Another Museum Visit

For Noah's AP Art Studio class he has to visit two museums over the summer. While we were discussing possibilities, Bryan suggested the Cincinnati Art Museum. It's not too far from my mom's house plus it's free! So, one day we headed down to Cinci, picked up Bryan, and visited this wonderful museum.

We started off in the area dedicated to the artist Frank Duveneck, once Cincinnati's most celebrated artist. Bryan had written an article about him so he shared his knowlege of this artist with us as we walked through the exhibit.

We then made our way through different sections of the museum, looking at various paintings and objects from all over the world.

I was fascinated by these child's sandals from ancient Egypt. It's crazy that they've survived this long in such good condition!

Love this lion! He was one of my favorite pieces in the museum!

Of course, there's always the stuff that's a little strange...

Noah was reaching his limit, ha ha!

I joked that I could have painted this one.

This sign had caught my eye when we first came in so I wanted to make sure I checked it out before we headed to lunch. I'm so glad we did! It was an exhibit featuring the works of the artist Woo Chong Yung, a highly accomplished painter, calligrapher, and poet from Shanghai. From the 1920's to 1949, Woo was at the center of China's cultural world, recognized in the art circles of Shanghai and Beijing. But when he faced political persecution in the 1960's, he migrated to Columbus, Ohio, right before the Cultural Revolution.

His works were stunning!

To end our visit we had lunch at the museum cafe. It was such a lovely day so we chose to eat out on the terrace. After waiting over an hour for our food, it finally arrived to Noah's relief. Poor guy hadn't ordered much because as he pointed out "When I ordered I wasn't that hungry. Now I'm starving!" so I shared some of my wrap with him. I felt so bad for the waitress who apologized profusely though it wasn't her fault; apparently they were short on cooks and had had several large parties arrive right before us. We ended up getting our meals for free which was nice.

I could have spent so much more time at this wonderful museum so will definitely be going back.

The Perfect Summer Day

Noah and I were down at Mom's cleaning her pool when the Clarks showed up. I had had no idea they were coming down to spend the afternoon with mom so we decided to stay longer than we had planned and ended up having such a wonderful time together. Mom got us Jersey Mike's for lunch and then the kids spend several hours in the pool.

They did handstand contests as well as flipping contests which Noah really struggled with. Ash and Kellan won the handstand contests with form but Noah won the amount of time spent underwater. He even learned how to point his toes!

It was so wonderful to spend some quality time with Mom and Heidi.

We haven't done a cousin "jump in" picture in several years so we decided, despite not having everyone, to  just go for it and we got a few good ones. In the past they would always get annoyed if they had to do more than one or two jumps but this afternoon they were more than willing to keep going until I got that perfect shot.

Another jump in game they came up with.

And then it started to pour but they decided to get on each other's shoulders and squat each other. What's a little rain when you're already wet?

Ashlyn added a few dance moves.

Noah comforted Kellan when he got hurt.

What a fun afternoon! It brought back so many memories!

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Dad

We decided to celebrate Dad's 77th birthday by heading to Graeter's, one of his favorites. As we ate our tasty treats, we shared some of our favorite stories about him.

A cherry soda toast to the best dad around!

Oh, how we miss him!

The Dog Days of Summer

Our sweet Cleo, unaware that at this moment we are awaiting the arrival of Mosley.

And here he is! Our third summer of watching one of the sweetest dogs in the world.

He absolutely loves playing with toys and he took to Crookshanks in a strong way, ha ha!

In the past he and Cleo have gotten along right from the start. This time around he wanted nothing to do with her and she wouldn't get out of his face. Probably why he didn't want to have anything to do with her.

He was definitely more unsure this time around but by the second day he was totally comfortable with us and all our loving.

Whenever we would come home, he would race to gather up all his toys and bring them to us. It was too cute!

My attempt at getting a picture of them together. They were most uncooperative but I guess I can't blame them. They had just killed some baby bunnies and were looking around for more.

The ever present food stare!

Double food stare!

The hope in their eyes is real.

I wish I had a video of Mosley leaving. Chelsea's brother came to pick him up since we couldn't watch him the full time they were gone. He obviously knows her brother and greeted him excitedly at the door. However, when he started to lead him down the porch steps, Mosley broke away from him, ran back into the house, and came and put his face up against my legs. He did not want to leave and it hurt my heart a little. Her poor brother basically had to drag him all across the lawn though in the end Mosley did jump up into his truck just fine. Mosley is always so good and we love having him spend a little time with us each summer. Not sure that Cleo would agree; she loves being an only dog!

Swim Champs

We hadn't made it to a single swim meet this summer so we made sure to make it to Champs! We love cheering on Ash and Ciara! 

Ciara doing the back stroke.

The cutest swim coach around!

Ash on the butterfly!

Chillin' together in between races, trying to escape the incredible heat and humidity of the day.

Unfortunately we had to get back to the house (Mosley was being dropped off) but we did get to see a few races and spend time with the family, which we always love.