It all started with a Home and Family Conference at our church on April 13^th.  Pastor preached two messages about the home.  Monday and Tuesday we had Bro. Dave McCoy and his wife Trish from Peoples Baptist Church in Georgia speak to our church about marriage (we split up for a session and then came back to the auditorium for a message).  Wednesday night was a family style dinner and a message from our pastor.

After the Wednesday night service we drove to Delaware, OH to stay the night with our good friends Mike and Amy.  We had a sweet visit with them and the kids got a chance to chase their two Jack Russell Terriers.  If we didn’t have our mini-moose of a dog I could see us having a Jack Russell.

We left early Thursday morning for Ashland University where Paul was scheduled to speak to a religion class about homeschooling as a way of Christian education.  Hannah stayed with him to be his beautiful assistant.  The rest of the kids and I escaped to wander around the campus.  I had been there around 20 years ago as a Buckeye Girl State participant.  Nothing of the campus looked familiar except the many purple eagles here and there.

After the class the professor took us to lunch at the faculty lounge.  It was a bit of a fiasco but it was a neat time to sit and talk more about homeschooling.  We found out that she has six children and at this time has two of the 6 at home and three grandchildren there too.  Sounds like fun!  She has a historic home so I can just imagine little ones in an older home like that—can you hear the echo of a door slamming in a mostly wooden house?  I can!

The professor also mentioned a “castle” (Landoll’s Castle) in Loudonville, OH that we might want to visit on our way home.  I pulled it up on line and it looked like a great place and boasted of 40,000 daffodils in bloom.  The website showed some of the rooms too that they rent out.  I figured they had to be terribly expensive but that a tour of the place might be fun.

Landoll’s Castle is on the edge of Mohican State Park so it was in a beautiful area.  It turned out that Mr. Landoll had been stationed in Germany during the Vietnam war and had visited many castles there.  It had been a lifelong dream of his to build his own castle.  He faired well in the publishing business—recognize the name of Landoll publishing?  I didn’t at first but after some thought remembered some children’s books published by Landoll publishing!  He bought 1100 acres of land by the Mohican State Park and after the gentle prodding of his wife, built his own castle!  It had amazing wood and stone work!  The wood was taken from fallen trees on the property and planed by hired Amish workers.  The stone is also from the property there.  It is more amazing to see in person than it was on line (and the on line pictures were breathtaking!).

We took the tour which showed us about 6 different suites there.  By far the most romantic was the honeymoon suite.  We found out that the prices during the week was not near as heart-stopping as I imagined so Paul decided that a good way to finish out our Home and Family week was to stay the night in a castle.  The kids was thrilled to be able to  stay in a “castle.”  I loved the story behind the building of the castle and the history of the property.  It was told that on that property was a German and English church that had a cemetery beside it.  The people of the church seemed to have trouble agreeing on what language would be spoken there.  The Germans supposedly got angry and burned the church to the ground.  They then dug up their dead from the cemetery and moved them down to a cemetery near the entrance of what is now the castle property.  Both cemeteries are still there.  We visited the “English” cemetery that is behind the castle.  Most of the stones are too worn away to be able to read them.  I would say that they are probably all from the mid 1800s.  The eerie thing is that some of the lots are lower than the others—those were the lots that were vacated.  I love a neat old story. J

We stayed in the Hess Suite.  I didn’t really have a preference because I don’t think you could get a “bad” room there.  This suite also allowed access to a tower that was beautiful—it was a spiral staircase of the most beautiful wood.  At the top of the tower was a balcony. 

We all climbed it and took a look around.  Our room was just wonderful!  Paul and I had the king bed that had down filled pillows and duvet.  The bedding was exquisite! 

The room had a sleeper sofa which Rebekah and Denny slept on. 

 Hannah slept on a roll-away bed just because it was offered to us.  There was a gas fireplace,

heated tiles in the bathroom floor, a Jacuzzi tub, a separate glass shower, the toilet seemed “old style” as it had a pull to flush it, there was a CD player with a Celtic music CD to enjoy, a Yankee candle and matches for ambiance, a kitchen area with a table set for two with pretty china,

board games were free to borrow, and continental breakfast was included. 

There was also a health and fitness building, pool, and hot tub we could have enjoyed—just too little time to do it all!  There was a fine restaurant with gift shop on the property and 31 miles of hiking trails.  We walked a little in the woods there and investigated some of the many glacier rocks there.  I’m sure that place is just beautiful in the fall!  We all had a wonderful time and a great night sleep—I hope that we can go and stay there again sometime!

On the way home we visited the state park.  We took pictures at the covered bridge and the gorge.  Paul climbed the fire tower—he is a crazy man!  It was just metal and wood—very simple construction—there would be no way I’d climb that thing!  It looked like it was made from an Erector set!  Paul is such a brave soul—he has bragging rights—I don’t need them!  I see no need to climb 80 feet into the air just to say I did it! J

We stopped at Oletangy Caverns in Columbus.  We told Denny that we were going “spelunking.”  That sounded like fun to him until we got down into that cold, wet cave.  He forgets the time we were at Ohio Caverns because he was probably about 2 years old then.  Unfortunately he heard a recording in this cave that said “if we were to turn out the lights for an extended period of time the moss that is growing on these rocks would all die.”  What he got from that message was “lights go out and we die.”  He spent the majority of the time down there saying “Get me out of here, I want out of here.”  Unfortunately for him we didn’t know what his interpretation of that message was until we were in the van on our way home.  Poor guy, he thought at any time the lights would all go out and we would die.  That will be something else for him to seek counseling for some day.

Well, there you have it, our Home and Family conference week.  Just thought I would share! J

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Posted by Lalaith

Wow! That sounds awesome! I want more pics!

(BTW, if you don't want them to stretch your page, set the size yourself when you put them in. I pick 400 x 300 (or 300 x 400) for mine so they don't stretch my page. Just a thought!)

But put more pics up either way!

MB

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Posted by Lalaith

Oooh, pretty pics! Wow! It looks like a really nice place. :)


MB

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Posted by Lalaith

Hey! I do NOT scrapbook! If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. :P

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Posted by Lalaith

I am NOT a scrapbooker. I just can't be. Digital scrapbooking is fun. Graphic design is awesome. Creating videos is beyond awesome. Scrapbooking is...is, well, it's too girlie. And, honestly, I'm not good at it! LOL! Too much decision making, getting my pics out of order, cutting things off. My brain forgets so much that I want every detail possible preserved for me.

But I do like the stickers and pretty papers and sparkly things.

I haven't made my appt. yet for assessment. I'm not ready and won't be till August. I'm waiting for her to send out her Aug. dates. And Centerville school district can kiss my big toe if I don't get them their stuff by Aug. 13th as they have wrongly demanded. (They can't do that, and it irks me that they try!)

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