Happy Monday!

This was one of the best weekends we have had in a while - FOR REAL!!

Friday we decided to have a picnic and to the park so Jackson could play on the swings - he loves them! We got yummy Subway and then went to Oak Park. The park is across the street from a friends house and they happened to be outside walking their dogs so they came over and chit chatted while we ate. Jackson was hysterical because his new favorite thing are "woof woofs" aka dogs so he was trying to get them to bark as I was trying to get him to eat. We had a great time and Josh got to see him on the swings for the first time. My boy has no fear - more later on that! We went down the rolling slide, on the big swings where he sat on my lap - Josh was scared I was going to drop him - LoL and on the teeter tooter with Emma and Clint. The park is now one of our favorite places and will be in the rotation of weekly "free" places to go. This park also has a wading pool but Beth (said friend) says that it is too crowded lately for the kids. I think when the boy is older (and mom is thinner) that we might partake in that.

In the morning on Saturday we got a new love seat (was dad's) which required rearranging the living room which I still don't like how it is laid out so it will be done again at some point this week.

Earlier in the week we had talked about going to Beachwood to find Penzey's Spice Store (http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html) so Josh could check out their 250+ spices but we never made it there. We went to Legacy Village and had lunch at Claddagh Irish Pub (http://www.claddaghirishpubs.com/) and walked around Legacy for a while. Shockingly we didn't buy a thing but still had a great time. We also went down the street to Beachwood Place. I love that mall. It is very "high end" and Josh about had a coronary when he saw a shirt in Sak's for $230+ dollars. I ended up getting some face 'stuff" in Origins since my skin is out of whack. So far it is working very good!! They also do free facials in the store and I am going to go back up one of these days for one. I love a good facial. My last one was at Mario's and it was heavenly... http://www.marios-spa.com/. I also went out with my friend from work Melissa and had a great time. We talked a lot and had some drinks downtown. We also realized how old we felt being that we were out in the college crowd. Holy crap the things some of these girls were wearing. I am so glad I have a boy.

Last but not least we went to the Akron Zoo (http://www.akronzoo.org/) yesterday. Josh had never been there although Jackson and I had. We had such a great time. It is fun seeing this through other people's eyes. It was nice to have a family day!! We love our zoo pass that my brother and his family got us and intend on using it A LOT. We also went to my dad's to help him clean his house a bit. My dad lives in what used to be my grandparents house and there is still a lot of their stuff there. I was getting rid of stuff and would remember a good time with Nani and Papa and it killed me to throw anything away. It has been 8 and 9 years since they passed away and it is still hard every time I think of them. We are trying to help dad clean and get the house back into shape to have more family things there and just make it nicer. He has been a bachelor for so long (and a smoker) that it needs a really really good deep cleaning. As for my son the dare devil with no fear, my sister gave my dad some stuff for him to play with at his house and one was a cube with a slide attached to it. He was going up the slide alone and would laugh when we helped him down it. He is so much fun and the light of my life!!

Off to work...