Ohio Outdoor woman!

Every year for the past 4 years I've gone an outdoor adventure weekend. This year I went to the Ohio Outdoor woman weekend at Shawnee State Park last weekend. We can pick 6 activities for the weekend. On Friday I did archery/disk golf and the Spirit of Dead Man's Hollow hike. I pick archery every year because I really love it! This year we also did disk golf. It is actually more difficult than I thought to aim a frisbee. So disk golf was not my strong suit. Friday night the hike was more like a half mile long walk but it was interesting. It was more like ghost hunting than just a hike. We went late at night and the leader told ghost stories. We also brought along divining rods to detect ghosts. There were no ghosts around. Bummer.

Michelle as an archer

Me and Susan doing archery

 Saturday morning Susan and I did yoga then we were off to our activities. In the morning we chose tree trivia/edible hiking. I was really hoping we'd get to eat a lot on the hike but all we ate were sassafras leaves. We did hear some interesting stories and background about trees.

In the afternoon Susan, Michelle and I all went kayaking. This was my favorite part of the weekend. If I had somewhere to store a kayak and someone to go with, I would love to kayak more. It's so relaxing and fun. They also had a group doing kayak fishing. Those boats were really heavy! The regular kayaks were not too bad though.

Michelle kayaking

Yes - this is what it's about.....

Susan and Michelle kayaking

In the evening I went canoeing while Michelle and Susan went on an owl prowl. Unfortunately they did not see any owls. On my moonlight canoe ride I did have a bat come really close to me. Luckily we didn't tip! I rode on the canoe with a woman named Heather who was a watercraft officer. She was a lot of fun! It sounds like being a watercraft officer is an interesting job.

Michelle, Me and Susan

The pool where we stayed

 Sunday morning we went to yoga again then bird watching. We didn't see too many birds but we did learn that Ohio is a top birding area. One of the most popular birds for bird watchers is the cardinal. I guess I take it for granted that we have such beautiful birds.

The lodging was excellent and the food was really great too. Although I must complain that watermelon does not count as dessert. On Friday we had cheesecake and Saturday we had watermelon. Watermelon is NOT dessert.

Erik had the kids all weekend and they had a great time too. He took Sarah and Matthew to the St. Joan of Arc festival. We go every year and it was great. Jenna went with her friend Grace.

The school year is off to a great start. Jenna, Sarah, and Matthew are all doing really well. The first letter grade Jenna earned was an A. Yay! Up until this point they have just been earning E, M, and P.

Yesterday Jenna went to try different instruments for band this year. Originally she wanted to play flute but she had such a hard time getting a sound out of the flute. However when she sat down to the clarinet she had a beautiful sound. Even the musician helping was surprised. Then when she played the sax she also had a fantastic sound. She ended up picking the saxophone (Yipee!!!) and Grace picked the french horn. I'm so excited since I feel comfortable with a saxophone and comfortable helping her. It is also 3 generations of sax players (my mom, me and now Jenna!!!).

Cousins

We went to my Aunt's wedding and the kids got to see their 2nd cousins. Veronica, Harrison and Violet were in town from Alabama. It was nice the kids all got to play.

Playing Ra

 Jenna has been involved with Peace of Cake ministry for our church and has been baking cakes for Common Ground free store. Dulces Bakery in Powell had a cake decorating class to teach Jenna some basics. They volunteered their time to teach the girls which was wonderful! Now the leader of the ministry wants it to be a non-profit. So Jenna -at 10 years old, will have her own non-profit!

Jenna and her cake

Another exciting development in our household is that Jen and I are starting a business. We have our first craft show in a month and have named our business Red Barrel Crafts. I hope we do well! I'm excited for the business and Erik is too. He has cut several boards for me to make more signs and we have some new designs. I'm really excited about it and Erik is too. It's something fun we can do together and with the Masts.

This was a lot of information at one time in my blog, It took me awhile to get my images downloaded since Windows 10 wasn't recognizing my phone. I had to do a bunch of tap dancing and downloading random things from the internet to get it to work. Finally my computer recognizes my phone. Yay!