Saturday, March 19, 2016

Auction, Hiking, School & Tennis

Auction 2016

Jenn was on the Old Trail School Celebration Auction Fundraiser committee this year, and the event was really, really cool. Lots of neat items were auctioned, from courtside seats & an autographed LeBron James Jersey to a hot air balloon birthday party, from a trip into the Cargill Salt Mines to dinner parties at some of the finest restaurants in the Cleveland area, from fine wine to a weekend at The Masters. A silent auction made up the early part of the event, with lots of opporutnity to meet new families and friends, and the evening concluded with a live auciton for the biggest items. In addition to coordinating all of the auction items, Jenn also made the desserts for the VIP table.

Auction 2016
OTS VIP Desserts
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While it's cold this weekend, the weather has been really up and down lately, with lots of warm weather for hiking and getting out into the parks.

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I had my first Cuyahoga Valley National Park photo taken up by the Park's Instagram:

This #Cardinal, the state bird of #Ohio, exploring Ohio's only National Park. #FindYourPark #Birding Photo credit to @rggates

A photo posted by CuyahogaValleyNPS (@cuyahogavalleynps) on


CVNP has a fraction of the followers that the bigger, more well-known parks have, such as Yellowstone or Yosemite, but it's cool to have my photos recognized no matter the size of the audience. I'm told that the next one of mine that they're planning to share is this one:

Butler's Trail

Some of my other cool shots from recent hikes include...

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The kids have had some small events at school, such as little music perforances and Book Character Day:

Lydia

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This morning we took another trip to Seiberling to feed the birds. At our last trip, the kids got a kick out of feeding the ducks, but that got cut short this time when a muskrat swam across the pond to chase away the ducks and get at the seed we'd dropped. So we went a ways down the trail and the real excitement came when a Tufted titmouse came to feed!

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Lincoln's still having fun with tennis. He's been learning how to keep score and play matches, and this summer we'll get him enrolled in a tournament or two so he can move up to the next level of classes. I've had fun photographing him and practicing my action photography. When I showed my photos to his coach, Alvin, he liked them and asked if he could use some of them on their website. He then proceeded to tell me I need to work on getting better photos with the ball on the strings. Ha! It made me chuckle. Always room for improvement.

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On the agenda: start a second blog. Don't laugh. Jenn and I both know that we don't update this as often as we ought. But a second blog will high-light our 50-State adventure. We'll play catch up by revising our North Carolina and South Carolina vacations, and then make it about the trips once they're completed, but also dig deep into our planning process. We'll see how successful it is, but it's something both Jenn and I have on our minds to do.