Blue Hen Falls Cleveland, OH

Adam and I have visited a few different waterfalls with my parents in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We usually go to at least one every time we visit my parents. This trip we decided to go visit Blue Hen Falls. It's a short walk away from the parking lot across the street, but it's definitely worth it. It's a beautiful place (and a very popular one at that)!

It's a little tricky getting down to the falls, not gonna lie, I fell on my butt (I wasn't exactly wearing the right shoes and it was muddy from all the rain).

These kids were really enjoying themselves.

Adam took this one. He's pretty good! :)

We found a random dead crayfish on the banks of the river. No idea where he came from.

This is what it looks like when you set up a long exposure and a random black lab comes running through the water, then walks behind you and shakes off. I definitely didn't appreciate that last part!

Back at my parents house, we were sitting on their deck when we noticed this scary prehistoric monster (seriously, the thing was 3" long). We figured out that it's a dobsonfly. The females (which this one was) has pinschers sharp enough to pierce skin. Needless to say, I kept my eye on it all afternoon.

On our way home, we saw this beautiful sunset. 

Father's Day in Cleveland: Part 2

On Father's Day, we had no idea what to do for brunch, we were debating whether to risk going downtown to a popular brunch spot or to just eat at IHOP. IHOP won. We go all out on Father's Day. It was actually for the best because we were pretty close to Chagrin Falls, a gorgeous little town that looks EXACTLY like the town of Shelburne Falls, MA, down to the architecture and waterfalls.

We parked and walked around the upper falls, which had a cute little seating area.

While I was busy taking my photos, Adam and my dad were already across the street, trying to get my attention and pointing at something. Turns out, Adam had sniffed out the only Jeni's Ice Cream shop East of Columbus, which happens to be in Chagrin Falls.

I leisurely walked over taking more photos along the way.

Inside the shop, I was excited to see so many flavors I haven't tried before. Back in December, Adam and I on a whim decided to buy Jeni's mango lassi flavored ice cream (I say on a whim, because it's $10 a pint at our local grocery store). We are now not proud to say we're ob-sessed. I decided to try two of their lighter selections, the cherry lambic sorbet (any ice cream that contains alcohol is a winner in my book) and the lemon and blueberries frozen yogurt. Adam got bananas + honey (a seasonal flavor) and salty caramel and my dad got whisky & pecans & double toasted coconut (another seasonal flavor). Yummmmm.

After we finished our ice cream, we walked down to the lower falls. There's an overlook and a really treacherous looking stair case that brings you down to the rocks at the base of the falls.

The rocks were a bit slippery and there were so many people there, so I just took my time walking around (slowly). At Shelburne Falls, you don't get to go down into the actual falls anymore (probably a good thing).

We didn't hang around long, it was getting late and we needed to get back to Pittsburgh. It was a great weekend with my dad and we're so glad we got to spend some time with him in Cleveland!

Father's Day in Cleveland: Part 1

For Father's Day, Adam and I drove out to Cleveland to spend it with my dad. My mom was in NY visiting with family and my dad was going to be alone and we couldn't have that, so off to Cleveland we went.

We had planned the night before to go downtown and check out the Cleveland Wine Festival. The tickets were $29 in advance/$35 at the door and you got "10 wine sample tickets"(i'll explain why this is in quotes later), 2 tickets for a full glass of beer, and a "souvenir wine glass"(ie. a plastic stemless cup). Adam and I had gone to a wine festival in the Berkshires, it was my prize for winning the Tanglewood photo contest in 2011. At that festival they gave us actual glasses imprinted with the wine fest logo, which was totally awesome. I was kind of bummed that the Cleveland one didn't do something similar, considering you pay quite a hefty entrance fee.

Anyway, we started off at the front where there were free mini pulled pork sliders and chicken legs courtesy of Garland Jack's BBQ sauce. I didn't get a pic of the food, but I did get a pic of the wet wipes you pulled from a pig's butt. They were also giving away free t-shirts if you challenged your friend to a sumo match wearing a pig or a cow costume on a giant grill. I also noticed some inflatable chicken legs, which I'm guessing you'd use if you were trying to go all American Gladiator on your friend instead.

We decided to save our beer tickets for after the wine tasting, so we headed into the fenced off wine tasting area next. We didn't really have any game plan other than trying to find a Spanish wine vendor. My dad had just visited the country and wanted to see what was being offered at the fest. We basically walked around and just tried things that sounded good. I mainly stuck with the white wines, occasionally throwing in a mead (mango flavored) or a hard cider (cherry flavored). One vendor I visited was from the Finger Lakes and had a brambleberry wine. To be honest, I was intrigued when he handed me a dark chocolate hershey kiss and told me to eat the kiss then drink the wine for a "delicious chocolate raspberry experience". He was right, it was delicious. We didn't even end up using all our tickets, because most vendors didn't even bother collecting them. I'm guessing they were meant to be a way to keep people from getting totally plastered.

There were a few demonstrations at the fest, including one by Barefoot winery on how to make sangria.

 By 5:30 PM it was getting overcast, wicked hot out, and super busy and we were ready to head out (the fest finished at 7:30 PM). We got in line at the Stella Artois booth to get our free glass of either Stella, Hoegaarden, Leffe beer or Stella hard cider. I got a Stella beer, dad got a Leffe and we just sat and enjoyed the evening for a while. I forgot to mention, we bought Adam a $10 designated driver ticket, which gave him 2 free non-alcoholic drinks. He's not a big drinker and this worked out well for us, we had a DD to drive us home.

On our way out, dad took a photo of Adam and I in front of Lake Erie.

We ended the evening with dinner at the B Spot and a Bruins loss (womp womp). On Sunday we visited Chagrin Falls, OH, so stay tuned for part 2!

Easter in Ohio & Adam's Birthday

This past weekend we also got to celebrate Adam's birthday with my family. My mom bought an ice cream cake, we sang happy birthday and afterwards we got to dye easter eggs for Sunday's lunch.

Our egg inspector came by to make sure we were doing it right.