Festival of Trees

The Festival of Trees at the Indiana Historical Society is becoming a Christmastime tradition for us.  Today Rachel and I picked up Heather and headed into the city for a girls afternoon.  

Found a tree with 3 gaming consoles in it!  Seemed to be a popular one with the kids.

One of Rachel's favorites...the book tree

Hanging out in "A Christmas Story"

Chick-fil-a girl found her tree

Family Pics

After a 3 year hiatus, we finally managed some updated family photos.  Another great job by Paul, personal photographer to the Hackney 4!

Fly the W!

I'll preface this post by stating up front.  I am a bandwagon baseball fan.  I admit it.  I don't pay too much attention until the post season.  Then it only really grabs my attention if the Cardinals are playing or if in the even more rare instance...the Cubs.  In my defense let it be known that when I was a kid in the 80's I cheered for the Cubs.  Mostly I think because my dad is a Cardinals fan and I wanted to play the antagonist.  I also cheered for Magic and the Lakers versus Dad's Celtics and Larry Bird, but I digress. I owned a Cubs shirt which I ironically purchased at a Busch Stadium Cardinal's game.  I cheered for Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and my favorite player, catcher Jody Davis.  I think I just liked the fact that the guy was named Jody.

Fast forward several decades.  Last night you would have found this bandwagon Cubs fan cheering just as loud as any die hard.  With everything on the line and the Cubs starting to blow things open, I told Dusty that it would be fun to be watching this at Shelby and Jen Smith's house.  Shelby is a life long, die-hard Cubs fan.  He's had to endure a lot of teasing, some of which I will admit came from me.  Shelby is how shall we say....very demonstrative.  So I could image the excitement level at their house.  I shot Jen a text.

Now I'm sure when she replied at 9:30 at night she didn't realize that I would grab my keys and drive straight to her house without telling her, but since I like an adventure and fun that's what I did. I was greeted at the door by a confused looking Logan..."I think it's Ms. Heidi?!?"  Followed quickly by a bunch of cheering because the Cubs were still scoring.  I was offered a nice spot on the couch.  No seating needed for Shelby because he spent the entire game like this...

And for the next few hours the Cubbies and Shelby took us on an emotional roller coaster!

There was cheering, yelling in disbelief, muttered "C'mon"s, and pacing.  We had Facetiming with Jen's family in California and Facebook postings between the innings.  It appeared to be moving to a Cubs win....and then the bottom of the 8th hit!  Total momentum shift.  Cue increased pacing.  By the time we had survived to the end of the 9th I think there was a path worn in the rug.  It's midnight by this point but I was determined to see it through to the end.  Then the tarp came out.  Tied...extra innings...rain delay!  I considered if I should head home, but knew I'd regret it if I left and missed out on a Cubs win.  The radar in Cleveland indicated it would be a short shower.  We used the time to psyche ourselves up.  I told Logan that it's a new start and we've got one inning for it all.  Top of the 10th did not disappoint.  Screaming and cheering ensued.  We hit the Cleveland at bats and started counting down the outs.  They scored....ugh!  Even though there's 2 outs you have the sobering thought that it all hinges on a swing of the bat.  Strike and the Cubs have done the impossible; home run and the game does a 180 and the Cubs come up empty handed.  Needless to say everyone's on edge.  As the 3rd baseman scooped up the last hit with a huge grin on his face and tossed it to 1st the room exploded.  Time to bring out the "W" flag and party!  

This 8th grader was going to be tired in the morning!

And I think Jen and I need some work on our "W" but hey, it was late.

What a ton of fun!  Made even better by experiencing the pure joy of the people around you. Thanks Shelby and Jen for letting a friend crash your house and enjoy an unforgettable moment!

The "Largest" blog post ever!

Made a trip to the hometown this weekend for Dusty's brother's 40th birthday.  We had a little time to kill on the way so we decided to take a different route to Flora.  I saw that there were a few geocaches in Casey, IL so we decided to go through there.  I have always seen signs at the Casey exit for the "world's largest wind chime" and "world's largest golf tee" so I thought it might be fun to see what the fuss was about.  We decided that Casey is working to bill itself as the home of a lot of "world's largest"  We found the wind chime...

...and across the street was world's largest rocking chair!

Not the world's largest, but a definitely big pencil

Too bad I didn't have a lock for this cage!

Largest wooden shoes anyone?

What was neat was that each large item had a bible verse inscribed on or near it

World's Largest Mailbox!

We also found the golf tee but I didn't take a photo.  One of our geocaches involved Dave the minion.

We also stopped at the Mug Tree on the way.  Too bad we didn't have a mug to leave.  We signed the register in the mailbox, but struck out on the geocache that is supposed to be here.

Best Friends

Off to Fountain Square for some fun photos with Rachel and her friend Katya.  Love taking advantage of the colorful murals and graffiti walls in this area.

Believe it or not they are only 5 months apart in age!

Cincinnati Day Tripping

Rachel and I decided to take advantage of this beautiful day by heading to Cincinnati.  In addition to our usual stops at Ikea and Jungle Jim's we found a new favorite.  If your looking for a fun place in downtown Cincinnati head to Smale Riverfront Park.  This is a fairly new park right along the Ohio river.  In addition to gorgeous view like this one..

There were plenty of fountains to play in

Play areas with bridges, slides

climbing walls

We made it to the middle of the labyrinth!

At the far east end of the park you can continue walking past the Reds stadium, down the canal walk to the pedestrian bridge that goes over the river to the Newport, KY area, including the Newport aquarium.  We have hit all of those attractions in the past and with our meter running out we didn't venture over the river.  I plan to come back and explore further and also walk across on the suspension bridge that is in the first photo.  All in all a very fun area that got 2 thumbs up from Rachel and me.

After lunch we hit Ikea and then off to Jungle Jim's.  Jungle Jim's is a must for any foodie.  Part regular grocery, part international food store, there's a little of everything.

Mmmm....olives, olives, olives

A bakery full of treats

....and those special little items, like a larvae lollipop!  Rachel declined my offer to buy her one!

Hundreds of hot sauces...including these top shelf items.  Adult Oriented Hot Sauces?!?!?

We passed on those

Cincinnati....you make for a fun day.  We'll be back!

Saturday Shots

Chasing the last hour of daylight today.