy:

Here are some photos from our evening walk last night. Mitchell loves the helmet that came with his bulldozer and wears it practically all the time now. Our neighbor lovingly dubbed Mitchell "Easy Rider" when he saw him pass his house.

Turning 2

Big Mitch writes:

WOW! Do people really dig me!! I've been celebrating this birthday thing for over a week now! Last week mommy & daddy kept telling me that I had a birthday coming up, and at first I just thought, oh, whatever, and sang "happy birthday" every time they mentioned it, just to keep THEM entertained. But then I realized it was getting serious when mommy asked me what I wanted on my birthday cake! She never did fall for the idea of having Kylie or Madden on the cake like I told her!

Then the presents started arriving...why didn't someone teach me about this gift thing last year?!? I didn't know how much fun it was! And somehow people really know what I like!! Aunt Bicki came out from Pittsburgh and brought the hugest bag of goodies...it took me 2 days to open everything!

Mom mom and Pop pop Larry got me my first piece of heavy equipment...my very own bulldozer! It even has a helmet and trailer!

All year long mommy & daddy have been teaching me the Penn State chant..."WE ARE PENN STATE!" And if I do say so myself, I've pretty much mastered it. Now I know why they were teaching it to me...daddy was gearing me up for my very own Penn State jersey! Now he and I can wear them together on game day! I can't wait until this Saturday for the first game!




The next day we all went to the zoo. You'll never believe it but there were some more of those crazy big animals! I'm still not convinced they aren't people-I mean, they stand on their feet like people. And what kind of manatee can be out of water for such a long time AND stand on it's back flipper like this one? I'm going to solve this mystery eventually!

When Nena and I were at the zoo in July we saw the baby elephant, but Nena wasn't able to get any good photos of it. This time, I yelled to mommy to get this shot below just for Nena, since elephants are her favorite. Hope you like it, Nena.


Wow, what a great birthday. Thank you everyone, for all the great presents and for showing me how much you love me. I love you all right back.

60 Stones

Last night Mitchell discovered that he loved transporting stones that he found along the border of our fence into his pool. The distance from the pool to the fence was 10-12 feet each way. By the time all was said and done, we counted 60 stones in the pool. This meant that he had made 60 trips back and forth between the two. While Daddy tried to teach him that he could take more than one stone at a time, this was not what he chose to do. We had a blast watching him go back and forth, each time yelling "I got it, I got it, I got it!". Needless to say, it was a great way for him to use up a bunch of energy before quiet time, and it was fantastically entertaining!

Here's the play-by-play:

You can see many of the stones in the photo above!

All in all, good fun!