Hippy Town USA {Aiden's first road trip Part 1}

A few years ago Drew and I stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in the town of Yellow Springs on a whim and loved it so we put it on our Summer Bucket list this year to go back with Aiden. This town is hard to explain...it is out in the middle of the country, and is full of hippies, which is why I had Aiden wearing his Free Hugs shirt. Haha.  There are people on the sidewalks smoking, shirtless and strumming guitars. The buildings are full of color and the town is very eclectic. It's a town like no other.

Our first stop in Yellow Springs was the Sunrise Cafe where everything is organic and made from scratch. The inside of the restaurant is adorable. The walls are painted and the light covers are old coffee tins. Drew and I split their chocolate french toast and an omelet with artichokes and sun dried tomatoes. Both were delicious and I'm drooling just thinking about them again. I highly recommend this place if you are ever in the area.

After brunch we visited Drew's favorite place in Yellow Springs...Mr. Fub's Toy Store. Growing up this toy store was always featured on PBS and Drew always dreamt of going there so it was fun for us to take Aiden and of course we had to pick out a few toys for him. 

After our bellies were full we headed to John Bryan State Park to do some hiking. The trail we hiked was pretty and Aiden slept the entire hike back to the car. He's one happy camper I tell ya.

After our hike we headed to our favorite place in Yellow Springs, but that is in a separate post because this post has reached it's photo capacity for the day...

A Family First

This week my husband has been on Spring break so we tried to plan a few fun little family day outings. First priority was getting in a hike because that is something that both Drew and I enjoy doing. Our original plan was to make a day trip to a State park about an hour away, but that fell through when we had to take Aiden to the doctor instead and discovered he had a respiratory virus. Since he didn't have a fever and was still acting fine we decided to hike at one of our favorite local places, The Cincinnati Nature Center. Drew and I both served as Camp Counselors there so we know the trails pretty well. We put Aiden in our new Ergo360 and headed out.

Please take note of Aiden's adorable hiking boots and also the smile on his face. He is bound to be a nature boy!

Spring is finally creeping it's glorious roots into Cincinnati!

This is the first of many rocks that these two are going to flip over together searching for little creatures. And yes this Mama joins in on the flipping over of rocks and the catching of tiny creatures. Except for snakes, that is all my husband. These pictures make my heart happy.

I can't wait for more hikes with these two!

Hiking in the Smoky Mountains

One of my favorite things to do with Drew is hike. It is something we both absolutely love doing. I think it is so important in a marriage to find something you are both passionate about and do it together. We love finding new trails to hike, we love being outside and we love that most parks don't cost you a cent to enter. While we were in the Smoky Mountains for our 1 year anniversary back in 2010 all we did was hike so we were excited to get in another trail during our most recent visit.

We researched a few trails and ended up picking the Hen Wallow Falls Trail. The morning of our hike was completely foggy and in the 40's so we bundled up and headed out. I have never hiked in the fog before and it's not something we ever could have planned, but it was absolutely mesmerizing. I felt like I was in a scene from The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings in the misty mountains.

one of my favorite pictures of my husband ever

We hiked a total of about 4.4 miles and got to see the actual Hen Wallow falls. We did not see a single other person on our hike out and being on a trail that had been known to have bears on it made it a little eerie, but awesome at the same time. This turned out to be one of my favorite hikes.

If you are curious about any of the other trails we've hiked I'd love to recommend some to you if you plan on taking a trip to the Smoky Mountains. Just email me!