Weekending- Mother's Day

I was grateful to see all of the kids on Mother's Day weekend- linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday.

Sunday morning I woke up a couple of hours earlier than Donnie and Alyssa thereby precluding breakfast in bed. That's ok. I got up, ran, and then fixed my own breakfast:

Not what I eat every morning, but with it being Mother's Day and all, I decided to eat what sounded good! There's a story behind the candy...

I found myself at two different grocery stores over the course of Saturday and both stores had their Easter candy 90% off. It is difficult for me to forego a good sale especially when the wares include candy...

For Peep's sake- I bought a few packages of Peeps. At 90% off, they still cost $.19.  Times they are a' changing. I remember (like two years ago) when you could get a package twice this size on sale before Easter for a dollar. These guys were $2.49 regularly.

I also bought these Esther Price (a Dayton area chocolatier) eggs that were on sale at 90% off for $.25. Anyway, having just purchased clearance candy the day before, Sunday morning sounded like as good a time as any to indulge...

The three of us went to church and when we arrived home, Jacob was at the house. He'd come up from Cincinnati for the day. He and I went out to get Chipotle to go for us for lunch- besides the restaurant having no chips (what??), we enjoyed eating our meal at home and catching up with Jacob. 

Then the four of us headed out to see Abby at college. She had finals the week after Mother's Day but she said she could spare a couple of hours away from her studies.  She told me on Saturday that her lowest grade (currently) is a 97 percent. I told her that should take some of the pressure off of studying for finals. She replied that on the contrary, it put more pressure on her because she did want to blow her good grades. (Poor Abby is so much like me! That would have been my exact fear/ worry if I knew I had a good grade going into finals. Thank goodness the internet was in its infancy when I was in college!)  Thankfully, she felt confident enough that she could spare some time with us.

We picked Abby up from her dorm and drove to a state park that is just ten minutes from Abby's school called Hueston Woods State Park. I had heard some good things about this park regarding how pretty it is; we had never been there before. The park is quite large with lots of campground space, a visitor's center, a lodge, a restaurant, and a lake/ marina. We saw none of those things because shortly after we arrived in the park, I saw a sign for the trail that I knew I wanted us to go on based on reviews that I had read. I was thankful that I'd done the research to know which trail I wanted and that we found the sign for it and that the trail was open. Some of the trails were closed (not sure why but maybe because of all the rain we'd had recently).  

The hike was a good one. The weather was near perfect and the recent numerous rains rendered the flora vividly verdant. I was worried that the ground would be super muddy due to the recent rain but my worry was mostly for naught. There were a few patches of mud but most of the trail was remarkably dry. We had all packed another pair of shoes in case our shoes got muddy but the shoes we packed ended up being unnecessary. 

I took just a *few* pictures (but refrained from posting them all)... who knows the next time we will all be out together on a beautiful spring day seeing the splendor of creation?

Cedar Fall Trails for the win!

The trail took us to numerous spots where shallow water cascaded over a wide expanse of rocks. 

After our hike, we drove back to Oxford to eat dinner and then to drop Abby off back at her dorm. Oxford is not a large town so dining options are not numerous. I made convinced everyone to try a German restaurant that is in Oxford's cute uptown area.

My mom was first generation German, learning to speak German along side English when she was young. She even lived in Germany with some relatives for about year after she graduated from college. However, she must not have cared for German cuisine because with the exception of desserts, she didn't make German dishes. On Mother's Day, I was happy to eat in a German restaurant in honor of my mom's heritage if not her food preference (and I like a lot of German food (I had the spatzle) so that made it an even easier decision). 

And that was a wrap on Mother's Day!