What's a Family To Do on the Weekends in March?

What’s a family to do?

If you live in Northeastern Ohio, the answer is plenty!

With three children of varied ages and genders, I’m always on the lookout for something we’ll all enjoy.

The Quilt show and Maple Sugaring demo's are two of the things we like doing as a family.

You might be wondering how we make the Quilt Show at Lake Metro Farmparks a success for everyone.

Well first a little history about my initial introduction to the quilt show.

I attended the show alone the first year and I enjoyed every aspect of it, and I’m not even a quilter! But, I can appreciate art, and the Quilt Show is full of that! It’s an array of talent, vision and creativity combined with hard work, that anyone can be in awe of.

My next year I went to the show and I took my children. At first they weren’t super impressed with our destination, and hardly thought that they’d enjoy the trip. But let me tell you, once I got them in, it was tough to get them out. They, like me, were surprised to see so many quilts, in different sizes, colors and themes, done by people of all ages and genders.

We ended up spending several minutes looking at each quilt, studying the numerous pieces of fabric that it must have taken to make each one.

The quilts all had the brief notes attached to them which described the quilter’s inspiration in making it.

To make it interactive, we set a goal of finding our favorite one before the end of the trip. Believe me, this is not easy, they’re all so remarkable.

Then we spent time talking about why it was our favorite. (It usually took more than one pass around the exhibit to pick just one.)


Bountiful by Carol Taylor (As pictured on LMFPWebsite)

We are going again this year. The exhibit runs until March 23^rd.

Now another family outing we always enjoyed was attending our local maple sugar house for demonstrations every March. Back home in Northeastern Connecticut, we were lucky enough to live just five minutes away and so when we moved to Northeastern Ohio in 2007, it was a pleasure to know that we would again live close to a maple sugar house.

There’s something about viewing a real demonstration of a food, or product, being made. Something about it always captures our attention and we learn a bit more every time we watch. We also learn how the weather changes each year play such a large role in the success of the maple sugaring process. Nothing about the visit gets old.

So if you are looking for something to do during the last couple weeks of winter, make it a point to take the family to Lake Metro Farmparks and see the 20^th Annual Quilt Show Exhibit and the Maple Sugaring Demonstration.

You won’t be disappointed.

The info is below to help you plan your trip. Don’t forget to bring your curiosity and your camera!

And by the way, just because it’s cold outside, don’t think the animals wouldn’t like you to stop by and say hi! They enjoy the company!

Quilt Show

http://www.lakemetroparks.com/programs/quilts2011.shtml#Home

Location:

Lake Metroparks Farmpark
8800 Chardon Road
Kirtland, OH US 44094

(440) 256-2122

Description:

Over 200 quilted works in a judged quilt show. Vote for your favorites in the people's choice awards, enjoy all of Farmpark's daily activities, visit the quaint Gift Shop and browse the beautiful quilts.

Maple Sugaring

(Also at Lake Metroparks Farmpark)

The biggest weekend for this is March 12-13^th but there is still time to check it out!

Activities and a pancake breakfast will run on March 19 & 20^th as well.

http://www.lakemetroparks.com/programs/maplesugaringweekend.shtml#Top

Enjoy your family time!

Truly,

Amber

Green Punch Buggy....!!!!

Green Punch Buggy...No Punch Back! As I was writing this blog post, my son came to me showing off his Lego creation. And don't you know I got hit at least five times since on my computer screen was displaying at least five different punch buggies, of five different colors thanks to Google Images. (Bad timing I'm thinking...) How can we possibly have world peace with these silly cars in the world!? ;) Don't the owners of these cute-but-obnoxious-cars understand that driving these things around town promotes violence!? ;) Anyhow.... The original purpose of this blog was to ask parents everywhere this question: Do you find yourself saying 'PUNCH BUGGY *BLANK-COLOR*! ' to yourself, even when the kids are not in the car??? I do! Isn't it funny how those games we used to play as a child are still around? I bet our parents say the same thing.... HAPPY FRIIIIIIDAAAAYYYY! P.S. I got hit at least ten more times, since as my son stood beside

Back to School Anxiety: Bullying

Download “School Boy Being Stressed” by David Castillo Dominici via freedigitalphotos.net I recently wrote about how to help your child if they’re struggling with going back to school because they were bullied. My biggest most important tip was to listen, because I honestly could not write a ‘How-to-make-them-not-afraid’ column. Frankly I thought that was absurd. Fear is sometimes real. Anxiety is sometimes truly there, and for a good reason. Our job as parents isn’t to try to make it go away, it’s to try to find out the true source of those worrisome feelings. If you’d like to read more, click here. And if you’re child is struggling to find excitement about the new school year, don’t deny it, just accept it and move forward gently. Here’s some more on bullying: Family Matters Links: A Touching Story/Song Bullying: A thing of the past A Peace Poem By My Teenage Daughter A Deeper Insight into My Thoughts on People Who Bring Harm to Others Other Links: Stop Bul

Good Customer Service At Home

Over the years, my careers have mainly been customer service based. I started in a family business and then moved on up through the rungs from waitress, to hostess, to sales associate, manager and eventually the GM of a hotel. In all my years, my training taught me that you should always do your best to take your customer all the way to what they need, make them happy, and never leave them until they are done with you. I pride myself on my customer service abilities. Though the other day, I think I failed at customer service in my own home! I was getting ready to cut my daughter's hair and because of how long it had gotten (she's been growing it out for a year!) I felt this time it would be best if instead of me spritzing it with water, she could wash and condition it real quick. She was fully clothed so I just suggested she run into the bathroom and wash her hair in the tub. She’s fourteen. I suppose I just assumed that she knew how to kneel over the tub and do it.

Search This Blog