Tiger trick-or-treat

Grace got a lot of use out of her costume this year at a Halloween party, dance class, her school parade, visiting a nursing home, and to go trick-or-treating tonight with her friends.

These are from the nursing home, Heritage of Hudson.  Grace's friend, Haley's mom works there and they have a HUGE event for the patients.  Hundreds of people attended.

Grace allowed me to make a nose and whiskers that night.

Haley was a cute cupcake! 

At school, another parent took this photo of Grace and one of her close friends, Mariska.  I love her Egyptian costume.  Her mom said they have a friend who works at a theater and that is where they got it.

Tonight, Grace went Trick-or-Treating with her neighborhood friends, Camryn and Paige.  They left from Cami's house, so I didn't get to see the three girls together in their costumes.  I am hoping to on their way back.  But my little tiger posed for me before she left.

She kills me!  When Grace is in the mood, I get these funny poses that show her silly personality. That makes for one happy mama.

Ballerina bun

I have been putting Grace's hair in a bun for over a year now and I am becoming quite an expert, if I do say so myself.  Here's our ballerina right before she went to rehearse for The Nutcracker Suite this afternoon.

And after....when Grace got her official Hudson Conservatory of Ballet bag - with her name on it.

Miss Sunita said it was big enough for Grace to fit inside and she told Sunita about this photo from Guatemala when she WAS inside my bag! (4 months old).

And fall continues...

The leaves are at their peak in Ohio.  Grace and I went on a walk the other day and started to collect as many different leaves as possible.  While we were walking Grace said we should glue the leaves on paper.  What a great idea!

It is only a week until Halloween so we figured it was time to carve our pumpkins.

Grace got right to work designing her pumpkin with freckles and eyeglasses.  There was no hesitation.  She knew exactly what she wanted it to look like.

It didn't take long for the table to look like this.  For some reason, my pumpkin had moldy seeds inside. I had never seen that before but I predict mine will be the first one we end up throwing out.

After the insides were cleaned out, there wasn't much Grace could do.  She isn't ready to use a knife to carve her own pumpkin.  So she walked around with her iPod Touch and created a video diary, narrating the whole process. I overheard her say something about putting it on her YouTube channel. She doesn't have one of those but it is funny to hear her talk about it! (You can see her filming in the back of the next photo.)

We turned the lights off to see how the jack-o-lanterns looked in the middle of carving.

And then we lined them up on our porch.  You can't really tell, but the stem of my pumpkin is its nose!

Pumpkin picking

We enjoyed another beautiful fall day with nice temperatures and sunny skies.  It was a perfect morning for a visit to Szalay's Farm to choose our pumpkins.  We each have a different idea of what the "perfect" pumpkin looks like.

Grace and I seem to like the rounder ones, but I always want mine with bumps or a long, curvy stem. Kyle chose a tall one.  He says he has an idea of how he wants to carve it.

We also went in the 3-acre corn maze and the spinning barn. And Grace did a little target practice trying to knock down the crows.

The "spinning" barn had an optical illusion where you walk on a metal bridge through a lit tube that spins around you.  It makes it seem like the walkway is moving when it really isn't!

This photo is from Szalay's website.  It gives you an idea of the size of the 3-acre maze, but I don't think this is the design we walked through.  They give you a map and you go on a hunt for 8 decorated "dead ends" with skeletons, ghosts, pumpkins, and other Halloween-themed items.

Fickle Fall

It has been almost a month since my last post. We have been busy - just not doing things that I would choose to photograph.  It is "officially" fall and in the last 24 hours it has rained, been really cold (we even put the heat on in the house), the sun came out, and it is now warm enough to wear shorts. Welcome to (early) fall in Ohio!

This morning we went on a new adventure to find the Blue Hen Falls in the Cuyahoga National Park. As I have said before, we are vey lucky to live right near a national park.  There are so many trails and different areas to discover and it is pretty in all seasons, although you probably will not find ME out there in the middle of winter.

Our warm-blooded Latina prefers to be warm and toasty, too.  She started her day with her winter coat, hat, and gloves....that was much more than she needed and quickly took them off for the rest of the hike.

We discovered the Boston Tail Head and walked on Buckeye Trail for a little bit until we found the falls and a little creek.

Our ballerina dances wherever she is these days.  She is always working on holding her arms steady and pointing her toes!

The filtered sunlight was so pretty.   We tried to walk along the creek without getting too wet.

But it was inevitable that someone was going to get pretty wet and muddy.   Hmmm...I wonder who!

Memorial

On August 25th a flagpole and memorial were dedicated to Kyle's dad, Bill Kosmala.  It stands at the soccer stadium where Kyle coaches.

He was a kind, generous man who loved his family and took particular joy in his grandchildren.  I loved watching the twinkle in his eyes when he teased and joked around with the kids!

The announcer read a nice tribute to Bill and then right before the game, they played a recording of our national anthem that Grace played on the piano.  She practiced for weeks and it sounded wonderful.  We were so proud of her!

Despite the chilly weather, we were all happy to be there to remember and honor Kyle's dad in this special way.  I feel like he is now a part of the soccer stadium that means so much to Kyle.  

Summer sunset blast

Every Labor Day weekend, our city has fireworks to end the summer.  Grace and Camryn decided to have a sleepover and they are attempting to spend the night in a tent on the deck.

Inside/Out Art

Major art museums across the country have been taking their famous paintings outdoors.  The Akron Art Museum started to participate in this community art project this spring and now, 30 reproductions of art from their collection are on display in different neighborhoods in and around Akron.

Today's tour utilized a trolley that took guests to see 10 paintings on display in the Highland Square/West Akron neighborhoods.

We started at the library (which had its own cool art) and then visited a variety of stores, restaurants, parks, and historical sites that are the current homes to these art reproductions.

The first painting is a memorable one that we have seen at the museum.  It is called "Man Eating Trees" and symbolizes how we are destroying Earth.  Kind of disturbing.

We learned that the Inside/Out paintings are made to withstand some of the Ohio weather but they will all be taken down November 1 and stored for the winter.  When they go back up in the spring they will be in different locations.  I guess it keeps the process interesting.  You can either just come upon them in your normal day-to-day activities or go on a tour or your own self-guided scavenger hunt.

Grace and I decided that we should go to the museum with our brochure from today to see if we can find all the original paintings.  Although we agree it was cool to have these outside, we know that the original artists' works are more vibrant and memorable.

I also learned that the Akron Art Museum trains the docents to give tours.  Ours, named Claire, said she had just started giving tours and she will try to do 24/year.  She had a clipboard with notes about each of the pieces we saw today.  She also seemed to like to share the "back story" about the artist's life.

Akron is full of history and interesting little neighborhoods.  This garden is open to the public but it is behind a Chinese restaurant.  Apparently, the vegetables grown in the garden are used in the restaurant and you can order your food and take it out to eat at the picnic tables tucked in the shade.

An impressionist painting called "Bedford Hills" was at the base of the Glendale Steps at the Glendale Cemetery.   These 242 sandstone steps were built in 1936-1937 and there is an expansive view of Akron from the top.  I didn't climb.  But Grace did.

This primitive-looking painting was at the Perkins Stone Mansion - another place I have never been. The artist received a postcard of the mansion and created the art with that as his inspiration.  Personally, this was not my favorite, but you can see why people appreciate his unique interpretation of this historical landmark.

We will have to try to see the other two neighborhood Inside/Out exhibits this fall.