Fall Break: Hocking Hills, Ohio

For fall break this year, we decided to rent an AirBnb in Hocking Hills, Ohio. I didn't want to camp because our schedule is so insanely busy and camping just adds so much time on prep (the week before fall break was my busiest one of the semester plus Neil was traveling). And then when fall break finally rolled around I was SO glad we weren't camping because I was really sick and then Neil got it too...more about that later bc it was Covid and I was REALLY sick by the end. 



We left Thursday morning and drove to Ohio, then did some hiking at Conkle's Hollow that afternoon. It was so beautiful and the trees were just a few days away from their peak!

We started out doing the clifftop loop trail so we could see down into the gorge. 

It was so beautiful! Lots of golden leaves blowing in the wind. 

It was a pretty quick hike, just a couple of miles, so we decided to do the gorge trail as well, which wasn't super appealing to us because it was paved and pretty busy--but gosh the part AFTER the paved trail was soooo beautiful. 

Here's the cliffs rising up where we were just hiking...

We went all the way to the end where there was a tiny little waterfall that would be pretty great in spring. 

Super super beautiful and I'm so glad we opted for the extra little bit. 

Then we went to the Old Man's Cave visitor's center to get oriented a bit before heading  to our AirBnb and did a short little hike around the property, which was an old farmhouse set on a 40-acre plot. I'm going to put all the farmhouse pics together at the end, but here's one quick picture from the fishing pond at the farmhouse. SO gorgeous. I loved it; the kids mostly just wanted to get back and get in the hot tub. Hah!

The next morning we started at Old Man's Cave and ran into some good friends from home!! Such a fun surprise! I was really not feeling well by this point so I kind of kept my distance a bit and was glad we were outside, but it was so fun to chat with them (I sat on a rock on the other side of a little water thing, haha, so some good social distancing). 

The Old Man's Cave area is sooo beautiful and has the most gorgeous stone bridges. 

We hiked around quite a bit and I'm sorry because I can't remember any of the names of these waterfalls; I was in kind of a haze of Dayquil by this point. 

My tibia was also bothering me quite a bit because there were so many stairs, so I sat for awhile with Juliet watching this waterfall while everyone else hiked up to another waterfall. Maybe Broken Falls? 

And here is a bit of Old Man's Cave itself (so named because a hermit lived there for decades with his two hound dogs, which is so very Ohio). 

Under the A-frame bridge...

Cute kiddos and friends!

Then we hiked down toward Whispering Cave, where we ate lunch. 

Then we drove to Cedar Falls, which apparently I just didn't even bother to photograph (I remember really not feeling good there) and then hiked from the Ash Cave Fire Tower a couple miles to Ash Cave, which was much longer than we thought it would be (somehow we thought it would be .3 miles). 

Kids and Neil all went up; I stayed on the ground.

And then Ash Cave; you can see Nathan and Matthew in the middle right of the photo but I just sat here with Luke and didn't go down. Probably popped another DayQuil. 

Here's some pics of the cute little farmhouse we rented. I was SO glad we were staying there which I think I said to Neil about 8000 times. I had all these plans to stay up late playing board games with the kids, but in reality I was out for about 12 hours every night snoozing away with NyQuil feeling like absolute garbage. The bed was so heavenly comfy and I don't know what kind of shape I would have been in if we had been sleeping on the ground in 30-degree weather!

The barns were built before the Civil War; the house itself dates from the 1880s. 

The backyard had orchards and grapevines and the cutest little fire pit. 



And the inside was so delightfully quirky. Like this half door into the bathroom? Um, interesting...thankfully there was a much more modern bathroom just down the hall. But seriously, little cupboards and closets and steps everywhere; the kids LOVED exploring it. 



Some of the original bits were REALLY small! Neil couldn't stand up straight in several of the rooms, including the loft upstairs, where most of the kids slept (and they thought it was so funny watching Neil try to fit his 6'5" self into this house). 

All these stoves were operational but we didn't fire any up; I think it would be so fun though if you were staying here in January!


Tons of outbuildings to explore...

So pretty! We lived in Ohio until I was 15 and this reminded me so much of the landscape of my childhood. 


Oh man I was just so thankful that we were not camping; I was able to hold it together thanks to the warmth and soft beds and running water. I did think a couple times that it was weird that I couldn't smell brownies baking or sausage cooking but thought it was just different ventilation from what I was used to at home. It did not dawn on me that I couldn't smell ANYTHING or taste about 60% of what I was eating until our last morning there and even then I still thought it was just a really awful cold because our kids had been sick the previous week and tested negative for Covid (we'd all had our bivalent boosters the month prior). I usually get much sicker than anyone else (thanks, asthma!!) so I just figured it was a standard reaction for me where the kids had a little cold and I was practically on my deathbed (and I'd just gone up 11% on my FTP test the previous week so I thought that's why all my Peloton workouts felt so much harder--they were supposed to be harder!). 

This hot tub felt sooo good. 

On our last day we stopped by Rock House and Cantwell Cliffs on the way. Both were beautiful, but I was feeling so awful by this point that walking a mile felt like a marathon so we pretty much just did the minimum. 

Rock House was very cool! It's the only actual cave in the whole area and did not disappoint. 







And then we drove home and I took my millionth Covid test of the last two years and was shocked by my very first positive and then started rethinking everything I'd done all week and texting everyone I could think of that I'd come in contact with over the last week. Good times. 

 

Fall little things and big things

Lots and lots going on this fall! Above: a bike ride Neil and I took a couple weeks ago when the leaves were really at their peak.

Some pics of Abigail getting ready for homecoming--she looked (and looks!) so beautiful! No pics with her date by her request, since they broke up a couple weeks ago. 



While Abigail was at homecoming, we hosted a big party for Juliet's friends at our house (which then expanded to Isaac's friends too). It was a fun night--lots of bonfire time and backyard night games. Of course, the only pics I got were Luke setting up...

...and Isaac cleaning up (burning the last of the firewood. It's a thing). 

I'm not even going to try to keep these in order since the process of transferring photos from my phone jumbles everything! 

Launching rockets with the Activity Days kids (Neil was in charge of this one and it was so fun!). 

One of our friends turned 60 and designed his own party, which was seriously SO fun! He invited whole families instead of just couples and we had a 5k color run, sumo wrestling, tons of backyard games and yummy food, and wound up with everyone throwing pies at him. A very unique party and one that we all really enjoyed (we have some extremely competitive adults when it comes to duck duck goose and Dizzy Izzy). 

This is the time of year when I have to limit myself to only taking one picture per run because it's just SO gorgeous. One Friday the weather was particularly gorgeous so I ran a half-marathon after I dropped Matty off at preschool and the clouds were so good while I was waiting at the roundabout that I had to take an extra photo!

And then my other allotted photo. I made myself wait 8 miles to get this one because I knew it would be so good! I totally plan my routes this time of year based on leaves. 



Case in point: 

Then I make everyone go back with me on Sunday walks. 

Oh gosh I just love fall running.



This is the time of year when I always get a home improvement itch! This year it was our exterior siding...

PS notice the moss on the sunroom roof? In a classic case of project creep, we just signed the paperwork today for a new roof. Sometimes I get started on a project and I'm like WELL THIS WHOLE PLACE IS JUST FALLING APART ISN'T IT?! Kind of like when you start cleaning something and realize how gross everything is and how you thought your house was clean but you're actually living in squalor with hand smudges on your walls and dusty baseboards. (Note: my walls are smudged and my baseboards are dusty.) 



We paused to take our kids to the ward trunk or treat and then looked at the forecast when we got home and were like, oh dang, we better finish the last 45 minutes worth of painting. 

I'm realizing I uploaded the photos that still have ladder marks in them, so please rest assured that we did go back and paint those spots. ;-) And we have bedraggled fake spiderwebs everywhere since it was the day before Halloween when I took these. 

Love this color!! The wood siding is Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore (same color as our kitchen island) and the stone is Avorio White limewash by Romabio. We added the raised beds last year and I limewashed the stone the year before that. Next year's project is converting the sunroom--hopefully!



Another quick little project--stripping out all the caulk in our main floor shower and hanging new doors. Relatively easy update and it makes such a difference! (I took a photo of the process but apparently nothing of the finished version...)

Lots of morning tea around here (Matthew is partial to Trader Joe's harvest blend and I love Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice) and this is my favorite cup yet. 

The little boys and I waited for four hours for their first round of Covid vaccines--we got them the day after they were approved!! Such a relief. 

Cute Matty in some of cousin Caleb's clothes that they passed on to us!! Such a fun box to open. 

Juliet had her end of season banquet for cross-country!

And started getting in some good cross-training days...

Lukey working on our Halloween week calendar

Cheering on some cute friends in the school musical (Isaac was home with a fever, poor kid, so Nathan happily took his ticket). 



Lots and lots of walks with Matty. 

And hitting the playground with friends every time we had good weather and could squeeze in an hour! 

Matty's hair is a whole thing right now. Sometimes he rubs it up in his hands to make it super crazy...

...and then sometimes he asks for us to style it "like that mean boy in Harry Potter" (Draco Malfoy). He is currently really into the Draco hairstyle and wants his hair like this for every Sunday. 

Not sure why I took this but it is a pretty typical thing--I usually try to fit in some strength work in the mornings while Matty is home because he is really into the various Peloton instructors (if I do a class with Andy, you know that Matthew picked the class that day). Matthew will often do the class with me or just sit here and comment things like "Mom, you're getting pretty strong, but you're supposed to be going faster." 

"Hey Mom, do I look like a really cool guy?" 

And to take us out, here is Neil rocking a fever and "helping" to put away groceries. I came in from the car to find this and started laughing so hard as I realized that if Neil were to ever get drunk, he would probably do exactly this. Haha! Kind of sad though because this is the one that took us all down the week of Thanksgiving and you can see that I was SET on butter for that butterific holiday. (Good sale, gotta stock up.)