I love when my family visits!

Saturday February 21 Grandma Spaeth flew out of Columbus headed toward Tampa (lucky here) which meant she needed a ride, which meant my family would be bringing her, which meant a family visit!! :) The family (mom, dad, Britt, Austin & gma) came to pick me up so Grandma could see my apartment- then we went out for lunch and dropped Grandma off at the airport. Once we left the airport we did some tie finding and bridesmaids/mother of the bride dress shopping, then went to mens warehouse to get dad and Austin suits....buuutt I can't make up my mind about groomsmen attire so we didnt end up getting anything (so we still have yet to make any progress in that area) After all our shopping we went out to eat at one of daddy's favorites- Joe's Crab Shack and then hurried back to campus area for a hockey game where we got to enjoy the game from the president's suite. (Oh and Matthew failed to let us know that we'd be trekking in the freezing windy cold to the game so none of us had our cold weather gear- not fun!! So the guys picked us girls up at the door afterwards :) But our night didn't end there, we went home and played apples to apple and the family didn't end up leaving until around 2am. Late night for us, even a later night for them. I definitely enjoyed it though- and I hope they did too because I sure love it when my family visits!!

Braving the Cold Once Again

Probably to most everyone's surprise, and even to my own, (I think) I have done a pretty good job at getting out a braving the cold this year. The latest adventure was working on my skiing skills. Matthew and I went to Mad River Mountain a few weeks ago for me to practice and work toward perfection- that way I'll be ready to hit the real ski slopes out in Colorado-hahahaha I am so very far from perfection and will not even be anywhere near good when we make our way out west. However, I did have fun and I think Matthew had fun solely based on the fact that I was there attempting. I slowed him down quite a bit and probably shortened the time he would have been there by a few hours- but that's okay :) I graduated from the bunny hill after a few times and on our way up to the big girl lift I almost gave up. It turns out I don't have enough strength to move on skis up hill. However I finally made it. Then once we were on the lift and started on our way up, Matthew says "oops this isn't going to the one I thought" I about jumped out of that darn thing-but I rode it out and made it down the slope okay (it really wasn't that bad). Then we headed over to the one he originally meant to take me down and that one turned out to be my favorite so we stuck to that until it started getting too cold and we headed home.

Geocaching in Hocking Hills

Matthew and I went on a little weekend trip to Hocking Hills back at the beginning of February. We stayed in a cabin with a few friends and just kind of hung out a relaxed. We ate some nice home-cooked meals, sat around a bonfire, and enjoyed the hot tub :) One one of the weekend afternoons Matthew and I left the group behind (after they all turned down the offer to join, of course) and we went and did a little hiking and some geocaching. We mostly did the park and grab geocaches due to the weather, however we attempted to get out and hike to one in the Old Man's Cave area but were a little weary of our safety due to the thick, slick, sheet of ice that cover all pathways. We were almost silly enough to attempt the stairs, that was until Matthew almost bit it and then we re-thought our plan. Despite the dangerous icy conditions- it was absolutely beautiful to see the frozen parts of the water falls and all the ice and snow glistening in the sunshine- oh how I/we love nature :) I think we found about 4 caches that day before we had to head back to the cabin for dinner time. That part of the weekend topped it all off and of course was our favorite part, with the bonfires and the hot tub coming in a close.

FYI: This time when I went geocacing I didnt happen to stumble up on any other diamond rings- I think it's safe to say "that's something that just don't happen twice"

Christmas Tree Bonfire

January 31 Matthew and I headed down to his parent's house to visit a bit, enjoy some yummy mexican dinner, and then go to my first ever Christmas Tree Bonfire. The Christmas tree bonfire is exactly that a bonfire made of old piled up Christmas trees. Matthew was excited to take me to this event because he knows how I love bonfires- and he kept telling my how big and awesome the bonfire was and although it turned out to be a good time I was a little skeptical at first as they had trouble getting the fire started and I was outside freezing in the January weather. The cold waiting part wasn't fun but the pretty, warm fire part was a good time. And although to Matthew's credit the Christmas Tree bonfire has been much larger in the past than it was this year- I keep telling him that he still has yet to see what an big fire looks like- the kind of bonfires my dad used to have and people would call the fire department saying there was a house on fire...and just like my daddy always used to say "now that's a fire!"

Pictures from the Christmas tree bonfire are below: